Vampire the Requiem

Rating:
Summary: An exquisite tome
Review: The first thing I noticed was the artwork. Very nice. The layout is more professional than before and the index more helpful (that's right, an index!). The book just feels like you ought to take very good care of it, a good thing considering the price.
Alas, Whitewolf has whittled the major clans down to five. Remember, this is an alternate vampire universe. There are still minor bloodlines, of course. For example, the Malkavians are now an offshoot of clan Ventrue, their 'eccentric' relatives. The powers are virtually the same with slight, cosmetic changes. I am sure more clans and bloodlines will be introduced in later books, that is the Whitewolf way. I only gave three stars because too little meat was included here and too much meat saved for later expansion books.

But I do hope this incarnation of Vampire will be free of the incessant introduction of 'optional' combat rules with every expansion book. Whitewolf had a very bad habit with their own game mechanics: they were constantly evolving (just pick one!). Quick group combat, specifically, was sorely lacking. The new WoD rules adjustments ameliorates this somewhat. I'll soon find out if the gametesters have earned their pay. I am almost afraid to see how Whitewolf resolves their Mage problem. Whitewolf had totally botched Mage, and this is their last chance for redemption.

Rating:
Summary: Watered Down
Review: Although both games share similarities, in my opinion Vampire: The Masquerade was a better role-playig game. What do we get in Requiem? A little bit changed rules, and setting. Did that made the game better? I don't think so, just made a different feeling to it. Obviously, WW needed new products to hit the market so they could make some more $$$. Since it all depends on limits of your imagination, you can still enjoy this game, it may just need some more effort on your part.

Rating:
Summary: Was this written by the same people???
Review: I can't believe how much they fixed this version of Vampire. If you read my review of VtM, I panned the book for having a horrible system and setting, munchkinism, and fruity goth players. This one got rid of all that. Players not withstanding

While there are now only 5 clans, the definition of "clan" changed. A Clan is what race the character is "born" into, much like your or my ethnicity. Ultimately, not our choice, just fate. Then, you pick from 5 Covenants, which are basically your religion as a vampire, which also give you power. Some people need to do the math: You went from 13 Clans to 25 possible character templates, and they both have roughly the same say over the character's existence. Oops, you can also choose not to be in a covenant, so I guess that second number is 30.

Did you hate how they did Celerity? Me too! They fixed it so a character can't have 47 attacks a turn. They also distinguished between Blood and Vitae, clarified the effects of diablerie, stuck Backgrounds and Merits together (who didn't see that one coming?), and fixed "Generation" so you didn't have to count backwards to get more powerful. Character creation is a bit more strict, forcing points to be spent in certain areas, and only allowing 3 discipline points for neonates. No more. Skills are defined into set categories which will be the same for all three WW games: Vamp, Mage, and Werewolf. Essentially, you use the WoD book to make a mortal, then assign a template. I just hope Were and Mage are written as well as this one was.

This was a great buy, from a previous hater of the series, and I didn't even mention the innovation of Virtues and Vices. You'll just have to buy the books and see.

Rating:
Summary: Good idea, bad execution.
Review: I'v been playing Vampire and other RPGs on and off for 20 years.

Like so many other RPGs, Requiem(v3) is a major step backwards from Masqarade(v4)

Dumb it down to the point where you have an RPG that has about as much thought behind it as the "plot" line form Grand Theft Auto 3.

On the good side, they did lessen the Jyhad but kept the awful "Traditions of Caine" (yes, we removed them)

And it STILL has the genenerally awful cyberpunk/goth feel, which has always been a major peeve.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty much a waste
Review: Leave to Justin Achilli to continue to destroy the World of Darkness line.

For the most part, it's simply a rehash of the old system, so much so you could just call it 4th Edition. The artwork is decent and the design of the book is nice...but the game itself is greatly flawed.

All the clans are compressed into 5 now, and the connection of a "clan family" is destroyed. It's now simply more like a vampire race. Sects were replaced with Covenants that are more like Vampire religions or ideals. Every vampire now is forced to follow the laws of the "masquerade" as it's built into the vampire "mentality". Basically, the game is watered down tremendously. If the price was around 10 to 15 bucks I'd say go for it...but you'd still be wasting your money. I don't expect the World of Darkness to be around much longer unless they do some serious improvement with Werewolf and Mage.

Coca cola did something similar a few years back. They tried to remake their soft drink and called it "new and improved". Simple fact was when they realized people were happy with the original...they suddenly went back to making the original...and so was born Coca Cola "Classic".

White Wolf as a company has even gone down south. If you ever frequent their forums their staff is often rude and sarcastic and generally don't care about their fans comments or inputs. They believe they are perfect so whatever. Eventually they'll figure out they really need to listen to their fans. Hopefully it won't be too late.

Rating:
Summary: Blood and Water
Review: The key description would be "watered down". This is a textbook example of how to suck the life out of a product.

I think I understand why. White Wolf was so prolific with Vampire the Masquerade they essentially wrote themselves into the corner. Like the X-File, a thousand threads were born and most could simply not be followed out. Additionally one could almost hear the "story-line" feuds as writers killed off each others ideas. Vicissitude was a disease, and not a disease. The Black Hand fought the Shadow crusade against it, but when the pro-Vicissitude faction at WW gained the zeitgeist, the Black Hand was purged, really didn't know what they were talking about despite their age, and amounted to nothing, even though they were the key enigma of the Sabbat for 10 years of publications. Ravnos woke up, paid no attention to them as he was fighting for his unlife so they quit.

Right.

Then, in what seems like a fit of pique, the entire series went in the garbage. Gehenna was insultingly silly (everyone was wrong, no one wins, and the Antediluvians are not even recognizable as vampires). In one section they actually say "the Sabbat was right, so what?" That would really annoy someone who had played a couple hundred years of game time with a Sabbat character.

Taking the wrong lesson from all of this, they have now penned Vampire the Requiem, which seems to have at its base the notion that if you eliminate everything that made the game interesting (elder wars, ancient evil, etc.) and replace it with a limited timeframe and characters who are locked into permanent weakness and angst we can overcome the issues with the previous game. Then you overcomplicate the clans/sects, and recycle terms. No...it wasn't the writing problem or the controls that was to blame, it was the *scope* of the arc. It isn't that we couldn't keep track of 10 million threads and arguments over story, it was that we *had* a story.

Everything that attracted me about Vampire is gone.

I loved the struggle of ancients, the ability to set games at normal or elder levels, and the pain associated with a totally stratified system that you had to do wicked and dangerous things to overcome. Generation was the most important flavor of the game and they have removed it. It is like going back to First Edition where everyone was expected to become a diabolist.
This is really painful. The better answer would have been to set forth the new system and adapt the old universe as a module to it. Play this way if you like generation based jyhad conflict, or here is this new universe if you don't.

So, now I am buying all the out of print works on eBay, and will cease buying all White Wolf products thereafter.
It is a great pity, they actually entered the language, got (briefly) a TV series, and could have built on that. Instead they did this.


Rating:
Summary: Not new enough, but get over it
Review: The new Vampire game is infinitely superior to its previous incarnations: It kept what worked, and discarded what did not. Requiem is more vicious and more horrific -- gone is the comparative safety of Masquerade; in Requiem, vampires are cold-blooded, megalomaniacal serial killers hiding themselves behind a veneer of civility (well, for the most part) and the game never lets you forget it.

There are only five clans, each representing one of the archetypes of mythological vampires: Passionate Daeva, savage Gangrel, mysterious Mekhet, horrific Nosferatu and domineering Ventrue. Instead of limiting the options of character creation, the reduced number of clans increases them. These clans are much broader in scope than in previous games to allow for more variation. Bloodlines are a nice touch, but emphasizing them detracts from the fact that any vampire concept should fit into one of the five clans. To give you an example of the broader scope, take the Nosferatu. Instead of being limited to physical deformity as in Masquerade, Requiem's Nosferatu merely have a clan weakness that limits their social effectiveness -- and the player is free to come up with any reason as to why that is (anything from physical ugliness to rank odours to a 'general sense of dread'). Nosferatu can be earth-shatteringly attractive... if they have a foul odour or unpleasant presence to offset it.

If you enjoy political games, Requiem shines:

* No global politics -- everything is local, with vampires largely limited to their cities (imprisoned in their 'gilded cages' is a theme the game plays up).
* Five major factions (called "covenants" -- the Carthian Movement, the Circle of the Crone, the Invictus, the Lancea Sanctum and the Ordo Dracul) instead of two (Camarilla & Sabbat), all five of which maneuver roughly equally through the Danse Macabre. City Princes can come from any covenant (it's no longer just a Camarilla thing).
* Tenurial and unconventional domains; Princes can hand out Regent titles to vampires in their cities, granting them domain over areas or spheres of mortal influence (a Regent of the French Quarter, or a Regent of Finance). With more titles comes more jockeying for position, not to mention conflict. As the book points out, what happens when a crime occurs? Is it the responsibility of the Regent overseeing the location of the crime (Regent of the French Quarter, for example) or the Regent of Law Enforcement? The book doesn't answer that question, and indicates that there doesn't exist a hard and fast solution in-game -- thus, tons of conflict.
* More fluid political power: Princes are common, but not the rule. Some cities are ruled by groups of Kindred, or even attempts at mortal democracy. Princes no longer have the authority of an umbrella organization (the Camarilla) to support their power; either they deserve to be Prince, or they're merely pretenders to the throne.

The game certainly isn't as 'original' as White Wolf led us to believe (of course, they couldn't have made as many changes as they did if they wanted to keep calling it Masquerade), but you're doing yourself a disservice if you let that affect your opinion of a great game. Consider this "Vampire: the Masquerade, 4th Edition" if you must, but give it a try.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty cover, Bad delivery
Review: This book is a prime example of when you try to fix somthing thats not broken. Here are a few areas that this book fell horribly short in.

1). The writers seemed to think that they copuld "improve the system by cramming multiple clans together from the old book.
The "Bruja" bloodline in the Gangrel? The Daeva are Toreadors with a new name, and don't get me started on the "Malkovian" bloodline within the Ventrue.

2). The absurd system of raising and lowering generation. this takes away from the whole temptation of Anathema and removes the power that elders have over the childer.

3). The multiple explanations on the origins of vampires. It was so much better when there was the one explanation of the curse of Caine. "Hey, I cant decide on a origin. I know, lets use all of them." If this reasoning makes sense to you, I am surprised.

4). No sects. This takes away from one of the conerstones of Vampire animosity. The sect ideologies were perfect for conflict among the undead.

5) And finally, regurgitated material. reading the sections on Golconda, and weaknesses were exactly the same.

Overall, I encourage gamers to leave this pretty monstrosity on the shelf and get a copy of Vampire the Masquerade while you still can. Oh, and hateredisstrength, don't blame the book on your gaming problems. If you cant summon up one creative iota in your head, move on to a less in depth system. And if you still have problems with "munchkins" and "fruity goths", I have a solution for you. Stop hanging out with them.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty but also pretty shallow
Review: This book is very pretty and isn't -bad-. It's not great either. If you've never played Vampire the Masquerade before, go buy this book. You'll probably like it. Me? I played the old game. And, quite frankly, it was just better. This was advertised as a new game. There's not a whole new about it. The setting and the feel are pretty much the same. In fact, upon reading the introduction, I felt like I was reading the old book all over again. I was really hoping for a "What's New" chapter, detailing all the nifty differences between this supposed brand new game and the old one. Nah. It's the same. Sure, there are a few differences. Some new choices. Some new concepts. But it's substantially the same. EXCEPT for character creation. Talk about watered-down. I was so unimpressed upon reading what they did to the very interesting and wide open character creation process of the old game. Characters are de-powered and they have a lot less options than before. All that being said, the book is well written. It's well thought out and put together. It's just, in this reviewer's opinion, inferior to what it was. Agree or disagree. Just don't slam me for my opinion. :)

Rating:
Summary: crap
Review: To be honest, when I read this book, I wasn't expecting much. Just look at Gehenna, there "last" VTM book. It was sad. Boy, with VTR White Wolf didn't surprise me. VTR is [...]. Pure undiluted [...].
As a gamer, I like choices, and as the ST I love those choices even more. I delighted at all the unknown things in VTM. They took that away in VTR.
1. Charater creation is even harder. Too few begininning stats.
2. Less Character creation choice.
3. Vamps seem so weak, almost human. Based PC creations are weak.
4. To few clans. To few conflicts. Conflicts created story in VTM. VTR is borring.
5. Crappier discplines. A lot less choices.
6. Rehash on old clans.
7. Blood potency is [...]. The older vamps in VTM were awesome because they could create a fuel the Jyhad. They made you seek ambition to rise in rank.
8. Golconda? rehashed.
I have been am ST for 8 years now, and I have bought every single White-Wolf product. KOE, VTM, Exalted, Werewolf, Changeling, Mage, yeah, I bought it all. I loved the choices and the abiguity in the old WOD. This new Vampire is diluted and made me feel dirty for buying/playing it.
Don't buy this unless you're a newbie to WOD. The new systems/clans/ over all "attitude" of the new WOD won't [...] you off so much..