10 thoughts on “Do you see some similarities? This is Vampire 5th edition :P”

  1. In this specific snippet I don’t?

    It’s like a general statement of some option that are available in VtM. Specially as some people don’t necessarily know what to do..

    There are other more storygamey parts tho

  2. I agree with Jennifer Fuss. VtM is a narrative RPG, so some very basic similarities are bound to happen. AW for sure is not the first story focused RPG, not by a long shot. The engine White Wolf uses is called “Storytelling System” for a reason.

  3. I don’t find “The storyteller system” particularly narrative in the sense of having “a ruleset for promoting dramatic and narrative relevant stories”. The narrativism in Wod is resumed in the (in)famous golden rule (rules doesn’t matter). That is the antithesis of what it is in the core of apocalypse world. Now, they are incorporating similar premises in this edition. It ‘s important to note the people that participate in Kult: divinity Lost design and writing are participating too in this version of Vampire.

  4. Thank you for your answer.

    The only narrative tool you see is the golden rule? I kindly but strongly disagree. I see groundwork done in earlier WoD products which benefited the development of AW. Examples are the framing in scenes and zooming in/out, degrees of success instead of a binary success/failure, the thematical shift away from the classical heroes journey to more personal and social (!) stories and the view of character actions as anything that produces interesting story developments.

    Yes, I think AW condensed the narrative design approach in a way more digestible form and improved upon it a lot. Until now, WoD rulesets often had a “crunchy” feeling, which imho is due to the fact that the game came out 19 years before AW (even though the volume of ruletext is quite comparable). Developments need time and happen step by step.

    To draw a conclusion: I think the WoD games made a worthy contribution to game design, which influenced AW. If new WoD RPGs now draw inspiration from the contributions AW made, that is something to celebrate imho, not to point fingers at.

  5. I do think that back in its day the storytelling system was attempting to be narrative, not only by the Golden Rule.

    It did do introduce concepts like humanity, it did ask several times to adhere to a narrative and player focused style of GM’ing, it did work with aspects like nature/demeanor and others. It might not have been the best wording or best design, but to claim that all there was is the golden rule feels quite disingenuous.

    In regards of similar premises to PbtA. Um, no, not really as such.

    The V5 got a way more streamlined rules design and better narrative elements, but it ain’t PbtA principles/moves.

    The picture quoted is a literal “What do I do in the game” box. It is not a selection of either PC or GM moves. V5 got a lot of new, cool shit, but PbtA moves ain’t it.

    In regards of system design, it was designed by Karim Muammar (Nordic stuff, I think), Kenneth Hite (Nights Black Agents, Trails of Cthulhu) and Karl Bergström (Oktoberlandet, Nordic stuff)

  6. Jennifer Fuss yes of course, there is no movement, but I think that we can see some inspiration. However, they have success at cost and “compulsions” with bestial (awarding 1 WP) failures that are a fundamental thing in PbtA games and other related games (Burning wheel, Fate). The even have “beliefs” with a Willpower and humanity economy attached that is a core concept in burning wheel for example.

  7. The bestial failures and compulsions are basically a redo of the previous botch system that went out of the window.

    The convictions are only attached to humanity and not willpower (iirc) and they did shifted their previous nature/demeanor and vice/virtue as well as dirge/mask system in parts over to it.

  8. The cross-polination between PbtA and VtM is positive and fruitful imo, but I’m with Danilo Jara here on the nature of the old VtM as a pretty traditional/”toolkit” take on it’s genre that ends up putting all responsability for genre-apropriate stories on the GM’s shoulder and thus, very far from the “Forgery” crop that PbtA emerged from. Having mechanics like Humanity and Willpower is good but it means little if your game don’t enforce their use somehow toward genre-apropriate play.

  9. By the way, I just came upon this quote, that I think is crucial to the point Danilo Jara made:

    “It’s not just providing tools. It’s providing the tools and the work order “.

    It’s by Vincent Baker from an old article on his blog, and I think it encapsulates well the difference between old attempts at more narrative games (like Vampire) and post-Forge ones. 😉

  10. Jennifer Fuss I talked about “beliefs (conviction, ambition and desire). Ambition and desire are connected to willpower while conviction are tied to humanity.

    Vinicius Lessa Yeah, That was that I meant

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