“But first, on earth as vampire sent,
Thy corpse shall from its tomb be rent,
Then ghastly haunt thy native place,
And suck the blood of all thy race.
There from thy daughter, sister, wife,
At midnight drain the stream of life,
Yet loathe the banquet which perforce
Must feed thy livid living corpse.
Thy victims ere they yet expire
Shall know the demon for their sire,
As cursing thee, thou cursing them,
Thy flowers are withered on the stem.”
― Lord Byron
Vampire: The Masquerade was first released in 1991 by White Wolf Publishing, which was the springboard to a very long run releasing quite a few titles all set in their collective World Of Darkness. The zeitgeist of the early nineties, industrial and punk music and fashion, dark comics and anti-heroes, the game hit a nerve and sold like wildfire. Since the inception of tabletop roleplaying, Vampire: The Masquerade, the World of Darkness and the underlying Storyteller System is easily one of the top 5 in sales of all time. It’s influence went beyond the tabletop game, expanding into card games, computer games and even a short lived TV series. It was also key to the launch of Live Action Roleplaying (LARPing) in general.
Vampire is a pretty big deal.
So with the release of a 5th edition of the rules, a lot of attention was payed to the launch. Some people lauded it, while others reviled it. There was controversy. The original line lasted from 1991 up until 2004, when various new settings and rules changes were implemented. At one point a 20th anniversary was also released, but the core system and setting, with all the trappings that it added to the entire genre of vampires… the embrace, kindred, Camarilla, clans, the fight for humanity…. Hadn’t been truly relaunched until early 2018.
Here we are, two years later by the time of this writing, and this newest version of the original Vampire game has finally made its way to Fantasy Grounds. And that is also a pretty big deal. The print version of this edition is gorgeous. The art, the writing, the layout. It is one of the most well put together RPG books to ever be released. Even it’s detractors agree with that sentiment. And while there are purist who would still choose the second edition of the game over the new dice mechanics of the 5th edition, the differences aren’t as dramatic as some of the other past iterations of World of Darkness titles have been. With very few modifications, pretty much all older material can be run using the new system.
So of the truly big RPG systems out there, 4 of them now live within Fantasy Grounds. And adding Vampire alongside Call of Cthulhu, both of the truly classic horror games can now be played virtually. That is not to say there aren’t some considerations however, both good and bad.
Theater of the Mind
V:TM has always been a storytelling system first and foremost. It is right in the core name of the original system, the Storyteller System. This then evolved into the Story Telling system. Now, the system doesn’t really have a separate name, and it borrows ideas from both the previous incarnations. But the focus is still very much story. The focus is interaction, and not as much combat. Combat is much better in this newer version, but one of the honest criticisms of the World of Darkness in general was always a weak combat system.
As the focus of an automated system like Fantasy Grounds is handling the mechanics of combat, a game system with less focus on combat is going to need less automation. So the FG implementation of V:TM has less automation and combat/inventory tracking than other game systems might have. The automation required is certainly there however.
Also, a theater of the mind type of game has less focus on maps and miniatures, and more focus on Non-Player Character interactions and detailed back stories. This can in no way be automated, so when we start creating a character, we will be typing out a lot more content than in some other systems. Certainly, there is a lot we can drag and drop, but the actual work of creating a character with your Storytellers help is going to involve quite a bit more note typing.
With all that in mind, let’s start the process of making a character for Vampire : the Masquerade 5th Edition.
The Interface
The actual game rules module, the artwork and layout, is all very clean and clear for V:TM. When you first launch into a session with the rule set loaded, you will see nice full color pictures for the menus on the right-hand side, and windows you open have some transparency showing the desktop logo through them. You may need to click on the Library menu item first, on the bottom right of the screen, and ensure the Vampire ruleset is open and ready to go.
If it isn’t open, none of your other menu items will likely populate any information. When you click on this you will notice that the icon you select has a nice blood slash across it. Nice little thematic touch to this ruleset.
The next thing to do is to go ahead and click on the Character menu item, which will be at the top left of your Menu buttons. This will open the character select screen, and from here we can hit the green plus symbol at the bottom right to add an item, in this case the item being our blank character sheet.
The Character Sheet
Before we actually start making our character, let’s take a look at the actual character sheet item/module we now have open. The majority of the information you need to play your character exists on this first tab that opens up, the Main tab. This tab is the most automated during character creation. The Name, Concept and Blood Resonance will all have to be hand typed of course, but almost everything else will be a matter of dragging items in from a list. As of the time of this posting, there have already been multiple changes to the layout, colors and features of the following screens. When it is important, we will try to keep the most up to date screen possible in this posting, but older versions shouldn’t impact the steps or usability.
The very bottom of this tab has an important bar however, it is a status bar for your character during play. From left to right there is a toggle for Frenzy, Impaired, Your Hunger level (Hunger Dice), Rouse Mend and finally a Surge button. For now we aren’t covering what those mean within the game rules, but know that the character sheet has them right across the bottom to easily change their status while playing.
The next tab on the Character is the Other tab. This is the tab you will use second most while playing, as it houses your Vampires special abilities (called Disciplines), any rituals known, your banes, your Touchstones and Convictions, and more. This is mostly stuff you type in while working with your Storyteller, including the critical selection of what Generation your Vampire is and their Blood Potency. While on this tab, also notice that the status icons on the bottom of the character don’t go away.
The third tab is Inventory and tracks, you guessed it, your stuff. It also lists your haven and has the area where your experience is managed. The fourth, and last tab, is Notes. Other than Languages, pretty much every item on the Notes tab is just a container to type into. These last two tabs are important for sure, but during character creation almost all our attention will be focused on the first two tabs. The Main and Other tabs.
Steps to Create a Character
There is no actual guideline within the character sheet as to how to create said character. For that we need to look toward the reference manual. Clicking on Library shows each section of the rules that is available to open as a module or list. This is one way to reference your Clans, your Predator type, Items to add to your inventory and various other selectable and draggable items. Some items, as of the time of this writing, exists in this list and do not have a button option for the right side of the main screen. As we move forward with the creation of our character, know that you can find links to these lists and tables throughout the rules. Sometimes it will be a button on the right, other times this rules list may be more helpful. And those items may change in the future as this ruleset gets updates and improvements. We will list the tables we need here, but just assume that we can ‘find it’ wherever it may be and not focus to heavily on the location of those tables.
But the steps to create a character resides within the Rules Reference, which is basically a PDF like resource of the actual printed game book broken down by sections. We want to open that rules reference, and using the Table of Contents on the left, we will open the section titles Character Creation. You will want to leave this screen open as we move forward, as this screen is your step by step list of how to create a character. Also, some of the items in this list are themselves links to the section of the rules needed to accomplish that step.
Step by Step
From here, things are pretty straightforward, but we will talk about each to point out any weird issues or requirements that may not seem readily apparent. Here is a numbered list that mirrors the Character Creation tab you just opened. It doesn’t go into detail on a lot of the steps requiring the typing out of notes, but focuses on the mechanics of character creation. What can be dragged and dropped. What items can have its level increased or decreased. What might be automated.
1) Core Concept
This is a field on the main tab, and needs to be typed in. While here we can spend time to choose a name also if you like.
2) Pick Clan (Drag and Drop)
On the right side of your screen, click on the Clan button to open the clan list. This is where you can click on each to read about what they do, what they represent, what powers they favor. It is beyond the scope of this quick guide to go into details like Blood Sorcery or Thin-Blood. But selection of a clan should be very easy to drag to the Clan field on the Main tab. You might want to keep this Clan info screen open as you move forward, you will need it later.
3) Select Attributes (click the dots)
This is pretty straightforward. To edit any modules like this on the character sheet, click on the red gear at the top right of it’s section, and a new smaller version of the window will appear that you can directly edit. By clicking on the dots next to an attribute you increase its PIP value. One tip, always click on the rightmost dot, the fifth in the line. Each click will add a single PIP to the score, but they add from left to right this way. If you clock on the one farthest left, the first click will add it, but the second will remove it. This holds true on all PIP selections throughout the character sheet.
But how many PIPs do you get?
One Attribute at 4
Three Attributes at 3
Four Attributes at 2
One Attribute at 1
Health and Willpower will Auto Calculate after your selections are made. The section of the character sheet where your Health and Willpower are tracked also has small plus and minus signs in both black and red. These are used to track both regular or Superficial damage (the Black buttons) and more serious Aggravated damage (the Red buttons). This will be an often used portion of the sheet, and the automation is very welcome.
4) Choose a Skill Distribution and Select Skills
Just like your Attributes, now you get to choose what Skills your character has. This is done the same way as the Attributes, by clicking the red gear at the top right of the skills section, and again you want to click on the rightmost PIP while adding. But how many PIPs? Here you get to choose your skill distribution from three varieties.
Jack of All Trades : One Skill at 3, Eight Skills at 2, Ten Skills at 1
Balanced : Three Skills at 3, Five Skills at 2, Seven Skills at 1
Specialist : One Skill at 4, Three Skills at 3, Three Skills at 2, Three Skills at 1
Once you have selected your Skills, you get to add free specialties to Academics, Craft, Performance and Science skills. Add one to each for free. Also, at the end of this selection process you get to add one more free specialty of your choice to any skill. When adding a specialty, you can type it right into the line next to the name of the skill.
When you add a skill to your character sheet, you actually add a localized copy of that skill item to the container of your character sheet. If you click the link icon (the red dot) to the left of the skill name, you will see a new window open for that skill with your current rank, suggested specializations, and a little red lock at the top right that is open to represent ‘unlocked’. It may be more organized to go ahead and type your specializations in this field, clearing out the original examples, then locking that skill item when you are done. You will have to remember that you have added them here if you choose to do it this way, so maybe a reminder work on the line next to the skill will help prompt you to open this when needed. And don’t worry, modifying this local copy doesn’t impact the main skill info in the ruleset itself.
5) Choose Disciplines
At this point we need to look at our Clan description. If you closed out your Clan window from earlier, you can quickly open it by clicking the small red dot to the right of your Clan name on the Clan field in the top left of the Main tab of the character sheet. That red dot is the universal icon for any link to more data.
Choose 2 Disciplines from your clan disciplines. Take one at two dots, one at one dot. To initially select it, we want to change to the Other tab, so we see the Disciplines box. Drag the item from the Disciplines list (we always drag those little red link dots to move things) directly to the Disciplines section and it will appear there. If you want to increase your rank from one dot/PIP to two, you can either drag it again and a second PIP will appear, or you can just click the second PIP to the right of the name of the Discipline. This system of dragging OR clicking the pip holds true for every draggable item within the system.
Caitiff characters can choose any two disciplines, again putting two dots in one of them, and one dot in the other. Thin-Blood characters have no intrinsic disciplines.
Choosing the Powers for your Disciplines is a bit less clear. The Discipline object itself doesn’t really spell out which powers fall under which Discipline, and at what ranks. To get to this information, you need to find the Powers button at the top of the Disciplines list object.
After clicking this button, a new object opens which will then give you a list of all powers associated with all the disciplines in the game. The bottom of this list will also give you filtering options to narrow down what you want to see. So while the Discipline powers themselves don’t list them very clearly, this window allows you to see exactly which powers fall under which Discipline and at what level.
From here, like many other items within the interface, you simply drag the item you want to your Disciplines list on the Character Sheet. You can do this on the Main tab of the sheet, or you can grad it directly into the Discipline object you have open for your character. It has to be the one from your character sheet however, as the Discipline screen from the lists on the right hand side of the interface are locked.
Once your power is selected, you will see it listed under your Discipline on the Other tab of the character sheet. There will be a small plus or minus to the right of each Discipline name. Clicking that will either expand or collapse the Powers listed under each Discipline.
6) Pick your Predator Type
This is drag and drop with a few selections made at the time you choose it. Open the Predators list on the right side of the character sheet and click on the red dot next to the name of the type you are interested in for more information. In the future, the level of automation of this may very well change. The general rule is always drag an item, then check if anything automatically changed, just to always be safe.
7) Advantages and Flaws
The Merits list is a menu button on the right-hand side of the screen. When you open it you will also see a few buttons on the top of its window. Merits is the main window, and each button opens Backgrounds, Loresheets and Flaws respectively. Open these windows as needed and drag the desired item to the bottom right section of the character sheets Other tab. The Merits, Backgrounds and Loresheets all collectively fall under the title of Advantages, and that is what the section on the Main tab is labelled as.
Choose 7 points of Advantages and 2 points of Flaws.
Thin-Bloods choose between one and three Thin-Blood Merits, and must take the same number of Thin-Blood Flaws.
8) Select one to three Convictions and a linked Touchstone for each.
This is done on the Other tab, and it strictly a typed in note field. This type of information must be coordinated with your Storyteller.
9) Select Generation
The last main choice for any character is its generation. This is an important decision, and impacts the entire group and campaign. This is not something you can decide alone, but most campaigns start with discussions between the players and the Storyteller to set the generation(s) of all players, and thus the theme and tone of the game overall. The actual location on the character sheet for generation is on the Other sheet, half way down the left hand side.
Finished!
And that’s it. Yeah, there are a lot of other notes and details to add to a character. V:TM is less about moving an icon on a map and more about social interaction. It is also a very streamlined game system, so once your character is done, the Storyteller should be able to run full campaigns easily enough with just the core rules and engaged players. Very little other work or automation is required on the part of the players or the Storyteller. There will be some more detail needed as Disciplines level up, and spending experience has more detail to it, but that will all come in time.
But for now? Go feed.
