San Francisco by Night is the latest "by Night" book for Vampire the Masquerade. This one covers San Francisco (surprise) and is for both VtM and it's spin off, Kindred of the East.
Here's the basic structure of this review: First, my background and biases, then an overview of the chapters, and then the good, bad and ugly. This review will end with a few ideas on how to change what's presented in SFbN.
About Me
I've been looking forward to this book for oh 5 months or so now. Ever since I knew it was going to exist. It all goes back to Walking After Midnight. As those of you who have read Nights of Prophecy know, Walking After Midnight is probably the single coolest adventure ever published for VtM. It's the story detailing the negotiations between the Kuei-Jin and Kindred and the night it all goes to hell in San Francisco. There's intrigue, chaos, a big old fight, a chase scene, another fight, death, chaos and the chance for the PCs to affect in a major and dramatic way huge parts of the Vampire Metaplot. It's a winner.
That single story was the entire reason I'd ever purchased any Kindred of the East books. Yep, WW can thank my $75 in KotE books to Geoffrey C. Grabowski, for writing one bad ass story.
So when I heard SFbN was coming out, I was one happy little monkey. I ordered it the first day it showed up on WW's website, and after finishing the final exam that was taking up my time and attention, I sat down and read all the way through.
SFbN didn't disappoint me for ideas and characters for my chronicle, however I do wish Geoffrey C. Grabowski had penned this one as well. Ah well. It's a mixed bag kids. There's a lot to inspire and work with here, and there's a lot of crap.
On to the book.
SFbN starts off with your standard opening fiction. It's not bad, but it's not interesting either.
Chapter One is the Introduction. It's actually pretty good, looking about like every other introduction in a WW book ever. We get Theme and Mood and a list of Books, movies and other useful WoD books. Finally a damned handy Lexicon that explains concepts from Shadow War, Nights of Prophecy and Killing Streets. Damn nice if you don't have those books or want to flip through them.
Chapter Two is the history. A great deal of space was spent on the early years of the bay and San Francisco. The book does a very good job of giving you an idea of what life was like during the gold rush. Plus we get a side bar on everyone's favorite historical weirdo and Sandman minor character, Emperor Norton the First. However there's almost nothing on San Francisco during the late 1800's, and the chapter damn near skips over the entire 20th Century!
That's right, nothing on the 60's, nothing on the boom in computer and hi tech industries, nothing on the rise of the Gay community in San Francisco, nothing. We go straight from what the local Kuei-Jin thought of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the 1989 Earthquake. Now you might say this is because this is technically a KotE book and the Kuei-Jin just didn't worry about those things. But leaving out leaves a huge gaping hole in the explanation of how San Francisco became what it is today. We then get a recount of the Great Leap Outward, much of which is copied and pasted directly from Nights of Prophecy. Which is fine for those people that don't own NoP, but I was a bit unhappy at paying for the exact same things twice. The history section ends with all of half a page on the Kuei-Jin's attack on San Francisco and their taking over. We're given no real motivation for why they decided suddenly to turn back on the peace agreement with the Camarilla, and almost no detail on how the K-J went about taking over the city. There's also not a single word at all on why Madame Guil, Vidal Jarbeax and the 25 vampires she had with her in Walking After Midnight were nowhere to be seen to interfere with it in any way shape or form. Apparently a Justicar for the Camarilla decided that after peace negotiations were interrupted by Anarch attacks, everything was nice and peaceful and she didn't need to leave anyone to watch over the situation.
Chapter Three covers the Geography of San Francisco, and introduces the both of the book's really annoying plot devices. More on this later. The geography and descriptions of the city seem pretty good, the vampire politics included are horribly stupid.
Chapter Four covers nightly unlife in San Francisco, and details the second really annoying plot device. That's right, more on this later. If you end up discarding the two annoying plot devices, a good half of this chapter is completely useless. The rest of it ranges from handy, like the section on the Tongs, to damned cool, like the section on the Broken Mirror of the Wicked City.
Chapter Five details the Kuei-Jin and Kindred of San Francisco. We get faces we've seen before such as JieJie Li, Chiu Bao and Jochen Van Nuys and quite a few new characters.
On the East 8 Quincux KotE are detailed, in addition to 1 Asian Tremere, 2 members of the Green Courts, 2 Gaki, 2 Kanbujian, and 4 Akuma (one of which is a Ventrue, don't worry, he has no KotE powers.) On the West we get 9 Camarilla vampires, including a new prince who's described as being "cute as a button", we then get 3 Sabbat vampires (we'll mention them again). The chapter rounds out with one Shih (from Demon Hunter X) and eastern Mage (from whatever that book was that detailed them.), neither of which get stats.
Chapter 6 is the Storytelling chapter, which is pretty non inspiring. If you've read the storytelling chapter in the back of any WW book, you've read this one. There are a few plot ideas, none of which really grabbed me. We get Three new Thaumaturgy Rituals, all of which are useless if you throw out the two annoying plot devices. The chapter ends on a high note though, with information on the Kanbujian and their unlife. Enough information is given on making them Player Characters, although more information on their Paths (not the same as Paths of Enlightenment, don't worry) would have been damned handy.
Good, Bad and Ugly:
The Good
The first half of the history chapter.
A few of the illustrations are really cool.
Unlike most KotE books, the page backgrounds aren't so bold and distracting that you can't read the damned text. It's about freaking time.
Some of the characters are very cool, especially the Nosferatu Primogen and the Penganllon Akuma.
There's no Slumbering Methuselah anywhere beneath, in or around San Francisco! That's right, a By Night book with NO SLUMBERING METHUSELAH! Again, it's about freaking time.
No mention anywhere of Oscar Wilde and his Vampire nightclub on a boat. It's apparently been retconned out of existence. Yeah!
There are almost no spelling errors, and no "See Page XX" or other blatant editing goofs.
The history section doesn't include a single instance of real world events that were secretly caused by Vampires. No Ventrue were responsible for expansion, and a Gangrel didn't discover the gold in the mountains, etc. Compared to older by Night books, this is definitely a plus.
The Bad
The second half of the history chapter.
No real reason is given for why Jochen Van Nuys drops his hardcore Anti KotE stance after loosing the job of Prince.
The new Prince rubs me the wrong way, she just does.
There's the ubiquitous Sabbat Pack Out To Destabilise The City ala every other By Night book ever.
There's a 1200 year old Icelandic Viking Gangrel living in the city (who could be considered a Methuselah except he's 9th gen and not asleep manipulating everyone in town) who's there for no real reason except "He likes to whoop ass, and after whooping ass in Europe, he went to Chicago and whooped some ass. He then went on to whoop ass in LA, and now whoops ass in San Francisco."
There are no stats given for JieJie Li or Chiu Bao, despite the fact we get stats for the 1200 year old Gangrel.
None of the KotE have a listing for when they died. You can figure it out from some of the backgrounds, but not all. On the other hand every western Vampire has a year for their Embrace. The error is damned annoying.
Almost no detail on the years Vannevar Thomas ruled San Francisco. He gets a couple sentences on his death, but nothing on how he came to power or anything on while he was Prince. This is only annoying because of the fact WW had a major series of fiction a few years ago centered in San Francisco, and assumedly some fraction of the buying public for SFbN would include people who remembered or wanted to use those novels. Ah well.
The subtlety and realism of Shadow War and the Dharma Books is nowhere to be found here. SFbN is a huge throwback to the "We will stomp on the barbarian westerners with our kewl powers and advanced wisdom and knowledge!" attitude of the earliest KotE books.
The Ugly
The vast majority of the artwork. There's a whole lot of Manga looking crap in here. Some of it's fairly detailed Sailor Moon looking Manga crap, some of it looks like it was drawn by someone's anime loving little sister. Yes, it's that bad. The illustrations of the Sabbat characters look like they walked straight out of Speed Racer. Elsewhere the art looks like it was drawn by a mildly talented high school student with a passion for portraiture. As a whole the book has a good art to bad art ratio of around 1 to 10. Included in the ugly art barrage is the cover.
The Kuei-Jin takeover of San Francisco. Almost no detail is given to how they did it, and the book seems to be presented upon the idea that everyone detailed in it is stupid. (For those of you that have read Nights of Prophecy, think the story involving Hunters in Las Vegas)
Now, on to the real ugly: Our two annoying force fed plot devices.
First, the conquering Kuei-Jin forced all of the Kindred in the city to relocate to certain neighborhoods. They all had to move to a couple of neighborhoods of the city and weren't allowed to leave. And the Kindred agreed! This demand didn't spark outright war or half the city leaving, centuries old vampires just packed up and moved because some guys who took over last year told them to.
However to get revenge, the Tremere created a ridiculously overpowered Ward vs Cathayans that's only level 3 and unlike any other Ward VS causes massive amounts of damage to the being who passes past it each round until they get back on the other side of it.
Now instead of nailing their new UberWeapon to the front door of every Kuei-Jin's haven in town, the Kindred stuck them on the various bridges and highways in and out of the city, trapping the Cathayans in San Francisco.
Huh?
But don't worry, the Kuei-Jin have a ritual that gets around this ritual, brought to them by a Tremere on their side. Thing is she doesn't actually know it. Despite the fact that chapter 6 says she developed it.
Oh and there's a big super ritual that's level 5 and destroys all of the Super Wards across the city, but they haven't used it, because you know, they're saving it for later.
Fortunately, salvaging SFbN is pretty easy.
First: toss out the idea that the Kuei-Jin forced everyone to relocate. Hell you might want to toss out the idea that after the events in Walking After Midnight the Kuei-Jin just up and invaded San Francisco and did it with no trouble at all. A sizeable group of KotE who have moved into the city either on relatively good terms or bullied there way in could work pretty well IMO.
The only bad thing is now you have to read through Chapters 3 and 4 and pick out the useful stuff from the stuff you won't use.
Second: Toss out the Super Ward vs Cathayans. I'd suggest tossing out every Tremere presented in the book while you're at it, but that's just me. Go ahead and add Ward vs Cathayans and Warding Circle vs Cathayans, make them say level 4 or 5, and have them work exactly like every other Ward Vs ritual in Revised, only targeting the Kindred of the East.
Third: Toss out the 1200 year old Gangrel. Or alternately come up with a fleshed out and interesting 1200 year old Gangrel who has some sort of reason for living in San Francisco and giving a rats ass about what happens to it.
Sadly there's not much you can do to keep you from looking at the god awful artwork.
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