So I’ve been wondering that, how different are the Vampires in Urban Shadows vs the ones from the WoD?

So I’ve been wondering that, how different are the Vampires in Urban Shadows vs the ones from the WoD?

So I’ve been wondering that, how different are the Vampires in Urban Shadows vs the ones from the WoD? (both WoD and Chronicles of Darkness).

34 thoughts on “So I’ve been wondering that, how different are the Vampires in Urban Shadows vs the ones from the WoD?”

  1. So that means that, I guess I entirely strip the “Personal Horror” theme of both VtM/VtR like for example, stripping the beast, frenzying/Rötschreck and the Humanity/Path of Enlightenment system entirely which basically most people would see this as “Superheroes with Fans” but rather it’s actually about giving your character agency and full control of their own actions, not a walking ticking time bomb ready to explode putting others  around them in danger and also gives players to take responsibility for their own actions instead of a rigid morality system holding your hand and dictating and punishing them for whatever action they might take.

    I would also take the Ghouling & Blood Bonding aspects out too which not only further removes the inherit enslavement aspects of the Kindred as well but also the threat of losing your character to a blood bond after the third drop would cease to exist. Of course though I would keep the “Dominate”/”Presence”/”Dementation” style powers which is entirely a different story however which not every vampire has them or if they do,  well it’s up for the player to use it wisely depending on the situation.

    Basically, Vampires are literal undead walking corpses that must drink blood or vitae to sustain their immortality or basically their health which is pretty much it.

    Basically I’m trying to water down the rape and romanticized abuse metaphors that VtM/VtR Kindred represents by removing the elements that enables it in the first place (like the beast, frenzying, ghouling/blood bonding, etc).

  4. Yet Undying still has the humanity system and everything else I wanted to get rid of which it’s essentially a another copy of VtM.

  5. Hmm. Are you familiar with Monster of the Week? It’s like Supernatural or grownup Scooby Doo; hunting down monsters. Some of the hunters can be reformed monsters themselves.

  6. Like a lot of posters here you are badly missing the point that Urban Shadows is mostly a system and not a background – it is down to you as a group to create the game world that you want.

  9. William Nichols

    I thought I already made myself clear anough if you can read carefully that is.

    Basically I don’t want to play a game centered around hunters which is what “Monster of the Week” is about.

  11. William Nichols

    Basically a game where you play as Vampires unliving night by night and anything goes from there and anything they can do is up to them basically anough. Basically a urban setting with Vampires or basically our own world with supernatural creatures/beings with Vampires being one of them.

    Although alternatively or optionally I don’t mind the Gothic Punk setting from the WoD which is pretty much it only except with the whole “the world is shittier than our own” but leaving only the aesthetics (always raining city, gothic architecture, etc).

  13. If you want vampires and other things, with an emphasis on politics, go with Urban Shadows.

    If you want vampires struggling with it all, go with Undying.

    If you want vampires and other things, with an emphasis on emotions and growing up? Monster Hearts

    If you want neither of those, you may have to make your own hack.

  16. zonilo1

    I think Urban Shadows vampires will avoid many of the aspects of WoD vampires you take issue with. There is nothing to mechanically represent frenzy or Rotschrek and indeed, how your vampire reacts to or is harmed by sunlight, fire, faith, etc. is largely up to you. Urban Shadows’ Corruption mechanic shares a bit in common with VtM Humanity, but it’s certainly not the razor’s edge Humanity is. The player has a lot of control over how much Corruption they take. Feeding on unwilling victims is one thing that consistently generates Corruption for the vamp, but it sounds like that’s not something that interests you much anyway. The Vamp is largely a social creature. They can get access to a few supernatural mind control powers via the Blood Magic corruption move, but they mostly get by on guile and charm. The vamp’s Web is the closest there is to the blood bond in Urban Shadow’s mechanics, but it’s social, not supernatural. It doesn’t give the vamp control over characters in their web, just influence and insight and if the character can get out of the vamp’s debt, they escape the Web as well. There is a reference to ghouls in the vamp’s Haven move, but what a ghoul is and how and why they are loyal to the vampire is for the player to define. All in all, I feel like Urban Shadows would sidestep most of what you find problematic about WoD vampires. The larger issue I would find with trying to duplicate VtM in Urban Shadows is that it doesn’t really support multiple players playing the same type of supernatural creature, but if you’re cool with more of a crossover, I think you’ll find it meets your needs.

  17. As many have said before, the Urban Shadows world is “loose” in terms of setting and therefore the vampire “power set” and weaknesses are not strictly defined. The Vamp’s powers and archetype in Urban Shadows is that of an enabler and dealer in favors, but these don’t have to be through powers of domination, but of more “natural” inducements such as leveraging addictions, blackmail, or other emotional impetuses. Similarly, vampires could vaporize in the sun, or not.

    If you stay “faithful” to the way The Vamp is characterized in the Urban Shadows material (as in, don’t create fiction about vampires that isn’t a straight-line inference from the books), you get vampires that are a lot like the ones from the Charlie Huston “Joe Pitt” series of novels – they have some powers, but they’re more just people who drink blood and tend to politics than “a beast I am lest a beast I become.”

    Furthermore, you don’t have to make vampires strictly “undead” in Urban Shadows. The Huston novels had vampirism be some sort of virus that had to be contracted by a (at least barely) living human. Vampires also could be a supernatural species parallel to humans. The options are up to your particular campaign.

  19. Benjamin Cooper

    Well actually I Kinda prefer the strictly undead and traditional type Vampires especially ones that have a array of supernaturals powers like shapeshifting into a cloud of bats, wolf, mist and a “Vampire Lord” form from Skyrim, strength of 20 men, wall climbing, heightened senses, (rest of their powers can be seen here:http://www.vampires.com/supernatural-powers-and-abilities/  which of course maybe I could just port VtM discplines especially Necromancy, Thaumaturgy, Obtenabration and Vicissitude?) but they’re also they’re weakened by sunlight instead of burning them like in the Victorian novels since they’re nocturnal, must sleep in their native soil, can’t cross running water, can’t enter a person’s home without invitation, have no reflection nor do they have a shadow, pale skin and red glowing eyes, cannot enter holy ground and they’re also susceptible to holy objects and holy water, stakes paralyze them and to kill them you have to loop off their heads basically while staked.

    Of course maybe the Vampire I’ve described can be separated into a splat called the “Dragons” who directly descended from Dracula himself which are based on the Gothic Vampire while the Modern Vampires however don’t have the can’t cross running water or must rest in their native soil which they can sleep anywhere and the “Can’t enter a home without invitation” (although they’re still susceptible to holy objects) weaknesses but however they also burn in sunlight than weaken by it unlike the Dracul Vampires.

    Of course though I also tend to view Vampirism as less of a curse but more of a way to cheat death which they need blood to maintain their immortality or else they’ll go in a “torpor” state which they’ll decay like a corpse until blood is poured or dropped on them which they rise.

  20. zonilo1 Did you look at my book? Maybe the vamp isn’t that super epic due to some balancing, but he can get pretty fucking strong. Add in that they can take two moves from ANY add on that they can qualify for and that adds in diversity and power

  21. Tommy Rayburn

    What book you’re talking about?

    Well if you’re talking about the World of Darkness supplement you linked to, is that what I was trying to run away from in the first place? Because have you read any of my posts that I actually don’t want any of the issues like humanity, blood bonding, the beast, frenzying, etc at all?

    Well I kinda want them to be super-epic which maybe it can only be reserved for Elder and Ancient Vampires perhaps which are more powerful than younger vampires and their power will grow upon age…

  22. zonilo1​ Have you read the playbook? Because that is all there is. Are you aware that only one character can be THE VAMPIRE? Or any other archetype for that matter?

  23. Open and read the book because none of that exist. Blood bonding can exist if you choose it too.

    And for a World game, as I said you can become pretty powerful. How about making a couple characters and tell me then what you think.

  25. zonilo1 lastly, in US you cap around 12 moves, for this around 22-24 moves, so twice as powerful.

    And as said, don’t look at just vampire since you can take moves from add ins that give you strength of hundred men and such.

  26. If I were to do an all-vampire game of US, I would give players 2 Archetypes to play each, one being The Vamp and the other being something else they identify with: Vampire/Wizard, Vampire/Oracle, Vampire/Fae, Vampire/Aware. Let them take the base stats and moves from Vamp and choose freely between Look, Debts, Gear, Extras, and Advances from their secondary Archetype.

    My two cents.

  27. Tommy Rayburn

    Actually it does because your book is simply about porting the WoD into Urban Shadows which is exactly I’m trying to get away from.

  28. Pompeius Pomponius

    Which playbook are you talking about? Also you’re referring to that only one character can be a Vampire?

  29. zonilo1 Urban Shadows gives plenty of room for any vampire mythos you want to use. Everything you said you want vampires to be can be can be duplicated in the rules, you just have to do some campaign-writing homework to make it happen.

    Powers not explicitly stated on the archetype can be invoked through “let it out” or custom moves (there’s an optional “creating a ghoul” move somewhere in the custom moves section, I believe, which would be a good illustration of how to do other vampire custom moves for your campaign).

    One caution about world-building: Urban Shadows tends to be more cooperative in creating a game world than a World of Darkness RPG; much of the game world is created by player response to the MC asking questions. So, while it doesn’t hurt to create a broad outline of vampiric strengths and weaknesses, the rules of Urban Shadows strongly suggest that you ask the player what his/her Vamp’s strengths and weaknesses are and work together from the answer.

    Now, you don’t HAVE to give the players that much control; you can say, “this is what vampires are, here’s a list” and leave it at that. I’m not saying that’s a horrible tragedy, especially if your players aren’t used to the more cooperative storytelling RPGs, just that it’s not the “intended” experience.

    The other question that keeps popping up in this thread is whether most or all of your players in this campaign will be vampires. On page 28 of Urban Shadows, it explicitly limits one archetype per campaign (so only one player Vamp), but rules are only there so long as they are fun. Andrew Medeiros’s suggestion of doing hybrid archetypes is a good one. An alternative is to have your players pick a Night or Wild archetype, and use custom moves to make them all vampiric; each archetype’s power set being a different “family” of vampires (much like in World of Darkness). So the Vamp is a traditional vampire, the Tainted is a bestial destroyer vampire, etc.

  30. Playbook is the PbtA term for a character class. Some PbtA hacks have their specific term, in Urban Shadows it’s called archetype. You can find it here:

    http://www.magpiegames.com/our-games/urban-shadows/

    And yes, the standard assumption is that each playbook is unique. So you might have a party of Wolf, Vampire, Veteran and Oracle, but not Vampire, Vampire, Vampire. You might do it different of course, but that’d be probably boring.

  31. zonilo1 Have you looked? I butchered the fuck out of WoD to get the game I wanted which is not far from the game you are talking about. I keep think you are judging without even looking JUST because i says WoD.

  32. Tommy Rayburn

    Actually I did read your supplement and things like Blood Bonding, Frenzying, Ghouling are still on there as I said before.

    Might as well just play the vanilla Urban Shadows Vampire anyways.

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