Vampire: The Masquerade Q & A

Angie McKaig

When I set out to learn about Vampire Role Playing, I had a ton of questions. Thankfully, I knew a man with many of the answers: John Goodrich, who also wrote Clanbook Baali. Here are the results of some of our Q & A sessions. Hopefully they will help you to sort out some of the confusion surrounding this very popular and mysterious pastime!

Angie: This IS just a game, right? Nobody really drinks blood or kills anyone or really recruits people for devil worship from Masonic Lodges, right?

John: Heh heh heh. Got ya. No. No one in my experience or to any of my knowledge does Devil Worship, recruits Satanic Worshippers at Masonic Lodges, or kills people at these organizations. As for Blood Drinking--well, there are some people who take the Goth thing way too far--but WW repeatedly says that V:TM IS JUST A GAME! There is a "Live Action" version of the game, but no physical contact is allowed, and you damn well don't drink blood, or carry real-looking weapons. That's about as real as it gets. But WW likes to blur the line in the paper game, incorporating real events into their timelines, and including real personalities into teh fictional setting. This confuses some people, but it also gives the game more power by being closer to the real world.

As for the Masons--they're interesting. They claim (among other things) to be the descendents of the Knights Templar (which is probably untrue) who really were stamped out because of accusations of Black Magic. These accusations were actually to cover up Phillip of France getting rid of one of his primary creditors. Alan Moore does a very interesting exploration of the whole Masonic structure in his comic series From Hell, which is an incredible well-researched exploration of the Jack the Ripper crimes. First comic I ever read with footnotes, and they were at least as interesting as the drawn portion of the work! Supposedly, certain people have said that certain Masonic Lodges (specifically, the one in London) refer to a triplicate deity known as Jah-Bul-On. Sort of a three-faced combination of Jahweh, Baal, and Osiris.

Angie: Can you explain to me this Sabbat/Camarilla thing? You see them listed right along with Brujah, Tremere, and all the rest, but some of these clans seem to be part of Camarilla too. Clan within a clan? You'd better draw me a map, John. Of all the V:TM documents I've read I'm STILL fuzzy on the hierarchy.

John: There are thirteen vampire clans. Each bears a unique stamp of their progenitor, with powers that are theirs and theirs alone. In modern times, seven of the clans belong to the Camarilla organization, two to the Sabbat, and four are independent. The Camarilla and the Sabbat are basically political organizations, and the basis for Vampire government.

The Seven Camarilla clans are: Bruja, Gangrel, Malkavians, Nosferatu, Toreador, Tremere, and Ventrue. The Sabbat are The Lasombra, and Tzimisce. The four clans who claim no allegance are the Assamites, the Giovanni, the Followers of Set and the Ravnos.

The Inconnu is an organization of powerful, old vampires, irrespective of clan. They have apparently made some pact with a demon.

There are also innumerable "minor" bloodlines, such as the Baali.

Caitiff are vampires without a clan. They have been created and abandoned by their "Fathers in Darkness." They have no heritage, and are generally considered garbage--only slightly above humans. They have limited access to the to the specific magical powers (Disciplines) of the clans, but do not suffer from clan weaknesses, either.

Angie: Is Baali a clan that is on its own (ie not part of Sabbat or Camarilla)?

John: According to 'official' WW statement, Baali are not truly a clan. This is primarily because they are dispised, and 'clan' offers some sort of legitimacy. They are a bloodline--a clan too small to be called a clan. As a policy, both Camarilla and Sabbat kill Baali whenever they are discovered. Like I said before, the Baali were introduced as a sort of generic villain--someone so vile and disgusting that ALL the vampires hate them.

V:TM has a lot of conflict to work with. Conflict within a clan, conflice between clans within the Camarilla, Traditional vampires versus Caitiff, Young versus Old, Camarilla versus Sabbat, and Everyone versus the Baali. The Baali were made to be the only thing everyone could agree on--to kill the Baali.

Angie: So let's say I want to start playing this. How do I find people to play this with, and how do I approach them? What if the people I find are in a diiferent clan than I want to belong to? Are there online resources for this that you know of?

John: There are a couple of places to find a group to play Role-playing games with. Usually, there will be a bulletin board at your local games shop, game masters and layers looking for campaigns to join. Find a campiagn that interests you, or put up your own card. Most college campuses will have a "strategic games club" or some sort of role-playing game club. Check your campus directory for clubs. Call the ones that sound strange.

I don't think there are specific on-line resources for game groups, although gamers tend to be very creative about finding out about each other. AOL has interest groups; you can probably find some way to link up there. One of the best ways is probably to join up with a Usenet newsgroup that is in your interest area. alt.games.white-wolf is a good place to post a message asking if there are people in the area who need players.

Angie: How do you play this? In an afternoon in someone's apartment, online through e-mail, written letters, phone calls, what? When does the game end, if it ends at all? Do you normally meet in person? Do you dress up for it?

John: Well, it's a little different for each. Most games are played in several-hour chunks, possibly six or more, at regular intervals of once a week. Generally, you get everyone physically together and sit around a table and talk, throw dice and eat munchies. This is the old tradition (I've been playing various games for--16 years now). There are groups that play through e-mail, although this is necessarily slower than tabletop. Some people dress up for a tabletop game because they feel it helps them get into character. I find that an accent is the fastest and easiest way to establish a character.

The best way to think of a game is like a book. The Storyteller has the plot, and the players control the main characters. Just as some books stretch into series and get longer and longer, so do some games. On the other hand, sometimes the Storyteller just has one particular story to tell, and tells only it.

Angie: A lot of these roleplaying games seem very complicated and shrouded in mystery, so to speak. Is that on purpose?

John: Well, keep in mind that the game system is creating a new world, so to speak. V:TM creates a world like ours, only one in which many supernatural entities exist beside humans. The rules establish the 'reality' of what people can or cannot do. Otherwise there would be no limit as to what people could do ("I drop the building on the bad guy's head").

V:TM is actually a fairly simple system, but the background is extremely complex. The backstory to the vampires' existence is shrouded in mysteries, half-truths and forgotten wisdom. It's what makes V:TM such a popular game. There is a lot of lore to be gleaned, and White Wolf lets a little bit out at a time. It's also expensive to get all the books. White Wolf is a multimillion dollar company. Sort of Like Magic: The Gathering. The more you own, the more you know, and the more insidious your plots, and the more of your money the game company has.

Angie: Although I've read that all you need is the introductory kit from White Wolf, I'm sure it would help to have SOME of the products WW offers. Do you recommend any books or other products as a must-have before starting to play this with any degree of seriousness?

John: Depends on your game. All you really have to have to have to have is the Vampire: The Masquerade hardcover book. That's it. From there, you are introduced to the world, and given the basics on how it works. With a little sweat and imagination, you can populate the world as you wish, and create your very own plots.

If you feel that you need a little help, or don't think that you are as creative as the WW team, and have a good deal of money lying about, you can start on supplements. There's the player's guide to V:TM. Good book. The Storyteller's guide is also very useful. There are guides to many major cities, including San Francisco, Chicago, and New Orleans. Then there are the clanbooks, which provide intimate knowledge of the various clans and exactly how they work. The problem is that once you start, there's always one more supplement that you need. WW has, very irritatingly, decided to scatter the clans into several different books. While the main book has the disciplines for the five main Camarilla clans, the special discipline for the Assamites is in the Players' Guide. Vicissitude, for the Tzimisce clan, is in the Storyteller's Guide to the Sabbat, and The details on Serpentis, for the Followers of Set, is in the Storyteller's Guide. And there's just not a lot of pouint to haveing a Tzimisce running around in your campaign without Vicissitude. It's part of what makes them unique. Later, if you want to introduce other World of Darkness entities, such as Werewolves, Changelings, or Mummies, you can buy the supplements for these.

But you don't NEED these books to have a good game. You can easily start out with just the Vampire book and lead the players through several months of spying and nastiness within their own city before you buy another book and introduce "outside" forces such as the Followers of Set, the Sabbat, or Wraiths. But the more books you own, the more complex and rich your campaign can become.

I'm very selective about the books I buy. I'm not actively involved in a Vampire campaign, so I only buy that stuff with information that interests me. I love the whole Egyptian Mummy/Setite war. It's just incredibly cool. So I have Clanbook Setite and World of Darkness: Mummy. But I don't own the Storyteller's Handbook. I don't need it.

Angie: OK, enough questions for now. With this subject it seems like the more I learn the more questions I have. I appreciate your patience, and all you hard work. :)

John: Well, the thing is, once you understand the concept of Role-playing gaming, the various systems aren't that important. What's important is that you know how to take the role of another person who is defined on a piece of paper.

What's kind of sad about Role-playing games is that they have such a bad rap because they take an hour or two to completely understand. Many people simply don't understand them, and fear what they don't understand. But RPG's promote healthy social interaction, problem solving, and the ability to work in groups. It's a great hobby.