Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook, 18+, A Storytelling game of personal and political horror.

Vampire:The Masquerade is a great role playing system if you like:(1) role playing as vampires (obviously)—all types and flavors of vampires (each has its own clan, its own powers, its own history, etc)(2) story telling over mechanics. This isn’t a min-max game. You gain xp just for playing, not killing things or solving mysteries, and you gain it slowly. It’s about the ride, not the destination.(3) not much math. The mechanics aren’t as simple as super-simple RPGs and the character sheet has a ton of stuff on it. But that is mainly to add richness to story telling. The basic mechanics are easy: roll a number of 10 sided dice and count your successes (6+). If you get equal to or more than the difficulty level the Storyteller (GM) set, such as 4, you pass; otherwise you fail. People say 60-80% of your rolls will be successes. There isn’t a huge amount of die rolling, just enough.(4) The social element of role playing: politics, intrigue, personal goals. This is where V:TM shines. You get to create a real fleshed out undead vampire, with enemies, ambition, and all sorts of relational ties. This is very different to D&D or Call of Cthulhu, because the mechanics and theme support social play way more. Everybody wants something, including the NPCs, but you never really know exactly why. It’s hard to kill or incapacitate another Kindred (and it’s against the code of conduct) so you have to get what you want by other means.(5) the fight to survive: you are on a constant struggle to survive. You need to eat, so you need fo hunt (generally) which is dangerous. There are many threats (rival sects, like the Sabbat; human vampire hunters like the Second Inquisition; rival Kindred who might have a grudge against you; werewolves, who will tear you to shreds). You also must maintain the Masquerade. Survival largely means not being discovered.(6) your inner struggle: you wrestle with the Beast, the animal and demonic nature in you struggling to break free and rid you of your last shreds of Humanity once and for all. Let it win for good and you’re done for. Morality is a thing. There is a much stronger focus on the inner life and personal demons of a character than in any other popular system I’ve come across.With the right players and Storyteller this can be a blast. It does require experience and skill on the part of the Storyteller, and openness and willingness on the part of the players. In terms of the books, the Core Rulebook is the best and most essential. Other books are helpful for additional clans (Core comes only with info for 7), but are otherwise not as necessary as they are 80% lore. A lot of lore can be found on the White Wolf Fandom Wiki, which is great for searching for stuff.The book reads like short stories or sections of a novella—very well written—and these snippets could even be brought into your game on occasion. It is replete with illustrations and evocative photos, making it physically and aesthetically beautiful. My main complaint is that the fonts are very thin and hard for me to read, especially when the text is white against a dark background (almost unreadable for me). I hope the publisher will avoid this in future.I would also like some campaign/chronicle books similar to Call of Cthulhu, to aid Storytellers, that focus not just on lore but how to actually run a campaign in a more traditional / less open-ended way. RP’ing V:TM doesn’t have as linear a structure as Call of Cthulhu or D&D, so an inexperienced Storyteller might be wondering what to do. I also find the way the books are made to be a bit confusing: it’s not clear which books to get, in which order, and who they are for.All in all the core book is a 10/10 and the game itself is a 10/10.

I have very fond memories of role-playing during highschool, college and beyond, particularly White Wolf games. One thing that always bothered me about their books was the inconsistency of the art. I certainly don't mind a variety of artists with different styles, but they ranged from incredibly skillful to a few steps above Napoleon Dynamite's drawings. This art in this book is consistent in quality.I'm an old school VtM player. I had no interest in V20 and didn't care for the apocalyptic scenarios that closed out 2nd Ed, but I listened to a podcast where they played this and really dug the mechanics. I feel like the Beast is far more present and can't be gamed away in this version, and that struggle should always be there, looming over everything. The new mechanics are smooth, too, which is awesome, because I hate when dice-rolling brings role-playing to a halt.I also like the changes to who's in the Camarilla and why. The world feels like it developed organically from the WoD of 25 or 30 years ago. Some of the big things they tried to introduce back in the day seemed to be attempting to upset the game and shock people, but this feels more like early ASoIaF, where you read it and say, "Yep, that makes sense."You don't need the official dice, but I think they're cool and add to the fun, and they are very functional with the new mechanics, so I recommend those as an add-on.

This is the main guide to get started with Vampire The Masquerade, and it has everything you would need. It has a massive amount of storyline information, enemy descriptions, sample adventures, and other game information. It's like combining three Dungeons and Dragons books in one. Not to mention, the artwork is fantastic. If you've ever been interested in Vampire The Masquerade, from the video games or whatever, this is a great read.

First things first, this book is a nightmare to navigate. But I truly cannot find it in me to rate it lower than 5 stars when there's so much value for your dollar here compared to other TTRPG systems.For the same price as a single dnd book, get a MASSIVE book with ribbon bookmarks and twice as much art, which fully covers what a starter/players guide, dm's guide, and monster manual cover. It's heavy as heck and my little noodle nerd arms do struggle using it for long periods but I can't be mad at being given so much content for the same price as a third of that content from my previous system.I do recommend getting the player's guide too if you're running a fully new vtm table and don't wanna dig around online a bunch during character creation for the few clans not included in the corebook (also just to keep for your players to flip through since that book is easier to navigate) but it'll still cost you 2/3 of the cost of the 3 d&d startup books for what would equate to 4 d&d books.Protip: the index is before the appendices in the back!

Wonderful game

To start, I like VtM 5e. It is not without criticism, but I largely enjoy the newer focus on personal horror and the additions such as hunger dice. If you are new and looking for an 18+ game centered around the sociopoltical machinations of monsters, come on in the water is fine.However, it is true that the lore text reads more vague and clinical than charming as in past editions and the organization of this book is awful. I constantly found myself flipping to the table of contents to look for things, found mistakes, and probably the most baffling decision was to split the discussion of healing damage into two sections 100 pages apart (just to hide that aggravated damage takes three checks to heal). The editor really needed to read through this thing one last time before it was sent to print.The condition I got it in was largely okay. There were dented corners and an odd crease in several pages, but nothing horrific.