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A review by childofmongreldogs
Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook by Karim Muammar, Juhana Pettersson, Kenneth Hite, Kenneth Hite, Kenneth Hite, Martin Ericsson, Matthew Dawkins
3.0
Pros:
The first half of the book is devoted mainly to introducing the reader to the world and the clans. The second half holds most of the rules and systems you'll need to play. This is a massive improvement, imo. From the very beginning, the sourcebooks for VtM (as well as other WoD) have been arranged counterintuitively. You had to make super heavy use of the index to find anything with suggestions for rules of play scattered every which way. It still leaves something to be desired, imo, but this is much better. Kudos for the improvement.
Along with that, there's a dedicated table of contents, y'all. Has White Wolf ever made anything like that? Noope. Even if I find the 20th Anniversary Edition superior in gameplay, that table of contents made me giddy. You can find things with such ease now instead of throwing your hands in the air and saying "Fuck it, we'll do this live. You pass. Who gives a shit?"
I think it streamlined things to the game's benefit like certain clans and disciplines, for instance. As an example, I enjoyed dementation as a discipline but it was never completely separate from dominate. I like the idea of it being a mutation (?) of dominate available only to Malkavians.
I've always enjoyed the different clans and their weaknesses and archetypes but a lot of them felt not so distinct or overpowered or underpowered in comparison to other clans. I really feel like they made the playing field much more even, while getting rid of some of the more problematic aspects of the clans. Like the Ravnos, for instance. I enjoyed the clan with heavy editing and detouring from the canon. The fact that they are now a foot note is bittersweet but also much appreciated.
It's also very friendly to new players who might not be used to the heavy roleplaying of VtM in comparison to other tabletop games. (aka focusing more on character development as a means of driving the story than battles and skill progression). The writers went more in depth with character concepts that a new player can easily bounce ideas off of.
I don't necessarily like the inclusion as an actual game mechanic, but the idea of relationship maps, touchstones, predator types, and coterie types are actually really conducive to helping players who might not be used to the genre or type of game.
Tangential to that, I actually really liked the inclusion of convictions. Belief tenants that you choose for your character during creation. I think using that as opposed to the humanity chart is actually a far better way to track a character's, well, humanity and how close they have come to the beast.
I also liked that they've mostly ignored the conclusion of gehenna. An interesting plot point, maybe, and certainly something that the original VtM was building up to. But we already had a sourcebook for gehenna, we don't need more. I'm not quite sure if this is a less fatal interpretation of the end times or a prelude to it, or just a reimagining/parallel universe. I don't really care, honestly. It's good for a set piece of VtM in present time.
Cons:
The biggest and most fatal con to this corebook that I can think of is the actual gameplay. I can't imagine actually running this or attempting to play it. The best thing about VtM, for me, was how intuitive so many of the gameplay mechanics were. This new edition has added a lot and it is a cluster fuck, imo.
Though I liked the inclusion of relationship maps, I find it completely unnecessary for players to do have to make them. A ST? Yes, definitely, depending on how many NPCs they've got going, I would definitely recommend something of the sort, but as it stands for PCs. No, no way. Touchstones are also super sus to me, in the same line of thought. Same with lining out a PCs ambitions and desires as a mechanic or blood potency or humors. It's a helluva lot to go into in an hour long session. Can't forget humanity "stains" as well. Maybe I'm just dumb, but I'm having a hard time understanding how that works. And that's totally ignoring the advance systems, which I flipped through with glazed eyes.
So much of this stuff seems so unnecessary and/or in the realm of actual roleplay. I would hesitate to enforce any of these rules. While I might think it's a good idea to have players think of what sort of goals their character might have, I wouldn't necessarily make it a game mechanic. Allowing the PCs to grow, and that means outgrow their character concepts, has always been a very important and fun part of VtM. I think some of these systems really lend themselves to rigid roles and unfun play.
Shit, I think humanity is pretty unbalanced and just, I'll be real here, not great in this edition. The stains on humanity, while an interesting idea, just don't seem to mesh well with me. Take into consideration a PCs tenants, right? Why would blood bonding a mortal be a stain on their humanity if that is not a core of their morality?
Did I mention I disliked touchstones? Well, I do. I really dislike that a PC's humanity and playability can be heavily damaged by a mortal character and that as a mechanic, you're supposed to have a touchstone. It ignores PCs whose backgrounds couldn't and probably shouldn't have a touchstone like that in the first place. Once again, it's making a portion of actual, honest to god roleplay in to a game mechanic which is just silly.
Conclusion:
I find it decent and in some ways an improvement, at least from the writers. But I think I'd much rather continue with the 20th Anniversary Edition instead.
The first half of the book is devoted mainly to introducing the reader to the world and the clans. The second half holds most of the rules and systems you'll need to play. This is a massive improvement, imo. From the very beginning, the sourcebooks for VtM (as well as other WoD) have been arranged counterintuitively. You had to make super heavy use of the index to find anything with suggestions for rules of play scattered every which way. It still leaves something to be desired, imo, but this is much better. Kudos for the improvement.
Along with that, there's a dedicated table of contents, y'all. Has White Wolf ever made anything like that? Noope. Even if I find the 20th Anniversary Edition superior in gameplay, that table of contents made me giddy. You can find things with such ease now instead of throwing your hands in the air and saying "Fuck it, we'll do this live. You pass. Who gives a shit?"
I think it streamlined things to the game's benefit like certain clans and disciplines, for instance. As an example, I enjoyed dementation as a discipline but it was never completely separate from dominate. I like the idea of it being a mutation (?) of dominate available only to Malkavians.
I've always enjoyed the different clans and their weaknesses and archetypes but a lot of them felt not so distinct or overpowered or underpowered in comparison to other clans. I really feel like they made the playing field much more even, while getting rid of some of the more problematic aspects of the clans. Like the Ravnos, for instance. I enjoyed the clan with heavy editing and detouring from the canon. The fact that they are now a foot note is bittersweet but also much appreciated.
It's also very friendly to new players who might not be used to the heavy roleplaying of VtM in comparison to other tabletop games. (aka focusing more on character development as a means of driving the story than battles and skill progression). The writers went more in depth with character concepts that a new player can easily bounce ideas off of.
I don't necessarily like the inclusion as an actual game mechanic, but the idea of relationship maps, touchstones, predator types, and coterie types are actually really conducive to helping players who might not be used to the genre or type of game.
Tangential to that, I actually really liked the inclusion of convictions. Belief tenants that you choose for your character during creation. I think using that as opposed to the humanity chart is actually a far better way to track a character's, well, humanity and how close they have come to the beast.
I also liked that they've mostly ignored the conclusion of gehenna. An interesting plot point, maybe, and certainly something that the original VtM was building up to. But we already had a sourcebook for gehenna, we don't need more. I'm not quite sure if this is a less fatal interpretation of the end times or a prelude to it, or just a reimagining/parallel universe. I don't really care, honestly. It's good for a set piece of VtM in present time.
Cons:
The biggest and most fatal con to this corebook that I can think of is the actual gameplay. I can't imagine actually running this or attempting to play it. The best thing about VtM, for me, was how intuitive so many of the gameplay mechanics were. This new edition has added a lot and it is a cluster fuck, imo.
Though I liked the inclusion of relationship maps, I find it completely unnecessary for players to do have to make them. A ST? Yes, definitely, depending on how many NPCs they've got going, I would definitely recommend something of the sort, but as it stands for PCs. No, no way. Touchstones are also super sus to me, in the same line of thought. Same with lining out a PCs ambitions and desires as a mechanic or blood potency or humors. It's a helluva lot to go into in an hour long session. Can't forget humanity "stains" as well. Maybe I'm just dumb, but I'm having a hard time understanding how that works. And that's totally ignoring the advance systems, which I flipped through with glazed eyes.
So much of this stuff seems so unnecessary and/or in the realm of actual roleplay. I would hesitate to enforce any of these rules. While I might think it's a good idea to have players think of what sort of goals their character might have, I wouldn't necessarily make it a game mechanic. Allowing the PCs to grow, and that means outgrow their character concepts, has always been a very important and fun part of VtM. I think some of these systems really lend themselves to rigid roles and unfun play.
Shit, I think humanity is pretty unbalanced and just, I'll be real here, not great in this edition. The stains on humanity, while an interesting idea, just don't seem to mesh well with me. Take into consideration a PCs tenants, right? Why would blood bonding a mortal be a stain on their humanity if that is not a core of their morality?
Did I mention I disliked touchstones? Well, I do. I really dislike that a PC's humanity and playability can be heavily damaged by a mortal character and that as a mechanic, you're supposed to have a touchstone. It ignores PCs whose backgrounds couldn't and probably shouldn't have a touchstone like that in the first place. Once again, it's making a portion of actual, honest to god roleplay in to a game mechanic which is just silly.
Conclusion:
I find it decent and in some ways an improvement, at least from the writers. But I think I'd much rather continue with the 20th Anniversary Edition instead.