Teylen's RPG Corner

I have had the opportunity to particapte in two Playtest for the 5th Edition of Vampire: the Masquerade, one in Berlin during the World of Darkness – Berlin event and one during the annual RPC convention in Cologne.

In this article I like to share my impressions of those playtest. What I remember from the system, my thoughts on the mechanics, questions and ideas. The V5 Playtest is supposed to soon be released to the general public, thus I will try to avoid spoilers.

Table of content

• Preface
  • The pre-alpha state of the playtest
  • Development information
  • Frame of the playtests
• System
  • Core system
  • Attributes
  • Abilities
  • Willpower & Regeneration (nature/demeanor)
  • Hunger-System
    • The idea behind the system
    • Core system
    • Satiating the hunger
    • Increasing the hunger
    • „You are, what you eat“
  • Combat
  • Damage
  • Disciplines
  • Clan weaknesses
  • Virtues
  • Backgrounds, Merits & Flaws, Frenzy, Humanity & Moral
• Setting
  • Technology
  • Politics
  • Isolation
• Conclusion

Preface

The pre-alpha state of the playtest

The playtest was referenced to as a pre-alpha edition of the system. For reference, the play test of „Mind’s Eye Theatre: Werewolf the Apocalypse“ developed from Alpha to Beta, towards Gamma up till Delta. The V5 playtest was one step before even being in an alpha state.

This means that many aspect might and will change. Well or to put it short: Don’t Panic!

Development background

According to what has been said during the „World of Darkness Berlin“ Event as well in the episode #243 of Ken & Robin’s podcast, Karim Muammar (editor in chief at White Wolf) has been responsible for the design of the playtest.
Including the new system around hunger.

Frame of the playtests

The „Berlin playtest“ took place during the „World of Darkness Berlin“-Event on Saturday the 13.05. and took about 4 hours. Edin Šumar was the storyteller of my group and the game was played in English. The game had several scenes, yet we – as the players – avoided combat.

The „RPC playtest“ took place during the „RPC 2017“ convention at Saturday the 03.06. in Cologne at the booth of the current German White Wolf licensee Ulisses Spiele and took about 1 hour. Markus Sudbrock as the storyteller of my group and the game was played in German. The game had about three to four scene and we played a combat encounter.

System

Core System

The base system, using d10, building dice pools and counting the successes remains as it has been.

The general principles are:
The target number to beat will always be 6.
The difficulty is defined by the minimum number of successes.
The „rule of one“ is gone, rolling a 1 on a d10 hasn’t got an effect.

The results are measured in three different stages:
Success: The minimum number of successes as been achieved or exceeded.
Failure: There has been at least one success, but the minimum number of successes hasn’t been met.
Critical failure: Not a single success has been rolled.

A critical failure should result in complications and a more intense situation. Yet it shouldn’t be as dire or harsh as a botch in previous editions.

If the difficulty is derived from a character stat, like e.g. willpower, it will always use the temporary value.

(My) Reference:
It is apparently somewhat inspired by the first edition of „Chronicles of Darkness“, without the „failure“-retry loop.

My opinion & thoughts:
I do like the 6 as target number. Mostly as it offers a nice success probability of 50% per die. Which is handy to remember and more encouraging to me than a target number of 7 or 8.
I am usually quite fond of botches and actually liked the system as presented in 2nd rev. of V:tM as it offers some spice. Though I do understand that botches might have led to some unintentional comedy for some, I do consider the the critical failures, which will be more frequent but less harsh, a nice compromise.
Given the aspect that the difficulty is defined by the number of successes I do think its logical that the various degrees of success are apparently gone.

My question:
What happens if the difficulty exceeds the dice pool?

Attributes

The number of attributes has been reduced from previously 9 to 3.
The remaining attributes are: Mental, Physical, Social
They have got a range of 1 to 5 points and are able to be specialized.

In the Berlin playtest being specialized in a situation offered a +1 dice on a roll.
In the RPC playtest the effect of the specialization has been changed. It occurred only once in my game and I forgot the exact situation.

Reference:
It is inspired by the new „Mind’s Eye Theatre“-System.

My opinion & thoughts::
YEAH! I considered the nine attributed of previous edition way to much.
Thus one of my changes would have been to remove one attribute per category.
More attributes might offer a better description of the character, yet I don’t see V:tM as a system that shines in a detailed, number based character description. Instead, at least in my experience, the nine attributes resulted in at least one attribute per category being (system-wise) totally useless and inviting to be used as a „dump stat“.
A „dump stat“ is a stat that isn’t likely used in rolls and where players might either feel rewarded to put it as low as possible in favor of another stuff or punished for a more even build.

My idea:
I do consider the +1 dice bonus for a specialization a bit lackluster. Given that it only adds about half a success. A +2 dice might be better. Maybe there are other, more engaging ideas how to add some spice to the specialization; like in the MET:VtM system by By Night Studios.

Abilities

The ability list has been reduced from 30 abilities in the V20 to 25.
The split into talents, skills and knowledge has been merged.

Abilities still range from 1 to 5 dots and the character sheets had no specializations.

I did notice two new abilities: Physical und Art.

(My) Reference:
The removal of the categories appear to be an adaption in line with the attribute change and thus seem to be inspired by the new „Mind’s Eye Theatre“-system.

My opinion & thoughts:
All in all it remained the same.
I am irritated by „art“ as an ability next to „craft“.
I do quite like „physical“. I do imagine it might be used to differentiate whether a sporty character is a weight lifter (attribute-physical 5, skill-physical-5 and skill-athletics-0) or a floor gymnast (attribute-physical 5, skill-physical-0 and skill-athletics-5).

In general I do hope that „medicine“ will be a skill that might actually be used in scenes outside a highly specialized area like an hospital.
I would as well wish for a reliable and solid system for skills that need specialization like „crafts“. With a good baseline what a character might do, without either overly empowering a car mechanic or disabling an architect.

My idea:
Maybe „art“ and „crafts“ could be combined to „create“?
Maybe „awareness“ and „occult“ could be combined?
Maybe „brawl“ could go and attacks without a weapon dervived from a combination of physical and athletics?
If it is not possible to find a good specialization system for aspects like „crafts“, maybe move those skills to the background?

Willpower & Regeneration (nature/demeanor)

Willpower is a value between 1 and 5.
Nature and demeanor have been replaced by virtue and vice.

One might expend a dot of willpower to:
Buy a single additional success for a roll. [Berlin playtest]
Reroll every dice that isn’t a success [Berlin & RPC playtest]

Willpower might be recovered in small portion if characters succumbs somewhat to their vices. Willpower might be recovered in a big portion if characters notably exceed in performing their virtue.

The system is intended to be dynamic and willpower a value that moves a lot during a game.

A remark:
I am not 100% sure whether its been willpower, composure or both that is recovered by acting according to ones virtues and vices.

Reference:
It is an element seen previously in the „Chronicles of Darkness“.

My opinion & thoughts:
I do like the idea in general. To have a dynamic system, injecting some motion in the aspect of a characters willpower.
Yet something that, I felt, was missing, is a process after each scene where one recovers spent willpower. We did forgot it during the Berlin playtest and the RPC playtest hasn’t had the time for it.
Maybe a little, formalized „end of the scene“ ritual would be a good idea?

My plea:
For the love of god, don’t include vices that kill the game dynamic.
Yes, „sloth“ is one of the seven deadly sins. Yet a character succumbing to sloth, either leaving the scene, off-loading to other characters, demanding to be asked and begged for the simplest of actions, is something I really came to disdain (in CofD games).
The same goes for similar vices like „cowardice“. Which mostly is just an excuse for players to have their character leg it out of inconvenient situations and/or hide during fights (in D&D5E games).
Vices should, in my honest opinion, be a challenge to the character having the vice, not to other characters (and players).

Hunger-System

The main attraction of the playtest was the new system around hunger. Which I would like to explain and discuss in greater detail.

The hunger system replaces the blood pool from previous editions and does introduces three new values to the character sheet:
Hunger, Composure and Blood Roused

The idea behind the system

I do think the reasoning why to adapt the system is quite interesting.

At the one hand it might possibly be argued that the blood pool system, given all that it entails, isn’t totally intuitive.
Being provided with a blood pool would be somewhat akin to having a „food pool“ for normal humans. Yet, if I take myself as a reference, I don’t believe that people can state, on a scale of 1 to 10, which amount of food they’ve got currently got. To which degree a food item will raise the scale. How many food units will be used upon a run.
One might count calories, yet it doesn’t express aspects like hunger.
Next to that the blood pool offers some challenges when assuming it simulates the world. It proposes that every human, regardless of sex or age, has 5 liter blood and thus 10 blood points. That losing blood has a very unified effect on the (involuntary) donor. That a human looses 1 blood point for each damage taken. The simulation approach, that’s in conflict with reality, does challenge the suspension of disbelieve.

At the other hand moving a scale of 1 to 10 back and forth isn’t that engaging.
During the World of Darkness Berlin event it got compared with tracking a cars gas. Filling up when the needle goes down. Which isn’t something exciting to do.
I do agree to that sentiment. While I do quite like to drive, even do road trips, keeping track of gas isn’t something exciting. It isn’t an exciting aspect of movies focused on driving (Cars, Fast and the Furious) and it isn’t even that fun in races.
Rather it’s something so profane that it is quite difficult to make it exciting. Thus consequently dropped from most „car based“ dramas.
To make a comparison to other tabletop rpgs. My D&D 5E level 12 dwarfen moon-druid had about 105 hitpoints before the transformation into an Elementar. About which she and I haven’t had to think most of the time. Even when mostly gone, drinking health potions / filling back up, wasn’t that exciting.
Yet even those pile of hitpoints were more engaging than the relevance of blood pools in most V:tM games I played.

The hunger system does attempt to move the focus from trying to track how much food a character has eaten to how hungry the character actually is. When the character will be tempted to act, somewhat irrationally, upon the hunger.

Core system

Every kindred has a hunger pool between 1 and 5. When a skill check is made the current value hunger will replace an according number of dice.

The successes get counted indiscriminately, whether on a normal or a hunger die.
If one hunger die comes up with a 1, it’s an issue.
If more than one hunger die comes up with a 1, it’s a bigger issue.

The issue is that the kindred is confronted with its hunger and feeling the compulsion (see hunger system chart) to act accordingly in a compulsion/frenzy (see hunger system chart) which can be avoided by expending a dot of composure (see hunger system chart).
If a character hasn’t got any composure, a frenzy might be inevitable.

Example:
One has a current hunger pool of 3.
One likes to skill check for supernatural beings: 4 Mental + 2 Awareness
Thus the player takes 6 normal dice and replaces 3 by hunger dice.
The roll will have: 3 dice for the normal pool and 3 dice for hunger.
The result might be a 2, 7, 1 on the normal dice and a 6, 0, 1 on the hunger dice.
7, 6 and 0 add up to three successes, the 1 on the hunger dice provides the character with a hunger problem.

During the RPC playtest the current amount of the hunger pool was indicated with chips. During the Berlin playtest the amount was tracked on the character sheet.

My questions:
What happenes if there are more hunger dice than the general pool size?
How does Composure work for normal frenzy checks? Just roll on it?

Satiating the hunger

Of course a kindred shouldn’t be interested in being to hungry and might feed on people, animals or cold blood (like blood bags).

If a human is drank upon and survives the feeding the hunger will be reduced by 3, yet 1 hunger will remain. The amount of reduction is not dependent on the victims sex, age or health.
If an animal is drank upon it will provide a reduction by 2 points and cold blood one by 1 point. A minimum hunger of 1 will remain.

The only possibility to reduce ones hunger to 0 is to feed upon a human and murder the victim. As the vampires beast will not just be quelled by blood but by actual murder. Murdering a human did reduce the hunger by 4 points (Berlin playtest) respectively by 5 points (RPC playtest)

In consequence a „nice“ kindred won’t ever be fully satiated and always face the challenge to be prone to frenzy.

My questions:
What happens with at a hunger pool of 5 or more?
What happens to a human upon which several kindred plan to feed?
What happens when feeding on other vampires or other supernatural creatures?

Increasing the hunger

The hunger is raised in two ways:
To rise to the night (+1 hunger).
The „Blood roused“ system.

Blood roused describes in how often blood has been used. The value increases by one for each increase (push) of an attribute, for each activation of a discipline and for each healing of a wound.

If blood roused raises to 5 or if the scene ends dice are rolled up to the amount of blood roused. Every dice that doesn’t come up a success increases the hunger [RPC playtest]. Following the roll blood roused is reset to zero.

„You are, what you eat“

The Berlin playtest was designed in a fashion that almost every scene offered ample opportunity to hunt or feed on a human.

Depending on the choice of a victim different effects were achieved, among those:
An additional dot in Celerity to be used once without blood roused increase.
An additional dot for all social encounters for the remainder of the night.

The NPCs were described in a manner that indicated which effect they might have.

A vampire could only have one feeding effect present. Thus you couldn’t go eat the Celerity kid and the Dominate gal and than access both boost.

My opinion & thoughts:
I personally really do dig the idea and the mechanics of the new hunger system. I do got some questions yet am positive and it’s been already fun to use.
I do as well like the „You are, what you eat“ system. Even though the playtest left me with the confused impression that every single human being brings a nice bonus. Which I guess could be due to the nature of the playtest being a playtest. Where it would be uncool if the testers miss the candy. I am as well curious whether or not a human might lose a bonus if mistreated.

My idea:
In line with the regaining of willpower a formalized „break“/“intermission“ after the scene might be nice. It would enable players to keep track of hunger, willpower and structure the evening a bit more.

Combat

Combat got reduced to one skill check to attack followed by a skill check to defend. The defense roll isn’t possible / granted if the attacker uses firearms.

The initiative is once determined by set values and subsequently followed without the need to announce.

There is no more soaking.

The combat is still split into various rounds.

Example:
If my Venture likes to grapple someone she will roll: Physical + Brawl (3).
The opponent has a knife and defends with Physical + Melee (5).
The party who has more successes wins the round and does a fixed amount of damage..

Remark:
In the Berlin playtest our characters legged any combat encounter.
My experience are hence limited to the RPC Playtest.

My opinion & thoughts:
I do like that combat got way fast and way more dynamic.
Though the frequent defense rolls do got me somewhat worried that stronger opponents can’t be hurt. Even when attacked by an mob.
It might as well be frustrating to attack an opponent and basically inflict self-injure.

Damage

Damaged is reduced to two different kinds:
Superficial damage
Aggravated damage

Superficial is easy to heal and won’t impair kindred.
Aggravated is difficult and coste intensive to heal and does hinder a kindred somewhat.

Whether something does aggravated damage depends on the type of damage, the creature the damage is applied to and the context. A baseball bat will make aggravated damage to a human, yet only superficially impress a kindred. Fire and sun will dish out aggravated damage at kindred. As well as, probably, being smothered to a wall by a truck at 70mph.

The health track isn’t a constant anymore.

My opinion & thoughts:
Simple and good. I like it.
Though it wasn’t something that came up in either playtest.

Disciplines

Vampires will continue to possess disciplines, even without feeding.
The disciplines retained their name and their base functionality.

The playtest had: Presence, Dominate, Celerity, Obfuscate and Strength
The disciplines had between 1 and 2 dots and a 3 one could be obtained by eating.
The limitation to two dots per discipline were due to the characters young age, not because the third dot is exclusively available by eating.

While the disciplines remained basically the same, e.g. Celerity got adapted in a fashion that level 1 didn’t offer extra actions but a significant increase of ones initiative.

Every activation of a discipline level did cost a blood roused point. Whether it was Celerity or Dominate.

My opinion & thoughts:
It does remain essentially the same.
I did like the changes to Celerity as well as the aspect that every use of a vampires disciplines potentially increases their hunger.

Clan weaknesses

The playtest only had Ventrue and Toreador.
The Ventrue weakness remained to be the limitation of edible blood.
The Toreador weakness got activated by failing a hunger roll with a 1 and no composure spent. Leaving the Toreador in a brief fugue.

I do only remember to have experienced the Ventrue weakness.
I do got the Toreador one from hearsay of other players.

Virtues

Composure is the result of a consolidation of the virtues.

Backgrounds, Merits & Flaws, Frenzy, Humanity & Moral

Backgrounds, Merits & Flaws, Humanity & Moral weren’t direct aspects of the playtest.

It doesn’t mean that they weren’t there or about to go. Just that the system around those aspect wasn’t really formulated.

Thus characters had e.g. a value in humanity on the sheet and backgrounds described in the character description, but it wasn’t used inplay. Though scenes could be encountered where the ST would state that this or that might have warranted a humanity roll.

I can’t remember a scene where a ’normal‘ frenzy check, apart from the hunger system, was asked. Though I think it  would have been done with composure.

Setting

I will only touch briefly upon it. At the one hand to avoid spoilers, at the other as I don’t feel it was the main feature of the playtest.

Technology

A challenge the characters faced in the Berlin playtest was that, essentially, their lives got seriously exposed and hacked. Making the use of various electronic things like e.g. smart phones ill-advised.

In general discussions during the event it has been hinted at that some technology fit mages – virtual adepts, technocrazy or other – support the inquisition by exposing certain kindred.

My opinion & thoughts:
I do sincerely hope that the aspect was highlighted due to the specifics of the adventure and the situation of the coterie. I don’t like the concept as a more general one.

I personally enjoy Masquerade because I do really dig the modern, contemporary times with modern, contemporary comforts. Which include phones, the internet, media and further cultural aspects.
I could see the fun in playing a vampire based on „El Chapo“, including the brutal and disgusting realities of organized crime. Whether in general or in things like information transfer.
Yet I don’t like to have every single character forced down that road. Specially not if they are not only concept wise removed from a crime lord, but don’t fit the level of influence or power.

To indulge in a pop-cultural reference. My current favorite character in American Gods is Media. I really don’t like to see my future V:tM kindred severed from her.

Politics

The pre-generated character I picked up (Amelia), had not one but two political aspects in reference to recent poltical events and movements in Germany.

My opinion & thoughts:
The character backgrounds did irritated me. Actually I did ask the storyteller whether I just read it correctly.
I personally would have preferred if the references would have shown more of a background check. Basically that the name of the general organization would be the correct one and if the fitting local outfit would have been named. Not because I would feel more empathetic to the character, but to show general respect and knowledge.
I personally would have preferred if the two aspects would have been integrated in the scenario. In a fashion that allows for a examination of the connected topics at hand. Not just as a ’normal‘ character design.
I personally would have preferred if it was one item instead of doubling down on two political items and one that might see some players quite uncomfortable.

From what I gathered the other pre-gens weren’t as much a minefield and I figured that it can’t be the general direction. Yet still I want to express that I would like to see the 5th edition with a more subtle, better executed approach and maybe the possibility to keep the political aspect optional / way toned down.

Isolation

The Berlin playtest mentioned a loss of connection to other city domains.
The coterie was mostly on their own, feeling quite isolated.
Which did fit the „going dark“ announcement.

My opinion & thoughts:
Just like the approach to technology I am not a fan of the isolation aspect.
At least if the playtest is a indication for the general direction.

I personally like Masquerade because of the structure it provides.
A coterie, without any further connection to a clan or a society, that feels like a temporary coterie, lacks the structure I personally prefer.
I personally do consider a structure that is unique to each city to be to arbitrary.

An aspect that had me more invested into Masquerade than Requiem was and is that Masquerade offers a structure. I can setup a game and everyone who’s read the book has an idea what to expect. I can talk to other players from other groups and we’ve got a common ground.

The connectedness is as well something I expect of a modern, contemporary setting.
Which should have aspects like travel and globalization.

„Going dark“ was told to be inspired by the Dark Ages. Which I find the fitting time period to keep such an element in. [I personally don’t like dark ages games for their lack of technology and isolation]

Conclusion

I personally, really enjoyed both playtest games tremendously. The games ran fast, dynamic and the rules and systems did interact with the game in a organic, natural way. Not only did the systems enable they game, specially the hunger mechanic was quite a joy in itself.
I do look forward to the developments that, based on my playtest experience, looks like V:tM will be a game to create intriguing narratives with an engaging game play.

I did like that the setting enables room for more play than just the „Camarilla standard“ that came latest with 2nd revised.

In general the feel of the game was as dynamic and revitalized that I did feel a bit in love with V:tM again. It does leave me super excited for the things to come. Motivating me to promise to ST at least three games (G+, fB und Nerdpol) once the playtest is released to the public ^_^

A detailed blog article in regards of the other aspects of 5th Edition Vampire: The Masquerade is planned. As well as an article for each convention.

Vampire: The Masquerade Fifth Edition

Releasedate: 2018

Core Development Team:
• Jason Carl (Producer)
• Ken Hite (Lead Designer)
• Mary Lee (Art Director)
• Martin Ericsson (Creative Lead)
• Karim Muammar (Playtest Designer)