METTLE Core vs Vampire: The Masquerade
Compare METTLE Core and Vampire: The Masquerade side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| METTLE Core | Vampire: The Masquerade | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Universal, Modern | Horror, Modern |
| Tags | Pulp Action, Toolkit, Hackable, Rules-Light, Classless, Fast-Paced, CC-Licensed Rules | Social Intrigue, Faction Play, Urban Fantasy, Corruption, Drama, Character-Driven, Resource Management, Superpowers, Social Combat, Lore-Heavy |
| Core Mechanic | Roll a pool of d6s equal to the Attribute being used. Dice showing 1, 2, or 3 are summed as the Score; dice showing 4, 5, or 6 are counted as Edge. The Check succeeds if Score meets or exceeds the Difficulty (Routine 1 to Nigh Impossible 15), and Edge measures how well it went. On a failure with Edge, the player may call for a Twist: accept a complication proposed by the rest of the table, then reroll the Edge dice for a second chance. Initiative passes from the acting character to the target of their Action, who becomes the next to act. Mettle (Motive + Nature) acts as a combined morale and damage track, and characters may Surge by spending Mettle for bonus dice on critical Checks. | 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 | d6 dice pool | d10 dice pool |
| Complexity | Low | High |
| Accessibility | Very High | High |
| Runnability | Very High | Very High |
| License | CC BY 4.0 | Community Content Agreement for the Storytellers Vault |
| Third-Party Publishing | Not yet researched | Commercial publishing allowed — Community content program |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | Free | $$ |
| Publisher | Planarian Games | Renegade Game Studios |
| Year | 2021 | 2018 |
| Languages | English | English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Russian, Portuguese, Japanese |
| Best For | Groups who want fast pulp action-adventure in the vein of Indiana Jones, James Bond, or Tales of the Gold Monkey, with a hackable toolkit they can bend toward detective stories, wild-west gunfights, post-apocalyptic survival, or grounded science fiction. | Groups who want campaigns about vampire coteries balancing political ambition, predatory hunger, and relationships with the humans they still care about. |
| Highlights | Score-and-Edge dice pool reads two outcomes from the same roll: whether the action succeeds (Score meets Difficulty) and how well it went (count of 4–6 dice). Player-invoked Twists let a failed roll be reframed as a messy success in exchange for a fictional complication chosen by the rest of the table. Six-attribute character sheet (Calling, Culture, Frame, Motive, Nature, Poise) replaces classes and skills with player-written Descriptors that justify which Attribute applies to a given task. Initiative passes from the acting character to the target of their Action, eliminating turn-tracking and tying combat order to who is acting on whom. | 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 | Toolkit framing means the book provides scaffolding (factions, NPC seeds, sample castaway adventure) rather than a fleshed-out setting: groups expecting a defined world will need to build or borrow one. Mettle does triple duty as morale, hit points, and a spendable resource for bonus dice, which can take a session to internalize. Twist resolution depends on the rest of the table proposing complications, which slows play if the group is hesitant to add fiction. | 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. |