Alice Is Missing vs Vampire: The Masquerade
Compare Alice Is Missing and Vampire: The Masquerade side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Alice Is Missing | Vampire: The Masquerade | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Modern | Horror, Modern |
| Play Style | GM-Less, Diceless, Mystery, One-Shot Friendly, Experimental, Drama, Investigation | Social Intrigue, Faction Play, Urban Fantasy, Corruption, Drama, Investigation, Lore-Heavy |
| Core Mechanic | No dice, no GM. One player facilitates setup, then all communication happens via text messages on players' phones for 90 minutes. A timed playlist sets pacing: when the timer hits the number on the back of a face-down Clue Card, that player flips it and follows the prompt, drawing a Suspect or Location Card and weaving the new information into the group text conversation. Characters exchange messages in a group chat and in private, building the story of what happened to Alice Briarwood. The 10-minute card determines the ending. | Roll a pool of d10s (attribute + skill), count successes (6+). Hunger dice replace regular dice in the pool: their 10s trigger Messy Criticals and their 1s trigger Bestial Failures, making the Beast an ever-present threat. |
| Dice | Diceless | d10 dice pool |
| Complexity | Very Low | Medium |
| Accessibility | Medium | High |
| Runnability | Low | Very High |
| License | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Cost | $ | $$ |
| Publisher | Hunters Entertainment / Renegade Game Studios | Renegade Game Studios |
| Year | 2020 | 2018 |
| Best For | Groups looking for a unique, emotionally intense one-shot experience played in complete silence through real text messages on their phones. | Drama-heavy campaigns exploring themes of addiction, power, and losing your humanity. |
| Highlights | Played entirely in silence through real phone text messages: no speaking after the game begins, timed playlist structures 90 minutes of play with Clue Cards triggered at specific intervals, voicemails recorded during setup are played at the end as a group debrief, won three Gold ENnie Awards in 2021 including Product of the Year | Hunger system mechanically integrates the vampire's predatory nature into every dice roll. Clan membership and sect politics structure who a character allies with and opposes, giving the social game mechanical weight. Humanity and Stains system tracks moral erosion with narrative consequences. |
| Considerations | Requires all players to have phones and each other's numbers, designed as a single-session experience with no continuation: replaying with the same group revisits familiar territory, emotionally heavy content including themes of loss and violence requires safety tools and player buy-in, facilitator must thoroughly understand the rules beforehand even though the role is lighter than a traditional GM | Hunger dice inject swingy results at the worst moments, since a Bestial Failure can surface on a critical roll. Play leans heavily on social and political maneuvering, so groups expecting frequent combat will find that side of the system thin. Choosing a clan and predator type at creation assumes setting knowledge the player may not have yet. |