GenCon: White Wolf Previews Revamp of Vampire: the Masquerade

White Wolf unveiled its plans for updating the popular political/personal horror game Vampire: the Masquerade; the first project that the newly rebranded team is redesigning.

White Wolf Creative Director Jess Lanzillo, lead game designer Diogo Noguiera and other members of the detailed their plans for the updated TTRPG on Thursday.

“We’re finally able to unveil that we’re working on Vampire: The Masquerade 6th Edition, and that we have a strong creative vision guiding us,” said Lanzillo in a press statement. “Never before have we been able to bring the community into a Vampire: The Masquerade project at such an early stage, and we’re confident that will help us build a line of V6 books that speaks to both new and longtime players.”

“With Vampire: The Masquerade 6th Edition, players get a faster engine that still keeps the things Vampire: The Masquerade veterans love, while removing friction,” said Noguiera in a press statement. “There’s less book-flipping, quicker NPC creation, and more mechanics that support the tension at the table. The new Nature/Beast Tracker especially creates that push-and-pull that reinforces the tone of Vampire: The Masquerade.”

The big plans that fans will need to know are that White Wolf intends to release a Player’s Guide and a Storyteller’s Guide as two separate books. All 14 clans and all three factions (Camarilla, Anarch, Sabbat) will be available for play starting on day one. No date was announced for when a release is expected, since the production process appears to be in the early stages.

When it comes to the lore, Lanzillo described the vibe as “Celebrate the New Dark Age.” While modern nights and mortals operate on hunger and extraction, vampires are better at it. The institutions that hold Kindred back (such as the Second Inquisition) are no longer as powerful as they were in the past. And the steady embrace of technology has all but allowed vampires a way into people’s homes.

Vampires are “really excited to live in a post-truth state,” Lanzillo said ominously.

The state of Kindred society has changed significantly since Fifth Edition, according to Lanzillo. The Beckoning (a mechanic that drew elder vampires away from society) is over. Camarilla society continues to abide. The Sabbat are taking on new tactics. Anarches are trying to figure out what it means for them to “win”. Clan power centers are shifting, and the Promise of 1528 (an obscure bit of lore about a treaty between the Giovanni and Camarilla) may reach its end soon.

Lanzillo teased the eventual update of Mage: The Ascension, Changeling: The Lost, and Vampire: The Dark Ages some time after the release of VTM’s 6e launch. In the meantime, Werewolf: The Apocalypse and Hunter: the Reckoning will continue to get support in their Fifth Edition variant.

Players who are interested in checking out Sixth Edition VTM can go to Demiplane right now and explore the updated rules. Only 7 of the 14 established clans are available for play. There is also an attached scenario for players to try themselves.

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Mechanical Updates for Vampire: the Masquerade 6th Edition

The big change that players may notice centers on how Vitae (the game’s terminology for vampire blood) is used. Vitae is now used to track a character’s health and the level of blood available to them. The lower the blood level, the more likely you are to Frenzy and lose control.

The game will still rely on dice pools to determine levels of success, but the difficulty presented by a Storyteller will decrease the number of dice available to a player, rather than increase the number they will need to reroll. Players can blood surge to empower their stats and powers, but that still comes with the risk of possibly losing control to the Beast as their Vitae diminishes. The one benefit is that the benefits last longer. So if a player uses something like Dominate, the spent Vitae applies to all uses of the discipline during that scene rather than each individual one.

Another big change will be around the Beast, the game’s term for the monstrous nature lingering within each vampire in the World of Darkness.

The game will use Beast and Nature to track whether players are acting humanely or monstrously. A Kindred’s type of “Beast” is set by their clan. That means that a Ventrue’s reaction to a Beast is different than a Nosferatu’s, a Toreador’s, etc. Players will also have a Nature, which is chosen freely and relates to who a player was while alive.

Speaking of customization, players will have clan traits that are distinct for each one, expanded discipline powers, lifepaths that define who their characters are, details about their sire, and a nostalgic decade.

Finally, the game will incorporate what it calls “Devil’s Bargains” and “Choose Your Pain”, which are intended to help make player failures interesting for the story rather than blocks to development.

Writer’s note: All of this is subject to change amid alpha testing and is subject to feedback from the community.

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