Simple logic tells most gamers that any gaming system which involves vampires is naturally cool, the seer idea of vampires in modern culture is that of, thanks to things like the Blade movies or various of the great vampire films of the last 50 years, many books, works of art and now, many many computer games features vampires in a light that they never used to be seen in - Bad ass mothers.

For those of you reading this who don't know, Vampires are mythical or folkloric creatures said to subsist on human and/or animal blood (hematophagy), often having unnatural powers, heightened bodily functions and/or the ability to transform. As I am aware, many of you reading this will be well versed in vampric lore especially that of a little known game called Vampire: the masquerade/ The Requiem, which is one, in a line of RPG's published in White Wolf’s "world of darkness" saga

Recently, I tried this game for the first time, and I must say really enjoyed it. Created by Mark Rein-Hagen, ‘Vampire: The Masquerade’ was the first of White Wolf Game Studio's ‘World of Darkness’ role playing games, based on the Storyteller System and centered on vampires in a modern Gothic-Punk world. Vampire: The Requiem is a role-playing game published by White Wolf, set in the new World of Darkness, and the successor to its now defunct predecessor. It was first released in August 2004, together with the core rule book for the new World of Darkness. As it is meant as a re-incarnation of the previous game line, rather than an entirely new game, it uses many elements of the old game in its construction, or so the back of the packing claims.

For those of you who have never played before, the game is based on the "story teller system", The Storyteller System (now called The Storytelling System), is the basic set of game mechanics in the role-playing games published by White Wolf Game Studio. Games using this set of rules include the World of Darkness product line, Exalted, the Trinity line, and Street Fighter: The Role-Playing Game.

All mechanics of the Storyteller System utilize a number of 10-sided dice. Usually a game requires a player to have at least ten d10s to roll for their character's task resolutions and attribute tests. The system of determining success or failure is very similar to the system used in Shadowrun, and is based on rolling a number of successes that meet or exceed a set difficulty number. The more successes rolled, the better the character performed the task.

I have been just into RPG's, well at least in terms of Dragonslayers action, for just under a year now and most of this time has been spent playing Dungeon's and Dragons, as it is one of the best games to play when just getting into RPG's. Recently though, I have began expanding out into many different games, of all kinds, Cthulu, Vampire, Werewolf, Marvel Superhero's, World of Warcraft and the like, just trying out as many different game systems as I can while there’s still time this summer, before the crushing blows of education are placed my fragile cranium once again.

And so, each week for the next weeks, I will try out a different gaming system for 1 solid week and then report to you what i though of the game. Starting this week with, yep you guest it, Vampire the masquerade!!

From the point of view of someone whose main amount experience with RPG's is D&D, vampire provides quiet a refreshing change of pace. In a nut shell, modern D&D can be explained as a game is presented by a Dungeon Master (DM) to a group of (typically, go Hughes groups of 11 people!!) three to six players. The DM acts as narrator, and arbitrates the actions of the players. Most games are built around adventures narrated by the DM. The plots can be very diverse, from hunting dragons in remote dungeons to solving mysteries in urban settings. The DM chooses the setting and controls events that occur outside the players' control, including the actions of the many non-player characters involved in the story. While this is also true I guess for vampire, the average game of vampire is more story based than anything else, and it requires a greater amount of role playing, in my opinion, than a game of D&D. Where as in D&D player play as bold adventures who only real reason for being in that area is because they feel like it, ands they play from that stand point, a game of Vampire has the players almost acting in a piece of improvised theater that everyone has a say in what happens, with only the story teller to say other wise.

The role of "storyteller" and "games master" look very much the same on paper, in practice, the 2 parts show just how different they really are. I have found that the part of the story teller has to put a lot more emphasis into the actual story then your standard GM while have to, and in a game, the storyteller will have to flex more control over the events that happen more then a GM will. Making a well played game of vampire, just a bit more plot focused than a game of D&D. This form of plot focuses gaming really appeals to me, as someone who has tried his at GMing for a while, i know its hard to find a balance between plot development and combat, especially when you really want to tell a complex story, and all your party really what’s to do is hit things with large sticks, and snarl aimlessly at the main villain, the same way Tony Blair would snarl when ever the issue of Iraq is mentioned (just to add some context for those who have ever seen the broadcasts from parliament.)

This hard to find balance of plot and villain ass kickery is a common problem faced by GM's of D&D, but this problem is less frequent in games of vampire, where it is made clear, that the game is all about the story, and entire games can go without ever running into combat, and that just adds to large amount of suspense that can be generated, while in the right environment, in a game of vampire. Which on average, i find to be greater than that of your average game of D&D.

‘Vampire: The Masquerade’, gets a mighty 8 / 10, on the "GURRS" (Gavins universal role playing rating system) scale.

…and that’s my first review into RPG's, next week I’ll be look at the newly released MAGE: the awakening, also from the white wolf company.