Public Access vs Vampire: The Masquerade
Compare Public Access and Vampire: The Masquerade side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| Public Access | Vampire: The Masquerade | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Horror, Modern | Horror, Modern |
| Tags | Investigation, Mystery, Collaborative, Player-Only Rolls, Fiction-First, Character-Driven, Atmospheric, Corruption | Social Intrigue, Faction Play, Urban Fantasy, Corruption, Drama, Character-Driven, Resource Management, Superpowers, Social Combat, Lore-Heavy |
| Core Mechanic | When a move is triggered, roll 2d6 plus one of five ability modifiers. A 6 or less is a miss, while many moves split hits into 7–9, 10–11, and 12+ tiers. After a result is narrated, a player can turn a Key to raise it one tier and replace that outcome with a different timeline. | 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 | 2d6 | d10 dice pool |
| Complexity | Medium | High |
| Availability | Free core rules | Free quickstart |
| Runnability | 3 of 5 book tools | 5 of 5 book tools |
| License | Proprietary | 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. | ||
| Publisher | The Gauntlet | Renegade Game Studios |
| Year | 2023 | 2018 |
| Languages | English, French, Spanish | English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Russian, Portuguese, Japanese |
| Best For | Groups seeking a finite collaborative analog-horror campaign where player-built theories, personal histories, and found-footage prompts shape the truth behind a small-town conspiracy | Groups who want campaigns about vampire coteries balancing political ambition, predatory hunger, and relationships with the humans they still care about. |
| Highlights | Clues have no fixed locations or canonical answers, so players assemble them into a theory and roll to establish whether it is true. Turning a Key raises a resolved roll by one tier and replaces the narrated failure with an alternate timeline. Odyssey tape prompts let players author uncanny broadcasts that become a campaign timer and feed connections back into Deep Lake. | 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 | Dawn, Day, Dusk, and Night must occur in order, which constrains free-form scene pacing. The Keeper must synthesize campaign discoveries into a custom final TV Odyssey mystery. The intended campaign engages childhood trauma, body horror, ritual sacrifice, and other dark material. | 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. |