Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

[Clockwork]

I think I've slowly come to the conclusion that Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is the best game ever. It's a proper RPG with themes and narrative as well as lore. It touches on multiple subjects both implicitly and explicitly in a non-contrived manner, just as part of how the narrative is. All this could be with any skin they choose, it'd could work as well in a sci-fi game or medieval theme but instead in a modern setting with an unnatural twist makes it all the more directly relevant. The game is atmospheric from the start with a great choice in voice acting (Billy West, Fry from Futurama) for one of the central characters while a good script keeps the exposition concise. The game at launch was fraught with bugs and problems but now devs and fans have patched it to a state where it runs brilliantly and as such its following has increased over the years.



This is one game that I believe would really benefit from a remastered edition: bug fixes properly incorporated, a new coat of paint, some pixels ironed and animations lubricated. Or whatever a remastering does.


Why now Rob? How does it possibly help to discuss an 11 year old game? Well, Paradox bought the right to create new White Wolf games (which includes World of Darkness, which includes Vampire: The Masquerade, among other things) and are (apparently) set on using its potential. This happened a couple of months ago (oct 2015) and I'm looking forward to seeing what Paradox produces.

[Clockwork]

Roleplayed a type of character I rarely choose, loudmouth asshat with great hacking skills, and it's taken me down new paths I've never seen before in this game.

Spoiler

A formerly-incestuous, patricidal, split-personality vampire baroness killed one of her selves as I encouraged them to fight each other.

I stole charity money because it would only be going into some other vamps pockets anyway, I've killed various people just for kicks, draining them dry instead of showing restraint. My vampire-bitch is one hell of a fighter too, destroyed maybe 8 or 9 human gang members along with 2 vampires in a single fight using super-speed and inhuman strength.


Most of the time I RP a vamp trying to worm his/her way up vamp society. Sometimes I play as a no-bullarmadillo mage, sometimes as a lunatic (literal, the malkavians have an entirely different dialogue script than any of the other clans) laughing at the world as I play deadly practical jokes or take just actions without rhyme or reason. Other times I'm a smooth talking seductor/tress vampire, using his/her powers to charm/enthrall humans, ghouls and other vamps alike.


I love the amount of ways to play this game. Even though I know the story back to front, know how to do each mission as meta/powergamey as possible I still love just creating a role and sticking to it and this game allows so much of that.


Each clan has a different personality and within that you can take a standard route or you can go against what the clan stereotype is. In short there are 2 fighter clans - Gangrel and Brujah, 2 diplomatic clans - Ventrue and Toreador, 1 stealth clan - Nosferatu, 1 mage - Tremere and 1 aforementioned lunatic who is a bit stealth and a bit mage - Malkavian.


The asshat-loudmouth-computer geek I created is a Brujah but I've also made a Ventrue paladin type character with great combat and decent persuasion, a gangrel combat monster who turns into a wolf-thing, a lunatic who can sense objects nearby, a Toreador speedster, a Tremere who is lousy at magic but pretty decent at charming. I'm not a fan of the Nosferatu all that much but I did a playthrough as one and even getting around town is a different experience because they're physically deformed it would 'break the masquerade' if they're seen above ground. You have to use the sewers to get around everywhere and mentally mapping where each of the exits leads to is a lot of fun.


Goddamn I love this game so much.

[Silver Wolf]

Oh so there's a possibility of seeing a new VtM?
I'd very much like to see that.

Anyways, I've played both the video game and a few sessions of VtM.
It's one of the best role playing games ever made.

Malkavians for the win.

[Clockwork]

Paradox isn't being definitive over what they're making, just that they have the WoD license. There's a possibility of a new VtM but it could just as easily be Mage imo and Werewolf as least likely.


Malk so good


EDIT: I really want a vampire game that spans like a thousand years or something and getting to 'the end' is super difficult and more likely you'll be dusted somewhere along the line. One life one save style gameplay. But also the main appeal of VtM is modern day vamping so I'd be ok with pretty much bloodlines 2 as well.

[Lady Grey]

I've never played of, or even heard of this before, but it sounds really cool

[Clockwork]

It's just my favourite. A guy called Wesp5 is still creating unofficial patches for it, I think it's up to version 9.7? If you do get a chance to play the game, download that to make it work properly on any operating system after XP.