The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Being a writer for White Wolf must be the hardest job in gaming. The talented men and women who labor at White Wolf represent a huge minority of gamers and judging from the tone and style of the Vampire Storytellers Handbook , they aren't happy about it. In the Quixotic worldview that White Wolf-ers labor under, role-playing games are a perfect mix of imagination, creativity, cooperative talespinning, and cathartic release. All of their sourcebooks plumb the depths of characterization, theme, and setting. When the staffers of White Wolf get together to Role-Play in their personal games, they fuse elements of drama, history, philosophy, religion, literature, and myth. I suppose that in the early years of White Wolf, there was a certain naivete that their audience played Vampire exactly the same way as the staff did. 10 years later, White Wolf knows this isn't the case.

The Vampire Storytellers Handbook (VSH) is the first time that I've ever seen a game company really try to force people to play a game a certain way. Similar "GM Guides" in other RPG systems usually offer some unique factions or setting information that is meant to be "secret", some new game mechanics in the form of advanced combat rules or something similar, and some practical information for keeping a game going. The 1st Edition of the VSH, published in 1992, actually followed this formula with great success. This edition is something else entirely. It is filled with strident declarations of how a Vampire game should be run. It is filled with a hypocritical, condescending, just plain "bitchy" tone that does little to dispel the "pretentious" label that is sometimes affixed to Vampire and the World of Darkness in general.

Art and Layout

While the production values of the physical book (binding, quality of materials) is excellent, the art inside is a major step back for White Wolf. Most of the art is either simplistic or rough. I could understand this kind of art in a game with a more clear-cut morality, like Werewolf , but Vampire deserves more detailed, nuanced art. The art is relatively sparse and at times doesn't seem to fit the text. Would it have been too hard to include a couple of drawings of Kuei-jin if you were going to devote several pages of space to describing changes to their rules?

Introduction

The writers establish the pattern of contradiction and confusion that will color the rest of the book in this section. The Introduction is supposed to prime you for the rest of the book and it does this, stating the "goals" of the rest of the book.

Chapter One - The Undead

This chapter consists of a short Vampire FAQ that serves its purpose just fine. This is the kind of material that should be in a VSH . It contains the kinds of questions ("Do vampires leave fingerprints?" "What happens when a vampire loses a limb?") that a fledgling ST might be called upon to answer by his players. The end of the FAQ dips into questions that the rest of the book will attempt to answer, but does so in a much more concise and internally consistent way. It's a pity that the rest of the book isn't this clearly written.

Chapter Two - Among the Nights

This chapter contains the material that it seems the writers were desperate to avoid including, but had to. The stuff that an ST would normally pick up a "GM Guide" for. It has some secret bloodlines (Baali, True Brujah, and Nagaraja) and advice for creating bloodlines, detailing NPCs, running Elder games, and handling the 'downtime' of vampiric existence, such as when characters spend 100 years in study. Most of the material is useful, but only if you can separate it from the strident urgings of the writers that you use all of this new material to create Art, not a mere 'game'.

The most amazing part of Chapter Two is the first section, though, entitled "Clans Are Not Fraternities". The general gist of this section is that just because Character A and Character B are both Brujah doesn't mean that they are instant friends and allies. But this point is taken way too far, to a point where the writers appear to reduce the idea of a Clan to a simple classification for a vampire with a particular weakness and affinity for certain Disciplines. The writers seem desperate to smash all the conventions that have been formed through 10 years of evolution of the game line.

Chapter Three - The Storytellers Craft

This chapter is billed as "...arguably the most important chapter in this book...". I would label it as the most useless. White Wolf has a reputation for aiming quite high when it considers its target audience. What this chapter reveals is that the vast majority of players in the Real World simply cannot play a Vampire game as outlined in this chapter. The authors assume that both the ST and the players will be sufficiently well-versed in the finer points of drama, literature, history, religion, philosophy, and myth to create Art. In the Ivory Tower of Role-Playing that is White Wolf, finding such a group of gamers for your personal chronicle isn't too tough, since that ultra-rare kind of gamer generally works in the next cubicle over. But I'd guess that 95% of the gamers out there either aren't interested in this kind of Experience or simply aren't capable of the very demanding style of play described within.

There are several back-handed references to gamers who might just want to "blow shit up" or portray "shotgun-toting Elders", presumably offered in the spirit of appealing to all gamers. But after wading through three pages of minute dissection of the importance of theme in a role-playing game, these references sound like two-faced platitudes designed to maintain the thinest veneer of 'impartiality'.

Chapter Four - The Troupe

This chapter is a mixed bag. The beginning is quite useful, offering STs different character creation systems and ideas for handing out experience points in different ways. Once again, this is the kind of thing I would expect to see in a VSH . But the end of the chapter reveals more of the authors' bias.

In a large chapter dealing with "Problem Players", the authors clearly try to emulate the great Aaron Allston and his "Strike Force" campaign sourcebook, but they completely miss the underlying decency of Allston's tome. Most of the problem players described are the common ones found in gaming (The Rules Lawyer, The Combat Monster/"Terminator"), but the advice for dealing with them is quite harsh. Allston's solution for the Combat Monster is simply to provide him with a fight to get into. The VSH offers the following advice:

"On the good side, these players get bored easily. If you run things realistically and just have them automatically slay mortals in their path, the'll either start roleplaying..., get tired of all this boring character interaction and leave the game..., or get killed."

Earlier, in Chapter Three, however, STs are given this advice:

"Once you approve the character, however, you've obliged yourself to make him an important part of the game. Live up to this obligation or don't accept the character."

Well, a Combat Monster should be pretty easy to identify from his character sheet before a chronicle begins. Why give advice for dealing with problem players if it's your fault that they're in the game in the first place?

One pet peeve is that "The Loathsome Quoter" is identified as a problem player. It is described as a player who is fond of quoting movies and Monty Python at "inappropriate moments". While I agree that this kind of thing can be disruptive, I would suggest that this type of activity is something that everyone, gamer or not, does. The "solution" offered is to basically come down on the Quoter like the Gestapo. Keeping gamers from quoting their favorite sources of inspiration is like trying to stop lemmings from jumping off a cliff. But Vampire is Art, remember, and this kind of thing will simply not do. The final line of the Loathesome Quoter Solution is most telling:

"Quoting is a vile habit and encourages inbred thinking."

So, is the message that those gamers that quote movies during games (a large majority, I would think) are all "inbred"?

Chapter Five - Alternate Settings

This section is brief, but generally helpful. It is thankfully clear of the kind of pontificating found in the rest of the book and fleshes out ideas for playing Vampire in any period of history, from pre-Biblical times right through Gehenna. There isn't a tremendous amount of detail here, but enough to get an ST moving in the right direction. One interesting addition is the section on "Alternate Vampire Myths", which explores the idea that the fundamental tenets of the setting might be incorrect (Crosses do affect vampires regardless of a person's faith or maybe Gilgamesh was the first vampire, not Caine). These are the ideas that need to be explored further in a VSH , not overblown descriptions of incorporating mood into your game.

The final two paragraphs of this Chapter are called "It's Your Game, Dammit!". It goes on to say that all the stuff that's been written up to this point can be ignored by an ST if he or she wants. The purpose of this section is to some how authorize STs who want to run "Tarantino-style shootouts in the streets of Los Angeles right in full view of mortal onlookers...". The small section is emblematic of the holier-than-thou attitude that fills the book.

Chapter Six - A World of Darkness

This is a chapter devoted to trying to smoothly integrate the various World of Darkness games into one, unified whole. The rules presented are Vampire -oriented, but that's to be expected in the VSH . This section also includes updates for Kindred of the East fans. Once again, this is the kind of material that should be in an ST Handbook. It allows an ST to answer any thorny rules questions that might arise when Werewolves come by for a visit.

Chapter Seven - The Black Hand

This final Chapter is a detailed look at the mysterious Black Hand. I won't give anything away, but some interesting information is revealed that has some tie-ins to the Year of the Reckoning material. If you enjoy the meta-stories of White Wolf products, this will appeal.

Evaluation

When I pick up a "GM Guide", I expect to be given hints and tips on running a particular game. I look for some interesting new rules and ideas to enhance my game. I don't expect to be condescended to and made to feel as if I've been doing things all wrong for the past 17+ years. I can understand the motivations of the authors when they wrote the book. I suspect that they are trying to "advance and revolutionize the Art of Role-Playing" with this book. The kind of Vampire game that is described in the VSH is a complete myth. There are maybe a handful of players who could do the game justice as described in this Handbook.

This should be considered a highly advanced Handbook, for experienced STs and players only. A neophyte ST will be unable to absorb the information presented here. White Wolf has aimed too high.

Style: 2 (Needs Work)
Substance: 2 (Sparse)

Vampire Storytellers Handbook
Author: Bruce Baugh, Anne Sullivan Braidwood, Deird're Brooks, Geoffrey Grabowski, Clayton Oliver and Sven Skoog Category: game Company/Publisher: White Wolf Game Studio Line: Vampire Cost: $25.95 Page count: 200 Capsule Review by Dave Turner on 12/27/99. Genre tags: Modern_day Horror Vampire Gothic	Being a writer for White Wolf must be the hardest job in gaming. The talented men and women who labor at White Wolf represent a huge minority of gamers and judging from the tone and style of the Vampire Storytellers Handbook , they aren't happy about it. In the Quixotic worldview that White Wolf-ers labor under, role-playing games are a perfect mix of imagination, creativity, cooperative talespinning, and cathartic release. All of their sourcebooks plumb the depths of characterization, theme, and setting. When the staffers of White Wolf get together to Role-Play in their personal games, they fuse elements of drama, history, philosophy, religion, literature, and myth. I suppose that in the early years of White Wolf, there was a certain naivete that their audience played Vampire exactly the same way as the staff did. 10 years later, White Wolf knows this isn't the case. The Vampire Storytellers Handbook (VSH) is the first time that I've ever seen a game company really try to force people to play a game a certain way. Similar "GM Guides" in other RPG systems usually offer some unique factions or setting information that is meant to be "secret", some new game mechanics in the form of advanced combat rules or something similar, and some practical information for keeping a game going. The 1st Edition of the VSH, published in 1992, actually followed this formula with great success. This edition is something else entirely. It is filled with strident declarations of how a Vampire game should be run. It is filled with a hypocritical, condescending, just plain "bitchy" tone that does little to dispel the "pretentious" label that is sometimes affixed to Vampire and the World of Darkness in general. *Art and Layout* While the production values of the physical book (binding, quality of materials) is excellent, the art inside is a major step back for White Wolf. Most of the art is either simplistic or rough. I could understand this kind of art in a game with a more clear-cut morality, like Werewolf , but Vampire deserves more detailed, nuanced art. The art is relatively sparse and at times doesn't seem to fit the text. Would it have been too hard to include a couple of drawings of Kuei-jin if you were going to devote several pages of space to describing changes to their rules? *Introduction* The writers establish the pattern of contradiction and confusion that will color the rest of the book in this section. The Introduction is supposed to prime you for the rest of the book and it does this, stating the "goals" of the rest of the book. *Chapter One - The Undead* This chapter consists of a short Vampire FAQ that serves its purpose just fine. This is the kind of material that should be in a VSH . It contains the kinds of questions ("Do vampires leave fingerprints?" "What happens when a vampire loses a limb?") that a fledgling ST might be called upon to answer by his players. The end of the FAQ dips into questions that the rest of the book will attempt to answer, but does so in a much more concise and internally consistent way. It's a pity that the rest of the book isn't this clearly written. *Chapter Two - Among the Nights* This chapter contains the material that it seems the writers were desperate to avoid including, but had to. The stuff that an ST would normally pick up a "GM Guide" for. It has some secret bloodlines (Baali, True Brujah, and Nagaraja) and advice for creating bloodlines, detailing NPCs, running Elder games, and handling the 'downtime' of vampiric existence, such as when characters spend 100 years in study. Most of the material is useful, but only if you can separate it from the strident urgings of the writers that you use all of this new material to create Art, not a mere 'game'. The most amazing part of Chapter Two is the first section, though, entitled "Clans Are Not Fraternities". The general gist of this section is that just because Character A and Character B are both Brujah doesn't mean that they are instant friends and allies. But this point is taken way too far, to a point where the writers appear to reduce the idea of a Clan to a simple classification for a vampire with a particular weakness and affinity for certain Disciplines. The writers seem desperate to smash all the conventions that have been formed through 10 years of evolution of the game line. *Chapter Three - The Storytellers Craft* This chapter is billed as "...arguably the most important chapter in this book...". I would label it as the most useless. White Wolf has a reputation for aiming quite high when it considers its target audience. What this chapter reveals is that the vast majority of players in the Real World simply cannot play a Vampire game as outlined in this chapter. The authors assume that both the ST and the players will be sufficiently well-versed in the finer points of drama, literature, history, religion, philosophy, and myth to create Art. In the Ivory Tower of Role-Playing that is White Wolf, finding such a group of gamers for your personal chronicle isn't too tough, since that ultra-rare kind of gamer generally works in the next cubicle over. But I'd guess that 95% of the gamers out there either aren't interested in this kind of Experience or simply aren't capable of the very demanding style of play described within. There are several back-handed references to gamers who might just want to "blow shit up" or portray "shotgun-toting Elders", presumably offered in the spirit of appealing to all gamers. But after wading through three pages of minute dissection of the importance of theme in a role-playing game, these references sound like two-faced platitudes designed to maintain the thinest veneer of 'impartiality'. *Chapter Four - The Troupe* This chapter is a mixed bag. The beginning is quite useful, offering STs different character creation systems and ideas for handing out experience points in different ways. Once again, this is the kind of thing I would expect to see in a VSH . But the end of the chapter reveals more of the authors' bias. In a large chapter dealing with "Problem Players", the authors clearly try to emulate the great Aaron Allston and his "Strike Force" campaign sourcebook, but they completely miss the underlying decency of Allston's tome. Most of the problem players described are the common ones found in gaming (The Rules Lawyer, The Combat Monster/"Terminator"), but the advice for dealing with them is quite harsh. Allston's solution for the Combat Monster is simply to provide him with a fight to get into. The VSH offers the following advice: "On the good side, these players get bored easily. If you run things realistically and just have them automatically slay mortals in their path, the'll either start roleplaying..., get tired of all this boring character interaction and leave the game..., or get killed." Earlier, in Chapter Three, however, STs are given this advice: "Once you approve the character, however, you've obliged yourself to make him an important part of the game. Live up to this obligation or don't accept the character." Well, a Combat Monster should be pretty easy to identify from his character sheet before a chronicle begins. Why give advice for dealing with problem players if it's your fault that they're in the game in the first place? One pet peeve is that "The Loathsome Quoter" is identified as a problem player. It is described as a player who is fond of quoting movies and Monty Python at "inappropriate moments". While I agree that this kind of thing can be disruptive, I would suggest that this type of activity is something that everyone, gamer or not, does. The "solution" offered is to basically come down on the Quoter like the Gestapo. Keeping gamers from quoting their favorite sources of inspiration is like trying to stop lemmings from jumping off a cliff. But Vampire is Art, remember, and this kind of thing will simply not do. The final line of the Loathesome Quoter Solution is most telling: "Quoting is a vile habit and encourages inbred thinking." So, is the message that those gamers that quote movies during games (a large majority, I would think) are all "inbred"? *Chapter Five - Alternate Settings* This section is brief, but generally helpful. It is thankfully clear of the kind of pontificating found in the rest of the book and fleshes out ideas for playing Vampire in any period of history, from pre-Biblical times right through Gehenna. There isn't a tremendous amount of detail here, but enough to get an ST moving in the right direction. One interesting addition is the section on "Alternate Vampire Myths", which explores the idea that the fundamental tenets of the setting might be incorrect (Crosses do affect vampires regardless of a person's faith or maybe Gilgamesh was the first vampire, not Caine). These are the ideas that need to be explored further in a VSH , not overblown descriptions of incorporating mood into your game. The final two paragraphs of this Chapter are called "It's Your Game, Dammit!". It goes on to say that all the stuff that's been written up to this point can be ignored by an ST if he or she wants. The purpose of this section is to some how authorize STs who want to run "Tarantino-style shootouts in the streets of Los Angeles right in full view of mortal onlookers...". The small section is emblematic of the holier-than-thou attitude that fills the book. *Chapter Six - A World of Darkness* This is a chapter devoted to trying to smoothly integrate the various World of Darkness games into one, unified whole. The rules presented are Vampire -oriented, but that's to be expected in the VSH . This section also includes updates for Kindred of the East fans. Once again, this is the kind of material that should be in an ST Handbook. It allows an ST to answer any thorny rules questions that might arise when Werewolves come by for a visit. *Chapter Seven - The Black Hand* This final Chapter is a detailed look at the mysterious Black Hand. I won't give anything away, but some interesting information is revealed that has some tie-ins to the Year of the Reckoning material. If you enjoy the meta-stories of White Wolf products, this will appeal. *Evaluation* When I pick up a "GM Guide", I expect to be given hints and tips on running a particular game. I look for some interesting new rules and ideas to enhance my game. I don't expect to be condescended to and made to feel as if I've been doing things all wrong for the past 17+ years. I can understand the motivations of the authors when they wrote the book. I suspect that they are trying to "advance and revolutionize the Art of Role-Playing" with this book. The kind of Vampire game that is described in the VSH is a complete myth. There are maybe a handful of players who could do the game justice as described in this Handbook. This should be considered a highly advanced Handbook, for experienced STs and players only. A neophyte ST will be unable to absorb the information presented here. White Wolf has aimed too high. Style: 2 (Needs Work) Substance: 2 (Sparse)