I’ve been struggling with a roleplaying-gaming design issue. It’s probably just my own pet-hate. It’s something I call the “Big Pile of Skills” problem.
When creating a roleplaying character, there is nearly always a section on “Skills”. Most of the time you can choose any Skill you like and invest points into them. Some systems have some concept of grouping Skills like D&D’s Class system and Riddle of Steel’s Skill Packets. But most of the modern day systems I’ve played just let you pick any skills you like. I’m under the impression that most players considered this a good thing and limiting character choices to a select set of groups is considered Badtm.
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Well, lets get specific. What I mean is, I discovered that Vampire High was canned after one season and there is little or no chance of it being started up again. (see my previous post here!) (But it’s not all bad on the vampire front…)
And the Dresden Files TV show sucks. I haven’t read the books or played the RPG (there is one by the way, done by the same folk who did Spirit of the Century). I’ve watched the first three episodes on Sky 1. Quite simply, unoriginal and boring. Read More…
(dubnordie will like this!) Since moving into our new house, we’ve got ourselves one of those Sky+ boxes and a Sky subscription to, well, way too many channels. Most of them are utter rubbish. However… there is a channel called “Zone Horror” and they show a Vampire series called “Vampire High” and thanks to the ease of recording, I watched a few episodes!
It’s about as bad as the 90s Vampire series Forever Knight… which makes it very good! 
I haven’t googled it yet, I don’t want to. I don’t want to know it’s been canned or that there are only one or two seasons. Ignorance is bliss they say.
Each episode is only 30 minutes long, which probably makes it more delicious for it’s bite-size delight. The back-story is a little vague, the elders put some young vampires under the guidance of head-master Dr. Murdock whose job is to humanise them. An experiment that must be kept secret from the “furies”. Anyway, it’s a bunch of Vampires, with all the funky powers and weakness and dress sense living in the basement of a boarding school.
I’ve looked at the World of Darkness 2.0 Core Book already, now I have a look at the first “full” game based on the new World of Darkness, Vampire: Requiem and offer an opinion to the question: Is it worth getting back into World of Darkness 2.0?
Okay, to quickly summarize:
If you like Vampire: the Masquerade, you’ll like Vampire: Requiem (probably in equal measures).
The saying; “the more things change, the more things stay the same” is very apt to the new Vampire. Many aspects of the setting have been changed such as the powers are all substantially reduced but it is still the same game.
Yes there are only five clans, but between Clans, Covenants and Bloodlines you haven’t lost any (in fact you’ve probably gained). The only thing that has truly been removed is the impending doom of Gehenna from Vampire: Masquerade.
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Well, lets start by the summary first. (I know most people will scroll to the bottom, read the conclusion and bugger off, so might as well make it easy for you!
They (i.e. White Wolf) have improved the Storyteller(tm) system. Most of the changes I really like. The dice mechanic is even easier and botches are harder (you have to make a choice to make a roll that has a chance of a botch). But some of the new stuff, I loath to the nth degree.
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From 1996, I wrote this scene while in first year in University. For some unknowable angst-ridden-still-acting-like-a-teenager reason, I emailed this to a lot of people. I’ve preserved the original ASCII text format.
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This is a very early story of mine that I wrote while in Secondary School (that is circa 1997!) , so you will have to excuse the grammar and readability a bit. Saying it’s raw is an understatement, but I have fond memories of sharing it with friends. It is about an encounter with a vampire.
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