This is definitely one of my favourite RPGs, I love it. And that’s not due to a long running fondness since it’s release, in fact I only first played it I’d say about two years ago, and only played from start to finish about a year ago. It came out in 2004 so I don’t think my appreciation can be attributed to the nostalgia goggles. It’s a video-game based of off the LARP by the same name (less “Bloodlines” that is). One I’ve never played but hey if anyone knows of any groups…
You’re in-game stats screen resembles the LARP character sheet with dots filled in to show your proficiency in skills, stats and disciplines. It’s a vampire RPG as you would probably guess but one of the cool things about it is that it’s not a one vampire-type fits all game, nor is it a game of one vampire fitting into the world but a game of many vampiric bloodlines and the politics of the night. As you start the game you can either simply choose your character bloodline (aka clan) or, and this is something I really like and would like to see more of in games, you can take a quiz to see which of the seven playable clans to which you would be most akin.
Each clan having different disciplines which is their main defining aspect (or appearance should you be so unfortunate to be sired by clan Nosferatu) but each of the bloodlines may be known to generally lean to one political group over another, though that isn’t set in stone for your character. Yeah, you can (and will have to) choose a group to fall in with eventually, the main two being the Camarilla, the ‘main’, global sect of vampires, with their own strict rules for protecting The Masquerade, and the Anarchs, who don’t want to be told what to do, they don’t want to break the Masquerade but they don’t want strict rules surrounding it. Well really, they just don’t want the Camarilla telling them what to do, see, the Camarilla have only recently tried to envelope the area (Los Angeles) into the sect.
The Masquerade is the effort to keep the existence of vampires hidden from Kine (humans) as a whole, and those who become a risk to the Masquerade won’t remain on the good side of many people as they will instead opt to deal with you in the standard way, calling a bloodhunt. You don’t want that.
If you are accidentally caught feeding however, there are a few opportunities to earn a masquerade redemption by cleaning up messes by others that may have led to the outing of the Kindred (vampires). Feeding can be fun, I don’t know why I find it so entertaining to sneak up on an innocent security guard, then wrapping my legs around him as I drink that sweet blood! Actually, to be fair, you don’t have to kill when feeding, an in fact that may be a masquerade violation if you’re in a non-combat area… In a combat situation though, I’d highly recommend it, not only do you restore blood points to use abilities but you also regain a lot of health while doing it. That along with your active abilities and the fact that the limbs of your victims may fly in all directions when you kill them, well you can really understand why the Kine are seen as inferior.
You are no doubt stronger than most Kine, as a fresh face in the world of the undead however, there are still plenty of threats to contend with. Mostly in the form of other vampires but they can come in other forms too, such as vampire-hunters, werewolves and the hideous flesh golems crafted by the Tzimsce, a vampire sect, of, well, monsters (it has to be bad if a vampire see it as a monster!). You only encounter a werewolf once in the game but it handles the comparative of werewolf and vampire right, a vampire can not take a werewolf in a straight-up one-to-one fight, it’s twice if not thrice the size of your character and your objective is to survive until you can run away.
The flesh golems, which I don’t think are called that in game but you’re told of the Tzimisce’s proclivity for fleshweaving so I’d say the term suits. Become a plot pint a bit into the game. They’re creepy as hell when you’re introduced to them in a plot about a horror film of a girl being killed by monsters, but the tape is real, so are the monsters…
Though the game isn’t necessarily a horror game, it can be incredibly eerie with its uneasy atmospheres, I can’t think of another game that has felt so eerie in the same way. When I think of that I always think of a specific point in the game (though further recollection reminds me there are several spooky points) – at one point you’re tasked to deal with a ghost problem at hotel and the way the whole ‘scene’ is sequenced always seems to have me on edge, and I could simply say some of the events but I don’t think “girl screams” really does it justice.
The music is fantastic, with several nightclubs about the place the tunes are thematically tantalising throughout. The title theme music is terrific too. Hmm, that was, yeah, not only can you own the dancefloor in these clubs, but you can also find it a god place to drink assuming you are seductive enough…
Actually, you know what? It’s not simply one of my favourite RPGs but one of my favourite games.
