If anyone succeeds at figuring out which pokemon cry I lined up with each clan I will PERSONALLY call you a nerd. Follow me on twitter if you want to see all the world of Darkness artwork I'll be posting over the next few weeks: twitter.com/WillSysRefDoc
I know this isn't what you meant, but I am very amused thinking about vampires who can only speak their own clan name... "Gangrel? Gang-REL!" "TorRIador" "-True Ventrue -Ven!"
I was only into World of Darkness for the special benefits it brought along... The sex, the drugs, high income for work-shunners, plus those ever-willing groupies from the graveyard faction... 🤣
Tzymisce is Quapsel/Poliwag; Brujah is Voltoball/Voltorb; Cappadocian is Gengar; Ventrue is Dragonir/Dragonite; Gangrel seems to be a scuffed Arkani/Arcanine; Tremere is Knofensa/Bellsprout; Toreador is Jigglipuff/Pummelluff; Followers of Set are Sandan/Sandshrew; Malkavians are Mauzi/Meowth; Giovanni are Tangela; Banu Haqim is I think a Flareon and the Nosferatu one, which I tried to hear over your music and voice for way too long is probably Pantimos/Mister Mime. And I think that were all. Also, favourite vampire clan: Changes between Salubri, Cappadocians and Assamites, depending on date and edition talked about.
theres a game called Solium Infernum in the making, they should make a vampire the masquerade game based on that game's mechanic... imagine you can choose to be a faction leader of a city and you need to all the political stuff to rule the city, theres an overview of the game in one trailer... its can be a great masquearde game, managing agents, taking over a city district by district, making alliance with other factions, ordering blood hunt, etc... if only those cheap people at Paradox Interactive would expend their mind a little
I had heard this too back in the day. Apparently the show was canceled by Fox before he died, but was being shopped around in hopes of keeping it alive, and then given up on when he had his accident.
He was, hands down, the best thing in that show. His portrayal of Ventrue prince who is monstrous and also trying like mad to hang on to his humanity and do the best for his people is compellingly complex. He was the reason to watch the show. I’m glad he left us this compelling performance
@FreeOpenTruth To be fair, most of WoD is boring soap opera to anyone not 'into it'. The whole concept is built around social interactions first and combat or adventures second.
Didn't the Brujah Antediluvian consort with a Devil worshipping Vampire Methuselah from Clan Baali? Which was the *main* reason why Carthage was destroyed?
@@chillax319 Nothing, No-thing Carthage was the bestest most peaceful and friendly city imaginable, there was no city state better then it! So Rome got jelly! All the bad thing you hear about it are Roman Inventions, more precisely Ventrue inventions! Those Filthy Filthy politicians!
A note about Kindred: The Embraced. One of the lead actors, Mark Frankel (the vampire prince mentioned in the video) was killed in a car accident in September of 1996. What I heard at the time was that the show actually wasn't doing badly enough to be cancelled, but they didn't want to continue without him.
I had heard this too back in the day. Apparently the show was canceled by Fox before he died, but was being shopped around in hopes of keeping it alive, and then given up on when he had his accident.
That and he was specifically stepping into a producer role of the show to pick up some of the slacks who dropped off & it was suppose to retooled to focus on the prince and the kindred
20:00 Draining someone dry actually only applies to innocents. So if you're out on the street and kill an innocent (via drinking or just damage), it lowers your humanity. Fun fact: you can even lose all your humanity as a human by buying a bow and force attacking in the direction of innocent people.
You can Theft of Vitae a innocent to death and not lose any humanity. not sure if that applies to the Age of redemption mod though. I still need to install and try that out.
26:38 furthermore, helping that vampire priest with his final death actually lowers your humanity, but if you refused, unseen traitor will open the roof and let the sunlight in, damaging the party and killing the priest
The Tzimisce were absolutely jaw-dropping in my first playthrough of Bloodlines in like 2008. The fleshy environments and bizarre creatures that they created in the middle of LA were surreal, and the final fight against Andrei in the basement of the Hallowbrook Hotel was an iconic moment in 3D RPG's that has been very underappreciated. I can hardly imagine how playing as one of them in the TTRPG must have been.
Seriously, I got Bloodlines when I was in middle school and it scared the shit out of me. Even today I find myself freaking out a bit when I replay the haunted hotel, the sewers, or any time the Tzimisze are involved.
While later iterations of the v:tm books, including the novels, contained some excellent tzimisce npc as inspiration beyond the one-dimensional old-world eastern european tyrant or the psychiotic sabbat serial killer, for the longest time Tzimisce basically stayed the ultimate boogie man for the storyteller to utilize, instead of being a fully fleshed out part of the lore people actually got creative with. Mind you, all the clans are more or less one-dimensional stereotypes and building a character is always a process of navigating what to embrace and what to conciously defy about those stereotypes - but no clan so much so sas the Tzimisce.
I played three times as Tzimisce, two in Dark Ages, and another one in the Modern Nights. The first one was really cookie cutter, but very fun to play, i remember when i was sieging a city and started using body parts of black plague victims as ammunition for my Trebuchets to make the city surrender faster, then, i actually helped the city deal with the plague after that, since i just wanted to kill the Tremere clan members inside. The character was a monster, but a honourable one. The one in the Modern Nights was a very fun character, because he was an 8th gen neonate that was actually a doctor, that was embraced by a dying Tzimisce Elder that was now a Wraith. So, the "fun" part, is that the guy still had a sire, it's just that she was dead, but was basically teaching him, while trying to guide him to both investigate and avenge her final death. It was a very fun game, since he was actually trying to use the Tzimisce Discipline to do good, at least most of the time.
These mofos are psychos! You can use their Discipline to punish people by making them a "conjoined" person. Hell, they even created a Bloodline based on this, called Blood Brothers. The way they treat their Ghouls are a nightmare too. But that's the typical stereotype. They are fiends, demons, they don't embrace humanity, they often follow paths of destruction or bestiality. They're great at being a despising disgusting clan and that's what I admire on them. By far, not my favorite one.
The image of an ancient vampire suddenly awakening and stealing a Glock to take out a bunch of vampire hunters in the lab he woke up in is both hilarious and badass.
When your vampire costume is so on point, you have to film yourself in the mirror just to prove to your audience you aren't an undead bloodsucker because you have a reflection.
Rod Ferrell.... I forget about this guy until he pops up in the occasional vampire video. He pretended to be my big brother to get me into Crow City of Angels. I grew up in Murray KY and ran with part of his "group" that I met through band. I think it was end of my freshman year in HS when he and Charity (I didn't know the other folks) drove down to New Orleans. The whole thing was so god damned wild before they were caught. The while town was nearly hysterical with one half terrified they were going to come back and start killing kids, and the other half hoping they would show up so they could put down the "Spawn of Satan". I remember my mother telling me "You know they recruit the blonde haired ones to sacrifice them." I slept with a steak knife under my pillow until they were caught lol.
Damn! That’s absolutely wild. I’m glad you came through it safely. Also damn, you got THE “weirdness that happens to that blond goth girl” story. It’s a small niche but you just won it.
I have what I like to think as a "special" relationship with Vampire the Masquerade as I got into it and the rest of the world of darkness because I was exposed to it from my mother via her art books and taro card deck. I didn't REALLY get into the tabletop games until after her death but I feel like playing Vampire the Masquerade gives me a connection to her in a way. Even though I actually prefer the Mage game I can't help but read the Vampire games every week or so and think of mom.
Redemption is a very cool game. Not only because it’s set in such a cool world with tons of lore, but also because it happens during 2 vastly different time periods: the Middle Ages and the modern day. It has great characters and storytelling and lets you see Christophe’s reaction to waking up in an environment that he could never even dream
Thanks for this! Redemption didn't make as big of an imprint as Bloodlines, but its a great first entry to the franchise. At Onyx Path, we were delighted to include Ecaterina, Christof (and his sword Ainkurn) into V20's Beckett's Jyhad Diary, Serena in V5's Cults of the Blood Gods, and even a bit of backstory for Pink in V5's Chicago by Night. Also I suspect you made some decent use out of the WW Wiki for this, so thank you for that as well. :)
Is it known if Serena has made it through the purge of her clan? Her story always touched me in a way... So tragic, whether she lived (through what was essentially a vampire genocide) or died so "young" 🥀
@@Li_Tobler She seemed to have survived the 3rd Purge of her clan and seems to be a big player within the original cappdocians as she still has her body unlike most of her breathren
Not gonna lie that good ending made me wanna a build a high humanity character, its so sweet and I might just have the two of them as a happily married vampire couple in my next campaign
Then you'll be happy to know that Christof and Anezka are both still together in the current timeline of the tabletop. From the wiki: "In a brief write-up in Clanbook: Brujah Revised, however, it is established that Christof is often seen in the company of a mysterious and beautiful woman who is rumored to be Tzimisce during later events. This indicates that the canonical ending of Redemption is the "good" ending in which Christof embraces Anezka."
@@jor4114 I love that, normally romance between immortals takes a turn where they hate each other or something, basically any modern portrayal of Hades and Persephone. But I just think the idea of two people literally staying together forever with unending love is cool.
@@jor4114 I haven't played Hades, do they love each other in there like they should? It's very hard for western developers to understand that Hades was not Satan just because he lives in the underworld, actually, Hades was the most reasonable of the three main Gods of Olympus.
@@aldiascholarofthefirstsin1051 I'm not gonna spoil anything, but let's just say the plot of the game wouldn't have happened if those two didn't love each other a whole lot. Also, I know you're thinking of the Percy Jackson movie version. I hated that too.
This looks like a good game. Someone should remake it. There's been a 30 year obsession with vampires in popular culture so it surprises the hell out of me that the number of good vampire games, particularly RPGs, is like 3 or something. Imagine what a studio like Larian could do with the ip.
Man, can't believe I'm old enough to have actually played this game when it came out. I even tried to play the multiplayer, too, but never successfully. What a blast from the past. Hope you can make more videos about the WoD.
I''ve been playing Redemption since 2000 and it is, despite it's many flaws, glorious. It captures some of that World of Darkness ambience really well.
I didn't play this game when it came out, but I remember reading about it in gaming magazines. The graphics were definitely very good for the time. This was a time when things like reflections and soft body animation (as opposed to moving a bunch of blocks around in a body like Final Fantasy 7) were big bragging points.
To me it still looks great with enhanced textures mod 😍 They worked really well with lighting to make it look this good. You can see the difference really well when the video shows Jade empire footage afterwards, it just looks so flat and bland in comparison (although I enjoyed it as well a couple years ago!)
this was my introduction to the World of Darkness world and still a blast to play, i'm glad the game hasn't been forgotten and i didn't knew about the mod Age of Redemption, guess i'll be replaying the game with that mod installed
I remember working all summer to afford a new computer as a kid just to get this game. I was obsessed with it and spent the first run just inciting the beast in everyone until they frenzied. I was playing alone at night the first time I heard "I am Ahzra, the Unliving" and it scared the shit out of me.
Fun fact: Christof and Anezka are now legends in the modern day. And Anezka still possesses Tzimisce powers. "in the modern day rumors of a Brujah and a Tzimisce together..." Can't remember the rest xD
I don't know if they're my favorite vampire Clan, but I think the Followers of Set are among the most underrated. Especially among people not really familiar with the tabletop game. Heck, the Nagaraja and even the _Shih_ got more representation in _Bloodlines,_ which is weird. Early on, the Followers of Set were a more or less straight port of the Stygia cults that worship the snake-monster Set in Robert E Howard's Conan stories (latterly made popular by James Earl Jones's portrayal of Thulsa Doom in the 80s movie). A cult of tempters, corruptors, and manipulators who worshiped their Clan founder as a dark god. And also had a heavy snake theme, to the point it's baked into their Clan through their native Discipline "Serpentis". Over time, probably because the folks at old White Wolf actually opened up a book on world mythology, more emphasis was placed on the Egyptian theme, with the Antedeluvian [Set] being enmeshed, at least in Setite belief, with the Egyptian god Set (or Sutekh), rival and murderer of his brother Osiris. (To the point a spinoff bloodline was introduced into VtM called the Children of Osiris, though White Wolf eventually killed them off. A shame, because they're _also_ kind of interesting, albeit trickier to make work in normal Vampire games). That said, the parallels to world religion didn't stop there. The Setites eventually being framed as a vast Clan, whose members have established cults worldwide. Infiltrating religious movements and forming syncretic cults using regional beliefs in divine (or demonic) snake beings. From India to South America, from Africa to Scandinavia. (These attempts didn't always work out like the Setites hoped, for various reasons. It's complicated.). All framing regional snake-gods as "masks of Set", to be revealed to cult members when reaching sufficient levels of initiation. (Though many still prefer to emphasize the "mask" interpretation of their home region even after they got "told the truth"). The central driving ethos behind the Followers of Set are even Gnostic in nature, with Clan members (supposedly) seeing the vice and breaking of norms they peddle as being a strike against the Aeons that secretly keep humanity in spiritual bondage. (It just so happens that "freeing oneself from bondage" involves doing tons of drugs and sex, and then dealing those same things. It's totally for gnosis, they swear.). All of this weaves together into a Clan that has a well-deserved reputation for being shifty dealers in crooked deals. Setites are happy to help a Kindred out. The first hit is even free. But that's how they get you. Using their vast resource and mutual aid networks to draw Kindred (much less the mortals who know even less) into webs of debts, obligations, and hopefully (for the Setites) conversion to their religion. Just reliable enough in what they offer that Kindred are willing to line up to take their deals. Indeed, even Kindred old enough and informed enough about the Setites, who really should know better. Their certainty they can get the better of the arrangement only makes them more susceptible.
@@dungeonsanddobbers2683 I know, and I hate it. They took the Set out of the Setites. Now they're just a watered-down Lancea Sanctum. If I wanted generically religious vampires, I would just play Vampire: The Dark Ages, and run a character on the Road of Heaven. I want SNAKES.
As someone who was really into this game as a kid but never followed the tabletop IP afterwards, THANK YOU for letting me know 20 years later that Serena survived to modern day! She was such a sweetheart to Christoph, but I always thought she died crushed under the rubble. I always thought this game had a crazy good story for the year 2000 BTW, and very good storytelling. Sure it's melodramatic as hell, but they're vampires in a centuries-spanning love story, how could it be not?
The greatest plot twist in history had the greatest foreshadowing in this game. "Pink? 'Ats a mite stupid name!" From Dev Null was a hint hardly anyone realized until after the reveal, and even "I sent a message to Bill" hinting that Wilhelm is still kicking and will be along for the ride. Just like the good old days
Well he is a Malk which only ones who can maybe get them to speak plainly was Salubri their close cousins and Malkav had a collective insanity unconciousness all Malks tapped into that gave prophecies as well as madness
One fun thing i discovered about this game was the cheat codes. You could spawn any weapon or item. Including modern weapons, in the medieval setting. And they all worked. So i would be running around the middle ages with a rocket launcher :D
I was a D&D player in the late 80s and early 90s. Vampire, Champions, and Shadowrun really helped me move on to other systems. It was a great time for games. Still really is, but this was just formative for me and my group.
I've always liked Tzimisce, the division of the clan in two with the implication of Vicissitude being...not entirely a normal discipline, the unique culture with the Koldun, and the changes the clan has gone by is fascinating. I also like Salubri but man those guys can't get a rest.
Salubri are basically children of Gaia only with the usurper clan replacing them after they took out Saulot but I always thought it interesting if they went fully holy not even Garou noses could tell they weren't human
My high school games club was explicitly forbidden from playing D&D in its charter by the school board. So that is where I learned about tons of other TTRPGs like Vampire and Werewolf(which was my favorite of the WOD games).
@@GameTimeWhy DnD is the popular one, for good or ill, and thus it's the thing slapped onto all dice-rolly rituals by the ignorant or those who care not.
@@GameTimeWhy This was the early 90s so the term TTRPG wasn’t even a thing. Appernetly when the club started before I was there in the 80s the original did play D&D until some “concerned parents” found out and it was banned. The teacher advisor at the time fought it which is why the school board got involved and formally banned it. Every year after he went to the school board to get it fixed but it got out voted. Letting us play pretty much any other TTRPG was a bit of silent protesting by him.
48:03 I have a hypothesis that It's not Ecaterina on that Visual Novel. Because she mentions the Amulet of Saint June at some point, which is something very personal to Anezka and Christof, I think that's actually Anezka shapeshifting as Ecaterina. Anezka would be a pretty badass Tzimisce vampire due her spending many centuries fleshcrafting a whole freaking church of flesh.
William, you are awesome. I started watching your content within the last 6 months, and I admire the hard work you put into your content. Keep it up, I look forward to whatever you put out next!
Favourite Clan? Malkavians were sort of the cop-out back in the day, so Salubri or True Brujah -- though dang the Tremere & Giovanni grew on me over time... Also, "Wraith" was known as the "best game nobody played." "Changeling" on the other hand was gold and REALLY popular with girls... And we all know that the true masters of the World of Darkness are the Technocracy.
I think it's great to see you cover different franchises. I hope this meets the same success as your D&D videos, since it was just as good and interesting to watch.
I'm surprised TH-cam's "flawless" systems haven't age-gated this yet, lol. Seriously, though... Great video. It takes a ton of reading to get anything like a decent grasp of the WoD setting, and laying things out this neatly (and in under an hour, no less!) is quite a feat. Well done, William!
I always loved the Nosferatu, though they seemed a bit tricky to actually play in a campaign setting. Unless everyone was Nosferatu, which sounds pretty rad actually.
My wife and friends know about this game solely because if I step out into the sun and it gets in my eyes I will reflexively say "Hated sun doth murder me"
The thing about the "spinoff" World of Darkness games as you called them -- The first five major games were planned from the very beginning. If you read the copyright blurb at the bottom of the credits page of the First Edition V:tM core rulebook, they list "Werewolf, Magus, Farie, Ghost" among the trademarks and copyrights of White Wolf. Magus would later become Mage, Ghost would become Wraith and get pushed up in the release order, and Faerie would become Changeling, but the fact that this was in the first World of Darkness book ever published meant that they didn't just come up with those other games after V:tM was a big hit.
Christof - "Now all my reason is thrown down. Surely my sleep hath made me mad. For if I am yet sane, then the world is become a lunatic asylum. Towers of glass loom over the tallest cathedral spires. Juggernauts of steel hurtle through the streets of London. The Roman roads, which once I walked as a young Crusader, are now fused into a single ribbon of black stone. And those roads are clogged with night-walking Londoners, heedless of the danger from the vampires among them. Are they so emboldened by the phantom torches which pierce the night and stab my eyes? Surely my world has died, and all I love lies buried with it."
The physical release of this game was really cool. It came with a super thick manual that served as a lore/art book for the VtM universe. This is a super nostalgic game for me. The multiplayer tried to provide a 3d "virtual tabletop" experience where a GM could populate the world with NPCs and monsters while playing a ttrpg style story and the game at the same time. It didn't work well and was usually just a bunch of guys running around on random maps trolling each other, but the idea was neat and may have been fun with the right group of people.
0:25: Oh how the mighty fall ... Few years ago it was crown jewel ... And just few days ago Paradox's Deputy CEO marked is as "dead end" and expressed this game was never very good in the first place, and we are just nostalgic.
Woh what an amazing and cool video. I love it when William SRD talks about the World Of Darkness I hope TH-cam pushes more of there videos about World Of Darkness
I am so happy to see this video, especially since I was hoping to see you touch upon on VtM. I also plan to rejoin patreon on the 1st so the streaming is something to look forward to. Though it’s weird to hear Brujah pronounced with a J since it’s actually pronounced “Bru-ha” since it’s a Spanish word. Is it pronounced with a J in the game? I’ve never actually played it. As for fave clan? Lasombra.
Hell yes! Looking forward to seeing you there! And yes, in the game it's pronounced Bru-jah. I am led to understand that the pronunciation of a few words in this setting (Camarilla included) are a bit of a long-standing argument generator! Unfortunately, I think this game and the way it says stuff has put me on the losing side of a few of the pronunciation wars!
Ah I was very fond of this game when it first came out on PC. IT was my introduction into the world of darkness setting, and vampire the masquerade specifically. Even if I didn't play the tabletop game until many years later.
Thank you so much for taking a dive into one of my favorite Dark RPG settings! World of Darkness deserves more attention and love, given its robust lore and narrative themes of being The Stuff of Nightmares. A great entry point for many has been Bloodlines (a veritable culture classic), but awesome that you're giving homage to this dated yet noteworthy predecessor! Oh, and favorite clan? Tsimisce all the damn way. They're the most fascinating in appearance and discipline mechanics, where your only limit is your depraved imagination.
Settled in to a fun little video about my favourite old video game, only to have a photo of my late friend pop up on screen when you start talking about larping. Miss you P.❤
I remember watching my brother play this game back in the day. I didn't really get what was going on story-wise, but I did enjoy the dialogue that characters had. I remember being particularly amused by the malkavian hacker. I think if you try to talk to him after his part in the story is over, he'll talk to you like he's an answering machine with a very long beep and finishes with 'Ooh, my crisps are done!' Like the beep was actually a microwave or digital timer. For some reason, it's still seared onto my brain all these years later. Favorite vampire clan are the Nosferatu, but I gotta plug the Toreador for being drama nerds.
Dude I love that you're giving a history lesson on the actual LARP aspect of the VTM. My parents were huge in it in the 90s and as a child they took me to a lot of their saturday games. Let me tell you as a young child it really, really stuck in my mind. Men and women got to act out their goth fantasies, and they took it VERY seriously. People would adopt so much of their persona into their characters and literally devoted their entire lives to it. My parents climbed the rank to become quite powerful and influential in their sphere and it was wild seeing how that actually affected their real life day to day lives.
I love clan Tzmisce. I just love how inhuman they can look and how they just say "Well I'm a vampire now. Better start acting like one.". I also really like the idea of a Camerilla Tzimisce that is just done with everything and basically just holed up somewhere and put up a sign saying 'Leave me alone'.
Really enjoyed this look at the game and some of the real life info around it! I had no clue about the Kindred TV show or the cult/murder! Great video, one of my favorites of yours so far.
It might be a super common choice, but Tremere and their bloodier version of magic was really neat! I adored this setting as a teenager even though I really didn't have all that many opportunities to find groups for it.
Great video so far man, I like how you go into the history of the source material, and a fun fact for you: the publisher White Wolf is named after the Fantasy character Elric of Melnibone who was popular in the 70s and 80s.
I never forgot about this. In fact I found it on GOG and replayed it recently. I've fiinshed this game may times over the years. Fun little note. The punk vampire Pink you get in the second half never suffers humanity loss, no matter what. You can run around drinking every last person in London to death with him. It's rather game changing to figure that out.
Wow this was fantastic. Thanks for all the background information on the setting. I’ve always been vaguely aware of world of darkness but never sunk in.
Thank you for all the effort you put into making this video and I hope the algorithm is kind to it! I really enjoyed it and I’m looking forward to trying the game out. My favorite clan by far is the Tremere and it was really awesome seeing them during their earliest days in your video.
Favourite clan has to be the Tzimisce, not only are they actual aristocrats from the old country (or at least the fun ones are) but they also get up to a bunch of fun body modification stuff you don't see in other vampire media.
shoutouts for using blood money from Jesus christ super star in the intro seconds. Great musical and my favorite song from it and did not expect to hear it here!
Hopefully the algorithm allows you to do more on WoD! My favoruite clan is the Malkavians, mainly because they were the first clan I chose in Bloodlines.
Bruva Alfabusa has an excellent introduction to the OWOD setting, covering its rules, backstory and how simultaneously edgy and hilariously dumb it all is. As someone moderately well-versed in OWOD it was one of the funniest videos I've seen in years. On the subject of non-DnD games, I'm wondering if you've ever heard of Vagrus: The Riven Realms? It's a caravaneer/trading sim, set in what's effectively a Roman-themed Dark Sun with the serial numbers filed off.
@@featurelength5086 I cannot BELIEVE they left us on that cliffhanger 😿 kitten was the heart of the show, the best dude At least his WoD alter-ego is dating Magnus’s WoD alter-ego. We deserved something heartwarming after that
This was the first PC game I bought as a kid. Unfortunately I didn't know anything about PC specs and my mum's Compaq Presario wouldn't run it. I still spent many hours poring over the manual and falling in love with the VTM setting. Eventually I played Bloodlines and then many years later I picked up Redemption (I think on GOG) and loved it. Really cool story.
Thank you for covering this! While I may prefer werewolf for a multitude of reasons, you never forget your first and for me in WoD, that was VtM: Dark Ages. Call me a masochist but I love taking an already gritty and unforgiving setting and making it even darker with supernatural elements like WoD. My fave clan has to be Gangrel. I love Protean so much, and the freedom to challenge the status quo of the High Clans and not immediately get torpor'd.
Vampire The Masquerade was also the setting for Wizards of the Coasts' second CCG: Jyhad. Eventually renamed to Vampire: The Eternal Struggle. I went to GenCon in 1994 and it was The Game of that year. (Way behind was TSR' Spellfire CCG.) Everywhere I went people were sitting on the floor, studying the little rule book, and asking me if I knew how to play the game.
Well done. This was a great video. I cover World of Darkness material exclusively and have been an active player/Storyteller since 2003 and I will be sharing this with my community.
Ooh, can't wait to see Earthblood next. The game with stealth mechanics so tacked on that it occasionally punishes you for being good at them. (with the exception of one really cool and rewarding segment about halfway through)
I really adore your videos, I have been a fan of White Wolf stuff for years, but I learn so much interesting stuff from your videos! I did not know the story of that poor kid who was a killer, sadly vampire RPG system as a conduit for his madness and suffering its good that they changed the death penalty to life in prison I hope he got therapy and found some way to be happy a poor lost should who sadly killed two innocent good folks so he should not go free after such a crime in my opinion. Furthermore, I feel strange writing about a video game after starting with such a serious topic, but so did your video and I loved it so here it goes: Redemptions is well known in Poland since it was added to a very popular gaming magazine and I played it as a teen, but I could not get past an early dungeon with a ghost as the finally boss, so I appreciate you telling its story so well it gave me some ideas for cool wampire characters for a TTRPG game so thank you for that. Side note there are official character sheets for Christof and Anneszka the game was popular enough to make them part of the Metaplot :) Asking a bunch of Wampire the Maskarade fans with clan is their fav is a genius lvl idea to get more engagement and I am happy it worked for you I watched your video on werewolf first and absolutely LOVED it (will comment on it letter since I have more to say about this game ) so I will bite (heheh) as well and answer your clever question: My fav Maskarade clan is Roses of Toreador because if I have eternity I would spend it looking at art of all stripes and try to hold on to my humanity to do so plus it's a yummu irony: Embracing artists to let them create forever and rescuing there spark only for it to die with their immortal soul making them artistically fruitless Keep up the good work kudos from a new subscriber (sadly to poor to support you on Patron but I do watch the ads so I hope you will get a few red cents from that :D ) thank you for the fun I get from watching your polished content :)
Sorry to discover your channel a little late, but I'm glad I did. I'll be watching through most of your content but if you choose to do anymore WoD content I'll be quite happy
Nosferatu, gotta love the most freakishly cursed of all the damned childer of the night. Also that wailing scream Kristof let’s put when he’s embraced. Shit I forgot about it. That haunted me back when I was a kid playing for the first time. Aside from the goofy and fun single player campaign there was the very special online storyteller mode. You could edit the maps of the campaign or mod in original maps and add in npcs on the fly. People would use the tools to run WoD campaigns with the game as a visual aid. I ran silly dungeon crawler one shots. I can’t remember the name of the crew I used to RP with, we even had our own forum. But shout out to Vlad that crazy Tremere bastard, just in case he ever sees this comment! Love Roninz
If anyone succeeds at figuring out which pokemon cry I lined up with each clan I will PERSONALLY call you a nerd.
Follow me on twitter if you want to see all the world of Darkness artwork I'll be posting over the next few weeks: twitter.com/WillSysRefDoc
All of them are missingno
I know this isn't what you meant, but I am very amused thinking about vampires who can only speak their own clan name... "Gangrel? Gang-REL!" "TorRIador" "-True Ventrue -Ven!"
I was only into World of Darkness for the special benefits it brought along... The sex, the drugs, high income for work-shunners, plus those ever-willing groupies from the graveyard faction... 🤣
Tzymisce is Quapsel/Poliwag;
Brujah is Voltoball/Voltorb;
Cappadocian is Gengar;
Ventrue is Dragonir/Dragonite;
Gangrel seems to be a scuffed Arkani/Arcanine;
Tremere is Knofensa/Bellsprout;
Toreador is Jigglipuff/Pummelluff;
Followers of Set are Sandan/Sandshrew;
Malkavians are Mauzi/Meowth;
Giovanni are Tangela;
Banu Haqim is I think a Flareon
and the Nosferatu one, which I tried to hear over your music and voice for way too long is probably Pantimos/Mister Mime. And I think that were all.
Also, favourite vampire clan: Changes between Salubri, Cappadocians and Assamites, depending on date and edition talked about.
theres a game called Solium Infernum in the making, they should make a vampire the masquerade game based on that game's mechanic... imagine you can choose to be a faction leader of a city and you need to all the political stuff to rule the city, theres an overview of the game in one trailer... its can be a great masquearde game, managing agents, taking over a city district by district, making alliance with other factions, ordering blood hunt, etc... if only those cheap people at Paradox Interactive would expend their mind a little
The biggest reason for Kindred’s cancellation was the death of the main star in a motorcycle accident. They just didn’t want to go on without him.
I had heard this too back in the day. Apparently the show was canceled by Fox before he died, but was being shopped around in hopes of keeping it alive, and then given up on when he had his accident.
every time i remember this i get so sad.
He was, hands down, the best thing in that show. His portrayal of Ventrue prince who is monstrous and also trying like mad to hang on to his humanity and do the best for his people is compellingly complex. He was the reason to watch the show.
I’m glad he left us this compelling performance
The show was a boring soap opera!
@FreeOpenTruth To be fair, most of WoD is boring soap opera to anyone not 'into it'. The whole concept is built around social interactions first and combat or adventures second.
"They seek to build a new utopia..."
Ok, that's admirable.
"...like they did in the city of *Carthage* ."
Oh. OH NO.
Didn't the Brujah Antediluvian consort with a Devil worshipping Vampire Methuselah from Clan Baali? Which was the *main* reason why Carthage was destroyed?
@@nalrashido *Shhhhh...*
@@nalrashidoSeeing that short description makes me wonder what really was happening in that city behind the closed doors.
@@chillax319 Degeneracy in its most decadent forms.
@@chillax319 Nothing, No-thing Carthage was the bestest most peaceful and friendly city imaginable, there was no city state better then it! So Rome got jelly! All the bad thing you hear about it are Roman Inventions, more precisely Ventrue inventions! Those Filthy Filthy politicians!
A note about Kindred: The Embraced.
One of the lead actors, Mark Frankel (the vampire prince mentioned in the video) was killed in a car accident in September of 1996. What I heard at the time was that the show actually wasn't doing badly enough to be cancelled, but they didn't want to continue without him.
I had heard this too back in the day. Apparently the show was canceled by Fox before he died, but was being shopped around in hopes of keeping it alive, and then given up on when he had his accident.
Apparently Frankel's character was among the standouts of the show, meaning him dying took a lot of what the show had going for it with him.
I remember hearing that, too.
I remember hearing that, too.
That and he was specifically stepping into a producer role of the show to pick up some of the slacks who dropped off & it was suppose to retooled to focus on the prince and the kindred
That vampire cloak is excellent.
NOW WHY WONT SPIRIT HALOWEEN SPONSOR ME AAAAAAAAAAAAAA
I’m here for the medallion. How will the kien know their betters without a medallion??
I love your avatar
Five words that has been stuck with me for years from this game...
_"To the abyss with thee!"_
For my hoarding ass different five words were more important.
_"My burdens prevent further cumbrance."_
20:00
Draining someone dry actually only applies to innocents. So if you're out on the street and kill an innocent (via drinking or just damage), it lowers your humanity.
Fun fact: you can even lose all your humanity as a human by buying a bow and force attacking in the direction of innocent people.
You can Theft of Vitae a innocent to death and not lose any humanity. not sure if that applies to the Age of redemption mod though. I still need to install and try that out.
26:38 furthermore, helping that vampire priest with his final death actually lowers your humanity, but if you refused, unseen traitor will open the roof and let the sunlight in, damaging the party and killing the priest
The Tzimisce were absolutely jaw-dropping in my first playthrough of Bloodlines in like 2008. The fleshy environments and bizarre creatures that they created in the middle of LA were surreal, and the final fight against Andrei in the basement of the Hallowbrook Hotel was an iconic moment in 3D RPG's that has been very underappreciated. I can hardly imagine how playing as one of them in the TTRPG must have been.
Seriously, I got Bloodlines when I was in middle school and it scared the shit out of me. Even today I find myself freaking out a bit when I replay the haunted hotel, the sewers, or any time the Tzimisze are involved.
While later iterations of the v:tm books, including the novels, contained some excellent tzimisce npc as inspiration beyond the one-dimensional old-world eastern european tyrant or the psychiotic sabbat serial killer, for the longest time Tzimisce basically stayed the ultimate boogie man for the storyteller to utilize, instead of being a fully fleshed out part of the lore people actually got creative with. Mind you, all the clans are more or less one-dimensional stereotypes and building a character is always a process of navigating what to embrace and what to conciously defy about those stereotypes - but no clan so much so sas the Tzimisce.
I'm a big fan and often play Tzimisce! I am known for flooding 70s era discos with creatures made mostly of teeth filled sphinters.
I played three times as Tzimisce, two in Dark Ages, and another one in the Modern Nights. The first one was really cookie cutter, but very fun to play, i remember when i was sieging a city and started using body parts of black plague victims as ammunition for my Trebuchets to make the city surrender faster, then, i actually helped the city deal with the plague after that, since i just wanted to kill the Tremere clan members inside. The character was a monster, but a honourable one.
The one in the Modern Nights was a very fun character, because he was an 8th gen neonate that was actually a doctor, that was embraced by a dying Tzimisce Elder that was now a Wraith. So, the "fun" part, is that the guy still had a sire, it's just that she was dead, but was basically teaching him, while trying to guide him to both investigate and avenge her final death. It was a very fun game, since he was actually trying to use the Tzimisce Discipline to do good, at least most of the time.
These mofos are psychos!
You can use their Discipline to punish people by making them a "conjoined" person. Hell, they even created a Bloodline based on this, called Blood Brothers.
The way they treat their Ghouls are a nightmare too.
But that's the typical stereotype. They are fiends, demons, they don't embrace humanity, they often follow paths of destruction or bestiality.
They're great at being a despising disgusting clan and that's what I admire on them.
By far, not my favorite one.
The image of an ancient vampire suddenly awakening and stealing a Glock to take out a bunch of vampire hunters in the lab he woke up in is both hilarious and badass.
When your vampire costume is so on point, you have to film yourself in the mirror just to prove to your audience you aren't an undead bloodsucker because you have a reflection.
or that you own a modern aluminum-backed mirror instead of the older silver-backed ones
Rod Ferrell.... I forget about this guy until he pops up in the occasional vampire video. He pretended to be my big brother to get me into Crow City of Angels. I grew up in Murray KY and ran with part of his "group" that I met through band. I think it was end of my freshman year in HS when he and Charity (I didn't know the other folks) drove down to New Orleans.
The whole thing was so god damned wild before they were caught. The while town was nearly hysterical with one half terrified they were going to come back and start killing kids, and the other half hoping they would show up so they could put down the "Spawn of Satan". I remember my mother telling me "You know they recruit the blonde haired ones to sacrifice them." I slept with a steak knife under my pillow until they were caught lol.
Damn! That’s absolutely wild. I’m glad you came through it safely.
Also damn, you got THE “weirdness that happens to that blond goth girl” story. It’s a small niche but you just won it.
That's a wild story
Jesus Christ, that sounds scary.
Makes for a fantastic story.
damn i cant believe ur town had its own society of leopold
I have what I like to think as a "special" relationship with Vampire the Masquerade as I got into it and the rest of the world of darkness because I was exposed to it from my mother via her art books and taro card deck. I didn't REALLY get into the tabletop games until after her death but I feel like playing Vampire the Masquerade gives me a connection to her in a way. Even though I actually prefer the Mage game I can't help but read the Vampire games every week or so and think of mom.
U r lucky. I didn't even know I was into it cuz I grew up in trive of ppl claiming to be actual originators of werewolf mythos
That's really sweet of you. Thank you for sharing, and I'm glad it's special for you and allows you to connect with her
Redemption is a very cool game. Not only because it’s set in such a cool world with tons of lore, but also because it happens during 2 vastly different time periods: the Middle Ages and the modern day. It has great characters and storytelling and lets you see Christophe’s reaction to waking up in an environment that he could never even dream
Thanks for this! Redemption didn't make as big of an imprint as Bloodlines, but its a great first entry to the franchise.
At Onyx Path, we were delighted to include Ecaterina, Christof (and his sword Ainkurn) into V20's Beckett's Jyhad Diary, Serena in V5's Cults of the Blood Gods, and even a bit of backstory for Pink in V5's Chicago by Night.
Also I suspect you made some decent use out of the WW Wiki for this, so thank you for that as well. :)
Is it known if Serena has made it through the purge of her clan? Her story always touched me in a way... So tragic, whether she lived (through what was essentially a vampire genocide) or died so "young" 🥀
@@Li_Tobler She seemed to have survived the 3rd Purge of her clan and seems to be a big player within the original cappdocians as she still has her body unlike most of her breathren
Not gonna lie that good ending made me wanna a build a high humanity character, its so sweet and I might just have the two of them as a happily married vampire couple in my next campaign
Then you'll be happy to know that Christof and Anezka are both still together in the current timeline of the tabletop. From the wiki:
"In a brief write-up in Clanbook: Brujah Revised, however, it is established that Christof is often seen in the company of a mysterious and beautiful woman who is rumored to be Tzimisce during later events. This indicates that the canonical ending of Redemption is the "good" ending in which Christof embraces Anezka."
@@jor4114
I love that, normally romance between immortals takes a turn where they hate each other or something, basically any modern portrayal of Hades and Persephone.
But I just think the idea of two people literally staying together forever with unending love is cool.
@@aldiascholarofthefirstsin1051 That's why I prefer the Hades (rogue-like game) version of Hades and Persephone.
@@jor4114
I haven't played Hades, do they love each other in there like they should?
It's very hard for western developers to understand that Hades was not Satan just because he lives in the underworld, actually, Hades was the most reasonable of the three main Gods of Olympus.
@@aldiascholarofthefirstsin1051 I'm not gonna spoil anything, but let's just say the plot of the game wouldn't have happened if those two didn't love each other a whole lot. Also, I know you're thinking of the Percy Jackson movie version. I hated that too.
This looks like a good game. Someone should remake it. There's been a 30 year obsession with vampires in popular culture so it surprises the hell out of me that the number of good vampire games, particularly RPGs, is like 3 or something. Imagine what a studio like Larian could do with the ip.
"Messy, crude and extraordinarily edgy (not to mention horny)."
My ears are burning.
Man, can't believe I'm old enough to have actually played this game when it came out. I even tried to play the multiplayer, too, but never successfully. What a blast from the past. Hope you can make more videos about the WoD.
I''ve been playing Redemption since 2000 and it is, despite it's many flaws, glorious. It captures some of that World of Darkness ambience really well.
I didn't play this game when it came out, but I remember reading about it in gaming magazines. The graphics were definitely very good for the time. This was a time when things like reflections and soft body animation (as opposed to moving a bunch of blocks around in a body like Final Fantasy 7) were big bragging points.
To me it still looks great with enhanced textures mod 😍 They worked really well with lighting to make it look this good. You can see the difference really well when the video shows Jade empire footage afterwards, it just looks so flat and bland in comparison (although I enjoyed it as well a couple years ago!)
this was my introduction to the World of Darkness world and still a blast to play, i'm glad the game hasn't been forgotten and i didn't knew about the mod Age of Redemption, guess i'll be replaying the game with that mod installed
Surprise Jesus Christ Superstar is not a thought I expected to have today.
I remember working all summer to afford a new computer as a kid just to get this game. I was obsessed with it and spent the first run just inciting the beast in everyone until they frenzied. I was playing alone at night the first time I heard "I am Ahzra, the Unliving" and it scared the shit out of me.
Fun fact: Christof and Anezka are now legends in the modern day. And Anezka still possesses Tzimisce powers. "in the modern day rumors of a Brujah and a Tzimisce together..." Can't remember the rest xD
I don't know if they're my favorite vampire Clan, but I think the Followers of Set are among the most underrated. Especially among people not really familiar with the tabletop game. Heck, the Nagaraja and even the _Shih_ got more representation in _Bloodlines,_ which is weird.
Early on, the Followers of Set were a more or less straight port of the Stygia cults that worship the snake-monster Set in Robert E Howard's Conan stories (latterly made popular by James Earl Jones's portrayal of Thulsa Doom in the 80s movie). A cult of tempters, corruptors, and manipulators who worshiped their Clan founder as a dark god. And also had a heavy snake theme, to the point it's baked into their Clan through their native Discipline "Serpentis".
Over time, probably because the folks at old White Wolf actually opened up a book on world mythology, more emphasis was placed on the Egyptian theme, with the Antedeluvian [Set] being enmeshed, at least in Setite belief, with the Egyptian god Set (or Sutekh), rival and murderer of his brother Osiris. (To the point a spinoff bloodline was introduced into VtM called the Children of Osiris, though White Wolf eventually killed them off. A shame, because they're _also_ kind of interesting, albeit trickier to make work in normal Vampire games).
That said, the parallels to world religion didn't stop there. The Setites eventually being framed as a vast Clan, whose members have established cults worldwide. Infiltrating religious movements and forming syncretic cults using regional beliefs in divine (or demonic) snake beings. From India to South America, from Africa to Scandinavia. (These attempts didn't always work out like the Setites hoped, for various reasons. It's complicated.). All framing regional snake-gods as "masks of Set", to be revealed to cult members when reaching sufficient levels of initiation. (Though many still prefer to emphasize the "mask" interpretation of their home region even after they got "told the truth"). The central driving ethos behind the Followers of Set are even Gnostic in nature, with Clan members (supposedly) seeing the vice and breaking of norms they peddle as being a strike against the Aeons that secretly keep humanity in spiritual bondage. (It just so happens that "freeing oneself from bondage" involves doing tons of drugs and sex, and then dealing those same things. It's totally for gnosis, they swear.).
All of this weaves together into a Clan that has a well-deserved reputation for being shifty dealers in crooked deals. Setites are happy to help a Kindred out. The first hit is even free. But that's how they get you. Using their vast resource and mutual aid networks to draw Kindred (much less the mortals who know even less) into webs of debts, obligations, and hopefully (for the Setites) conversion to their religion. Just reliable enough in what they offer that Kindred are willing to line up to take their deals. Indeed, even Kindred old enough and informed enough about the Setites, who really should know better. Their certainty they can get the better of the arrangement only makes them more susceptible.
They're called The Ministry of Love (usually just "The Ministry") now. "Followers of Set" sounded a little _too_ culty, so they rebranded
@@dungeonsanddobbers2683 I know, and I hate it. They took the Set out of the Setites.
Now they're just a watered-down Lancea Sanctum. If I wanted generically religious vampires, I would just play Vampire: The Dark Ages, and run a character on the Road of Heaven.
I want SNAKES.
@@dungeonsanddobbers2683 They sound like even more of a cult now with that name
I mean, the total absence of the Lasombra looks more surprising in retrospect...
@@Temudhun I thought they were Camarilla now
I loved this game so much back in the day, and still do. It found me right in the brooding, dark edge phase of my teens. Exactly the target audience.
As someone who was really into this game as a kid but never followed the tabletop IP afterwards, THANK YOU for letting me know 20 years later that Serena survived to modern day! She was such a sweetheart to Christoph, but I always thought she died crushed under the rubble.
I always thought this game had a crazy good story for the year 2000 BTW, and very good storytelling. Sure it's melodramatic as hell, but they're vampires in a centuries-spanning love story, how could it be not?
The greatest plot twist in history had the greatest foreshadowing in this game. "Pink? 'Ats a mite stupid name!" From Dev Null was a hint hardly anyone realized until after the reveal, and even "I sent a message to Bill" hinting that Wilhelm is still kicking and will be along for the ride. Just like the good old days
Well he is a Malk which only ones who can maybe get them to speak plainly was Salubri their close cousins and Malkav had a collective insanity unconciousness all Malks tapped into that gave prophecies as well as madness
One fun thing i discovered about this game was the cheat codes. You could spawn any weapon or item. Including modern weapons, in the medieval setting. And they all worked. So i would be running around the middle ages with a rocket launcher :D
I was a D&D player in the late 80s and early 90s. Vampire, Champions, and Shadowrun really helped me move on to other systems. It was a great time for games. Still really is, but this was just formative for me and my group.
I've always liked Tzimisce, the division of the clan in two with the implication of Vicissitude being...not entirely a normal discipline, the unique culture with the Koldun, and the changes the clan has gone by is fascinating.
I also like Salubri but man those guys can't get a rest.
Salubri are basically children of Gaia only with the usurper clan replacing them after they took out Saulot but I always thought it interesting if they went fully holy not even Garou noses could tell they weren't human
My high school games club was explicitly forbidden from playing D&D in its charter by the school board. So that is where I learned about tons of other TTRPGs like Vampire and Werewolf(which was my favorite of the WOD games).
No dnd but vampires and werewolves is ok. Such a strange time in recent history.
@@GameTimeWhy DnD is the popular one, for good or ill, and thus it's the thing slapped onto all dice-rolly rituals by the ignorant or those who care not.
Based! More gaming clubs should ban DnD so that other TTRPGs can dare to exist!
@@GameTimeWhy This was the early 90s so the term TTRPG wasn’t even a thing. Appernetly when the club started before I was there in the 80s the original did play D&D until some “concerned parents” found out and it was banned. The teacher advisor at the time fought it which is why the school board got involved and formally banned it. Every year after he went to the school board to get it fixed but it got out voted. Letting us play pretty much any other TTRPG was a bit of silent protesting by him.
@@nilus2k were you in a particularly religious school or area? I didn't grow up through the satanic panic so it's hard to imagine.
48:03 I have a hypothesis that It's not Ecaterina on that Visual Novel. Because she mentions the Amulet of Saint June at some point, which is something very personal to Anezka and Christof, I think that's actually Anezka shapeshifting as Ecaterina.
Anezka would be a pretty badass Tzimisce vampire due her spending many centuries fleshcrafting a whole freaking church of flesh.
Excited for the Wraith: The Oblivion video! Is my favourite line after VTM and Mage for WoD!
William, you are awesome. I started watching your content within the last 6 months, and I admire the hard work you put into your content. Keep it up, I look forward to whatever you put out next!
Grim Beard has a fantastic review of this. P.S. William is definitely Vampire Daddy material. 🦇
"What's up Goth Gamer Nation?" Grim Beard - modern goth icon.
Favourite Clan? Malkavians were sort of the cop-out back in the day, so Salubri or True Brujah -- though dang the Tremere & Giovanni grew on me over time...
Also, "Wraith" was known as the "best game nobody played." "Changeling" on the other hand was gold and REALLY popular with girls...
And we all know that the true masters of the World of Darkness are the Technocracy.
I think it's great to see you cover different franchises. I hope this meets the same success as your D&D videos, since it was just as good and interesting to watch.
Adored this game. Thanks for the tour on memory lane
I'm surprised TH-cam's "flawless" systems haven't age-gated this yet, lol.
Seriously, though... Great video. It takes a ton of reading to get anything like a decent grasp of the WoD setting, and laying things out this neatly (and in under an hour, no less!) is quite a feat. Well done, William!
I always loved the Nosferatu, though they seemed a bit tricky to actually play in a campaign setting. Unless everyone was Nosferatu, which sounds pretty rad actually.
Great video! Fave Vampire clans are the Tzimisce and Salubri. They stretch the definition of vampire but remain disturbing and creepy
My wife and friends know about this game solely because if I step out into the sun and it gets in my eyes I will reflexively say "Hated sun doth murder me"
The thing about the "spinoff" World of Darkness games as you called them -- The first five major games were planned from the very beginning. If you read the copyright blurb at the bottom of the credits page of the First Edition V:tM core rulebook, they list "Werewolf, Magus, Farie, Ghost" among the trademarks and copyrights of White Wolf. Magus would later become Mage, Ghost would become Wraith and get pushed up in the release order, and Faerie would become Changeling, but the fact that this was in the first World of Darkness book ever published meant that they didn't just come up with those other games after V:tM was a big hit.
Christof - "Now all my reason is thrown down. Surely my sleep hath made me mad. For if I am yet sane, then the world is become a lunatic asylum. Towers of glass loom over the tallest cathedral spires. Juggernauts of steel hurtle through the streets of London. The Roman roads, which once I walked as a young Crusader, are now fused into a single ribbon of black stone. And those roads are clogged with night-walking Londoners, heedless of the danger from the vampires among them. Are they so emboldened by the phantom torches which pierce the night and stab my eyes? Surely my world has died, and all I love lies buried with it."
The physical release of this game was really cool. It came with a super thick manual that served as a lore/art book for the VtM universe. This is a super nostalgic game for me.
The multiplayer tried to provide a 3d "virtual tabletop" experience where a GM could populate the world with NPCs and monsters while playing a ttrpg style story and the game at the same time. It didn't work well and was usually just a bunch of guys running around on random maps trolling each other, but the idea was neat and may have been fun with the right group of people.
0:25: Oh how the mighty fall ...
Few years ago it was crown jewel ...
And just few days ago Paradox's Deputy CEO marked is as "dead end" and expressed this game was never very good in the first place, and we are just nostalgic.
Woh what an amazing and cool video. I love it when William SRD talks about the World Of Darkness
I hope TH-cam pushes more of there videos about World Of Darkness
I am so happy to see this video, especially since I was hoping to see you touch upon on VtM. I also plan to rejoin patreon on the 1st so the streaming is something to look forward to.
Though it’s weird to hear Brujah pronounced with a J since it’s actually pronounced “Bru-ha” since it’s a Spanish word. Is it pronounced with a J in the game? I’ve never actually played it.
As for fave clan? Lasombra.
Hell yes! Looking forward to seeing you there!
And yes, in the game it's pronounced Bru-jah. I am led to understand that the pronunciation of a few words in this setting (Camarilla included) are a bit of a long-standing argument generator!
Unfortunately, I think this game and the way it says stuff has put me on the losing side of a few of the pronunciation wars!
Ah I was very fond of this game when it first came out on PC. IT was my introduction into the world of darkness setting, and vampire the masquerade specifically. Even if I didn't play the tabletop game until many years later.
If I have a favourite Clan, it's Probably Malkavian. It annoyed me quite a bit that they were conspicuously absent from _Kindred: The Embraced_
Thank you so much for taking a dive into one of my favorite Dark RPG settings! World of Darkness deserves more attention and love, given its robust lore and narrative themes of being The Stuff of Nightmares.
A great entry point for many has been Bloodlines (a veritable culture classic), but awesome that you're giving homage to this dated yet noteworthy predecessor!
Oh, and favorite clan? Tsimisce all the damn way. They're the most fascinating in appearance and discipline mechanics, where your only limit is your depraved imagination.
Settled in to a fun little video about my favourite old video game, only to have a photo of my late friend pop up on screen when you start talking about larping. Miss you P.❤
I remember watching my brother play this game back in the day. I didn't really get what was going on story-wise, but I did enjoy the dialogue that characters had. I remember being particularly amused by the malkavian hacker. I think if you try to talk to him after his part in the story is over, he'll talk to you like he's an answering machine with a very long beep and finishes with 'Ooh, my crisps are done!' Like the beep was actually a microwave or digital timer. For some reason, it's still seared onto my brain all these years later.
Favorite vampire clan are the Nosferatu, but I gotta plug the Toreador for being drama nerds.
A JCS reference?
Damn, now that's cultured. I mean, even more cultured than before.
Good stuff.
I love when these smaller chanells do these long form videos. Love it
Dude I love that you're giving a history lesson on the actual LARP aspect of the VTM. My parents were huge in it in the 90s and as a child they took me to a lot of their saturday games. Let me tell you as a young child it really, really stuck in my mind. Men and women got to act out their goth fantasies, and they took it VERY seriously. People would adopt so much of their persona into their characters and literally devoted their entire lives to it. My parents climbed the rank to become quite powerful and influential in their sphere and it was wild seeing how that actually affected their real life day to day lives.
I think i could listen to you describe the plots of things for hours at a time. Thankyou for all you do.
I love clan Tzmisce. I just love how inhuman they can look and how they just say "Well I'm a vampire now. Better start acting like one.". I also really like the idea of a Camerilla Tzimisce that is just done with everything and basically just holed up somewhere and put up a sign saying 'Leave me alone'.
Really enjoyed this look at the game and some of the real life info around it! I had no clue about the Kindred TV show or the cult/murder! Great video, one of my favorites of yours so far.
It might be a super common choice, but Tremere and their bloodier version of magic was really neat! I adored this setting as a teenager even though I really didn't have all that many opportunities to find groups for it.
TH-cam algorithmically supports the dnd ones more but honestly your presentation keeps me watching any content you make.
Im happy to know that Serena is alive, it really pissed me of losing her in the party. She was soo cool, my favorite character.
It's nice to see someone talk about Redemption! One of the first 3D RPGs I ever played.
Great video so far man, I like how you go into the history of the source material, and a fun fact for you: the publisher White Wolf is named after the Fantasy character Elric of Melnibone who was popular in the 70s and 80s.
I never forgot about this. In fact I found it on GOG and replayed it recently. I've fiinshed this game may times over the years.
Fun little note. The punk vampire Pink you get in the second half never suffers humanity loss, no matter what. You can run around drinking every last person in London to death with him. It's rather game changing to figure that out.
Wow this was fantastic. Thanks for all the background information on the setting. I’ve always been vaguely aware of world of darkness but never sunk in.
Thank you for all the effort you put into making this video and I hope the algorithm is kind to it! I really enjoyed it and I’m looking forward to trying the game out.
My favorite clan by far is the Tremere and it was really awesome seeing them during their earliest days in your video.
Yay!
I don't have anything going on. But this video is a nice comfort as I have cocoa on Halloween. Thank you!
You collect all the cool points, sirrah, for including the Dracula trophy i your Halloween fit.👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿
Favourite clan has to be the Tzimisce, not only are they actual aristocrats from the old country (or at least the fun ones are) but they also get up to a bunch of fun body modification stuff you don't see in other vampire media.
shoutouts for using blood money from Jesus christ super star in the intro seconds. Great musical and my favorite song from it and did not expect to hear it here!
Great work! Hope you can do more Vampire Videos
Great intro/ wod run down you always have a perfect mix of humor and info. Love your vids.
Hopefully the algorithm allows you to do more on WoD!
My favoruite clan is the Malkavians, mainly because they were the first clan I chose in Bloodlines.
Always been a WoD fan myself, glad to see you cover some part of that universe! My favorite clan is one of the usually Sabbat aligned ones: Lasombra.
I love the Tremere so much but every time i take one of the quizes to "determine" which clan I'd be I always get Toreador
A trip down memorial town. Thanks for your hard work brother. I can't believe how old I've become lol.
What a wonderful review! I hope it gets the amount of attention it deserves! Btw, my favorites will always be the Toreadors!
One of my favorite games. The music, the love story, Christof. Love it all! "To the abyss with thee!"
love the history you provide before the review
What a delightful game and joy to see more than D&D (and occasional Warhammer) games on the channel
Never played WoD games, but always been tempted.
Bruva Alfabusa has an excellent introduction to the OWOD setting, covering its rules, backstory and how simultaneously edgy and hilariously dumb it all is. As someone moderately well-versed in OWOD it was one of the funniest videos I've seen in years.
On the subject of non-DnD games, I'm wondering if you've ever heard of Vagrus: The Riven Realms? It's a caravaneer/trading sim, set in what's effectively a Roman-themed Dark Sun with the serial numbers filed off.
I actually almost reviewed it! I'll get to it at some point!
Always a treat to spot an Alfabusa fan in the wild! I still light a candle for TTS…. Sniff … Cut down in it’s prime….
We never learned just how many pieces Emps cracked the earth into when Kitten died@@AnIdiotsLantern
@@featurelength5086 I cannot BELIEVE they left us on that cliffhanger 😿 kitten was the heart of the show, the best dude
At least his WoD alter-ego is dating Magnus’s WoD alter-ego. We deserved something heartwarming after that
TECHNICALLY the essay was made by SpeakerD (Big D's VA and one of the writers of the show) under Alfa's production house Ogre Popenang.
This was the first PC game I bought as a kid. Unfortunately I didn't know anything about PC specs and my mum's Compaq Presario wouldn't run it. I still spent many hours poring over the manual and falling in love with the VTM setting. Eventually I played Bloodlines and then many years later I picked up Redemption (I think on GOG) and loved it. Really cool story.
Thank you for covering this! While I may prefer werewolf for a multitude of reasons, you never forget your first and for me in WoD, that was VtM: Dark Ages. Call me a masochist but I love taking an already gritty and unforgiving setting and making it even darker with supernatural elements like WoD. My fave clan has to be Gangrel. I love Protean so much, and the freedom to challenge the status quo of the High Clans and not immediately get torpor'd.
It always amused me, that the big bad was called Werewolf :)
Fascinating! Great video!
This was on of my favorite games, it was so good and the settings were so interesting.
Vampire The Masquerade was also the setting for Wizards of the Coasts' second CCG: Jyhad. Eventually renamed to Vampire: The Eternal Struggle. I went to GenCon in 1994 and it was The Game of that year. (Way behind was TSR' Spellfire CCG.) Everywhere I went people were sitting on the floor, studying the little rule book, and asking me if I knew how to play the game.
Well done. This was a great video. I cover World of Darkness material exclusively and have been an active player/Storyteller since 2003 and I will be sharing this with my community.
Hey algorithm, please let this content continue
Ooh, can't wait to see Earthblood next. The game with stealth mechanics so tacked on that it occasionally punishes you for being good at them. (with the exception of one really cool and rewarding segment about halfway through)
I just discovered your channel, and I've been enjoying it a lot! Your reviews of the Dark Sun games were great.
I really adore your videos, I have been a fan of White Wolf stuff for years, but I learn so much interesting stuff from your videos! I did not know the story of that poor kid who was a killer, sadly vampire RPG system as a conduit for his madness and suffering its good that they changed the death penalty to life in prison I hope he got therapy and found some way to be happy a poor lost should who sadly killed two innocent good folks so he should not go free after such a crime in my opinion.
Furthermore, I feel strange writing about a video game after starting with such a serious topic, but so did your video and I loved it so here it goes: Redemptions is well known in Poland since it was added to a very popular gaming magazine and I played it as a teen, but I could not get past an early dungeon with a ghost as the finally boss, so I appreciate you telling its story so well it gave me some ideas for cool wampire characters for a TTRPG game so thank you for that. Side note there are official character sheets for Christof and Anneszka the game was popular enough to make them part of the Metaplot :)
Asking a bunch of Wampire the Maskarade fans with clan is their fav is a genius lvl idea to get more engagement and I am happy it worked for you I watched your video on werewolf first and absolutely LOVED it (will comment on it letter since I have more to say about this game ) so I will bite (heheh) as well and answer your clever question: My fav Maskarade clan is Roses of Toreador because if I have eternity I would spend it looking at art of all stripes and try to hold on to my humanity to do so plus it's a yummu irony: Embracing artists to let them create forever and rescuing there spark only for it to die with their immortal soul making them artistically fruitless
Keep up the good work kudos from a new subscriber (sadly to poor to support you on Patron but I do watch the ads so I hope you will get a few red cents from that :D ) thank you for the fun I get from watching your polished content :)
This is the best video on this game I've seen yet, great job
Sorry to discover your channel a little late, but I'm glad I did. I'll be watching through most of your content but if you choose to do anymore WoD content I'll be quite happy
Your content is amazing as always!! Really like the lore and style of the World of Darkness!!
Nosferatu, gotta love the most freakishly cursed of all the damned childer of the night.
Also that wailing scream Kristof let’s put when he’s embraced. Shit I forgot about it. That haunted me back when I was a kid playing for the first time.
Aside from the goofy and fun single player campaign there was the very special online storyteller mode.
You could edit the maps of the campaign or mod in original maps and add in npcs on the fly. People would use the tools to run WoD campaigns with the game as a visual aid. I ran silly dungeon crawler one shots.
I can’t remember the name of the crew I used to RP with, we even had our own forum. But shout out to Vlad that crazy Tremere bastard, just in case he ever sees this comment! Love Roninz
this was a good episode i remeber seening this game but never know what it was. great video as always. see you with the next video william