The correct answer on multiple choice is always "All of the Above" so I'm going to go with that.

I'm actually having a reasonable amount of fun with a back-to-basic VtM20 game.

It ignores the meta-plot and the intrusion of the other game lines;

- The Lupines are not Gaia-worshipping eco-nuts, they're men suffering under the divine curse laid upon their ancestor Lycaon for hubris, filicide and cannibalism and spread via infectious bite. Basically, maintaining the theme of becoming a monster and fighting to maintain your humanity (the Lupines by and large failing in that... becoming near mindless beasts once night falls) as a divine curse instead of making you into a furry Captain Planet.

- There is no magic save that of True Faith, Alchemy/Herbalism (i.e. using the natural properties of God's creations), Blood (twisting the power of the Divine curse), Necromancy (calling on ghosts) or Infernalism (calling upon demons). Other than perhaps Divine intervention, there is no escape from the curse that has been laid upon you.

There's no impending Gehenna in this campaign; the conflict is between the Elders (the most powerful of which are just above PC level at 7th Generation) and the younger vampires (i.e. PCs) with savage Lupines in the wilds and Sabbat packs roaming in the Barrens making just trying to flee the Elders an even more dangerous proposition than trying to overthrow them (or work your way into their favor... its a sandbox with no plot beyond the relationship charts and goals of the major NPCs... so whichever way the PCs go will result in something interesting happening).

Get over yourself sammy. Seriously.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;1129717He has a wrestlling school with the name in Florida. So he's still making money from the name. Which is great for him.  I've got nothing but a positive impression of the guy. Hard worker to this very day.

That so?  Cool, good for him.

Quote from: trechriron;1129694I feel like all the aforementioned should group up and build the ultimate WoD clone that pushes all the buttons you want pushed and eschews all the crap you hate.

Yep. I want to see this.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;1129717He has a wrestlling school with the name in Florida. So he's still making money from the name. Which is great for him.  I've got nothing but a positive impression of the guy. Hard worker to this very day.

Plus. He trained under Stu Hart and was a member of Stampede Wrestling. Which makes him absolutely legit to me.

Oddly enough, I watched an interview with him last year about his school; seems like a nice dude. And of course anyone who trained in the Dungeon is legit. RIP Owen...

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1129740Honestly, I think you may be onto something.

But who would be the bizarro version of me?

When it comes to WoD, Sammy-boy, you are more certainly, positively, without question in a class, four-leagues beyond any other! LOL. You need to do you Disco Mayberry By Night! DO IT!

Quote from: Brad;1129762Oddly enough, I watched an interview with him last year about his school; seems like a nice dude. And of course anyone who trained in the Dungeon is legit. RIP Owen...

I have always been and always will be a huge Hart Foundation fan. The Hart family is one of the best things to ever happen to Professional Wrestling. Hands down.

In the way I presented Vampires in my own homebrew Off-brand WoD setting, they were very family orientated to make them different from The white wolf version.

Being embraced brought you into a new family, the supernatural blood tie gave you a loyalty to those who also shared your blood.

Vampires had 4 stages of Life and how it allowed them to create other Vampires. Starting off as a fledgling, a recent embrace, you were unable to truly create other Vampires... except for the potential of feral, blood crazed, zombie like creatures made by accident.

When a Vampire eventually achieved "Adult Status" they would become known as a "Lord" or "Lady"... and would be able to sire one other Vampire as a sort of mate, child, or sibling to themselves. They shared part of their soul with this Vampire and were unable to create any others until they grew older and greater in power, or until their created one died.

Eventually, A Vampire would become a "Master". Master Vampires had no limit on the broods they could create, but were old enough and wise enough, surviving to that age and power.. not to over do it. Still, the Master would stand as a grand Patriarch or Matriarch of a family line.

Ancients were Vampires that evolved into something else entirely... As Vampires carried an embodiment of Death within them, they became Psychopomps that fed on the very essence of Death itself. They would cross over into the Underworld, and feed on restless spirits, becoming gods of death there.

There were clans of a sort, known as "Bloodlines" which were basically founded by very powerful Masters, most of which had passed on to become Ancients. Names like Dracula, Carmilla, Orlov, and the like... Anything a GM would want to invent and use that could give a particular bonus to certain powers, along with a certain inherited family flaw of sorts too. The potential being for GMs able to invent whatever families they wanted for their particular setting.

Night's Edge for Cyberpunk 2020 had an implementation of vampires I really liked. And I still own that supplement.

Quote from: Orphan81;1129767In the way I presented Vampires in my own homebrew Off-brand WoD setting, they were very family orientated to make them different from The white wolf version.

Being embraced brought you into a new family, the supernatural blood tie gave you a loyalty to those who also shared your blood.

Vampires had 4 stages of Life and how it allowed them to create other Vampires. Starting off as a fledgling, a recent embrace, you were unable to truly create other Vampires... except for the potential of feral, blood crazed, zombie like creatures made by accident.

When a Vampire eventually achieved "Adult Status" they would become known as a "Lord" or "Lady"... and would be able to sire one other Vampire as a sort of mate, child, or sibling to themselves. They shared part of their soul with this Vampire and were unable to create any others until they grew older and greater in power, or until their created one died.

Eventually, A Vampire would become a "Master". Master Vampires had no limit on the broods they could create, but were old enough and wise enough, surviving to that age and power.. not to over do it. Still, the Master would stand as a grand Patriarch or Matriarch of a family line.

Ancients were Vampires that evolved into something else entirely... As Vampires carried an embodiment of Death within them, they became Psychopomps that fed on the very essence of Death itself. They would cross over into the Underworld, and feed on restless spirits, becoming gods of death there.

There were clans of a sort, known as "Bloodlines" which were basically founded by very powerful Masters, most of which had passed on to become Ancients. Names like Dracula, Carmilla, Orlov, and the like... Anything a GM would want to invent and use that could give a particular bonus to certain powers, along with a certain inherited family flaw of sorts too. The potential being for GMs able to invent whatever families they wanted for their particular setting.

That's some great stuff!  Especially the part about the Ancients.

You should take a look at the OSR for WOD thread, if you haven't already.

Quote from: Chris24601;1129753There's no impending Gehenna in this campaign; the conflict is between the Elders (the most powerful of which are just above PC level at 7th Generation) and the younger vampires (i.e. PCs) with savage Lupines in the wilds and Sabbat packs roaming in the Barrens making just trying to flee the Elders an even more dangerous proposition than trying to overthrow them (or work your way into their favor... its a sandbox with no plot beyond the relationship charts and goals of the major NPCs... so whichever way the PCs go will result in something interesting happening).

Great concept... a horror sandbox game!

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1129756Get over yourself sammy. Seriously.

Dude, if you can't laugh at yourself, then why laugh at all?

This thread is self-deprecating humor at its core.

Sometimes, it's good to joke about yourself in these scary uncertain times. Helps me calm down.

Quote from: Aglondir;1129772Great concept... a horror sandbox game!

Thanks. I pretty much learned the technique over a decade of running Mage.

While I started out in college with the idea of a story arc that would last a semester of weekly sessions, my group quickly grew to around 15 players, so by default it ended up as a sort of pseudo LARP where the mages would interact with each other (because they rarely had the same goals) and any particular player or group of them would come up to see me when they needed to interact with a particular NPC or otherwise resolve something.

Anyway, when I graduated, I started up a new campaign at a local game shop, but rather than just try to invent a whole slew of fresh NPCs, I instead turned all of the PCs from the closing of my college game, complete with all their interests, allies, enemies and unrealized goals. And when that campaign ended, those PCs were layered onto the surviving NPCs.

When I finally got a more stable group together (typically 1-2 joined and 1-2 fell away every year), every couple years we'd decide this batch of characters would be retired and new ones started and one of the hallmarks for the players was when their new PCs actions would bring them across the path of their old PC.

At a certain point, I think around the point my group stablized, I realized that it was just easier to NOT plan any overarching plots, just keep track of all these very nuanced NPCs (because they'd once been a single player's sole focus) and what they wanted and the players just being a potential resource or hindrance based on their own abilities and goals would write the plot for me.

So these days, whenever I start a new campaign, I put way more focus into creating NPCs and their goals than I do on any overarching plot, because the moment a PC crosses paths with one of those goals a plot will develop just by deciding how the NPC will react to its goals being furthered or hindered.

I decided on Vampire and a brand new city this time just for a change of pace and because this set of players both just really didn't grok Mage's core themes and magic system (so the objective reality and "spell list" nature of Disciplines fit their playstyle) and their general preference for darker themes (I run Mage in a style I call 'The Dark Fantastic'; the world is dark and dangerous, but also filled with wonders and you can 'earn your happy ending.').

It's been a fun exercise for my creative muscles and my desire to keep thematic purity and nip certain things in the bud* led to some creative solutions of their own.

* a couple of my relatives who are likely to join the campaign at some point just adore the werewolf cosmology and playing obscure splats (often overpowered relative to the main PC type) respectively would undoubtedly spend a lot of time trying to convince me to let them play a Garou and Kuei-Jin respectively.

By making this campaign's wolves into cursed bloodthirsty monsters (built like vampires; they gain power by feeding and their shape-shifting is entirely the result of a modified Protean discipline they're required to take at least one dot in) and the Kuei-Jin into just another vampire clan, my hope is to either persuade them to not bother with trying to change my mind and roll up something appropriate... or if they're really insistent and I just don't want to expend the effort (saying no to family is harder than for random players) I can give them versions that aren't going to clash with the campaigns themes or level of power.

All this shit talking about White Wolf and nobody brings up the Street Fighter RPG?

Quote from: Ghostmaker;1129813All this shit talking about White Wolf and nobody brings up the Street Fighter RPG?

I never got to play or own Street Fighter the RPG, which is sad because I hear so many good things about it. But I do know it was the basis for "COMBAT: The Big Book of Beating Ass" which was one of the best 2nd edition supplements ever created for WoD.