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Vampire: The Masquerade

5th Edition
Personal horror and political intrigue in the World of Darkness
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horrormodern
Social IntrigueFaction PlayUrban FantasyCorruptionDramaInvestigationLore-Heavy
Languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Russian, Portuguese
Diced10 dice pool
System FamilyStoryteller
Cost$$
LicenseProprietary
PublisherRenegade Game Studios
Year2018
Complexity Medium
Accessibility High
Runnability Very High

Core Mechanic

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.

Best For

Drama-heavy campaigns exploring themes of addiction, power, and losing your humanity.

Highlights

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

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.