Just read about this game on rpgnow. Anyone seen it? I'm a sucker for the 80s (which is why I wrote Vice Squad: Miami Nights) and I've played a boat load of VtM so I'm already predisposed to like this. I'm just ticked they didn't ask me to write it. :-)

Pete

Vice Squad: Miami Nights - http://www.pigames.net/store/product_info.php?cPath=43_48&products_id=253

Quote from: pspahn;434087Just read about this game on rpgnow. Anyone seen it? I'm a sucker for the 80s (which is why I wrote Vice Squad: Miami Nights) and I've played a boat load of VtM so I'm already predisposed to like this. I'm just ticked they didn't ask me to write it. :-)

Pete

I got it and I like it. It is a short and nice product with a lot of mood and nice ideas.Nothing groundbreaking, but well done. I give it a 7.

It's solid. My 80s Vampire game was about action movies, whereas this is more about, well, the New Wave. But I like it quite a bit regardless.

Quote from: pspahn;434087I'm a sucker for the 80s

You'll love it.

It's a decent sourcebook for an 80s Vampire: The Requiem game. Very usefvul for Masquerade (I have always sustained that the archetypal VtM chronicle should be about PC anarchs vs. the Camarilla, the Sabbat and the rest of the world, in a late 80s/early 90s milieu) since it's almost all fluff.

Like the others said, nothing to shout about, but a fun book.

I'd love to see the Cam run New Wave. I'm envisioning all the players basically playing their modern day characters in ridiculous disco gear and afro wigs.

Whatever you want to say about it, V:tM caught the 90s vampire-zeitgeist pretty well.
V:tR failed to catch the 2000s vampire-zeitgeist in a similar way, however; it should have been more like True Blood, or Twilight.

As for 80s Vampire zeitgeist, for it to be really authentic, it would have to look like The Lost Boys.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;434329V:tR failed to catch the 2000s vampire-zeitgeist in a similar way, however; it should have been more like True Blood, or Twilight.

Absolutely. V:tR is essentially a cleaned-up version of V:tM, in both setting and system. Clans and backstory stripped down to the bare minimum, no metaplot to speak of, the Fog of Ages, Potency and forced torpor as a mechanism to allow PCs to occupy positions of power... all great ideas, but in essence a rehash of V:tM. An excellent rehash in my book, but a rehash nonetheless.

They opted to play to the traditional strengths of their well-established games, instead of trying to capture a new market. Did it work? I don't know; no official figures. It's certainly not as popular as V:tM in its heyday, but that -- like D&D in the 80s -- was a "perfect storm" thing.

Quote from: RPGPundit;434329(...)V:tR failed to catch the 2000s vampire-zeitgeist in a similar way, however; it should have been more like True Blood, or Twilight.(...)

The true tragedy of the vampire phenomenon is how Orlok and Dracula devolved into a bunch of supposedly seductive and intense, underwear-clad fashion models. Though I don't care for V:tR I am somehow glad they didn't grab the pathetic 2000s vampire-zeitgeist.

Quote from: HombreLoboDomesticado;434375The true tragedy of the vampire phenomenon is how Orlok and Dracula devolved into a bunch of supposedly seductive and intense, underwear-clad fashion models. Though I don't care for V:tR I am somehow glad they didn't grab the pathetic 2000s vampire-zeitgeist.

Dracula was arguably the origin of the "vampire as sexual predator" meme. But I see your point; vampires from Eastern European folklore were repulsive and ghoulish.

I feel that part of the genius of both Masquerade and Requiem is that, whether you're a rich and beautiful Daeva (or Toreador) elder drinking blood from Swarovski crystal champagne flûtes in your penthouse, or a sewer-dwelling Nosferatu, vampires are monsters, living on stolen life, and the Humanity rules are there to remind you of that.

It doesn't have to be about that, all the time, any more than every Call of Cthulhu game should end with the PCs dying and/or going mad. But much like Sanity in CoC, the spiraling descent towards the Beast is inevitable in the long term, and the only question is how long you'll last.

Unless of course you want to run a redemption/Golconda game, which offers PCs a glimmer of hope.

I think the modern vampire fad is mostly an American thing. British Vamps like Being Human and Mark Warren's Dracula are brutal, monstrous and malevolent in a way that Meyerpires or whoever Psychic Sookie is fucking this week aren't.

In someways Being Human's Vampires are a bit like WoD Vampires except they aren't all super good looking. Infact most of them are quite ugly.

Quote from: The Butcher;434377Dracula was arguably the origin of the "vampire as sexual predator" meme. But I see your point; vampires from Eastern European folklore were repulsive and ghoulish.(...)

There was nothing sexual about Dracula in the actual novel and Bela Lugosi's version I always found hypnotic rather than seductive. Even during the "sexy sixties" Christopher Lee's Dracula did not spend his time lounging with his fellow vampires wearing only their underwear, or worse: SM attire.:rant:

It was Victorian sexual as in barely hinted at and brushed under the carpet.

Beside Twilight fucks the whole sex thing right up as Meyer made Vampires an abstinance poster child.

Quote from: HombreLoboDomesticado;434470There was nothing sexual about Dracula in the actual novel

Quote from: Ian Warner;434475It was Victorian sexual as in barely hinted at and brushed under the carpet.

Hence the adverb, "arguably".

Quote from: Ian Warner;434395I think the modern vampire fad is mostly an American thing. British Vamps like Being Human and Mark Warren's Dracula are brutal, monstrous and malevolent in a way that Meyerpires or whoever Psychic Sookie is fucking this week aren't.

In someways Being Human's Vampires are a bit like WoD Vampires except they aren't all super good looking. Infact most of them are quite ugly.

One of the things I find refreshing about Being Human is that they emphasize the addiction aspect of vampirism. Mitchell's character reads like a recovering junkie, his addiction being blood instead of heroin or cocaine. That addiction has made him do some crappy and repulsive things, something that rarely happens in other more popular vampire fictions.

Of course, the US version is completely rewriting the characters. I watched the first episode and once it was over felt better knowing I didn't have to watch anymore.

Quote from: HombreLoboDomesticado;434470There was nothing sexual about Dracula in the actual novel and Bela Lugosi's version I always found hypnotic rather than seductive. Even during the "sexy sixties" Christopher Lee's Dracula did not spend his time lounging with his fellow vampires wearing only their underwear, or worse: SM attire.:rant:

Before Dracula was published, La Fanu (sp?) published "Carmilla." The titular character is very much a sexual predator and her favored prey are young women. It's a safe bet Stoker had read Carmilla before writing Dracula.

In Lugosi's 'Dracula' something that is lost on a lot of modern audiences is that Lugosi was considered very much a sex symbol during his heydey on the stage and later in film. Ideals of physical beauty shift over time so its hard for people today to look at Lugosi's movie and realize that he was considered seductive at the time. In fact he was at the center of several scandals while living in Hollywood, such as being forced to divorce his wife because he was having an affair with Clara Bow. Interestingly enough his fall from stature as leading man material was because he became typecast as villains after Dracula was released.

A lot of the current fiction that involves Vampires I find kind of silly. Most of it strikes as wish fulfillment romance novel crap and some of it comes off as straight girls wanting to somehow date their best friend who is gay. Played right, vampires should strike the same chord as the serial killer. Someone who is monstrous inside, but appears charming and disarming on the surface. Twilight, Vampire Chronicles, etc. come off as well....anemic.