I picked up Vampire the Masquerade back in 1998 (so 15 years old), having spotted it in the top 50 RPG list in the pages of Arcane Magazine (damn that was a good magazine!). Now I was already a roleplayer and wargamer and given my history already with Games Workshop's range of games I was already into all things skull encrusted and horrific.
Now my own interest in all things horror goes back a bit further. Blame my sister. She would rent out horror films, and with my parents, we would watch them. So it wasn't unsupervised, and it wasn't as if I had no one to talk about them after. Werewolves, ghosts, monsters, vampires. I was also into anime and comic books, and having already seen films like Bram Stoker's Dracula, The Hunger, and trailers on TV for the film, Blade, I was already in deep with vampires having an air of coolness to them. Plus of course, on TV was Buffy, and subsequently Angel. I had seen The Crow. And as a Batman fan, I had seen the first two Tim Burton Films. Yeah, I was in heavy with all things dark and gothic.
Let's be honest, playing Warhammer 40,000, very rarely are you playing the good guys. You are often playing a faction that is just one in a range of shades of gray, or an army of mad demon worshippers where it is clear you are the bad guys. Playing armies, gangs and having them led by characters with questionable but nuanced morality was something I was already used to. I had already run games of DnD, and Star War RPG, and while playing the heroes was fun, there was something oh so interesting about that green marble cover and the idea of playing the vampires. Of being the monster.
Being the vampire is of course a bit of wish fulfilment. It's a power trip. And as a Goth waiting to be (it was a bit hard to be a full-on Goth when you live out in the middle of the countryside) it scratched some itches. I was already listening to rock, metal and dance music. And given my relationship with where I lived, my family, and my peers, I was eager to leave all that and redefine myself when I got to university. So Vampire the Masquerade resonated with those feelings of youthful rebellion and wanting to become something different.
Now as a constant GM I was once more helming the game, creating the world, the scenarios and the antagonists for my friends to face. But it still allowed me to explore very different, less heroic, tales of drama, heartache, and brutal violence. As a history student I was enjoying delving into the backstory of Vampire, and piecing together my own lore (researching ideas on the internet or the library of books at home).
While a good number of the themes in Vampire worked for me, I also felt a little late to the party for it, because I am a Millennial. And this is partly why I ultimately found Vampire the Requiem a stronger fit, and subsequently Vampire the Masquerade 5th edition.
I found Vampire the Masquerade was heavily rooted in the fear of the coming millennium and the dramatic changes that would happen. That final frenzied fight between childer and elder before the clock struck midnight. This was critical to the fear of the approaching Gehenna and the end of the world in the game. But for me, the millennium did not change things so dramatically. If anything the millennium just meant more of the same shit. Not a bang, but a slow grind to some shitty end. To steal a Gibson quote and rework it; The end of the world is not evenly distributed.
This feeling of this slow grind is why Vampire the Requiem struck me. One of the core themes was that vampires existed under the crushing bleakness of ennui. Elders came and went, and childer were made and destroyed. But no matter how much the faces of those in power changed, the same world persisted. Not being beholden to some metaplot, and the way the books were written in the past, it was much easier for me to construct MY World of Darkness, MY Manchester by Night, and MY lore. Gone was the near binary conflict of Masquerade and now there was this mess of conflict that Requiem allowed.
And so that is how I gamed for a long time. Not touching the Old World of Darkness unless I was a player.
And then the 5th edition came about.
Gone was the old order. Sacred cows were killed. Things taken for granted were now in doubt. Into this space, it felt like a fresh opportunity to tell my own stories, and move away from the old power dynamics. And for that reason, it was easy to port over my idea and plots from Requiem. It was pretty obvious what bits of Requiem were in the 5th edition. You could spot the DNA.
Since World of Darkness: Berlin, just 4 years ago (my podcast Darker Days Radio was the official podcast for the event), I have published some free scenarios for V5, recorded a lot of podcast material about it, written articles, run demo games at conventions and helped sell books, and written for V5 on Children of the Blood. Vampire has a special place in my hobby history and will do for some time.
Comments