City of Jerry vs Vampire: The Masquerade
Compare City of Jerry and Vampire: The Masquerade side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| City of Jerry | Vampire: The Masquerade | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Modern | Horror, Modern |
| Tags | Comedy, Fiction-First, Gonzo, Improvisation, Low-Prep, Mystery, Noir, Playbook-Driven, Random Tables, Rules-Light | Social Intrigue, Faction Play, Urban Fantasy, Corruption, Drama, Character-Driven, Resource Management, Superpowers, Social Combat, Lore-Heavy |
| Core Mechanic | When an outcome is uncertain, roll a d12 plus Heal or Harm and read the result on a five-tier scale: 12+ is a Critical Success, 9–11 a Success, 5–8 a Mixed Success, 2–4 a Failure, and 1 or less a Critical Failure. Natural 12s and 1s are always critical. Good or Bad Luck adds d12s and keeps the highest or lowest result. | Roll attribute plus skill in d10s, counting 6+ as successes against a difficulty. Paired 10s add extra successes. Hunger replaces ordinary dice in most pools: a winning critical containing a Hunger 10 becomes messy, while a failed test containing a Hunger 1 becomes a bestial failure. |
| Dice | d12 | d10 dice pool |
| Complexity | Low | High |
| Accessibility | Medium | High |
| Runnability | High | Very High |
| License | Made for Mischief Third-Party License | Community Content Agreement for the Storytellers Vault |
| Third-Party Publishing | Commercial publishing allowed — Made for Mischief Third-Party License | Commercial publishing allowed — Community content program |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | $ | $$ |
| Publisher | Drimbus | Renegade Game Studios |
| Year | 2026 | 2018 |
| Languages | English | English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Russian, Portuguese, Japanese |
| Best For | Groups who want low-prep noir mysteries with body-pun humor, player-created connections, and fast conflicts inside a human body. | Groups who want campaigns about vampire coteries balancing political ambition, predatory hunger, and relationships with the humans they still care about. |
| Highlights | Challenges, combats, and conversations share a Conflict framework, so one procedure supports objectives, fights, and persuasion. Matching results on multiple Luck dice trigger the Twist table, turning stacked advantages or disadvantages into an unexpected complication or benefit. Five biological Roles provide curated Abilities and Traumas, giving each Agent a distinct way to help or harm Jerry. | Using supernatural powers can increase Hunger, making the next hunt harder to postpone. Convictions and human Touchstones make moral compromise carry consequences beyond winning the immediate conflict. Coteries share hunting territories and social assets, giving political ambitions a foothold in the city. |
| Considerations | Agents choose from five biological Roles, so concepts outside the Immunization Task Force require reskinning. Each Wound adds a penalty, and a third Wound triggers a Death Roll, making dangerous conflicts costly. Investigations use general Challenge Counters rather than a clue or deduction subsystem, leaving evidence details to the Jerry Master. | Messy criticals and bestial failures can put predation or compulsions into scenes where players hoped to stay in control. Character creation requires choices across clans, powers, feeding habits, advantages, and human ties. Establishing the chronicle’s relationships and boundaries for mature themes takes group preparation even when using a published city. |