Vampire: The Masquerade - History

This episode we take a look at White Wolf's Vampire: the Masquerade; a groundbreaking game that put the emphasis on stroytelling and social interaction rather than combat.  Oh, and did I mention that the players took on the roles of the monsters?

This is part one of our Vampire episode - part two will feature a round table discussion where we put on our rose tinted glasses and talk about our favourite memories of the game.

Contact us at:

EMAIL: roll.to.save.pod@gmail.com
TWITTER: @savepodcast
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/rolltosavepod
WEBSITE: https://rolltosave.blog

HOST: Iain Wilson
VOICEOVER LADY: Keeley Wilson
BACKGROUND MUSIC: David Renada (Find him at: davidrendamusic@gmail.com or on his web page).
TITLE, BREAK & CLOSEOUT MUSIC: Xylo-Ziko (Find them on their web page).

Contact us at:

EMAIL: roll.to.save.pod@gmail.com
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/rolltosavepod
WEBSITE: https://rolltosave.blog

HOSTS: Iain Wilson, Steve McGarrity, Jason Downey
BACKGROUND MUSIC: David Renada (Find him at: davidrendamusic@gmail.com or on his web page).
TITLE, BREAK & CLOSEOUT MUSIC: Xylo-Ziko (Find them on their web page).

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Welcome to Roll to Save, the RPG history podcast. Vampire, the Masquerade.

SPEAKER_00: 0:24

For today's show, we're going to be putting on a truckload of black eyeliner, listening to our favourite Cure songs, and talking about Vampire the Masquerade, White Wolf's epic game about, well, vampires. Vampire was revolutionary, as not only did it cast the players as monsters, it also championed the idea of roleplaying as an art form, as a type of collaborative storytelling, where the players were just as invested in the outcomes of the tale being told, as was the person running the the game. With an initial history of 13 years, followed by a 7 year hiatus, or should we say torpor, Vampire is one of those classic games that forever changed the gaming scene. It's portrayal of vampires as modern creatures of the night, rather than frock coat wearing eastern European aristocrats, had a strong effect on the wider horror genre, even leading to a legal spat with the creators of the Hollywood blockbuster Underworld, when the creative minds at White Wolf were pointed out that they might have copied just a wee bit too much from their creation. So, without further ado, let's sink our teeth into this groundbreaking game's history.

SPEAKER_01: 1:36

Thanks for that Ian. Now let's look at the history.

SPEAKER_00: 1:43

When you look at the role-playing games released at the beginning of the 1990s, a common trend emerges. Fantasy was out and dark sci-fi was very much in. Corpse dealt with high-tech conspiracies fueled by super science and magic dueling with each other, whilst Morpheus covered a world where characters linked minds in a high-tech virtual reality simulation. I'm sure the title and the setting are a coincidence and have nothing in common with a certain famous movie franchise. Reichstar saw the Third Reich and the Empire of Japan conquering outer space before settling into a cold war with each other, kind of like the man in the high castle, but with laser guns and aliens. Rifts blasted its way onto the scene, presumably dealing mega damage in the process, and introduced us all to the Rifts megaverse, while Torg saw the players take on the roles of heroic storm knights, a royal against the extra-dimensional entities that were lining up to invade Earth. Dark conspiracies, demonic forces from beyond, enslaved aliens, and conjured up a global depression that plunged the geopolitical and economic situation into ruin, allowing the forces of the dark to slip into our world to feast and rampage. However, if you want really bleak and bold settings, Time Lords is literally set at the end of time. Big themes, big settings. Therefore, if you were a games designer at the turn of the 90s, I can picture the acid-washed jeans and flock of seagulls haircut from here, trying to conceive of THE setting for a game that would flip the gaming scene in its head, you'd probably go hog-wild with the elements that were proving popular and populate a barren, irradiated Earth with aliens, demons, Nazis and knights. What you probably wouldn't suggest as a setting would be Gary, Indiana, birthplace of the Jackson 5. Located around 25 miles from downtown Chicago, Gary borders Lake Michigan and is typical of those US rust belt cities that saw their reliance on traditional industries cause them to enter an economic death spiral from the end of World War II onwards. Yet it was this cracked and crumbling landscape with its bolded up houses, silent steel mills and crippling unemployment that that inspired a young games designer by the name of Mark Ryan Hagen to conceive of a game set in a world where such urban decay was the norm and which was caused, at least partially, by the monsters who lurked in the shadows. Foremost amongst these monsters were the vampires, creatures of cunning and passion who controlled an unsuspecting human population from the darkness. Okay, so far so dark conspiracy. In the grand scheme of things this feels pretty similar to the other settings mentioned previously. Bleak World, check. Beleaguered Populous, check. Evil Monsters, check. All we're missing now are the heroes, and that's gonna be the players, right? Wrong. Ryan Hagen's ideas were never conventional, and unlike other games designers who would simply have taken the idea and cast the players as humanity's bold defenders, he decided to flip the concept and ask the question, what would it be like to be the monster? this he didn't mean what would it be like to be a creature who can shrug off bullets move extra fast and arm wrestle mecha godzilla without breaking sweat but instead he focused on the psychology of the situation just what would it feel like to be a monster a monster that used to be human what would it be like to cling to that notion of humanity the only thing you've ever known while all the time wrestling with the monstrous predatory urges that surge within you, urges that could sometimes bubble to the surface in the most bloody and tragic ways possible. What would it be like to exist in a society of creatures like this, each battling their own inner beast? The tagline of a storytelling of personal horror was never more apt. Vampire wasn't Mark Ryan Hagen's first game though. He'd been involved in games design for many years prior to his vampiric epiphany, and perhaps the game he was best known for up to this point was Lion Rampant's Asmagica, a fantasy game set in mythic Europe which revolved around a society known as the Order of Hermes and their interactions with a world in which the supernatural and magical were very, very real. Unlike other fantasy games, this wasn't simply an RPG about a badass group of magi swarming around the countryside frying their enemies with spells. Instead, it had an extremely strong focus on storytelling, positing the idea that the players made up a troupe who took equal responsibility for the tale being told, rather than focusing on XP and loot taken from the cold, dead hands of the monsters. The idea resonated strongly with a lot of people, and two of the biggest fans were Steve and Stuart Weak, publishers of a growing RPG magazine called White Wolf. Originally dedicated, like most other magazines of the to AD&D, White Wolf increasingly focused on more independent games and, in 1988, published a glowing review of Ars Magica. The focus on storytelling was seen as particularly praiseworthy and, as a result, nearly every issue of White Wolf from that point onward saw an article dedicated to the game. Ryan Hagen had big plans for Ars Magica. He loved the concept of a series of games set in the same consistent immersive world world. He also loved the idea of being able to set Asmagica in the modern day, with magic slowly dying and the magi facing off against creatures like, amongst other things, vampires. However, it was not to be. Lion Rampant found themselves in financial hot water by the end of the 80s and it looked like Ron Hagen's dream of a multi-game world was doomed to die. Thankfully though, with the week such firm fans of the game and with a growing business that was doing extremely well, it was logical that they would offer to merge with Lion Rampant and form White Wolf Game Studio. It was this series of events that led them to be in a car together heading towards Gen Con 90 and which would lead to Ryan Hagen's vision of a world in which vampires were lurking in the shadows and which saw his desire for a series of linked games taking a different direction. You see, the journey to Gen Con took them through Gary, Indiana and, as we know, that's where the idea for Vampire was born. I have no idea what's involved in the development of a game system and the associated setting, but as a long-time GM, I know it feels like it takes forever for me to come up with an engaging adventure set in a world someone else has created. Therefore, I can't even conceive what frenzy, no pun intended, of activity must have gripped White Wolf between Gen Con 90 and the release of Vampire in 1991. Set in a world of darkness, a world generally just like ours, but more corrupt, decaying and violent, vampires saw the players take on the role of the titular monsters, stalking amongst the human population and dealing with the night-to-night perils of unlife as undead, blood-sucking monsters, the desires of the beast within and coexisting in a society of alpha predators. The masquerade in the title referred to vampire society's first and most important law, namely never making humanity at large a way of the existence of vampires, and this prohibition was a masterstroke to stop players running amok in the world of darkness. Because of the masquerade, there were no vampires wearing frilly shirts with lace cuffs and opera cloaks. The characters in this game had much more in common with those from The Lost Boys in Near Dark than they did with Dracula. These guys weren't the lost scions of noble houses living in drafty Transylvanian castles who were the one to drink your blood, but much more modern both in their out look and their aesthetic. There are some extremely evocative images by artist Tim Bradstreet that were used in both the main rulebook and the clan books of the type of vampire that peopled the world of darkness. In a recent interview for a documentary on the history of White Wolf, Tim relates that when he was asked to do those drawings, he simply called up his friends, most of whom were in a band, and asked them to pose. The documentary is called, surprise surprise, World of Darkness, and it's available on Amazon. It's well worth a watch. As well as some fantastic interior art, the cover of Vampire was a testament to the beauty of simplicity. A simple slab of green marble with a single red rose and the game's title above this instantly captured the imagination. Curiously, White Wolf had commissioned another cover by Dan Frazier which can be seen on the cover of the first edition player's guide, but it was deemed too expensive and too, generically, RPG to be used for the main book. This was a great decision and for there is no doubt that the original eye-catching cover drew a lot of people to pick up the game in the first place. The book itself includes a lot of the kind of detail you'd expect from an RPG rulebook. There's background and setting information, rules and guides to character creation, but once those are out of the way, there's an additional 120 or so pages dedicated to drama and storytelling. Whereas other games would have guides to monsters and antagonists and probably hints on writing an adventure, Vampire's focus was on creating a chronicle made up of stories that focused on character development and how the players are interacted with this emerging narrative. You won't find any treasure tables, maps, or XP guides for creatures defeated. Instead, there was information on setting the mood and tone of the story. There were suggestions on running individual preludes for the characters where they started as mortal so they could experience the daylight world and realise just what it felt like and meant to be an undead creature of the night. Guides to creating suspense and using advanced techniques such as flashbacks and foreshadowing were included, In short, it was an evolutionary leap in the role-playing hobby. This showed in the sales. Within weeks of its launch, Vampire was back to the printers for a second run. Of course, not everybody was a fan. Some magazines at the time lampooned White Wolf's style, citing the prose as purple and overwrought. There were elements of the traditionally male role-playing hobby who chafed at the use of female pronouns throughout the book. Others felt that the use of the term storytelling rather than role-playing and Storyteller instead of Games Master were pretentious. After all, wasn't this just D&D with fangs? There was also a tendency to stereotype both the characters in the game and the people who played as hand-wringing goths, burdened by their angst and wearing way too much eye makeup. Regardless of these options, the game's sales were astronomical and the player base grew exponentially. Much like the growth of D&D in the 70s, Vampire blossomed in an age before the internet was widely incumbent available and thus its popularity can be very firmly attributed to the fact that what was being done here was new, exciting and well executed. By the end of 1991, White Wolf had published, in addition to the main rulebook, eight other supplements, including guides for the storyteller and players, adventures and a couple of books, Chicago by Night and Succubus Club, that gave a sample setting. People still rave about Chicago by Night to this day, and that's because it's very clearly laid out, for the first time, how a city in Vampire the Masquerade worked. Not everyone would set their adventures in Chicago, but by using this book, it was very easy to take the framework and base your own city around it. Because let's face it, every vampire storyteller has set a game in their own city. I know I have. And this really was the beauty of the setting. Rather than having to imagine a vastly different fantasy realm populated by creatures of legend and people with folk who had names like Galondriel and who talked with faux English accents, how much easier was it to imagine your own city only worse? I know when myself and my co-host Jason planned the Vampire Chronicles set in the town we were living in, it was very easy to look at some places and say, oh yeah, that's definitely controlled by the vampires. Come 1992, and Vampire was really making a splash. It won the Origins 1992 award for the best RPG rules. Curiously, these were hosted in Milwaukee, and the same year saw the release of the second city book, Milwaukee by Night. 1992 also saw White Wolf experimenting with an idea that Mark Ryan Hagen had for Asmach many years before, namely that of combining different game lines within one cohesive world. The Hunters Hunted was released in 1992 and included rules for playing normal humans who were taken to hunting vampires. Well, I say normal humans, but this book did actually include rules for playing government agents, psychics, sorcerers and truly faithful inquisitors. The sample characters did include a normal woman out for revenge, but they also included a hunter 170-year-old ghouled witch hunter blazing with true faith, an actual vampire, a mage, a werewolf and a TV celebrity who makes a living from debunking supposed frauds, which are a far cry from vengeful housewife armed with a sharpened broom handle, a can of hairspray and a lighter. As a long-time fan of Hunter the Reckoning and its focus on the everyman, it used to always rankle me when people would say, oh I don't like Hunter with its fancy powers, I prefer Hunter's Hunted. It was much more realistic with its theme of normal people hunting the supernatural. This gripe aside, Hunters Hunted was a fun read and it showed that Mark's vision of a multi-faceted game world was possible. This was expanded upon in White Wolf's second similar release that year, Mummy, which allowed players to take on the roles of very different kinds of immortals. 1992 was also the year that White Wolf released Werewolf the Apocalypse and started a trend that would see White Wolf releasing a new game line every year for the next three years. By the end of 1992, second edition Vampire had been released, something that many long-time players still consider to be the high point of the line. With this, we also got the release of a little book called The Player's Guide to the Sabbat. Up until this point, the default setting of Vampire had always been that of a Camarilla, or Camarilla if you're being traditionally Spanish, city. The Camarilla were the sect of vampires responsible for the masquerade and who upheld the rest of the traditions. All the information in previous books about how cities worked, the hierarchies within them and the types of vampires that lived in them, these were all Camarilla. Both first and second edition include a page giving information about a rival sect of vampires known as the Sabbat, but there wasn't much information about them other than the fact that they reveled in their undead nature, engaged in some weird and questionable This book, and its companion volume, The Storyteller's Handbook to the Sabbat, were meant to change things and give us a proper look inside of the sect. The problem with these books is they did nothing but really give the Sabbat an image problem. If they were to be believed, the Sabbat was people with freaks and misfits who loved nothing more than murder, rampaging, murder, fire, and murder. Oh, and the sect was riddled with infernalists. It was their control of places like Detroit, Miami and Mexico City. They explained why these places were so awful to live in. Right, that must have been fun for a resident of those cities to read. The end of 1992 heralded the arrival of the first of Vampire's clan books. Much like each player had a class in D&D, in Vampire each character belonged to a clan, a supernatural lineage that explained what strengths, weaknesses and vampiric powers a character had. The clans also had rivalry with other clans which generated a lot of the game's political content. This series of books would explain how each clan worked, what the social and political structures were like and would offer the character creation and role-playing tips for people interested in playing a character from each clan. As a long-time storyteller for Vampire, I've made a point to own most of these, and I can honestly say, with very few exceptions, after reading each one, my mind would be going, oh, I really fancy playing one of those. They really helped drag you into any given clan's culture, and made them much more than a grab bag of vampiric stereotypes and powers. By 1993 vampire was proving unbelievably popular and an aggressive publishing schedule saw more and more books about the world of darkness falling into the hands of fans of the game clan books came rolling off the presses and droves more cities got their by night treatment and the book of nod the vampire's creation myth was published this was pure setting material there were no rules included and it provided an in-depth look at what many vampires believed was the literal truth of how they were created It was also the beginning of what became known as White Wolf's meta-plot slowly creeping into the mainstream. 1993 saw what some consider to be a slight misstep on White Wolf's part when they released Berlin by Night and included amongst the cast of the city's vampires two real-life Nazis, Hermann Goering and Heinrich Himmler. While it didn't cause a human cry in the same league as a satanic panic of the 1980s, it did raise a few eyebrows One of the most interesting decisions of this year was the release of The Masquerade, or Rules for Playing Vampire in a Live Action Environment. Now, I'm not going to go into vampire LARPing here, that'll be a separate podcast of its own, but this release slowly snowballed into an unstoppable force of its own and brought more and more people than ever into Vampire's world of darkness. Unlike other LARPs that saw people dressed like characters from Tolkien running around a muddy field, whacking each other with foam weapons, this was a game that could be played in a club or a bar. The very nature of the vampire's masquerade meant that sharp wit and pointed conversation would serve you much better than a rubber sword. Plus, it was infinitely preferable, and less socially embarrassing, to wear a suit or your best clubbing gear to a LARP than running around looking like an overweight discount Legolas. Vampire's popularity continued unabated in the mid-90s. Yes, White Wolf had released rules for playing werewolves, mages, wraiths and changelings, but none of them proved as popular as Vampire. People were eating it up so much that by 1994, White Wolf had released what can be considered the first, but most definitely not the last, Vampire merch in the form of clan pins. Whilst fun in their own right, players often used to wear these to find others who shared their love of the same game. I know that I managed to meet a few like-minded players who spotted my Lysombra pin at the Student Union and felt compelled to come over and say, hey, you play Vampire 2. It was also in 1994 that White Wolf released what could be considered one of their most controversial products. Not because it was offensive or made light of any historical tragedy, but because it was so thematically at odds with what went before. Mention Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand to most Vampire players and you'll either get a response of, man, I love that book, or a a sigh and a roll of the eyes. Dirty Secrets detailed a secret society that used another secret society as a front and which, whilst mainly vampiric, also included a hodgepodge of other supernaturals formed throughout the world of darkness. It also introduced some new bloodlines of vampires, posited conspiracies behind nearly everything and wrote in two or three shadow wars being fought on a nightly basis behind everything else that was going on at the time. The biggest complaint from detractors of this book was, what happened to the storytelling game of personal horror? Wasn't that the cornerstone of vampire, not battling against extra-dimensional horrors called things like soul eaters? Seriously, that was one of the things in this book. While White Wolf didn't specifically come out, hold up their hands and say, okay, this was a mistake, they did literally nuke the cult outlined in this book in a later publication, so we'll just leave it there. 1994 was also the year we saw White Wolf enter the collectible card game market when he licensed the rights to create a vampire-themed CCG. The result was Jihad, named after the vampire's term for the political struggle amongst their kind, and unlike other CCGs of the day that were one-on-one duels, this game was designed around multiplayer play and included politics as well as simple opponent smashing. In 1995, it changed its name to Vampire of the because, well, come on, jihad, really. And for anyone in the NSA listening to that, we are a role-playing podcast talking about a role-playing game. 1995 began with an innovation being introduced across the world of darkness lines. From this year onwards, White Wolf would designate a theme to each year, and 1995 was to be Year of the Hunter. Sadly, rather than releasing a series of publications themed around hunters, what this meant in practice was that each game line got a single book dedicated to a group that hunted the main game line's protagonists. For Vampire, this was, unsurprisingly, the Inquisition. White Wolf also introduced another innovation this year in the form of printing books under the Black Dog Game Factory imprint. Named after a company that existed in the Werewolf universe, Black Dog games were intended for mature audiences. Initially, this was surprising. After all, White Wolf had always marketed themselves as games for mature minds, and some naysayers assumed that this was simply a marketing gimmick, and that any Black Dog publications would simply be regular White Wolf publications only drenched in gore and nudity. Thankfully, the naysayers were proved wrong. Black Dog games simply dealt with subjects that needed to be handled with maturity, and which dealt with themes unsuitable for the less mature. Their first publication, an adventure called The Last Supper, saw the players take on the roles of mortals who attended a feast where, unbeknownst to them, they were to be the main course for the other guests who were all vampires. This book dealt with themes such as sadism, powerlessness and having another's will forced upon you, so it's not surprising that White Wolf choose to brand it as for mature audiences only. Handled by the immature, this game would be horrific. 1995 was a high point for the World of Darkness. They had five games in their stable and, next to TSR, were the biggest RPG company out there. Oh, and Fox were going to be producing a TV series based in Vampire with Mark Rhinehagen as the writer. Things could only get better from here, right? Unfortunately, the answer was no. Various problems had begun to hit the book trade in 1995, and over the next couple of years, the collectible card game bubble had burst. This was unfortunate, as White Wolf had put out two CCGs of their own, as well as licensing Vampire The Internal Struggle to Wizards of the Coast. In addition, apart from Vampire, their other game lines weren't selling brilliantly. Wraith had been critically acclaimed, but was almost dead in the water, pun very much intended. Worst of all, Kindred The Embraced, the Fox TV series, was a total flop and was canned after eight episodes. The producers wouldn't listen to Ryan Hayden's and ended up doing their own things thematically and story-wise. As the man himself said, the show wasn't as good as it could have been if they only had listened to me more. All of these events led to a falling out between Mark, Steve and Stuart and as a result Mark, the man who had conceived of Vampire in the first place, left White Wolf. Production continued throughout 1996 and 1997 but it was clear that a change of direction was needed. Amongst the publications during the These years were various reprinted books and compilations of older material. The change of direction came in 1998 with the launch of a revised edition of Vampire the Masquerade. Unlike previous editions, this one was far more focused on metaplot, meaning the ongoing backstory that White Wolf was weaving through the whole tapestry of the world of darkness. Beforehand, White Wolf were keen to give you the history of the setting and leave it at that. Now? Now they were making changes that could affect your games. Examples of this over the years to follow included the Gangrel clan leaving the Camarilla, the true Black Hand being literally nuked, and the Ravenos clan being almost extinguished in a fratricidal orgy of bloodshed known as the Week of Nightmares. Now, whilst I, and a great many players, had no problem with the Ravenos being wiped out, there was a genuine gripe from a lot of players that White Wolf had, intentionally or not, introduced an arms race into their games by focusing on metaplot. Many storytellers have examples of players turning up to games with the latest and greatest supplements, pointing at a change that the storyteller was unaware of and asking to introduce that into their game. However, on the flip side, the metaplot was exciting. Nobody likes a static setting and it was great to see White Wolf breathe unlife back into their world with the introduction of changes that would affect the global seen. They also made a point of saying, look, this is just our thing, if you don't want to do it, don't. However, there was always the caveat of, of course, later supplements will take these events into consideration. Along with the release of Revised Edition, White Wolf released guides to both the Sabbat and the Camarilla. As mentioned previously, the Sabbat had needed an image makeover for a while, and this book was exactly that. Gone were the demon summonings, in fact the Sabbat as a whole were dead against them, the mindless rampaging and the being freaky just for the sake of being freaky. Instead, we have a sect of inhuman vampires that behaved the way they did not because they were the bad guys but because they were trying to stave off a vampiric apocalypse and saw the Camarilla as just the sort of saps who were enabling it. They didn't attack Camarilla cities because they liked flipping cars and scaring mortals, rather they wanted to get at the elders who they knew were the lay with the really scary older vampires who were going to awaken soon and eat everyone. The rituals were detailed and it was clear that, much like zealots in their own world, they fulfilled the purpose of reinforcing the members' beliefs, ensuring their rot loyalty and strengthening the sect, usually in the most Erwinian way possible. It was a complete breath of fresh air. I remember devouring this book when I got it and thinking, wait, so the Sabbat are the good guys? Guys, I also more or less instantly set about planning a sabacc game of my own. As the millennium approached, White Wolf started publishing their clan novel saga. Set over 13 books, one for each clan, this epic dealt with the unlifes of dozens of vampires and the impact of a major sabacc crusade across the east coast of the USA. The very first book in the series, clan novel Toreador, caused everyone reading it to double take at the very end. All that meta-plot advancing that I mentioned beforehand? Well, the end of this book saw it advance in the most gigantic and frightening way possible. I remember a friend lending it to me and saying, not wanting to spoil things, but the Sabbat were right. Remember how I earlier mentioned that White Wolf decided that each year would have a theme? The year 2000 was designated as the Year of Revelations, with a fallout from the previous year's reckoning which saw, amongst other things, the progenitor of the Ravenos clan awakening and destroying most of his filthy clan, in case I haven't mentioned it, would be addressed. However, taking a look back at what was released that year, it could very well be entitled The Year of Merchandising Opportunities. Among the quote-unquote goodies released for fans were candles, letterheads for each of the clans, a chess set, camera lens sabbat pieces for the chess set, tattoos, flasks, clan t-shirts, clan stickers, clan sweatshirts, a CD-ROM of various utilities and the first ever Vampire the Masquerade video game, Redemption. Praise for the game is mixed. I remember buying it and enjoying it but it felt much more like a generic PC RPG like Diablo which just happened to have vampires as the main characters. A lot of the tabletop game's background is outright abandoned. For example, one of the Camarilla's most important rules is the Sixth Tradition, which says that you won't kill other vampires. Anyone who has ever played Redemption will know that you are pretty much knee-deep in dead vampires throughout the course of the game. 2001 and 2002 rolled along with many, many publications coming out. When New York by Night was released shortly after the horrors of 9-11, White Wolf showed some very sensitivity and maturity by including in their introduction a note saying that they weren't going to crowbar in the events of that dreadful day and try to pin it on some conspiracy of supernatural creatures. Doing so, they said, would be the height of insensitivity. They also pointed out that by not including the events of 1911 in their book, they were not intending to denigrate what happened through omission, but rather they were maintaining a respectful silence. A mature and well-considered By the end of 2002, it was clear that White Wolf was beginning to struggle for inspiration when it came to supplements. They'd already released two books about blood sorcery that read very much like D&D spellbooks, and an Encyclopedia Vampirica, which was, well, an encyclopedia, which referenced characters and places from everything that had been released for Vampire up until that point. However, I remember when Havens of the Damned was released, a friend of mine asking what next, favourite cars of the undead? What could they do to keep things interesting? White Wolf clearly played by the law of go big or go home because in 2003 they announced the time of judgement where they were going to end the world of darkness. Yes, they were killing all of their game lines. Gehenna, the vampire Apocalypse was going to get its own sourcebook in 2004. This wasn't entirely unprecedented. White Wolf did the same for Wraith in 1999 with the release of Ends of Empire which killed off that game line. But Wraith didn't have Vampire's popularity and more importantly it wasn't White Wolf's cash cow. Other game designers were scratching their heads in wonder and horror and settled down with all the glee of rubberneckers at a massive pile up to find out what was going to happen next. Fans of the game were incredulous, shocked and excited, sometimes all at the same time, and braced themselves for what to come. White Wolf did a great job of building up to this momentous event. Over the course of 2003, a series of Time of Judgment books were released for each of the major game lines, sometimes crossing over to show the world of darkness slowly falling apart. They also put a news ticker on their website that included, from mid-July onwards, daily up that showed the rapidly disintegrating state of their universe. The vampire's masquerade was crumbling. Werewolves were preparing for the final battle. Mages found reality constricting. Demons were drawing up battle lines and hunters, well, hunters were having the biggest of we told you so moments. So it was, on January the 14th, 2004, after 13 years of continuous publication, that Vampire the Masquerade came to a bloody and fiery end with the Gehenna Sourcebook. I can still remember rushing out to get it on the day it was released and reading as much as I could in a single setting and I genuinely liked what was there. It was sad seeing one of my favourite games ending but this was a very, very fitting ending. I won't spoil the contents of the book, there are people out there that would have read it and it is a fun read but I was left thinking, yep I'm okay with that. Besides, White Wolf had already been promising a brand new world of darkness. Like all other vampire players out there I was awaiting this Vampire the Requiem with bated breath but I'm not ashamed to say I was a naysayer from day one. I had seen what had been teased to the pensive vampire loving public and I didn't like it. This wasn't brand new it was a reskinned version of Masquerade. I was happy to be proved wrong though and like many many others I bought the rulebook as soon as it was released. I won't lie it was pretty It also sold in truckloads. It just didn't do anything for me. The whole background was an amalgamation and reworking of various Masquerade concepts, all peppered with, ah, nobody can remember what happened in the past, so just make it all up. I tried playing a game, even stuck with it for a few sessions, but it felt like Masquerade only gutted of everything that made it come alive. Yet vampires aren't alive, I know, stop being pedantic, you know what I mean. After that, I abandoned it, but wasn't so surprised when a 20th anniversary edition of Vampire the Masquerade was published in 2011. Nor was I surprised when they continued to publish supplements for it as it was proving popular. Vampire is now in its fifth edition. I'm guessing the 20th anniversary edition counts as the fourth and I haven't played it yet but from what I've read and understand it's a continuation of classic Masquerade but with new mechanics. Reviews so far seem fairly mixed but I'll keep an open mind until I've actually played it. It's very difficult to understate the impact Vampire made on the gaming scene. Back in the early 90s things were slowly moving away from the classic fantasy dungeon crawls to a far more open style of play but Vampire was the first game to my mind to really focus on the social aspect of play over combat. It encouraged character arcs and personality development rather than the accumulation of powers although I know plenty of Vamp players who would totally in it for the cool powers. Most of all though, it will be remembered as the first mainstream game to stand up and say this is about the story, not the system. It encouraged players to be as invested in the tale being told as the storyteller was. It encouraged those thinking of writing scenarios to focus on mood, theme and the how of storytelling, rather than which rooms had traps and monsters in them where the treasure was to be found. In short, it encouraged a different style of play. Was it a better style of play? No, not at all. But it did show players and GMs you weren't constrained to one style of play. Not bad for a brainwave prompted by a trip to America's Rust Belt. That's probably why the city of Gary gets a dedication in the first edition. I

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don't know about you, but I feel a little bit drained after all that.

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And that was Vampire the Masquerade A Brief History. We hope you enjoyed it. Tune in to the next part of this episode to hear us rambling on about our memories of the game. We're a podcast about old school roleplaying games and if you enjoyed this episode please get in touch with us on Twitter at Save Podcast or email us at role.to.save.pod at gmail.com You can also find us on Facebook by If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to leave us a review on your podcast directory of choice. We really appreciate them and it really helps us with visibility. Thanks again for listening.