While I was very excited about this book because
I thought that it covered an area much neglected in
Vampire, I did not expect it to be a particularly
interesting read. It deals with, after all, business,
politics, and influence peddling. But I couldn't put
it down. It manages to take a dry subject and make it
a really interesting read. I really have to compliment
the authors, both of whom I am unfamiliar with. A
search on their names indicates that Ari Marmell is a
contributor to the Kargatane Ravenloft site and Michael
Mearls is an Unknown Armies contributor. I hope to see
more of their work in the future.
To begin with, this isn't a 'crunchy' supplement.
You can count the references to any system
mechanics on one hand and nothing new is introduced.
Instead, it deals with the details of what is already
there. Your character has Influence 4, Resources 3,
and Allies 2, eh? That's great, but what does that
mean? Is that influence political, social, or
financial? What is the source of your income? Are your
assets liquid or tied up in stock? Who are your allies
and why do they look out for you? These are the sorts
of questions this book helps you answer (or, more
importantly, gets you thinking about). Quite simply,
this supplement is about running Vampire games
that emphasize politics and power-mongering, and it
manages to provide a lot of information useful to both
players and storytellers.
The book is written from the perspective of an older
vampire advising a Neonate (or Neonates in general) in
how to accumulate wealth, power, and status in the
vampire world. It is almost entirely first person but
done in a very agreeable manner. It isn't bogged down by
the narrative at all. In fact, since it is meant to be
instructional, it barely reads like one. The only gripe
I have is a personal pet peeve which I'll address later
(since its importance is negligable). The supplement is
divided into sections covering major areas of Kindred
influence, with the last chapter being specific to
Storytellers and giving advice on how to integrate this
all into a campaign and how to prepare for players'
attempts to delve into the political sphere.
The Introduction begins by laying out how
the approach to vampiric influence differs between Revised
and previous editions. What this boils down to is greater
realism. It just isn't plausible to have the Kindred behind
every single mortal power base and responsible for every
single human endeavor. Nor is the picture of an elder with
pin point control over entire industries particularly
believeable. Instead, the approach Revised proposes and
which this book supports is that the power a vampire
accrues is all in influence instead of control. It is
subtle and complex and difficult to maintain, which only
seeks to highlight further the mechanitions of elders
and ancillae as they attempt to hold onto and expand it.
I like this. I've always been more interested in gritty
realism than 'Gothic Punk' and this meshes well with my
level of suspension of disbelief.
Chapter One deals with business and covers a
lot of territory, from corporations to the medical
establishment, law firms, and even unions. As with the
rest of the book, the advice is targeted at neonates,
which makes it very useful for players. However, the
lessons and observations are general enough (and not
terribly sect specific) as to be applicable to ancillae
and elders as well. In a pattern which is also matched
in the other powers, the narrator talks about how to
gain and retain influence in each area, as well as
detail the benefits and drawbacks to dabbling in them.
The dangers of being too involved in the mortal world
when there is a Masquerade to maintain are stressed
throughout, other practical considerations (like how
to attend mid-day board meetings) aside. There is
extensive advice on when and how to use intermediaries
and who to target for control for maximum influence in
each sector. It is thorough but, thankfully, general.
The authors don't waste a lot of time trying to explain
in detail how a corporation operates. They only do so
insofar as it is important to the task at hand. It is
a very efficient use of space.
Chapter Two concerns itself with social
influence, in both high society and 'low society';
Chapter Three covers government and political
organizations (including city workers and bureaucrats
who, the narrator points out, are often more useful to
have power over than mayors and city councilmen);
Chapter Four deals with criminals and other
street-level contacts; and Chapter Five is a grab
bag of institutions that fall outside of the previous
classifications, from universities,the church, and media to
fringe groups, cults, and subcultures. Each area is
given the same detailed but general treatment as the
first and is full of ideas on how and where to go
looking for power, wealth, and influence. With each
chapter, there is also either a sidebar or a few paragraphs
in the text itself detailing which clans tend to be involved
in which areas with many caveats about taking stereotypes
and generalizations too seriously. Much of the advice also
goes along the lines of warning against making assumptions
about people based on their lifestyle, wealth, or position,
and the trouble it can get you into when you're playing such
a delicate game.
Chapter Six is the storyteller section and details
how to pull all of this together to run a political campaign.
It takes you step-by-step through the process of detailed an
NPC in such a setting and how the information you need to lay
out beforehand differs from what you'd bother with in a less
influence-focused campaign. It also gives a lot of good advice
on how to run such a game including a lot of good general
guidelines that are particularly important to such a theme
(such as 'don't pull your punches' and 'don't play favorites
with your NPCs' and 'always follow through on reprecussions').
The end of the chapter goes over the social backgrounds and
gives a little more flexibility in how to interpret them, like
averaging out accessibility and influence for Allies or trading
degree of recognition for range in Fame. It also advises to work
out the particulars of NPCs influence rather than trying to
assign meaningless stats to them, a policy which I heartily
concur with.
Now, the true measure of a supplement is whether or not it
gives you stuff that you want to use. I've read many a gaming
book that was a fun read but I'd never use it or the material
within and it ends up on a shelf, unused and forgotten. This is
not such a book. When I was done, I immediately wanted to go
work on my New Orleans setting and detail out all of the NPCs'
political and business dealings in detail and map out the web of
influence, favors, and contacts. I do intend to do so and I'll
reference this book extensively when I do so. While I might not
need to read the advice carefully again, just the list of
institutions and spheres of influence are going to be handy to
give me ideas and remind me of considerations that I might not
think of right away. Pretty good for a dry supplement about
politics.
Feel free to ignore the following rant if you are only
interested in the content of the book and not my anal retentive
gripes about tone and theme.
Pet Peeve: For all the talk in the introduction about
shooting for a more realistic portrayel of power and the urging
of the narrator in most of the book to be careful about believing
stereotypes, many of the chapters start with a little blurb that
cynically condemns those with power and money as being universally
corrupt and amoral and espouses an opinion about a lack of class
mobility in the United States which is patently false. While it
isn't really important, I find it irritating and I think it really
downplays a lot of the interesting moral issues that a Vampire
campaign can contain. Why should a vampire worry about stepping on
people to get to the top when all the people he's treading on are
universally rotten, greedy bastards? It is much more interesting
when the person who a neonate has to financially destroy to take
over a company is sympathetic. Once of the best scenarios I ever
took part in involved a war of influence that ended up destroying
a very compassionate man who wanted to finally spend his money
someplace worthwhile by building a theme park for children in an
area that, unfortunately for him, was desired by a local Toreador
elder. The whole theme of trying to retain Humanity is lost when
you push from moral greyness into a cynical blackness where everyone
is equally despicable and the monsters are no worse than their prey.
Okay, rant done. Move along.
Go to forum!
(Due to spamming, old forum discussions are no linked.)