Monsterhearts vs Vampire: The Masquerade
Compare Monsterhearts and Vampire: The Masquerade side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Monsterhearts | Vampire: The Masquerade | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Horror, Modern | Horror, Modern |
| Tags | Narrative, Fiction-First, Character-Driven, Drama, Roleplay-Heavy, Playbook-Driven, Player-Only Rolls, Theater of the Mind, Collaborative, Atmospheric | Social Intrigue, Faction Play, Urban Fantasy, Corruption, Drama, Investigation, Lore-Heavy |
| Core Mechanic | When a move calls for dice, roll 2d6 plus Hot, Cold, Volatile, or Dark. A 10+ is good, a 7–9 is complicated, and a 6 or less lets the MC introduce unpleasant consequences. Strings represent emotional leverage that characters can spend during interactions, while the MC never rolls dice. | 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 | 2d6 | d10 dice pool |
| Complexity | Medium | Medium |
| Accessibility | Medium | High |
| Runnability | Very High | Very High |
| License | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Third-Party Publishing | No verified route found | Not yet researched |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | $ | $$ |
| Publisher | Buried Without Ceremony | Renegade Game Studios |
| Year | 2017 | 2018 |
| Best For | Groups who want collaborative teen-monster horror driven by desire, social leverage, and messy relationships. It suits an MC ready to discuss boundaries and facilitate safety practices. | Drama-heavy campaigns exploring themes of addiction, power, and losing your humanity. |
| Highlights | Strings turn emotional leverage into a spendable resource, so relationships mechanically shape influence and risk. Every Skin carries distinct moves and an economy that gives each monster archetype a different mechanical focus. A fifth advance unlocks Season Advances for everybody, then the current session plus one more session take the campaign toward its close. | 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 | The game addresses sex, abuse, and trauma, and it calls for upfront conversations about boundaries. Physical violence uses the Lash Out Physically move, resolving harm through immediate consequences rather than a separate combat procedure. Strings and Conditions shape social interactions, while Skin-specific resources add extra tracking. | 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. |