The Inside Scoop on Gaming

When White Wolf announced they were going to unroll fiction built around the Vampire: the Masquerade line, they said it would be an epic tale, irrevocably altering the face of the World of Darkness. (And clocking in at thirteen novels, one might wonder whether Piers Anthony were behind it all.) Their first book, the one which would establish the series as it came out over the course of the next year? Clan Novel: Toreador.

If thirteen books brings to mind Piers Anthony, reading Clan Novel: Toreador only manages to suggest Danielle Steele.

For those familiar with V:tM and the thirteen clans, it's well-known that Toreador are the artists, the clan most closely connected to humanity, Humanity, and the world of the mortal mindset. Clan Toreador boasts The Pretty People(tm), the flightiest minds of the undead world. Unfortunately, so does their novel. I think my tabletop StoryTeller put it best when he said, "I knew it was going to read like a bodice-ripper when I saw the phrase 'nipples of her small breasts' in the first paragraph."

Now, I don't want to start off the review by saying I'm trying to trash Toreador, or their clan novel. The fact is, I like the Toreador. I think they might be the most interesting clan presented in White Wolf's materials. They make for complex characters with three-dimensional personalities and well-developed motivations for the treachery which being Kindred, White-Wolf style, requires. This is, in fact, why I didn't like Clan Novel: Toreador. Aside from this, however, the book is simply desperately lacking in tone, in content, and in characterization. While it has its merits, and it's worth reading in order to enjoy the books which follow after, it's not a stand-alone work which I would hand to a player who wanted to make a Toreador character for a chronicle. I certainly wouldn't hand it to anyone who wants to read some "dark fantasy," as the series describes itself.

Let's start by examining the tone of the novel. In all honesty, it does read like a bodice-ripper, a trashy romance "novel" bought in line at the grocery store for $3 and read during an afternoon when the hormones have simply overcome one's literary taste. It spends a great deal of time discussing "the nipples on her small breasts," the angst and anguish of being a vampiric artist with a hazy past and questions about why he can't sculpt like he used to, complete with powerful, handsome men named things like "Julius" who ripple with muscles underneath their politically correct pseudo-African-native tunics. It simply reads like something written by a fourteen year old, not one of the co-creators of the World of Darkness. In its efforts to mix the darkness and the light, the tragedy and hope which make Toreador so interesting, it ends up making too much light, and skimping on the darkness. There are too many stereotypically emotionless Tremere with "sumptuous bodies" hidden beneath their scary magickal robes. There are too many beautiful sculptures. Too many beautiful women. Too many of, well, everything. (Too many pages, even.)

Now that I've established that the overall tone of the book smacks far too readily of the "tone" of the failed Fox TV series based on V:tM, called Kindred: the Embraced, and well worth watching if only to know how not to design your characters, I'll take a look at the characterization. The main character, more or less, is Leopold, a Toreador neonate sculptor who doesn't know who his sire is, can't sculpt likenesses of other Cainites for some mysterious reason, and spends his every waking moment either worrying about the above or cooped up in his basement with beautiful, nipple-laiden mortal women (later he'll worry about them, in turn). There were things I liked about Leopold: he was an artist, rather than a stereotypical Toreador poseur. He was worried about his own loss of Humanity. He was conflicted regarding how to navigate the world of vampiric politics. The only real problem, in fact, was how much time he spends whining to himself about it. Eventually I wanted to smack him around, not pity him, although by no means does he fail at being pitiful.

The other two truly examined characters are those of Victoria Ash, the Toreador primogen of Atlanta, and Vegel, a Setite agent visiting the city and flirting with Victoria along the way. Here are two characters I could, pardon the pun, sink my teeth into. Victoria is a beautiful woman, but beautiful in the rounded way of three centuries ago, not super-model thin, who earned the attention of her sire because she was so good at subtly reading people's motivations and then manipulating them. She's developed an appreciation for art, but deep down, she's a politician. The description of how she's quietly set everyone up in the city to either fall or support her in an eventual bid to be Prince is flawless. While none of them are particularly convoluted, counting on, at most, staying abreast of people's possible moves two or three degrees seperated from herself in the overall political scheme of the city, it's the sort of thing that would work. The fact that she, herself, is in turn manipulated isn't ignored, and her genuine concern over whether these sorts of machinations, long-planned and long-tended as they may be, might blow up in her face, feel right. I liked Victoria a great deal; I liked her enough to think, "Now there's a Toreador." The problem is that Victoria isn't really examined, not enough to become interesting, until about two thirds of the way through the book. By then, you're wondering when something interesting is ever going to happen, and hoping an anvil falls from the sky to crush Leopold's whiny little head.

The third of the major characters is Vegel, the Setite. Again, here's a character I could enjoy. Vegel knows he's at least one elder's pawn, because he's in Atlanta on that elder's behalf. He wonders whether he's unwittingly the pawn of a half dozen other people or powergroups, though, in the precious few pages devoted to him, but he keeps his outward appearance of confidence, of being the snake in the apple tree in everyone else's Garden of Eden, perfectly. Vegel has his own reasons for doing what he does, and when confronted with certain death, he not only behaves the way I think a realistic "hero" would, he's entertaining while he does it. Between Vegel and Victoria, the last third of the book becomes fascinating -- so fascinating, that the violence which interrupts our chance to watch the minds of two very interesting vampires function serves more as an annoyance than anything else. Still, I'm glad I've read the book, if only to see two very nicely constructed vampiric personae.

And now, the story: it's the same story almost every Chronicle, one might imagine, faces at some point; that is, all is not well in the city of Atlanta, and while some selfishly manipulate for their own good, there are plenty of outsiders (be they Anarchs or Sabbat) who are ready to jump at any chance to do some serious carnage. While Vegel's wheeling and dealing and otherwise feeling antsy about a particular relic, Leopold's acting miffed over no one understanding his big statue, and Victoria's hoping she'll be Prince inside another year, the Sabbat are hanging out around the building, checking their watches, sharpening their swords, and feeling an expectant burn in their belly at the thought of so much diablerie to do.

The plain fact is, the story sucks.

I'm not going to tell you what happens. What I will say is what's important to a review: there's almost no explanation of how what happens, happens. There's no justification. There's no explanation of why the Camarilla never noticed the Sabbat in their territory in the first place, or why a building containing every vampire in the city isn't better defended, or why nobody's wearing a dang "I've fallen and I can't get up" emergency response bracelet, even. The climax of the novel just sort of pops up (or crashes through the windows) and says, "Hi, I'm here, I'm not going to bother explaining myself, and I'm going to wreak havoc against what you've just spent two hundred pages trying to digest."

And then it's over.

There is, however, one saving grace to the novel: the very last two pages. If you've bought and/or read the new "3rd Edition" versions of the Vampire game, including the Guides to the Camarilla and Sabbat, and you paid overly close attention, the last two pages will make you bolt upright in your chair and say, "Holy Caine, that did NOT just happen!"

And then it's really over.

When I was done with Clan Novel: Toreador, my thoughts ran like this, exactly:

Wow, that really wasn't very good.
Victoria and Vegel were pretty cool, though.
I've got to read the next one, if only to find out more about (content of the last two pages).

I guess, then, that the series-opener accomplished its goal, in that it made me go buy the 2nd book. The fact is, though, that the first novel isn't very good. It's...cheap. It reads like juvenile fiction. It made me think of vampires not as horrible monsters full of hope and darkness and complexity, but as immortals trapped forever at their senior prom.

And just to share my pain, that's the thought I'll leave you with, as well.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 2 (Sparse)

Clan Novel: Toreador
Author: Stewart Wieck Category: game Company/Publisher: White Wolf Publishing Line: Vampire: the Masquerade Cost: $5.99 US Page count: 262 ISBN: 1-56504-801-6 SKU: WW11100 Playtest Review by Michael Williams on 07/19/99. Genre tags: Fantasy Modern_day Horror Conspiracy Vampire Gothic	When White Wolf announced they were going to unroll fiction built around the Vampire: the Masquerade line, they said it would be an epic tale, irrevocably altering the face of the World of Darkness. (And clocking in at thirteen novels, one might wonder whether Piers Anthony were behind it all.) Their first book, the one which would establish the series as it came out over the course of the next year? Clan Novel: Toreador. If thirteen books brings to mind Piers Anthony, reading Clan Novel: Toreador only manages to suggest Danielle Steele. For those familiar with V:tM and the thirteen clans, it's well-known that Toreador are the artists, the clan most closely connected to humanity, Humanity, and the world of the mortal mindset. Clan Toreador boasts The Pretty People(tm), the flightiest minds of the undead world. Unfortunately, so does their novel. I think my tabletop StoryTeller put it best when he said, "I knew it was going to read like a bodice-ripper when I saw the phrase 'nipples of her small breasts' in the first paragraph." Now, I don't want to start off the review by saying I'm trying to trash Toreador, or their clan novel. The fact is, I like the Toreador. I think they might be the most interesting clan presented in White Wolf's materials. They make for complex characters with three-dimensional personalities and well-developed motivations for the treachery which being Kindred, White-Wolf style, requires. This is, in fact, why I didn't like Clan Novel: Toreador. Aside from this, however, the book is simply desperately lacking in tone, in content, and in characterization. While it has its merits, and it's worth reading in order to enjoy the books which follow after, it's not a stand-alone work which I would hand to a player who wanted to make a Toreador character for a chronicle. I certainly wouldn't hand it to anyone who wants to read some "dark fantasy," as the series describes itself. Let's start by examining the tone of the novel. In all honesty, it does read like a bodice-ripper, a trashy romance "novel" bought in line at the grocery store for $3 and read during an afternoon when the hormones have simply overcome one's literary taste. It spends a great deal of time discussing "the nipples on her small breasts," the angst and anguish of being a vampiric artist with a hazy past and questions about why he can't sculpt like he used to, complete with powerful, handsome men named things like "Julius" who ripple with muscles underneath their politically correct pseudo-African-native tunics. It simply reads like something written by a fourteen year old, not one of the co-creators of the World of Darkness. In its efforts to mix the darkness and the light, the tragedy and hope which make Toreador so interesting, it ends up making too much light, and skimping on the darkness. There are too many stereotypically emotionless Tremere with "sumptuous bodies" hidden beneath their scary magickal robes. There are too many beautiful sculptures. Too many beautiful women. Too many of, well, everything. (Too many pages, even.) Now that I've established that the overall tone of the book smacks far too readily of the "tone" of the failed Fox TV series based on V:tM, called Kindred: the Embraced, and well worth watching if only to know how not to design your characters, I'll take a look at the characterization. The main character, more or less, is Leopold, a Toreador neonate sculptor who doesn't know who his sire is, can't sculpt likenesses of other Cainites for some mysterious reason, and spends his every waking moment either worrying about the above or cooped up in his basement with beautiful, nipple-laiden mortal women (later he'll worry about them, in turn). There were things I liked about Leopold: he was an artist, rather than a stereotypical Toreador poseur. He was worried about his own loss of Humanity. He was conflicted regarding how to navigate the world of vampiric politics. The only real problem, in fact, was how much time he spends whining to himself about it. Eventually I wanted to smack him around, not pity him, although by no means does he fail at being pitiful. The other two truly examined characters are those of Victoria Ash, the Toreador primogen of Atlanta, and Vegel, a Setite agent visiting the city and flirting with Victoria along the way. Here are two characters I could, pardon the pun, sink my teeth into. Victoria is a beautiful woman, but beautiful in the rounded way of three centuries ago, not super-model thin, who earned the attention of her sire because she was so good at subtly reading people's motivations and then manipulating them. She's developed an appreciation for art, but deep down, she's a politician. The description of how she's quietly set everyone up in the city to either fall or support her in an eventual bid to be Prince is flawless. While none of them are particularly convoluted, counting on, at most, staying abreast of people's possible moves two or three degrees seperated from herself in the overall political scheme of the city, it's the sort of thing that would work. The fact that she, herself, is in turn manipulated isn't ignored, and her genuine concern over whether these sorts of machinations, long-planned and long-tended as they may be, might blow up in her face, feel right. I liked Victoria a great deal; I liked her enough to think, "Now there's a Toreador." The problem is that Victoria isn't really examined, not enough to become interesting, until about two thirds of the way through the book. By then, you're wondering when something interesting is ever going to happen, and hoping an anvil falls from the sky to crush Leopold's whiny little head. The third of the major characters is Vegel, the Setite. Again, here's a character I could enjoy. Vegel knows he's at least one elder's pawn, because he's in Atlanta on that elder's behalf. He wonders whether he's unwittingly the pawn of a half dozen other people or powergroups, though, in the precious few pages devoted to him, but he keeps his outward appearance of confidence, of being the snake in the apple tree in everyone else's Garden of Eden, perfectly. Vegel has his own reasons for doing what he does, and when confronted with certain death, he not only behaves the way I think a realistic "hero" would, he's entertaining while he does it. Between Vegel and Victoria, the last third of the book becomes fascinating -- so fascinating, that the violence which interrupts our chance to watch the minds of two very interesting vampires function serves more as an annoyance than anything else. Still, I'm glad I've read the book, if only to see two very nicely constructed vampiric personae. And now, the story: it's the same story almost every Chronicle, one might imagine, faces at some point; that is, all is not well in the city of Atlanta, and while some selfishly manipulate for their own good, there are plenty of outsiders (be they Anarchs or Sabbat) who are ready to jump at any chance to do some serious carnage. While Vegel's wheeling and dealing and otherwise feeling antsy about a particular relic, Leopold's acting miffed over no one understanding his big statue, and Victoria's hoping she'll be Prince inside another year, the Sabbat are hanging out around the building, checking their watches, sharpening their swords, and feeling an expectant burn in their belly at the thought of so much diablerie to do. The plain fact is, the story sucks. I'm not going to tell you what happens. What I will say is what's important to a review: there's almost no explanation of how what happens, happens. There's no justification. There's no explanation of why the Camarilla never noticed the Sabbat in their territory in the first place, or why a building containing every vampire in the city isn't better defended, or why nobody's wearing a dang "I've fallen and I can't get up" emergency response bracelet, even. The climax of the novel just sort of pops up (or crashes through the windows) and says, "Hi, I'm here, I'm not going to bother explaining myself, and I'm going to wreak havoc against what you've just spent two hundred pages trying to digest." And then it's over. There is, however, one saving grace to the novel: the very last two pages. If you've bought and/or read the new "3rd Edition" versions of the Vampire game, including the Guides to the Camarilla and Sabbat, and you paid overly close attention, the last two pages will make you bolt upright in your chair and say, "Holy Caine, that did NOT just happen!" And then it's really over. When I was done with Clan Novel: Toreador, my thoughts ran like this, exactly: Wow, that really wasn't very good. Victoria and Vegel were pretty cool, though. I've got to read the next one, if only to find out more about (content of the last two pages). I guess, then, that the series-opener accomplished its goal, in that it made me go buy the 2nd book. The fact is, though, that the first novel isn't very good. It's...cheap. It reads like juvenile fiction. It made me think of vampires not as horrible monsters full of hope and darkness and complexity, but as immortals trapped forever at their senior prom. And just to share my pain, that's the thought I'll leave you with, as well. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 2 (Sparse)