Scouting Report
Midnight Siege is a supplement for Vampire: the Masquerade. It is equally applicable to the tabletop and LARP versions of the game, being rather light on rules. It consists of four chapters - giving us views from the Camarilla, Sabbat, the independent clans, and some storytelling tips - and an appendix of sample characters.
This review assumes that you have some familiarity with Vampire, since I can't imagine why you'd want this book if you don't play the game. :)
Engage the Enemy
After reading this book, one has to ask - why didn't they do this earlier? The idea of a supplement describing the war between the Camarilla and Sabbat is seemingly obvious, and will be helpful to many campaigns, including those not currently at war. There is a great amount of characterization of the two sects and of the independent clans, which can help GM's who are wondering exactly how to introduce a Settite into the game.
Probably the most useful aspect of this book is that it follows the old adage of "don't tell them, show them." Dozens of examples are provided for any situation. Rather than just telling us, "the Sabbat use inhumane tactics," it gives concrete examples, such as the embracing dozens of children to use as freakish warriors against the Camarilla, infecting their own "soldiers" to cary plagues into the enemy city, etc.
The best part about these examples, and thus about the book in general, is that it's all quite believable. There was nowhere that I said, "Come on, that would never work." Not only is it believable, but most of the tactics carried out in Midnight Siege can be done by neonate vampires - starting characters can make a real difference! For perhaps the first time in a Vampire book, the emphasis is on starting characters gaining some real power and influence, and that's a very nice thing when you've had to toadie to the Elders for several years.
The chapter on storytelling tips is generally straightforward. It talks about how to control the feel of a war story, and includes a timeline for attack, defense, and regrouping for both the Camarilla and Sabbat. Again, the difference between the sects is made obvious. The sample character section has a couple relatively obvious characters, but I typically use these sections to cover up for an accidental lack of planning on my part. "Oh crap, I forgot to make up stats for this guy. Hey, look, here's some in the book. I'll use those. He'll do." In the whole book, only the sample characters are specific to the tabletop game, but they shouldn't be hard to convert.
The Condition of the Battlefield
Now that I've given a good amount of praise to the content, it's time to talk about the wrapping. The outside of the book is fairly nice, being the usual perfect-bound book that most companies these days make. The title catches one's eye, certainly.
Internally, the book is up to White Wolf's standards in terms of layout and design. There are easily-legible text boxes throughout, and though they're written from a character's point of view, there's none of the all-too-common annoyance factor one often gets from reading a character's viewpoint. I have to admit to having skipped the introductory bit of "fiction", but the in-character comments inside were rather good. The sidebar titles can be pretty amusing, too.
One complaint I have about the book's style was the art. Some of it was typical line art that one sees in White Wolf books, which is ok, especially since it usually had something to do with the text on the page. The larger pieces, however, were exceedingly dark. Spending a whole page on a face and a streetlight and some noir does get across the feeling of Vampire quite well, but it also makes me want to turn up the brightness on the page so I can see more of the painting. I like a little more detail in my art. And as a nitpick, the one sidebar of "dot matrix printout" looked rather awful, and was relatively hard to read, almost as if someone had crumpled a real, old, dot matrix printout and scanned it in for use on that page. Authentic, not illegible, but annoying.
Lastly, I would be tempted to say there was a bit of "wasted space" in this book... except that there was so much content that I didn't even notice the amount of space taken up by pictures and whitespace until I looked back through the book. Yes, there is a good amount of blank space... but there is also a significant amount of content, and very little seems to be left unsaid.
Who won?
While the very dark art keeps me from giving this book a 5 in Style, it certainly deserves a 4. The sheer amount of useful information contained in Midnight Siege gives it a Substance rating of 5. All in all, this is one of the best Vampire supplements I've ever read.
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