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Damnation City tries damn hard to be that book, but it falls close.
First, let's talk about the production values and aesthetics here. The fiction, by Robin Laws, is brilliant, and dwells on a number of vampiric participants in the Danse Macabre as they wind their way through it. It is very much worth reading.
Most of the work reads beautifully, although you can cut the pretension with a poorly-concealed katana. Throughout the book, the text falls into the same traps- great lists of stuff, providing fantastic seeds in the reader's imagination- but frameworks for their use that lack oomph.
Chapter One, Storytelling in the City provides spades of atmosphere, and there's also useful bits. The first section, 'The Neo-Feudal System: An Overview' goes into detail about how Vampires organize themselves, how Regency and tenurial domains work, and why this all goes down. Attention is given to the traditional Vampire titles, and story hooks involving them. Then we have a bunch of atmospheric text, thirteen pages detailing vampire grafitti. Then comes another really keen section- about forty real world cities, each with a few paragraphs describing how it might involve Vampires, which are full of rich, bloody, story meat. The chapter is rounded out with a profile of ten Princes, which serve as great variants from the stodgy stereotypes, and inspiration for new directions.
Chapter Two, The City that Works, starts with a long explanation of what sort of stuff is in a skyscraper, (Hint: mostly angst) and what's below the streets. (Hint: more angst.) In the second portion, we get to “City of Millions,” which contains some genuinely original and fascinating short character profiles- first, some catchy titles and descriptions, like “the hyperactive bike messenger,” or the “has-been all-star,” even to “that guy from that thing,” (if only you could remember.) These are well written and evocative. This is followed by a list of motivations- take a profile and a motivation, and you've got a more complex npc. After that, we've got a deeper description of the Virtues and Vices, and some sample actions a character with that advantage might take, so your Virtue/Vice combinations don't end up stale. Like the rest of the City of Millions portion, this is very well done.
Then we get 'Ambience and Attitude.' Here, the attitude of an area, from 'Welcoming' all the way down to 'Antagonistic' flavors the experiences in the area and effects die pools, although the text seems to suggest that not all rolls are effected in this way. (Which is good, because the average modifier comes out to a penalty. If we factor in that this is the World of Darkness, and that Antagonistic is going to be a heck of a lot more common than Welcoming, those penalties go up, up, up. Use the Attitude and Ambience rules with care, Storyteller.)
Hot Pursuit is a chase system that adds a little more complexity to the foot chase rules in the World of Darkness core, adding an element of choice to the pursued. Interesting and colorful, they suffer from being a flowchart, and need to have a custom flowchart made in preparation of a new chase to keep the variety. However, the tactics are all fluff here, reminiscent of a Choose Your Own Adventure. Do you run down an alley or the Employee's Only service hallway?
Chapter Three, the Barony rules, attempts to provide additional focus to the Danse Macabre, and give more game support for it. First, we have some advice on constructing the city- it's made of Districts, which contain Sites, and we have some sample District maps. Then we get into Barony Gameplay. Surprise! There's no original rules here, but there are more merits, so prepare to be even more stretched for merits at character creation. We get some good color text on how kindred act towards those they owe, and those who owe them, how one might be obliged, and then we get to how you'll never have any experience points to spend ever again. You thought Haven was bad with it's three sub-categories? Domain has five. Now we have something vaguely useful again- Schema, which are essentially relationship/conflict maps, and some minimal information on how to use them. Unfortunately, better information on relationship/conflict maps is widely available elsewhere.
Chapter Four: Primacy, claims to zoom out to the macro level, and make the players the most influential people in the city. It does this, primarily, by turning important key events into a board game. Influence is hideously easy, which gets you Assets (NPCs), which let you screw with other people's Assets or use their skills on your behalf, or it lets you influence the Prince (who still can't be a PC). The text admits that the more you use the Influence rules, the more broken they'll become. So at this point, Primacy lets you own lots of people. If you're looking for tense, personal conflicts, you won't find them here- instead, there's bookkeeping, and people who are measured in how many dots of skill they have.
Chapter Five: Districts, Sites, and Subjects, starts with a list of different districts, and game rules for their use- it's hard to gain information while in the Asylum, but it's pretty hard for people to break into. This game text is clear-cut and applicable, as opposed to the situational rules of Ambience. Each district has a flavorful description and a story hook. Even more detail is devoted to Sites, so next time your game involves a 24-Hour Laundromat, you'll have one in loving detail- with an adventure hook to boot.. Then one hits Subjects- more NPC writeups, longer than those in City of Millions, but thankfully, most of them have punch and hooks to them.
Chapter Six: City of Newcastle, gives us a city based on the board from the Prince in the City boardgame, with sites designed for vampires to prowl around. This is a good read, and shows how districts fit together. (Notably, there's nothing here about Attitude or Ambience.)
Oh, and there's an index. It's actually pretty good.
Overall, the book had a lot of potential for the Barony and Primacy sections, and it blew it on more of the same. The City of Millions and District sections however, are roleplaying gold, and useful for any World of Darkness or gritty city.
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