[RPG]: Vampire: The Requiem, reviewed by C.W.Richeson (4/3)

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12374.phtml

Christopher W. Richeson's Summary:

Vampire: The Requiem presents a dark, personal take on vampires that explores morality, regret, and what it means to be human.

Go to the full review for more information.

[Rev_Pee_Kitty]

I've flipped through the books and picked up the free intro adventure and guidebook that my FLGS had at the counter, but none of that really gave me an idea of how the game worked and what its real themes were. I'm sad to see that I didn't misread or misunderstand the rule that two vampires have to roll to avoid Frenzying from the awful stress of actually meeting each other -- sheesh. I like a lot of the concepts, but it sounds like I'd want to merge the things I like from this game with a lot of stuff from the old V:TM.

Anyways, thank you for the wonderfully in-depth and well written review.

[C.W.Richeson]

Sure thing, Rev_Pee_Kitty. For what it's worth I don't like certain aspects of V:tR and find it easy to ignore them or substitute my own changes. Since the whole thing is just an extension of the World of Darkness system it's easy to take a tool kit approach to the mechanics and just not include some things.

[SigmaOmega]

Great review. Reviews of WW books tend to get tangled up in the lexicon employed in the book and are frequently confusing. You did a good job explaining the distinction between the Clans, the Covenants, and the Bloodlines.

I don't suppose you'd be willing to review the new edition of Mage at some point? Reading the other reviews of that book posted here, it sounded like the game had replaced the old nine sphere system with the five paths, which was a major turn-off for me. I was in a game store recently and discovered that the spheres remain more or less in tact (though there are now ten). I would really appreciate a review like this that spells out the mechanics of the game and lets me know what other baggage comes with the core rules.

[C.W.Richeson]

Hi Sigma,

Being asked by a forum member to review something is the highest compliment I could be paid in my book, so i'll consider it in the future. Right now I have Promethean and a few others on the way, so it would likely be at least a month.

Originally Posted by SigmaOmega

I don't suppose you'd be willing to review the new edition of Mage at some point?

[theCimmerian]

C.W. Richeson,
I just wanted to add my thanks for the review. It was very thorough, and helpful.

I was mostly uninterested in the product before. I'm somewhat interested now.

[Travire]

Can I just ask - why do you need the World of Darkness rulebook as well as the Vampire rules ?

Is it just for the background, or are there some basic rules you need from there ?

[theCimmerian]

Originally Posted by Travire

Can I just ask - why do you need the World of Darkness rulebook as well as the Vampire rules ?

Is it just for the background, or are there some basic rules you need from there ?

With the new edition of World of Darkness, the core rules are in the World of Darkness book and the setting specific rules are in each add-on book - Werewolf: the Forsaken, Vampire: the Requiem, Promethean: the Created, and so forth.

In the older editions, a lot of information was repeated between books. So for example, Vampire: the Masquerade and Werewolf: the Apocalypse both had sections on basic skills, combat, and equipment. If you only had one of the books, that was fine. If you owned both, it was just a waste to have the same information twice.