Hey everyone.

I'm new here so I thought I'd introduce this new blog.
I'll be writing short pieces on all kinds of games. Reviews, opinion pieces and the like.

To kick us off I'd like to jot down a few thoughts I have on the newest version of the pen and paper role playing game Vampire: the Masquerade by White Wolf publishing.

After White Wolf got acquired by Swedish strategy game developer Paradox Interactive from the Icelandic CCP games (Eve online), they made clear their intention to not let the accompanying World of Darkness IP sit idly.

The first thing they released was the revamp of the horror RPG Vampire: the Masquerade, one of the most successful role playing games ever released.
They updated both the system and the metaplot. I will be talking shortly about the former since metaplot is really something that only influences each game as much as the storyteller wants it to.

The 2 biggest changes I will mention are how disciplines work, that's what they call the unique powers that vampires possess, and the new hunger system.

Disciplines have been made quite a bit more flexible in this new system. Instead of getting a certain power for each point you assign to the discipline you now have a choice of various abilities tied to it. The other big change here is that some disciplines have been merged with others, reducing the total number, and/or made as, what they call, amalgam powers where you need to have a a certain level of more than 1 discipline to be able to gain them.

The hunger system is where it really gets fun. The new system is way more dynamic than previous versions and your hunger level genuinely matters in everything you do and will and should influence your actions. Each level of hunger replaces a die on all skill or discipline rolls with a hunger die. Hunger dice make things very interesting. Whereas normal dice give you the chance to score criticals and fumbles, if those were to be scored on a hunger die they would be messy criticals and bestial failures. That is where you either fail or succeed but the beast kicks in and does the driving, if only for a second.

For me personally, this iteration of the game is the best one yet and these 2 points are mostly why. There are other smaller tweaks that do work as well but I'd say you should give this game a go whether you've played previous versions or are new to the World of Darkness or even to role playing games in general.

By all means tell us your thoughts in the comments and happy gaming!