Thrive to Survive vs Vampire: The Masquerade

Compare Thrive to Survive and Vampire: The Masquerade side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Thrive to Survive	Vampire: The Masquerade
Genre	Horror, Modern, Post-Apocalyptic	Horror, Modern
Play Style	Survival, Tactical, Crunchy, Resource Management, Base-Building, Character Building, Simulation, Skill-Based	Social Intrigue, Faction Play, Urban Fantasy, Corruption, Drama, Investigation, Lore-Heavy
Core Mechanic	Roll d20 + skill ranks + the related attribute and meet or beat a difficulty set by the Apocalypse Master. An untrained skill adds half its attribute, while opposed checks compare totals.	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	d20	d10 dice pool
Complexity	High	Medium
Accessibility	Medium	High
Runnability	High	Very High
License	Proprietary	Proprietary
Cost	$$	$$
Publisher	Caden Humpherys	Renegade Game Studios
Year	2026	2018
Best For	Groups who want a long-form modern zombie-survival campaign built around tactical grid combat, body-location injuries, detailed crafting, and turning scavenged materials into a defended settlement. It suits an Apocalypse Master who wants tools for custom infections, encounters, and campaign goals.	Drama-heavy campaigns exploring themes of addiction, power, and losing your humanity.
Highlights	Attacks pair maneuver-specific hit numbers with 2d10 location rolls, so armor, crippling injuries, and targeted strikes make each body part matter. Crafting links designs, material types, construction, generators, and storage, turning scavenged supplies into weapons and a working refuge. The Apocalypse Master chooses an infection model and modifies zombie templates, allowing campaigns to shift from base defense to a cure hunt without changing the core rules.	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	Combat resolves attacks through hit checks, location rolls, armor reduction, location health, and injury effects, creating multiple steps for every successful strike. Characters track food, water, sleep, fatigue, carry weight, ammunition, and ten crafting materials, making resource bookkeeping a central part of play. The system assumes a modern zombie apocalypse, so adapting it to other settings requires replacing much of its equipment, infection, and campaign material.	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.