The Shiny
It's a pdf so there's a limit on how nice it is. The art is mostly good, albeit inconsistent (though it veers between stylish and childish), though the white background is a bit glare-y on a laptop screen. It's 530 pages - so printing it out will fell a small sized forest. The index at the end is pretty thorough and consistently got me what I was looking for.
Why Vampires?
Whilst vampire minis are usually fantasy-centric (there's surprisingly few dedicated "modern" vampire minis) it is simple enough to convert normal human minis to vampires merely with a careful paintjob or maybe a head swap (I am eyeing some of my Mantic ghoul spare heads).
In V:tM there is a reason for combat (sects, covens or clans battling each other over centuries, even millennia) and it occurs at skirmish wargaming scale as it is covert in nature (vampires hiding their existence from humans). So lots of covert-ops skirmish material. There are fleshed out backgrounds for the 13 different clans, from the Followers of Set (who protect secret places and hunt hidden knowledge) to bestial Gangrel, to the Giovanni (who control banking). Vampires are territorial about their domains. Thus there are plenty of motive and background for battles.
The vampires range from fledglings not much stronger or more capable than humans, to vampire elders with immense and terrifying powers. There is crossover potential with other WoD staples - werewolves (which in combat tend to outclass younger vampires handily) and human mages (who are fragile mortals but wield potent magic).
The vampires from Underworld and Blade owe a lot to the World of Darkness.
Character Creation
The more relevant physical stats (strength-dexterity-stamina-health) would work fine for wargames, although social skills (charisma, appearance, manipulation) and mental skills (perception, intelligence, wits) would certainly be culled or amalgamated for a wargame. Injury stages (hurt/injured/wounded/mauled/crippled) with negative modifiers make sense, as a vampire would be a multi-wound model in most wargames. Both willpower and a "blood pool" provides resource management systems.
There are ~30 core special rules (talents, skills and knowledge). Vampires can start out at different power levels which fits with Necromunda-style campaign games (juves, gangers, leaders).
Disciplines
This is vampire "magic" - the special powers that make them unique. New vampires may have three or so powers. Some disciplines are innate, some require willpower or blood. These include:
*Animism (controlling animals)
*Auspex (out of body/perception/psychic assault/predictive reactions)
*Celerity (speed/reflexes/wall run)
*Chimersty (illusions)
*Demenation (fear/madness)
*Dominate (paralyse/possess/control others)
*Fortitude (toughness)
*Necromancy (control undead - quite a list of powers, many require rituals to cast)
*Potence (strength, super jump)
*Presence (awe, fear, paralysing gaze)
*Protean (night vision, claws, mist form, shapeshifting)
*Quietus (poison blood, explode target's brain, etc)
*Serpentis (snake powers)
*Visscitude (blood, bat form)
Thaumurgy
This is blood magic or vampire sorcery. Powers include:
Boiling victim's blood, animate objects or plants, summon elementals, decay/distintegrate, telekinesis, weather control, boosting combat and even projecting consciousness over the net. There are rituals which take longer to prepare or require specific resources but are longer lasting or more powerful, such as warding circles etc. Whilst vampire sorcerers are fine, to be honest, I thought a lot of these seemed un-vampire-y (I mean, a vampire using water magic? undead = masters of water? Really?) You could probably skip this as there are more than enough powers and paranormal abilities in the disciplines section.
Mechanics, Actions and Combat
I'm not going to discuss the game mechanics in depth as they have little wargaming application. In a nutshell: you generally roll a pool of d10 (the amount of dice varies according to skill) against a target number between 3 and 9 - which varies according to difficulty - a 6 is standard difficulty, a easy or trivial task might be a 3 or 4, and very tricky tasks might be a 8 or 9. Only one success is needed to pass, but 3 or more successes are a complete success. Any roll of '0' is an auto success, and any '1' cancels out a success. Whilst you could wargame with them, it would take significant effort and dice chugging. However, they could be easily adapted to something like Savage Worlds which is very wargame-friendly. You could adapt V:tM into most generic skirmish games by simply modifying stats or adding in a few distinctive special rules.
Morality
While a key tenet of roleplaying (retaining humanity, struggling against the beast within), the degeneration of morality is of limited use to a wargamer. The "paths" and ethics a vampire can follow are of interest from a background point of view I suppose but I kinda skipped through this to be honest.
The Others
This gives a background on peripheral groups - witch hunters, the Inquisition, the CIA/NSA, paranormal researchers, crime bosses, cultists and magi of various types, the fae, ghosts, demons (Fallen) ...as well as their traditional werewolf enemies, and a modest bestiary of conventional creatures.
There are also additonal vampire bloodlines - expansions on the 13 clans - which I presume are gathered from various sourcebooks for the 20th anniversary edition. Some come with their own disciplines and magics.
....400 or so pages in, "RPG fatigue" has set in. Every time I think wargames rules are chaotic, bloated and disorganised... ...I come across a RPG book. I swear, RPG writers are 99% vivid imagination and 1% practicality and common sense. Probably because RPGs are the opposite of competitive, and "making it up as you go along" is encouraged, RPG books tend to be chaotic experiences. Protracted reading of RPGs and supplements always gives me a slight tic....
Ghouls
These are humans fed vampire blood, who gain some portion of supernatural power. They usually are about twice as strong as normal humans, and usually possess low level powers in one vampire discipline possessed by their donor. In a wargame, these would work well as secondary characters. Like vampires, they can heal and regenerate (using a small blood pool.) Whilst ghouls tend to be attached to particular vampires, some are independent and others belong to revenant families (in which ghouldom is hereditary).
TL:DR
The World of Darkness vampires have pretty much set the benchmark for the modern vampires of Blade and Underworld (the latter bearing so many similarities it was sued by White Wolf).
Accordingly, V:tM is a very handy source of vampire background and material.
Whilst not suited to wargaming with "off the shelf", the list of spells and powers is useful - the 'disciplines' list could be easily adapted to generic Savage Worlds spells, for example. The background gives good inspiration for battles and the small-scale covert-ops battles between rival covens, werewolves, mages, government forces and secret societies seems tailor made for skirmish war gaming. All in all, V:tM is a very useful vampire "sourcebook" to direct and inspire paranormal wargames.
Recommended: For $5, absolutely. I've pdfs of Werewolf:The Forsaken, Vampire: The Requiem and Mage: The Awakening. Of the three, the Vampire books seem to lend themselves most easily to wargaming purposes (the magic system in Mage was a bit too open ended - and you might as well just use any existing wargaming magic system; the Werewolves book was a bit too mystical - more like shamanistic ghostbusters than actual, you know, werewolves. Vampire is a bit more "tight" - if it's possible to apply that term to a RPG - and has inbuilt reasons to fight battles)
Werewolf can work on both levels, I find: There's a lot of mystical mumbojumbo, but you can get the whole thing running in the "real world" too. Street battles with monsters, mutants and Pentex goons, that sort of thing.
ReplyDeleteMaybe. I guess werewolves have basic powers/skills with compared to vamps, so they gave them 1001 spells. I found it jarring, and for wargaming purposes, over complication.
DeleteWhen I think werewolves, I don't think Indian shamans exorcising unquiet ghosts, but slavering beast monsters either fighting their vampire overlords, or perhaps as she-wolves assisting the Nazis, or maybe merely hunting co-eds....
Take a game like Frostgrave and bolt on the Vamps instead of Wizards and you have a best seller! :)
ReplyDeleteI think there is plenty of room for Mordheim/Necromunda style skirmish as the success of Frostgrave has proved.
DeleteI'm personally interested in modern pulp/paranormal - a generic set of rules for this is good. There is Savage Worlds, but while it is a very useful toolbox (especially abilities and spells) its rules (while quite fine) don't scratch the itch the way I want.
To be honest I haven't played Frostgrave since I tested it, as I find many mechanics kinda 70s RPG-y and clunky (me <---> hit points over here) but it perfectly tapped into the nostalgia (I mean, hunting through a ruined city for artefacts....) but I'm very glad it has done well as it may blaze a path for more nicely produced skirmish campaign games...
It'd be fun to write, though you'd need tons of powers to build with and balancing that would be a right tit.
DeleteSomewhere on the google group I explored "condensing special rules".
DeleteInspired by Savage Worlds's generic powers (they lump powers together by effects and ignore trappings i.e. an ice bolt and a fire bolt have the same special rule) I've been experimenting combining technology, innate powers and magic...
...i.e. a Romulan cloaking device works the same as invisibility spell which is the same as a chameleon's skin.. ....or night vision goggles work the same as cat eyes which are also the same rules for a dark vision spell....
...I think in experimenting I got the list down to ~60 (for ALL magic, tech and innate abilities, for pulp-scifi-fantasy), as long as you have a reasonable stat line (5-6 stats) and don't go all hipster 2-stats-like-SoBH.
5-6 stats is great for a <dozen figs game and gives the kind of character differentiation a skirmish game of this trope needs. A few of those are likely to be very similar in any case eg movement
DeleteI'm not sure you'd effectively get mages in, they were impossible to gauge as a story teller in the RPG, let alone compared to other supernatural opposition. The issue is they can effectively do anything conceivable but are also humans, so if caught unaware beyond feeble in the WOD system but if prepared to fight, you could for example stop or rewind time, summon a miniature black whole, lock the scene in a dimensional window and transport yourself and your party to a safe location before starting the clock again. That's literally 3 spheres used maybe 4 total with level 3/4 max required in the spheres.
DeleteYes, WoD mages are too open-ended to ever be wargame-able. A traditional D&D-ish mage with a more limited skill set of 5-6 conventional spells (perhaps focussed in a particular class) would be a bit more balance-able in a modern paranormal game setting.
DeleteYeah, I was thinking the setting would be modern/dark city fantasy set in some gothamesque megalopolis full of gothic sewers, dark alleyways, and macabre cathedrals. Then each warband would be led by a vampire and his offspring. The followers would be a mix of thralls, humans, and creatures that go bump in the night.
Delete70% of the game would be advancing and managing your coven, while 30% would be playing relatively rules light missions that are strung together based on a scenario generator similar to Necromunda
So essentially, Frostgrave with guns, monsters, and vamps. Someone notify Osprey and Northstar!
It's surprising how few wargames focus on modern pulp/paranormal/mutant/superheroes - considering the wealth of contemporary literature/movies.
DeleteEspecially if it came with its own miniature line.
For years we watched space wargames swing and miss, until FFG came along. I think there's similar opportunity for modern pulp.
Compare the amount of steampunk/Victorian horror wargames to mainstream awareness; in comparison paranormal/modern horror is rather limited.
I think the lack of decent miniatures is the biggest hindrance.
DeleteYeah, I did up a list of miniatures that would work for a Blade/Underworld game, and someone in comments posted up a list they had made in... 2008 or something, and it was pretty much the same....
DeleteThere were official World of Darkness figures back when... by Ral Partha maybe? They weren't amazing though and they're near-impossible to find.
DeleteHave to post this, its only valid for 5 days after this post but it knocks the rpgdrivethru deal out the water. https://www.humblebundle.com/books/vampire-masquerade-rpg-bundle
ReplyDeleteNice find! $1 for the revised rules plus a handful of sourcebooks = win!
DeleteHumble bundle works well for PC games - I forget it has a comics and books section as well....
I did start messing about with a modern fantasy skirmish game a few years ago - think Necromunda meets Underworld/Blade/Dresden files - but I had trouble with the balance and dropped it in the end (though admittedly mostly because it was a solo project with no opponents)
ReplyDeleteJust because I can't help myself a few points of clarification
ReplyDeleteWerewolves were explicitly a metaphor for the plight of native American tribes and an occasionally cringe worthy one at that
But wait did you know there are thirteen changing breeds?
Most notably (fun) were ratkin and werelizards
Ratkin could use up to three guns with the dexterous tail feat lol and the higher level lizards could end up with dragon and dinosaur forms!
Also mages would be an interesting challenge
The real problem is too stick close to the flavor a prepared mage is nigh unkillable
If a mage knows he's going to get into a fight that day he locks himself in his magic room for three hours and depending on his spheres is how he stacks daylong buffs
A mage that doesn't have buffs is just a squishy human who dies in a high lethality setting but if you haven't killed them in thirty seconds you have a panicking reality breaker on your hands
The only limit to magical spells aside from theme and scope was paradox
If a mage casts too many spells in front of muggles (most supernatural beings would count interestingly enough) reality itself will attack the mage
See reality is just what we believe it is, a universal suspension of disbelief. When things happen around people that make them question the nature of reality a mage accrues paradox and difficulties to cast spells as reality reasserts the agreed upon rules of reality
This goes down the rabbit hole leading to the magic of keys. Keys don't work because of their shape but because we think keys open locks. The engine only turns on because we have been trained to accept it.
In the early fourteenth century a cabal of mages decided to standardize the global paradigm instead of having principalities of belief
This was actually a humanitarian effort at the start because mages mainly came in the Sauron variety and the scientific method led to a reduction of wandering monster rolls for your average Robin Hood npc
By modern day reality is calcifying under the rule of technomages who have an internally consistent set of rules called science they slowly release to the masses
Oh there are techno mages who can only cast spells through devices that can only create specific effects
They would be my first goto for a faction since eighty percent of the Technocracy is devoted to killing supernatural- er, Reality Deviants to protect the herd
Zooterrorism is a favored tactic of another faction. They accrue paradox but never get attacked by Paradox Spirits
So they can summon any miniature you own and while their new pet dragon may only last a few rounds until disappearing in a cloud of dying pixie dust what happens next is a swarm of angry paradox spirits attack every mage in the area
Only some supernatural beings don't cause paradox, a majority of extraplanar beings do, the reason is vampires, were beasts, wraiths, and hunters are baked into the nature of reality or are holdovers from previous reality paradigms
DeleteWhich is why supernatural beings tend to count as muggles, they don't understand that reality is flexible
Mummies were created to be immortal soldiers by an extinct mage faction fighting a vampire clan for control of ancient Egypt
(A point of interest for wargamers is the oWoD has a fully fleshed out alternate history with different time periods having different rules (but unfortunately told from the perspective of just one creature type usually)
So as a rule mages, vampires, and werewolves don't interact but different factions communicate or fight
Oh I keep meaning to mention every vampire clan with access to blood magic has a mage progenitor who developed a style that mimics the faction they came from which is why they feel not vampiresque
It's unknown why the first one turned (or if they even had a choice) but the other two craved immortality on Earth
(People aren't immortal but it's trivial for a mage to become ageless, the trade off is your existence on Earth causes paradox so most mages end up living in pocket dimensions)
There is a gypsy faction in each of the big three. None willingly hang out but they cooperate for the good of the bloodline
Technocrats hate every body but there is a sub faction that communicates with an enemy mage faction and fomori
Fomori are twisted fae. Mutants, orcs, anything messed up that looks vaguely humanoid or could have been a pile of humans. They serve the Cthulhu faction (actually the Cthulhu faction crosses all types but fomori are the main foot soldiers)
The werewolves are buddies with time mages which is how they justified the wild West sections incredibly anachronistic genre issues. The time mages accidently broke time for a century in a last ditch effort to stop the vampire/technocrat purge of werewolves
It's worth noting that the technocrats and the largest vampire faction are natural allies in that they are obsessed with keeping the herd ignorant of the supernatural but they don't associate as a rule
In cities controlled by the Camarilla technocrats don't have to worry about vampires so they look the other way when paths cross
Towards the end of the gameline the separation between types was paper thin as various groups stumbled upon the end of the world in various directions
Sorry for the infodump I just love the setting and ran a full cross over game that covered about two hundred years for a decade. I'm pretty sure I read every inch of lore there is so I thought I would highlight some corners that you would appreciate in the mini Dept that you wouldn't find from a videogame/couple of corebooks perspective
Only some supernatural beings don't cause paradox, a majority of extraplanar beings do, the reason is vampires, were beasts, wraiths, and hunters are baked into the nature of reality or are holdovers from previous reality paradigms
DeleteWhich is why supernatural beings tend to count as muggles, they don't understand that reality is flexible
Mummies were created to be immortal soldiers by an extinct mage faction fighting a vampire clan for control of ancient Egypt
(A point of interest for wargamers is the oWoD has a fully fleshed out alternate history with different time periods having different rules (but unfortunately told from the perspective of just one creature type usually)
So as a rule mages, vampires, and werewolves don't interact but different factions communicate or fight
Oh I keep meaning to mention every vampire clan with access to blood magic has a mage progenitor who developed a style that mimics the faction they came from which is why they feel not vampiresque
It's unknown why the first one turned (or if they even had a choice) but the other two craved immortality on Earth
(People aren't immortal but it's trivial for a mage to become ageless, the trade off is your existence on Earth causes paradox so most mages end up living in pocket dimensions)
There is a gypsy faction in each of the big three. None willingly hang out but they cooperate for the good of the bloodline
Technocrats hate every body but there is a sub faction that communicates with an enemy mage faction and fomori
Fomori are twisted fae. Mutants, orcs, anything messed up that looks vaguely humanoid or could have been a pile of humans. They serve the Cthulhu faction (actually the Cthulhu faction crosses all types but fomori are the main foot soldiers)
The werewolves are buddies with time mages which is how they justified the wild West sections incredibly anachronistic genre issues. The time mages accidently broke time for a century in a last ditch effort to stop the vampire/technocrat purge of werewolves
It's worth noting that the technocrats and the largest vampire faction are natural allies in that they are obsessed with keeping the herd ignorant of the supernatural but they don't associate as a rule
In cities controlled by the Camarilla technocrats don't have to worry about vampires so they look the other way when paths cross
Towards the end of the gameline the separation between types was paper thin as various groups stumbled upon the end of the world in various directions
Sorry for the infodump I just love the setting and ran a full cross over game that covered about two hundred years for a decade. I'm pretty sure I read every inch of lore there is so I thought I would highlight some corners that you would appreciate in the mini Dept that you wouldn't find from a videogame/couple of corebooks perspective
Real quick unusual mini run down
DeleteFae aren't so awesome they are extraplanar beings caught on the wrong side of wall when Earth stopped being accessible to other planes easily
Also due to rules the most powerful fae are children wearing home-made cosplay outfits so idk lol
Fomori (twisted fae) look like mutants or straight out humanoid fantasy creatures or crazy bikers
Vampires
The sabbat like body mods and post apocalyptic fashion
Lasombra have a war form that is a humanoid shadow form with too many tentacles
Tzimesce can morph flesh and have crazy looking ghouls. Also a war form that looks however they want (most players went with functional wings) and at higher levels a dragon form
The Camarilla suffers most from humans with fangs syndrome
Notable exceptions area gangrel that have wolf heads and claws for a war form plus a direwolf and bat form
Nosferatu look like bat boy
The Independents also have mainly humans but Settites have a snake head
Special mention to Giovanni, the necromancer vampire mafia. Pretty much the only time ghosts will show up for fights will be as their pets
Wraiths have spirit clay instead of flesh so they look like anything too
I can't remember all of the Changing breeds but off the top of my head
Rat
Bear
Lizard
Wolf
Cat (big ones not domestic)
Spider
Crow
Fox
Only Asian changing breeds hang out the rest all hate wolves for ironically trying genocide the other tribes during Pangea
All changing breeds consider themselves humanity's supernatural support except Rat who really want to kill off ninety percent of humanity and hang out with a Cthulhu faction
There are technically two Cthulhu factions the Weaver and the Wyrm. Every mention of Cthulhu has been to the Wyrm
Spiders serve the Weaver and to a limited (unknowingly) degree so does most of the Technocracy except for those portions that secretly serve the Wyrm
Now mages
The Technocracy is all kinds of people wearing suits or lab coats
Notable combat teams are
HIT Marks (cyborgs with crazy firmpoints)
MiB (pre movie but same exact thing)
And the void engineers have a rapid response team that really look like ghost busters
Void engineers are the secret betrayers and their tech can have a twisted feel to it
The traditions give a few more options
The order of Hermes is the Merlin faction and do dress accordingly for battle at times
The verbenna are Wiccan types and Celtic or witchy looking thing will do
The time mages cover dervishes and native American type stuff
The sons of ether are crazy technocrats from pulp style days. Rocket packs, Tesla guns, exotic vehicles
From 1914 to 1945 the Technocracy fight a very public civil war using zeplins and robot soldiers until Reality breaks and is replaced by our current history lol the fallout it's the herd loses the wonder of science and gains a cyberpunk future and traditions get false hope plus really cool gear
If there are shadowrun minis any decker would be fine for the virtual adepts lol
And if you ever see a mini that looks like it's from a really messed up horror anime it would be a fine war form for cathayans
These Asian vampires pretty much cover most Asian folklore that isn't covered by the were court
And Asian monster hunters can be anyone with Asian weaponry
These guys are just badass normals with relics and prayer scrips so yesss pretty much any Asian influenced figurine? Also adding guns and grenades is appropriate lol
Those are just the major ones off the top of my head lol there are plenty of monsters in the oWoD and plenty of resources to fight over
Oh and lastly all demons have three forms (angel/demon/human) it's a real Jedi/sith dynamic but you can switch between the two morality power trees with ease
I spent way too much time here lol but thanks for letting me revisit one of my favorite settings!
No, that's a really interesting read and a good thumbnail sketch (if you can call it a thumbnail!) for people like me who like WoD/oWoD but will not be wading through (or able to afford!) every sourcebook; i.e. I have lots of vampire books, 1-2 werewolf ones and a few hunter ones, 5-6 mage books... but nothing, for example, on mummies or how they fit in...
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