Gilded Cage: A Sourcebook of Politics and Influence for Vampire: the Masquerade.
Written by: Ari Marmell and Michael Mearls
Developed by: Justin Achilli
Edited by: James Stewart
The last review of the last complentary copy I received back in January. It is not without some pleasure that I end that series off with this – a book which I didn’t even look at for a whole month and a half. I had just finished my 2.5-year Vampire chronicle, one which eventually turned into an action thriller because I lacked the knowledge and resources to really make a go of my original intention – a political pot boiler. Burned out from Vampire and working on other, non-Vampire-like games, I left this book – with its return to dirty politics, backroom dealings and intrigue among ancient unholy monsters – on my shelf. Finally recharged somewhat, I picked it up and found that once I opened the covers I couldn’t put it down (I am such a politics junkie).
Gilded Cage is 112 pages of “what exactly does it mean that the Kindred “manipulate” things”. Five of the six chapters are told in the form of first-person narrative: a sort of treatise given by a patron of the reader, whose identity, age, clan and sect are left deliberately unknown. Some may bristle at this overuse of narrative, with its limited view but actually it reads much like a well-managed seminar or a very well-done political science primer. The use of explicit examples in many places is commended – in fact, this book would have lost much of its impact – it’s hard to dispel the vague hand-waving of such words as “control” and “influence” without showing EXACTLY what is meant by these.
About time I really started the review, eh?
Introduction: Power Corrupts
Right from the beginning of Vampire there has been all this talk about the titular monsters ruling the world through a series of back channels and hidden levers. Exactly how this is done and what do they with this has never been discussed – they just “control” things. As a player this is immensely frustrating – how can you thwart rivals if don’t know how they operate, and how do you grow as a character (how does one start to “control” something – is there a course, is there money involved, and why “control” something at all?). And if you think that as a player it is frustrating, imagine the problem for the poor ST who has to figure out what “control” means in terms of their own plots.
The introduction is the last time you will hear the too-vague word “control” in the book – strike it from your vocabulary for the duration of the book. And as I mentioned earlier the book is presented in the form of lecture/primer text narrative of an unidentified vampire, whose advice is broken down by general areas of influence (covered separately in each chapter).
Chapter One: The Business At Hand
This was the first chapter and forms the template of all subsequent chapters – general overview of an area of influence, how to get in, what each area of influence can do for you, dangers and limitations of the area and finally any particulars (for instance, in this chapter they handle financial institutions and “dot coms”/venture capital in additional details. Meta-narrative information and out of game notes are located in nearby sidebars. Then end of each chapter also has notes as to how the Sabbat (who, stereotypically, have as little to do with mortals as possible, outside feeding, torturing or recruiting) gain influence.
The main text information is a pure gold mine of character development, and story ideas/hooks. The sidebars are the icing on the cake – pointing out time and again that nothing is monolithic (so no, ‘Venture all control business and only business” to be found here), nor is this information limited to vampires. If a vampire can bring a government to its knees, why can’t Rupert Murdoch?
Business is all about two things – money and power, and one follows the other quite well. It is also, despite the American axiom, quite a closed little society – the largest corporations and the most exclusive boards of directors are on par with the Forbidden City of imperial China, and in the World of Darkness these ‘guilds’ have long been milked and herded by elders. But the narrator does show how and where windows of opportunity can be exploited. The general gist of this is the younger a vampire, the more comfortable they are with a faster pace of change, and more amenable they are with modern technology – so use the global communications and the 24 hour global work day to your advantage, and ruthlessly exploit the twin trends of globalization and concentration – hit them where they don’t see it coming and in such a way they never think to identify you as the culprit.
The specifics part of the chapter details the banking and finance sector, law firms, trade unions, and medical corporations in addition to the high tech informatics sector the narrator begins the chapter discussing in his introduction.
Chapter Two: Social Climbing
This chapter covers high society and celebrity – in other words the rich (and showy) and famous. These ‘beautiful people’ are a frequent fixture in vampire chronicles but are rarely discussed. Why would something that existence depends on being unseen, unidentified and completely undiscovered want to do with such unbelievable publicity whores? The same reason the rest of us slobs would – to just be around them. Of course few of us have as our first priority to use them as bait for food, money, swaying the unwashed masses or as backdoors into other areas of influence, but then maybe we do.
After dealing with the whys and how-to’s of the swinging set we have the other side of the coin – low society. Like an Robert Altman film these two extremes are inextricably linked. Celebrities started somewhere (and avoided some dead ends), money buys the privilege to indulge in vice and everyone needs someone to clean their 200-room house and tell them what they are doing today. Drug peddlers, sex operators, nightclub owners, and the cleaning staff all have their place at the table of the rich and famous – they just get airbrushed out of the picture.
Chapter Three: On Matters of Governance
Ah government, perhaps the most misunderstood beast even among those of us in the real world, but there is no better way to get things done and keep them done then to enshrine them in government – the market fails, businesses pull an Enron, the famous OD on drugs and the rich are fair-weather at the best of times, but government is eternal. Someone paves the roads, pumps the water, files the application, even gets elected from time to time. The focus of the narrator is on the western democracy but STs can apply much of the information to other systems (bureaucrats exist in all states – regardless of whether you elect the leader or they get the big shiny hat through military coup or inbreeding).
The chapter covers all levels – but focuses on the more immediately usable and less risky local governmental level – municipal politics. It also approaches the institution of government from a variety of angles, from within the structure of government (bureaucrats), visitors (politicians, elected officials) and the parasites (lobby groups, and party machines). Government is a very pro-vampire institution, it is inherently conservative, stable (hopefully) and innovates/changes at a rate just a smidge faster than glacial ice. In short – it is a sure thing, one that is always there and so pervasive in society. There is more to controlling the government than maintaining the Masquerade and easy protection of vampiric havens. The pitfalls are also spelled out – it IS a slow, steady beast that loathes to change direction for any reason short of an impending apocalypse. Not the sort of influence you can throw around at a whim.
Chapter Four: The Streets
Street culture, violence, sex, drugs, the sort of stuff done TO. DEATH. in Vampire books (and other White Wolf lines). It has a mix of vicarious thrill and taboo titillation that gives the average suburban “thug” a perpetual hard-on, much to the detriment of actually handling it honestly and with some maturity. For once I can say this book handles the ‘Streets’ without any gratuitous swearing, nudity or references to drug abuse.
Contrary to popular Vampire myth –the ‘Street’ is not a great boon to the average neonate. The amount of time and resources, not to mention tact and self-control, is almost more than the dividend the Streets can provide – but it is this ‘almost’ where vampires seek their influence. The narrator takes a look at the “Streets” (both the legal side and the criminal underworld) treating it like any other resource – that itself is a major improvement – and approaches it from a variety of angles – the “Toughest SOB”, the “One of Us” and the “Slumming Patron” methods, all carrying various pros and cons and price tags associated with them.
Chapter Five: Outside the Box
This is the “catch-all” chapter – a sort of ‘remainder’ bin of groups that are not entirely covered elsewhere or are much more specialized: the media, universities, organized religion, psychology/psychiatry/social workers, militia (easily generalized to any/all insurrectionists and militant (counter-)revolutionary movements), hackers, cults/subcultures, etc. In this chapter who have the old giants of influence (the Church) with the boiling pot of up and coming emerging groups (like hackers). Since the chapter is less focused than usual the amount of individual information is sparse while they general suggestions and themes of the book (influence is what and where you put effort into making it and it isn’t something that you can take for granted) is still strong in this chapter. In many ways this chapter is a summary of the whole book, all the fat and non-essential (although appreciated) detail removed. It is by far my favourite of the chapters.
Chapter Six: Pulling the Strings
I would have preferred this as an Appendix rather than a full chapter since its content – the mechanics and storyteller information – does not fit the structure of the book. This chapter answers the question I had as I was reading this book: gee, all this detail and information is really cool but how to implement it in the game? I mean, following around a single vampire checking up with all his “friends” in various walks of life, slowly manipulating them to execute whatever petty whim the vampire is engaged in is fun and all, but really, with 4 other characters and with existing mechanics why not just keep to the “Make a Charisma Influence roll, difficulty 7, to get what you want you’ll need 10 successes.” This chapter handles that concern and but also helps frame the Influence campaign (where such things are not simply the means but the end itself). The mechanics are kept to an absolute minimum – little more than a discussion of how various backgrounds can be attached to influence (not substituted, not used in lieu of, but how they interact together and how to properly model influence through all the backgrounds).
The suggestions are solid and provide a great set of hooks for a game (as if you need them after reading through 5 chapters of plotty goodness). The flip side is also true – there is advice on how to handle the “I shoot him in the face” style of ‘Near Dark by way of Tarrantino’ vampire players who prefer to shoot elders rather than stymie their plots through deals and contact with mortal servants (in general don’t force these types to place a politics game – tailor your game according to your players’ tastes, there is no One True Way).
Final Thoughts and Conclusions
The lack of a beginning game fiction bit and the overall minimal use of art makes this book a bit of a rare bird, but what is there art-wise, is not jarring or disruptive and in fact was barely noticed after the first two panels (if it can’t be outstanding, art is best if its simply there instead of negatively attracting your attention).
As for my general conclusion after reading the book, I can’t be more blunt: this book should have been published in late 1991 or early 1992. There has simply been no excuse to delay something as essential as this in favour of less useful, more constraining materials. This is a true toolkit book (although it lacks any system mechanics tools) – it takes nothing for granted beyond the existence of vampires, their sects and their general desire to hide from humanity – clans, disciplines, all that system and setting specific information is completely irrelevant. Even the things it takes for granted can be bypassed. I’d recommend this book to anyone looking for help figuring out how a hidden society/conspiracy can influence larger society. All the information is relevant, nothing is created or changed just for the sake of being supplemental material. The one rules area it does comment on is purely from a suggestion point of view and carries no special or disjointed mechanics.
That said the book is very focused on the minutiae of influence peddling and growing, something that in a more general game of Vampire plays an important, but very small, part of the actual session time. In this situation the book, while still very important and enlightening, is likely to be used more for the ‘blue-booking’ side of things than in-game session time. In less physical/action/cinematic or horror games, more cerebral/conspiracy/political ones this book shines, but in game which emphasize the former two types of games one might find the utility of the book to be diminished.
Style: 3 (good, but not outstanding, excellent layout but nothing terribly stylistic, like Ikea furniture – nice and minimalist)
Substance: 5 (honestly, you can’t get meatier than this without really mucking things up.
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