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Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition |
$19.99 |
Average Rating:4.6 / 5 |
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This system takes essentially all power to control any situation from the storyteller and places it in the hands of the rules. There are rules for every single type of action, exactly how the roll is to go, and what it means. There is no flexibility left which essentially defeats the point of running a game.
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I've owned this book for some time now and I'm recently re-reading it as I prepare for an upcoming campaign. I've played all the versions of Vampire, including the latest version of Masquerade. Vampire the Requiem 2nd edition is my favorite version and I think the best version of a Vampire RPG.
Likes:
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This game is versatile. Out of the box, you get a classic Vampire RPG setting of a hidden society of vampires scheming to get through the night. Tweak is some, and you can get a pathos filled Anne Rice style vampire game, or a Game of Thrones style game of deadly court intrigue, or a slow burning, street level drama of surviving the night or even a Blade-esque dark action and adventure. Play in the default setting or play with the tools in the box to easily make the game what you want it to be.
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Touchstones. Vampire were once alive people living out their lives. The touchstone represents that connection to that previous humanity. Could be a loved one, a favorite place, something that represents your life's work or anything meanfully connected to your previous life. The touchstone rule provides the mechanism to tell dramatic stories. It's no wonder Vampire the Masquerade 5th edition adopted the Touchstone rule for that version.
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The five Covenants and five Clans. Covenants are the social/political/religious faction your character can be part of. Clans are the familial liniage you are part of. The mixing and matching of Covenants and Clans for the game setting or character creation make for much depth in what the game can be.
- Plug and play settings. In the book, there is a handful of plug and play settings that you can set you game in. These settings reflect the many different ways Vampire the Requiem can be played.
I've enjoyed reengaging with Vampire the Requiem. After some time away from this book, coming back to it reminds me once again why this version of Vampire is my favorite.
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I purchased the premium, hardcover print. What i got, was flimsy paper and washed colors.
the only color that isnt muted is black and i honestly feel like i might tear the page when i turn it. I honestly hope they sent me the standard copy by mistake.
The game is great.
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I purchased both the PDF and Hardcover books, so i will review the physical book, as my complaint is from that.
what can be said about Vampire? it is the flagship of CWoD with Vampire: The Masquarade, this is a reimagining of VtM, and to me, i love reading this book! the lore, the mystery of the clans and history of the covens and how to work them into the real world, which i greatly appreicate.
the theme of Requiem is living amongst humanity and battling your constant addiction to feed, while dealing with drama of your coven, explore themes of political intrigue, cloak and dagger type stories, or infighting amongst Kindred. it's very cool.
i love the setting and story hooks it provides, and if you want to explore Requiem more, the supplemental books are very good reads on their own, and if your players wants to explore further their clan, they can develop their character even more, or create some interesting npcs as well.
my main complaint is the placement/format of the information on the book, but on the PDF that kind of fixes the problem with the CTRL+F function. for me, i prefer the physical print, because it'll be much easier to have the book there so you can open up for the information, and it's confusing to find the information you need to get or know.
the book it self is amazing! like, the art itself is beautiful! well made, and very fitting of the setting the book is set in. the maroon and different shades of red the cover invokes fits.
if you want to play vampires i highly recommend it! if you want to play mortals you can play Chronicles of Darkness, and create a vampire anatgonist, so there are a lot of options to make a fun game!
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Doesn't include an appendix of Tilts which is annoying as I have to refer to other books for them.
Otherwise good and really useful with a lot of potential story hooks
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The definite vampiric TRPG, and a massive improved related to 1st edition.
Now vampires are raw, brutal, scary; but also a deep reflection into the most savage part of the human psyche. The mechanics are amazing, and you will find a lot of options for each character, even without including the disciplines. And those disciplines! No longer you will feel the lower level powers are useless after a while, nor the social character is in combat, every kind of character have options to shine at every moment.
Honestly, if you are into vampires, do not waste your money and time with the piece of trash that is Vampire the Masquerade 5th Edition, just play this game; and if you want to keep playing with the classic clans and sects, just use the Translation guide to port everything here, you won't regret it.
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this is the best version of vampire, bar none. it's eloquently written without being obtuse, mature without being edgy, and simple without being reductive. if you want to play a game of vampire, don't get masquerade, don't get requiem 1e, buy this, it's worth the price.
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Vampire the Requiem 2nd Edition builds on the good work done in the original reset of the World of Darkness rules and worlds and corrects a good amount of flaws. Compared to the 1st edition of VtR here is my summary:
The Good: fixes XP cost by using a flat XP system. The fifth dot costs the same as the first dot, making XP much easier to track and allowed much easier creation of advanced characters (or foes). Merit now have rules for their elimination and reuse - no more GM fiat of "you fell out of favor, you lose your Status X merit dots". The beat system finally makes Dramatic Failures not only possible, but likely, and better yet - interesting! Frenzy is now much more possible as each successful resistance gives the "Tempted" condition, a cumulative penalty. The beast has three faces, making for more interesting role-play than just "growl! I charge".
The Bad: For all the good things of the Beat system, it can be mined by players gaming the system. Making too many dice rolls, making every failure a dramatic one. A good GM (sorry... WoD storyteller) can reign it in but that smacks of arbitration. Combat could still use some tweaks. I don't expect Hero Games and 40+ combat maneuvers (my gold standard to hold other games combat systems by), but at least give some rules at a Pathfinder RPG level (tackle/bull's rush, trample, trip, etc.). The Social Combat mechanic uses "first impression" when they really, really mean "reputation". It doesn't matter how well you enter the room; what matters is what they know (and think they know) about you. Some other quibbles about terminology persist - poor explaintation can be confusing, but the core is solid.
The Ugly: Honestly I have found no Ugly with the 2nd Edition, other than a theme issue and that is one of personal style. It is still a local game of vampires, not the global historic conspircy like Vampire the Masquarade. I freely admit I prefer Requiem's theme, but to each gamer his own fun. Hell, VtR2 has less pretencious prose then previous WoD and nWoD games. It even has (wait for it) and Index! A mostly usable Index! Well, not all the related products, but we are reviewing the core book here.
Actually, there is one ugly thing with VtR2, but it's not about the game - it's about Onxy's press/publication system. Having Facebook as your only marketing tool is a terrible idea. The version naming is inconsistant, but perhaps I can excuse that due to the buisness game of "who has the legal license today?". Wizards of the Coast? CCP? Onxy Path Publishing? Black Dog Gaming? Mark Rein•Hagin note-the-bullet-it-is-not-a-dash? I am also saddened at the declining support of local gaming stores and the complete lack of nWoD product there, but the demise of the book store and gaming book store is a larger issue, but this also means that an avenue of marketing is closed. But that is beyond the scope of this product. In essence, I found nothing ugly in the game.
The Meh: Social Combat. I give the authors props for including a social combat system that kinda works, and finally allows the Ausbergers player to play a Daeva by roll-playing, but the Social Doors mechanic does not elegantly fit with the rest of the mechanic very well, and can either be min-maxed to unbalanced levels, or require an XP sink of Merits to use or counter.
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I got the wrong version - twice!
First of all, the website is so bad when trying to check out, it actually double charged me! I decided to keep both copies because my group needed two anyway - but it wasn't intentional and was an unwelcome charge on my card!
Secondly, BOTH copies are the wrong version! I ordered the premium printing, but both are definitely not that version. I have a premium version of another Onyx Path book, Changeling: The Lost, and it's GORGEOUS. Glossy pages, popping color, the characteristic holo-effect covers.
Both of these books came in the wrong quality that I paid for, and I'm very disappointed.
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I received my physical book in the mail today. I ordered the Standard heavyweight and I am pleased with the qulity for the price paid. I have been reading the PDF for the past week. As for the content; it was through sheer ignorance and contempt that I ignored New World of Darkness/Chronicles of Darkness for so long. I am a huge fan of VtM and was not very willing to give Requiem a try. I, like others, was enthralled by the meta plot of VtM and was not willing to stay the course. Then I started listening to Mathew Dawkins, "Gentlemans Guide to Gaming" reviews of VtR, and now I wish I had given it a chance during its original release. The emphasis on personal horror is paramount, and something that I feel may have been lost over the years in VtM (re-explored in V5 however). I really do like that fact that You, as the ST, and your troupe of players are writing the plot as you go. There is no overarching Meta plot to adhere to. Now before I come off as bashing the old, I will state that I love VtM. The game literaly changed my life. But Requiem is a different beast all its own, and it definetly deserves your attention, especially the 2nd edition iteration. The only misgivings I have about this book is what I feel is very uninspired art. Most of the pictures fail to draw any attention, and the few that are descent are very overshadowed by the bad. I especially don't like the the clan pictures. Art is not a deal breaker for me though, by any stretch. The book is fantastic and Im anxious to start develpoing my chronicle. 5/5 from me.
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Much deeper (and character oriented) than previous versions of Vampire games (be it Masquerade or first edition of Requiem). Touchstone mechanic is great.
Also reimagned merits and disciplines works perfectly.
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I do not regret buying this book in .pdf form. The mechanics are a solid update to the 1st edition (which I have in hardback), especially the changes to Morality, how vampires take damage, and changes to Disciplines. However, a lot of the fluff/ flavor feels inferior (to me) compared to 1st edition. The sections for each clan's origins felt really nebulous and unnecessary. Much of the flavor text for the covenants focuses on how vampires hunt together in packs... which completely goes against everything else in the book regarding vampires being lone predators. The Cacophany (capital C!) sounds like a big deal, but never really gets explained much and undercuts the isolated city aspect. I really preferred the fluff/ flavor of 1st edition, but thoroughly enjoy the updated mechanics of 2nd edition.
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I feel kinda bad about giving Vampire: The Requiem such a bad review but honestly the quality of the book is not at all what I would expect from an organization as storied and acclaimed as White Wolf/Onyx Path. Especially compared against the beautiful V20 core-rulebook people insisted I check out to redeem my opinion of Chronicles/World of Darkness, VtR's 2nd Edition core rulebook is.... I don't wish to use expletives but it is just subpar. The quality of the prose is about what I would write in my teens on my PBEM groups, jumpy and scattered in an attempt to build mystery and flair but failing, terribly. I mean god-bless them for trying and I'm not necessarily saying I could do better I'm just saying I expected a little better from a company and its flagship game that places such a premium on atmosphere which is what finally made me bite the bullet and buy this to begin with. The book fails to deliver on the very well-written atmospheric section in the introduction and the artwork cements its sort of cartoon-y place in my mind. I mean honestly why haven't companies just sourced art from Deviant-Art? My elder friends on the interwebs remember Vampire: The Masquerade's heyday and I'm familiar with it by their proxy and the second edition to the follow-up Vampire: The Requiem doesn't even come close to their description.
The Vampire Clans (god I hope I'm using that right...) or the bloodlines (incase I'm not) do not compare favorably to the ones my friends described and looking at the V20 rulebook I see very large differences that go beyond the simplification I was forewarned of. While the thinning of the herd of bloodlines from fourteen to five is a good change I think, the descriptions of these bloodlines, while claiming to be "archetypal", are about as nuanced as a buzzfeed description of the houses of Hogwarts. Sure, expanding, adapting and modifying rulebook characterizations is our job but the book itself doesn't seem to encourage it.
The organizations are a completely different matter. With the exception of the Carthian Movement, all feel incredibly vibrant and cool organizations though the way they are integrated in to the different cities and character profiles in the following sections leave a "meh" quality to them. The Ordo Dracul especially is a prettty complex and multi-dimensional assortment that was a pleasant shock from the very flat and colorless descriptors I had spent the previous 40 pages on.
The following sections describing the eponymous Requiem Vampires participate in during the World of Darkness. While it mostly describes game mechanics and in this regard is incredibly interesting and provocative in the White Wolf Storytelling system way, when it tries to go deeper into the core concepts of "Requiem", "Masquerade", and wider Vampire society the low caliber of the book's prose rears its ugly head again. The concepts of "anchors", "vitae", "the beast", recieve pitiable elucidations and is one of the few times I can remember reading lore, thinking of a question, seeing the answer in the next few paragraphs and being dissapointed with my attempt at edification.
When we finally arrive at the VtR's additions and contributions to the Storytelling system I was really prepared to say "nope I'm good" since I knew this would mean putting all of those rules and mechanics into a narrative and while this 20 page seventh section of the book is short in length it does not spare the reader from the shoddy prose and ocular muscle strain incurred by the rolling of one's eyebrows as the writers try to sell you on this world. Now that's not exactly gracious of me and I'm not a cynical person, I can see beauty in kitsch-y things but that's because they usually have other redeeming qualities or some other value and Vampire: the Requiem doesn't provide either to me and left me with a very bad taste in my mouth and an odd feeling in my head when I finished reading.
I realize of course that my 2-Star review is a minority and a lot of people obviously love this book but as someone who just picked it up as their first intoduction to the WoD I was profoundly disapointed. Now as I said that's not a write-off of all the hype we've heard about White Wolf and Onyx Path, I've seen at least one astounding example of their work that jusitifes the phenomena their games have been elevated to, but VtR 2nd edition is not one of them.
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I feel kind of bad,for giving this book a bad review and i do not want to sound like ranting,but i also want to be honest about what bothered me with this product.First of all,the rules are nice and do some necessary revision (Vampire have lowlight vision and sharper senses on default,Disciplines are now useful on lower Level,humanity loss does not make you insane but gives you vampiric banes ......and much more good stuff).
So why do I not like it?Because of the Style and the quality of the Fiction.
The Fiction in this book is just dull and uninspired.Compare it with (for example) the excellent Clanbooks or requiem for rome.Those books where dark and interesting with lots of immersive Background.Sure....it is kind of unfair to compare splatbooks to Corerules,but even the WoD2 corebook,was superior in this department.
The other thing which bothers me,is the constant switching between He/she when reffering to the player/a vampire.Is this supposed to be progressive? (honest question),because it would fit in the picture.The World of darkness was always very diverse and its bloodsucking ,murderous Vampires came from all kind of Backgrounds,had all kinds of sexual prefferences,Belives ,etnicitys....(you see what i mean).This book,is the first Requiem book i read ,which seems to make a fuss about it and beeing overly PC.When you look at the artwork (which is nit pretty imho) you see basicly a mixture of vaguely erotic Art and fight scenes.While the vaguely erotic scenes only in 1 (or maybe 2 scenes.....not sure about the bathroom picture) featuring people of opposite sex,the fightscenes are mostly exclusevly women beating up man.
This is neither progressive nor empowering ,but just catering to a special Audience.
The generel writing is cheesy & pretentios and does not create any mood or makes me want to play in this world.
one Star fore the crunch,another for the ammount of material ,no star for the Fluff.
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In 2004, game tables were introduced to the magnificent series of the new world of darkness. The core book “world of darkness” was a brilliant masterpiece of tabletop engineering. Shortly thereafter White Wolf released their flagship template book Vampire: Requiem. Like the core World of Darkness book, Vampire Requiem proved to be a true masterpiece. The writers and creators of these 2004 edition books successfully integrated easy to use narrative style mechanics with accessible, fast rules for new players and veterans alike. The company, White Wolf was ahead of the game in the narrative style RPG’s that are so popular in today’s market. Unfortunately, vampire the Requiem second edition falls flat on its face in comparison to its predecessor.
There is a lot I can say about this new edition and my hopes are that I do not ramble too much in explaining why I’m giving such a low review. The 2004 editions of WoD and the subsequent template books are by far my favorite RPG’s. I’ve been gaming for nearly 20 years and played virtually every type of RPG on the market and very few measure up to this books predecessors. That is why it saddens me so much to give a low review for this book. So let’s get started.
I have a lot to say about the artwork choices of this book but I will save that until the end of my review. I’m also aware that many people may disagree with my review and it is important they keep in mind that this is my opinion my opinion alone. Also, It is late so please don't mind some of the spelling issues.
Unlike most other world of darkness books, vampire 2nd jumps right in to the clans and clan descriptions. Very little has changed in this section but the writer spends a lot of time trying to fluff up the clans into being more interesting. In many ways, I do not feel like it works here. Each clan gets somewhat of a disjointed conversational description in order to build “mood” as well as spotty origins that the storyteller can pick and choose for his/her campaign. With the exception of the Nosferatu, each clan got a new Clan Bane (clan weakness). I will admit that the clan weaknesses were not the best in the 2004 edition. However, I feel like they’re pretty uninteresting in this edition as well. If anything, they become a little overcomplicated. I did notice that the Daeva had their nicknames changed from succubus to serpents. As you’ll read about later, this was done for political correctness reasons.
For a second edition book, I was really hoping onyx path would take a little more of a risk here and perhaps add in one or two new clans for this update. There were many great clans from the masquerade era that could have easily been brought back here and they chose not to. Sticking with the five clans I felt was a mistake this time around.
The next section are covenants. In my opinion, covenants were something that really needed to be re-examined for any new edition. In the 2004 edition, covenants were easy to understand but quite frankly, they were not as interesting as the politics of the original game vampire the masquerade. They always seemed a little anemic and underwhelming. In this edition, Like the clans, the covenants have a short story to introduce the reader to them followed with quick background, history and overview of each covenant. To be perfectly honest, I felt the 2004 vampire did a better job of describing the covenants. For example, The Invictus come off more as mafia type thugs then in ancient noble hierarchy. Many of the clans including The Invictus seem less interesting this time around which is strangely peculiar. We also see the loss of one of my favorite covenants Belial’s Brood. Why this covenant was removed? I honestly do not know. It is very disappointing.
Jumping to chapter 3, the character creation section, we are introduced to the new rules and experience system for the God machine (world of darkness second edition) and vampire Requiem second edition. This is where things start getting a little bit clunky. Unlike the previous edition which was more or less a template book, onyx path decided to go back to the old world of darkness “all encompass” book style. It makes for this book to be rather bloated. You still may need the God machine in order to run this game as well as the world of darkness rules. However you no longer need to build a human then make a vampire. I personally feel how they did it for vampire second edition is shortsighted and significantly less flavorful than first edition. The template system seemed far more fun.
They’ve also included this absolutely awful new experience system of beats. Now players and storytellers have to keep track of beats that get converted into experience points that can be spent on attributes, merits, skills, disciplines etc. This is all an attempt to try to force role play and instead, it bogs down the game tremendously! It’s as if the creators of this game tried to grab any idea they could from other narrative games with the hopes that it would make their game better. The end result is that the XP system becomes more of a headache that can be easily manipulated and argued over. With the change to the experience distribution, the authors chose to change experience costs to lower numbers and removed experience escalation for their new linear model. In other words the first dot of an attribute costs 4 experience and the fifth dot of an attribute costs 4 experience. What my players and I discovered is that the new system allows the players to power game a little bit easier than they could before. Every scene becomes about trying to get a beat. I hope you enjoy bookkeeping.
The next thing that really bothered me about this edition was the reimagining of merits. Merits have gone from humanlike abilities that enriched your character to now looking like Dungeons & Dragons feats of awesomeness. One minute onyx path is trying to convince us that this is a storyteller game and the next, they’re trying to make it more action-packed and combat heavy. The merits read more like devotions or superpowers than I believe they ever were intended to. Do you want your claws to do aggravated damage? It’s a merit. Want to see in the dark? It’s a merit. Etc. etc.
In this section we also see a change to the disciplines. The changes for the most part are not bad here. However, most of the changes require you to look up the condition it puts on somebody under the condition section in the back of the book. Similar to the experience system, the introduction of tilts and conditions is an absolute cluster to the flow of game. This is also an attempt to have you buy the condition cards sold here on drivethruRPG. In other words, if you use your mesmerize ability, a player gains a mesmerized condition which they have to follow. However, they can get a beat for having the power used on them if they overcome the condition… fun…
I’m going to go ahead and skip a lot here. There is a chapter on combat, rolling dice, what attributes are etc. the next section I want to get to his chapter 5 which is the introduction of the villains in the new Requiem second edition. And that is the Strix. If you have ever played or read Requiem for Rome you know who these antagonists are. In truth, they were never interesting when they were introduced and they are really bad here. I do agree that there needed to be some more antagonists introduced in vampire and I think the brood would have served as a much better villain type. The Strix feels very contrived and bogeyman like. They really don’t make a lot of sense and I can see a lot of people completely ignoring this chapter. Again, they could have removed nearly 40 pages right here and you would not miss it.
The next chapter focuses on other covenants and vampires around the world and for the most part, this was pretty interesting. I can see a lot more been written regarding this subject matter. If you decide to pick up the PDF of this book, this would not be a bad chapter to peruse.
There are a few more chapters regarding storytelling and The Living, in which it concludes with the long endless list of conditions. In truth, I could talk a lot more about this book. There’s a very good chance that you already know whether or not you’re going to buy this book, regardless of my review. I do know that a lot of people are reviewing highly of this edition (and the God machine book) and I believe more out of loyalty than out of substance. This book was created by committee on the onyx path forum and quite frankly you can tell. There’s a lot of ideas that were thrown in here and in many ways it seems to be lacking the same level of confidence that the first edition book had. It feels like this edition is trying to wear many hats ranging from being a storyteller narrative game to a combat game. The end result is that it does not succeed the same way the 2004 edition did.
I’m sure you’re getting excited about coming to the end of the review as I’m getting excited about ending the review. However, I really need to talk about the artwork. I do not want this to get political and everyone will have their own opinion but the artwork in this book is not only bad, but it reeks of political agenda. There is approximately 47 pictures in this book. There are approximately 5 pictures that show inanimate objects (a car, buildings, heads etc.). So far, no big deal. Except, there is unquestionably a gender bias of female superiority and an anti-male sentiment throughout the entire book. There are 21 pictures that depict women as authority figures over men and only about 2 pictures that depict a male with confidence or authority one of which is a man giving another man a good time in the shower (p.93). Men are consistently depicted as weak, victims, or servants. When a man does get a picture it is usually to depict pain or anguish (P.102). The artwork constantly depicts women as powerful (P. 111), (P. 279), confident (P. 274), (P. 33), (P. 36) (P. 39) or unstoppable (P. 54). Men on the other hand are only there to be bloody messes or aloof. Even most of the men’s clothing in the book shows a lack of organization or confidence. (Don’t think it’s sexist art? Reverse all of the female characters into male character in your head and ask if it is not sexiest).
Another major issue is the emphasis within the text that vampires are sexual and sexual beings while almost all of the artwork shows rather conservative looking characters. To be honest, this is probably the least sexual depiction of vampires I’ve ever witnessed. I’m not sure when exactly the creative team behind this product became so terrified of sexuality in art but it clearly shows in this book. And most importantly, the extreme pro-woman anti-male artwork honestly does subtract from the content. Once you see it, you can’t un-see it. Even the picture of the Daeva which is supposed to be the pinnacle of sexuality shows a rather benign looking vampire that doesn’t exude any confidence or charisma under the clan section.
In conclusion, Vampire the Requiem second edition is more Buffy the vampire slayer then say The Lost Boys or Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Both in flavor and in game mechanics, second edition seems like an identity crisis. It doesn’t know if it wants to be more storyteller orientated like its predecessor or if it wants to corner the market on crunch and combat. With the inclusion of conditions, combat becomes very much about who goes first, who can break someone’s arm, who can put the first power/condition on etc. I believe it could even be argued that in this addition it would not be unwise to have a combat mat which I’ve never said before regarding world of darkness products. It attempts to force role-play with a half thought out beat system for experience points and it tries very hard to force mood.
In the past 10 years, I have gotten many people interested into world of darkness. However, I really cannot endorse the new second edition WoD model. And though it goes without saying, I know many players and gaming groups who wholeheartedly agree with this review. Not only do they agree with the issues of mechanics but also regarding the appalling art. It took me a long time to write this review and it does sadden me but I hope that the game developers do take my suggestions to heart. Quite frankly, I am waiting for the world of darkness second edition revised and vampire the Requiem second edition revised books. Maybe then we will get a good product. Hopefully one without agenda.
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