Review – Vampire: the Requiem Core Rulebook

Product Name: Vampire: the Requiem Core Rulebook

Publisher: White Wolf Publishing/CCP Games

Authors: Ari Marmell, Dean Shomshank and C.A. Suleiman

Developer: Justin Achilli

Art Direction, Layout & Typesetting: Pauline Benney

Page Count: 304

Price: $34.99/$20.99 (watermarked PDF)

From the Publisher

Welcome to the Danse Macabre 
Since time immemorial, the Kindred — vampires — have stalked their prey, unseen by the mortal masses. Their world is a xenophobic nightmare, populated by tyrannical despots, wildeyed heretics, bloodthirsty rogues and scheming manipulators, all unified by the mysterious curse of vampirism. And you would join them? You would live forever? To play the lusts of mortals like a violinist plays the strings? Then beware, the price is steep to enter the neofeudal hell that the Damned have wrought.

Welcome to Undeath 
Join the revival of the Storytelling tradition. Vampire: The Requiem invites you to tell your own stories set within the world of the Kindred. This book includes rules for using vampires in World of Darkness chronicles, covering everything from the five clans to covenants to Disciplines, bloodlines, storytelling advice and a complete spread of game systems governing the undead. Hardcover. Requires the World of Darkness rulebook for play.

First Thoughts

I have to admit, and I’m ashamed of this, that I was introduced to Vampire: the Requiem specifically, and all White Wolf games in general, after much resistance on my part.  Like many people my age (old), I was introduced to tabletop role-playing games through the 1st edition of the “world’s oldest role-playing game” in the early 1980′s.  For many years, I stuck to that game, and others by the same publisher(s), and my exposure to other games and publishers was extremely limited.

As role-playing gamers go, I was in the dead center of the mainstream of gamers.  I was indoctrinated in a very limited line of products and became entrenched in the brand snobbery that existed then, and to some degree still exists now.  I played D&D.  Everybody I knew played D&D.  That’s what we did.  That was our brand.  Sure, we heard about people that played other games from time to time, and some of us even dabbled in games like Rolemaster or GURPS from time to time, but we always came immediately back to what was familiar.  I’m sure it was that way for a large number of gamers from that period.

Near the end of my college years, I heard about people playing these World of Darkness games.  The crowd I hung out with talked about them like they were lepers.  We were told to stay away from them at cons.  They were “different from us.”  Some even talked about them in terms of “Satan worshippers.”

We really should have known better.

The same things had been said about us for years.  One of my high school friends always had to hide his gaming books from his mom and anytime she found any of them on her regular room sweeps, she burned them.

Fast forward to the 21st century, circa 2008.

Several people in my gaming group were World of Darkness veterans.  Actually, pretty much everybody in my group had played it except me.  I was adept at resisting their attempts to get me to try the game.  We were in the nascent stages of a campaign I was running using the D20 system.  It was set in modern times, with a setting borrowed from the Champions RPG.  It was a vigilante crime-fighting game which quickly fell apart due to the limitations of the system.  I started researching other systems we could use that didn’t rely on the class/level model.  My group staged what I can only describe as an intervention.

They set up a demo session of a World of Darkness game (nominally a Vampire: the Masquerade one-shot – the World of Darkness curmudgeons in my group hadn’t been converted to the new system yet).  I realized I could no longer run from this and agreed to play.

I loved it.  Seriously.

We switched over to a modern horror game using a home-brewed variation on Hunter: the Reckoning and I quickly convinced my curmudgeons, these people who had just convinced me to try the White Wolf system in the first place, that the new version of the system was the way to go.  As soon as they were on-board, we switched over to Hunter: the Vigil.  Since my conversion, I’ve even run World of Darkness games at cons.  In contrast, I’ve never played the current edition of the “world’s oldest role-playing game,” the game that I so snobbishly clung to in my early gaming days.

This brings me to a final caveat: I’m not a huge fan of running games where the players play monsters, particularly “evil” ones as characters.  It’s just something I’ve never been fully comfortable with.  That’s the main reason that when I run games set in the World of Darkness, or using the Storytelling System, I usually run Hunter or “vanilla” World of Darkness as my vehicle of choice.  I’m fine with playing a character in those games.

The Good

There is a lot to like about Vampire: the Requiem.  Like all of the current generation of White Wolf products, the design and layout of the book reflects and enhances the dark feel of the game, from the satin finish of the red cover with its glossy red rose petals, to the deep crimson highlights and titles (the binding thread is even crimson).  The feeling that this game is all about blood and the power it brings, is well conveyed by the design aesthetic.

Also, as with all White Wolf products, there are excellent pieces of fiction that are a central component in the product.  The rules take a back seat to the story in the product, as well as in the game.  One of the greatest things about all White Wolf products is the underlying principle that the rules exist to facilitate the story that the players are going to collectively create.

I also like that the layout of all of the current generation of White Wolf products has been standardized.  There is an introduction which lays out the remainder of the book for the reader, and the chapters are organized into units that each concentrate on a specific part of the game.

If you haven’t visited the World of Darkness since the Vampire: the Masquerade, or any of the system’s earlier incarnations, I encourage you to try the more streamlined and consistent version of the system that is featured in the current products.  The various facets of the World of Darkness are much more compatible with each other than the previous generations of products.

Finally, the story of the Kindred has been made deeper and more sustainable through play than Vampire: the Masquerade.  White Wolf definitely incorporated the experiences of a generation of loyal players, along with some of the great minds in the industry (Justin Achilli, Ari Marmell, Matthew McFarland, to name a few), to craft a strong product for its players.

The Bad

The worst thing I can say about this product is that it is not a completely stand-alone ruleset.  I actually consider this a feature, not a bug.  While I can see where some players might complain about having to purchase more products to play the game they wish to play, that is a deliberate design feature of many products in today’s rpg industry.  Also, in this case, it serves to make the entire World of Darkness a more coherent and interchangeable whole.  The parts now fit together reasonably well, allowing characters made in the various facets of the world to more easily make an appearance in the stories of others.  So, a Hunter, Werewolf, or Mage can now more easily feature in a Vampire game and vice versa.

The Ugly

My biggest pet peeve about White Wolf products is the interior black & white artwork.  While some of it is extremely well done, some is not as well done, and this makes the whole a bit uneven.  I think that is one of the biggest difficulties of creating any large scale gaming system.  The scale of the project necessitates a large number of artists participating in the project, which can contribute to some of the minor pieces of artwork not blending as well with the whole.

The Play’s the Thing

As I’ve already stated, Vampire: the Requiem is a well-made game that is much improved from the prior incarnations of White Wolf’s Vampire games.  The Storyteller still fills the same role as always.  The mechanics are refined, as are the socio-political details of the game world.

For example, there are now only five main clans (instead of thirteen).  Gone is the war between Camarilla and Sabbat.  As a matter of fact, the old Sects are now called Covenants and there are several new ones.  Vampire: the Requiem is a game of personal turmoil, inner conflict, socio-political intrigue, and subtle horror.

This isn’t really supposed to be a comparison.  It’s a review.  Unfortunately, it’s difficult to review a product with as much of a history as this one and not look at its previous incarnations.  Look, this core rulebook was released in 2004.  There are literally hundreds of reviews of this excellent system all over the web.  If you’re a fan of horror games, the vampire genre, or just storytelling rpg’s, and you haven’t played this game, stop resisting.  The World of Darkness won me over with a system that allows characters to improve without the old class/level grind.  I love the modular feel of character building and advancement.  The game plays smoothly and is actually at its best when the players aren’t completely conscious of the system that is running in the background.  That is the way horror games work best, and this system facilitates that nicely, while still providing a consistent, reasonably comprehensive framework for conflict resolution.

My preference for rules in a horror game is for them to be like the guardrails on the highway.  They are there to keep you on the path and shouldn’t interfere with that path.  This principle is well-served by these rules, without them being too minimalist.  There is enough there to keep old school curmudgeons well within their comfort zone.

Final Thoughts

Vampire: the Requiem is a well-supported set of core rules.  There are a huge number of products available to supplement these rules, still available in many local book and hobby stores, in PDF form on DriveThru RPG, and print-on-demand.  White Wolf Publishing recently changed its business model to a PDF download/print-on-demand model to sustain and increase sales in today’s economic climate and role-playing community.  This means that all of the products should be perpetually available for your gaming pleasure.  This is a great thing for anyone who plays or wants to play in the World of Darkness.

Finally, it goes without saying that my initial reservations about this and other World of Darkness games were completely unfounded.  I missed out on countless hours of gaming enjoyment.  Don’t be that guy.

Overall Rating

I hate assigning generic ratings to products, but I’ll stay with convention here and give this product: