Kids on Bikes vs Vampire: The Masquerade
Compare Kids on Bikes and Vampire: The Masquerade side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| Kids on Bikes | Vampire: The Masquerade | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Horror, Modern | Horror, Modern |
| Tags | Mystery, Worldbuilding, Collaborative, Narrative, Character-Driven, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Superpowers, Rules-Light, One-Shot Friendly, Beginner-Friendly | Social Intrigue, Faction Play, Urban Fantasy, Corruption, Drama, Character-Driven, Resource Management, Superpowers, Social Combat, Lore-Heavy |
| Core Mechanic | Assign a different die from d4 to d20 to each stat. Roll the relevant die against a GM-set difficulty. A maximum result lets you reroll and add the new result only while the unmodified total remains below the difficulty. Resolve these explosions before adding bonuses or spending Adversity Tokens to meet or beat the difficulty. Failed checks earn Adversity Tokens that can boost later rolls or activate strengths. Planned actions can use half the die’s maximum instead of rolling. | 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 | d4–d20 | d10 dice pool |
| Complexity | Low | High |
| Availability | Free quickstart | Free quickstart |
| Runnability | 4 of 5 book tools | 5 of 5 book tools |
| License | All Rights Reserved | Community Content Agreement for the Storytellers Vault |
| Third-Party Publishing | No verified route found | Commercial publishing allowed — Community content program |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Publisher | Hunters Entertainment / Renegade Game Studios | Renegade Game Studios |
| Year | 2018 | 2018 |
| Languages | English, Italian, Spanish | English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Russian, Portuguese, Japanese |
| Best For | Groups who want to build a small-town mystery together and share control of its supernatural companion alongside their own everyday characters. | Groups who want campaigns about vampire coteries balancing political ambition, predatory hunger, and relationships with the humans they still care about. |
| Highlights | Shared town-building and relationship questions give the GM player-created hooks for the mystery. Each player controls aspects of a shared supernatural character, distributing its choices across the table. Failed rolls earn tokens that can turn later setbacks into successes. | 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 | Combat can kill a character outright when the attack roll greatly exceeds the defense roll. Players must help narrate outcomes beyond their own characters under the default shared-control approach. Character growth is negotiated from events in play rather than governed by levels or an experience-point track. | 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. |