Product Review
A Farmer works hard. He’s
plowing his lord’s field. But other worries
are on his mind. His only daughter has vanished. And
he knows the reason. He fears the truth. Below the
lord’s manor, there lives one of the nightly
bloodsuckers. Although the word vampyr is not yet
in usage, he knows such creatures exist, but he knows
he can do nothing. One day, he reasons, humans will
make a stand against those horrible creatures…
but not yet.
Vampire the Masquerade was the first
and most successful RPG (or Storytelling Game, as
they call them) White Wolf put in the market. By 1998,
it was already in its second edition, but the creative
minds of the small Atlanta publishing firm devised
a new idea. What if every game line they published
would get its own “alternate setting”?
It was like a “what if?” or “elseworld”
concept, and the first one was, again, Vampire, and
its setting was probably the best.
Vampire: the Dark Ages takes the
(second edition, non-revised) Storyteller System and
takes our beloved 13 clans into the 1100s and 1200s,
yes, Dark Ages is a misnomer.
For those not in the know, in White
Wolf’s “World of Darkness” setting
(a world not unlike our own, but a lot darker), vampires
are divided in families, called “Clans”.
Every clan present in Vampire: the Masquerade appears
here, save for the Giovanni, who didn’t exist
yet. In their place we meet the Cappadocian, the Clan
that was destroyed to give the birth to the “necromancers”.
Also, “Dark Ages” occurs before the dreaded
“burning times” of the Inquisition, so,
vampires are not as shy as in the present, and haven’t
even devised a “masquerade” yet. In “Dark
Ages”, you can portray a vampire at the time
they were lords over the humans, and when they just
didn’t care. This maintains White Wolf’s
trend of editing games where you play powerful supernaturals
in a world filled with moral grays, and not “blacks”
or “whites”.
Let’s cut through it and review
the book, section by section.
Chapter One: Introduction pretty
much does what its title implies. A very superficial
glimpse on the world and setting, and on the game.
It starts with a very interesting piece of fiction,
in the form of a letter from a friar to his superior,
who happens to be a little bit more than a regular
bishop… We are told a little bit about everything,
and there’s a very handy and useful Lexicon
of vampire terms.
Chapter Two: Setting gives us a
much deeper look into the dark ages and the society
of vampires, their six Traditions and the sects at
that time. Some of them have survived to our times,
like the Inconnu and the Manus Nigrum (a.k.a. The
Black Hand). We learn that, at this time, vampires
refer to themselves as Cainites (as do the Sabbat
—the second most powerful sect in the present—
in our days) and not as Kindred.
Chapter Three: Clans shows us the
state of each Clan in the dark ages, from the dreaded
Assamite assassins to the Ventrue patricians, and
we are introduced to the mysterious and now-extinct
Cappadocian clan. Then, there’s a deeper look
on each one and their current practices, and a short
word on the clanless Caitiff (vampires of very low
standing in Cainite society).
Chapter Four: Character contains
the rules on how to build your alter-ego in the Vampire
world, and most traits. It’s pretty thorough,
and it details the backgrounds (things and people
from your past that can be useful in the future),
and the non-Discipline powers, among other interesting
info.
Chapter Five: Disciplines covers
the wide range of vampiric powers (called Disciplines
by the leeches) and their multiple uses. Of course,
not all the available Disciplines are covered here,
but the most common and those indigenous to the major
clans. Yes, most White Wolf products have the drawback
of requiring you to buy every last sourcebook and
supplement to be able to get all the info you need,
together. A healthy rule for this is to use your own
imagination and buy only the stuff that really appeals
to you, not the whole catalogue.
Chapter Six: Rules, is, as comes
pretty obvious, the rule section of our corebook.
It’s rather short, but it covers the general
aspects of the original Storyteller System. Every
White Wolf RPG uses the Storyteller System (there
are three versions, but all of them are very similar),
which uses D10s and every trait is counted in dots,
much like a film review. It’s one of the easiest
and most intuitive systems I have ever known, and
it’s designed to ease roleplaying and storytelling
(GM’ing) instead of blocking it with countless
tables and critical die rolls.
Chapter Seven: Systems takes on
where “Rules” left off. You learn about
combat, experience, and other “hack and slash”
favourites, and other useful things to run your game.
There’s a comic-like, very appealing example
of the rules in action.
Chapter Eight: Storytelling is the
“GM” section of our corebook, it details
mostly how to tell a story, how to run a game and
all that jazz. I never get tired of reading these
sections, because each and every one of them can add
something to your knowledge on running games, and
so you can improve your “skill” at it.
Chapter Nine: Antagonists informs
us about the many threats the dark ages vampire faces,
night to night. Werewolves, human hunters, Demons,
Faeries and a long list of bizarre extravaganza. We
know them from the other Storyteller Games…
Finally, the Appendix contains the
list of Merits and Flaws, a mechanical way to improve
and deepen your character, plus a list of dark ages
equipment and costs, not in gold but in “resources
dots needed”.
So, all in all this is it, one of
the best corebooks, in my humble opinion, White Wolf
has ever published. Apparently, they’ll edit
a Revised edition for this one, which will bear the
name of Dark Ages: Vampire. For now, this is just
a project. I don’t know how soon this will hit
the shelves of the bookstores, but it’s guaranteed
to take the setting a little more into the 1200s and
bring a fresh look on the line. Let’s see what
they bring us. I must say one last thing. I have said
before that I didn’t like it that one ‘must’
buy the sourcebooks. What I didn’t say, is that
most Dark Ages supplements are a very interesting
read and very elegant and well done.
That said, I leave you to keep on
surfing the web and look for other interesting RPG
info.
Reviewed by Matías Timm |
