Vampire 5e preview

This is going to be a brief first impression of the new pre-alpha Vampire: the Masquerade 5th edition playtest rules which I downloaded this morning.

For the record, the original 1991 edition of Vampire: the Masquerade was a much-loved RPG for me and my friends.  I ran it a lot in the early 90's and played a fair amount, too.  The VSd6 engine that makes Kort'thalis Publishing games go is a hybrid of V:tM and Star Wars D6.

Right from the start, the text is readable which is good.  The opening defines this game as a storytelling game of personal and political horror.  I would not have chosen that word to describe the game.  Especially right now, that word "political" is so super-charged with a lot of things going on that you may as well throw in "Trump," "Obamacare," and "radical Muslim jihadist" as well.

There are some things I like, such as breaking down the 9 attributes into three: physical, social, and mental... with specialties.  Honorable mention - succeeding at a cost.

There are some things I dislike, such as removing the special properties of 1's and 10's, as well as, making all successes 6+.  I suppose it helps with "taking half" because it's 50/50 per die rolled, but scaling the difficulty higher or lower depending on circumstances was something I really loved about the original Vampire: the Masquerade.

There are some things I love, but already know I'm going to house-rule because I don't care for how they're presented - hunger, specifically "hunger dice."  Note to game designers: call it "The Hunger," whenever possible.  Not just "hunger."  Like anyone else that's human, I get hungry.  It happens.  I eat and it goes away.  What you're trying to convey is similar, but something altogether different.  A supernatural hunger - The Hunger!  Also, it's the name of a classic and evocative 80's vampire movie.

What's my beef with the presentation?  Too much bookkeeping.  When I get time, I'll outline how I would use those red hunger dice (yes, I agree... they must be red).

And there are things I'm not yet sure about, like combat, for instance.  I need to actually run a few encounters before getting a handle on how the mechanics shake out.  Also, no one loves random tables more than I do, but I'm just not sure Vampire is a random table sort of game.  The vibe seems wrong.

In conclusion, I've got to study this more and actually play the game.  If I had time, I'd love to run a Vampire: the Masquerade chronicle (if some RPG company was throwing money at me, I might be able to convince my wife that spending time/energy on RPG stuff was worthwhile).

But this version, even in its infancy, does feel like a later edition of V:tM.  And it's piqued my curiosity enough to delve deeper, so by that standard alone, I think it has accomplished one of its goals.

VS