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Bordeaux by Night - Storytellers Guide $19.99
Average Rating:4.6 / 5
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Bordeaux by Night - Storytellers Guide
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Bordeaux by Night - Storytellers Guide
Publisher: White Wolf
by Rissa D. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/10/2021 19:49:07

I was really excited to crack into this product, since it got good reviews and came highly reccomended by the author. However, what I saw very much did not live up to the hype.

The book is very poorly edited. I know English is not the author's first language, but it badly needs to be read over by someone more fluent. Some parts are fine, but others are borderline unreadable. Formatting is also not great, with third- to half-pages regularly left blank and wide margins inflating the page count unnecessarily.

History section is probably the most useful bit; I got some ideas there for certain.

The section on local folklore and important dates is lacking. There's nothing wrong with the details themselves, but the focus is all wrong for a Vampire chronicle. Bank holidays and when school children go on their lunch breaks are cool, but they're not useful to an average game at all. The Player's Guide is better in this regard, but I shouldn't have to buy two separate books just to get basic info about the city. I'm also not sure what the logic is between what of this info got into the Player's Guide and what got into this book.

Most of the rest of the book is NPCs. And they're... not good. Many of them are quite bland, with generic backstories and one-note personalities. "I am a racist and don't like minorities", "I am a serial killing creep", "I am an all-around nice guy", etc. A few others feel very unlikely - Lyle, Claudia, and Victor in particular border on the rediculous in one regard or another.

On the bright side, I like the idea of the surface vs hidden Nosferatu, as well as the detailing of a few important ghouls and of some of the local other supernaturals - a good call for STs who might want to focus on that sort of thing. There was a few NPCs I liked as well.

Coterie breakdowns are fine, a bit oddly formatted and suffering from the same problems as the NPCs that make them up. The story hooks are OK, but many of them lack depth. I'd like to see a bit more complex stories suggested - there's really only one or two that work as a major chronicle plot, rather than a sidequest.

The influence explanations at the end are good and helpful, as is the timeline. The table of contents is linked to the sections it references which is really nice, although for some reason it's at the end of the book?

The biggest problem here, though, is the pricing. This book costs $20 US, or it's availible as part of a bundle with the Player's Guide for $35. This is the same price as a meaty V20 suppliment like Lore of the Clans. I understand pricing it up a little bit because they likely will sell fewer copies than "official" work and you want to get actual return on your time investment, but considering that the ST Guide alone is around twice the price of the official By Night sourcebooks, with less content, it's very underwhelming.

Overall, there was a few interesting ideas in here, but if I hadn't gotten it on a good sale, I'd feel like I wasted my money.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
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Creator Reply:
Hi! Thank you for having taken the time to review my book, and I'll fully take the "English is my third language" criticism. I suck at prose :') I'm sorry you didn't feel like it was all that good to you, and especially about the characters, I'm sorry you thought they were bland or unrealistic, but considering I'm working with a franchise which has Totentaz and Enkidu, I can only invite you to re-read them and try to see why they're "a racist" and "a serial killing creep", what's their potential roles to the players, and what is rooted in their motivations. They're not just that, and that's the problem. I won't comment on what's a matter of pure opinion, however I would like to talk about some of the elements you've pointed out: - The margins. They're the official margins of official templates, using the official fonts with the official spacing between lines, paragraphs and so on. I did not modify anything about text placement and columns in the official template (I only changed the original frame to my vine one). You may call it page inflation if you'd like but it is White Wolf's doing, not mine. - Partly blank pages. That's page breaks, which is a common practice to avoid crammed content. I chose to insert a page break for each character, as they can be used as PCs and as such, need to be printed/extracted without elements of another's background in the page. It also allows for better accessibility of the contents, and it's more consistent. - The Table of contents. It's at the end because it's the full ToC, while the one with just the first two levels is at the beginning (that's the Summary). Using a whole bunch of pages at the beginning with the full display of all title levels is useless, hence why it's with the index. This is a very common practice in many publications which are meant to be referenced. - The price: I believe you miswrote your "$35", as the bundle (before the addition of the Revised of this ST guide) was $25, not $35. I will not argue with you on pricing politics in TTRPGs, but you're comparing a fully crowdfunded book with a whole lot of preorders with someone doing everything out of pocket, and I do not think that comparison is fair to either party. - Long games. It's a sandbox setting where the PCs are the missing piece. The long-campaign type of games will happen from there, and from the domino effects caused by the first few elements they find out. There's no "side quests", but everything meshes into one big story: the PCs' story. I'd also like to point out that this book is a By Night, not a Campaign/Chronicle. Feel free to contact me on social media so I can send you a review copy of the revised version of this book, perhaps you'll find the organization more relevant to your interests and I believe I fixed most of the poorly written moments. Thanks again for having taken the time to share your thoughts, they're appreciated. Take care!
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Bordeaux by Night - Storytellers Guide
Publisher: White Wolf
by Elsa B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/03/2020 07:45:14

Great depth to this, lots of lovely information on the area as well as well developed characters. The redesign is beautiful too. Highly recommended as this setting is history rich and gives a great setting for Vampire.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Bordeaux by Night - Storytellers Guide
Publisher: White Wolf
by Helton M. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 03/13/2020 07:06:57

It's a really detailed setting and you can see that a lot of work was put into it. For a foreigner like me, the history of the city was completely new and easily understandable. Frequently in products like these is hard to feel like you understand the setting without some painful hours browsing wikipedia. This one skips that part. The author also told me that she is working on getting some pronunciation help into the books for non-french people.
The one thing that could be a problem for some people is that the art has some minor inconsistencies here and there and every few chapters you catch yourself wondering "where have I seen this before?" This is very minor and doesn't take away from the experience. The book is worth getting for the dozens of npcs alone and it's a really good tool to have for moments in which you need to conjure someone out of thin air for a story but can't quite figure out where to go.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Bordeaux by Night - Storytellers Guide
Publisher: White Wolf
by Gavin J. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 11/10/2019 19:47:56

I wish I had had these books 5 years ago when I ran a Vampire game in France. You can easily tell that the author has a passion for the setting, and most likely is a local of the area. Little bits of setting information are included that you wouldn't get in most other books, such as how students often congregate around a certain statue, or why 'corner shops' have a certain name. There's a bit more information on wine than I would need for my style of games, but it's probably best it's referenced for those who want it to be more of the focal point (since it is a major wine region). The characters and setting information is version agnostic (except for the references to some Changelings, which is from The Dreaming and not The Lost as they are completely incompatible), which is both a good thing and a bad thing. I personally would have liked some information about what skills and disciplines characters were favoured/weak for each NPC, but that wouldn't be really feasible. The books were made in Scribus (correction - It was Word, which makes the rest even more impressive) (found out through conversations with the author) and that does unfortunately show every now and again (isses with kerning/hyphenation mainly, but I'm sensitive to this due to DTP layout being my forte), but the author did a damn good job in the layout, even with having to fight what the program thought was best. And there was the occassional issue with how certain sentences read (I'm assuming the author has English as a second language rather than a first), but you can still easily understand what is being conveyed. I certainly hope that the author can make enough money to hire an editor for future projects, just to make it look more professional, even though these books are well executed. With a few polishing touches, I feel they could go far in the self-publishing field, and I look forward to other books they might write that I can use when I next run Vampire (and would like to see them approach doing setting books for other lines, like Changeling The Lost).



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Creator Reply:
Hi! I never mentioned using Scribus (I know of it but can't be bothered). Everything was done on Word! :) But yes, I agree it needs a new layout format, and some cleaning up of the wording. English is my third language, but truth is I'm a terrible creative writer (I don't phrase shit well :'(). Once I work on my creative writing, it'll get better! The (vampire) NPCs have character sheets in a separate Zip File! I believe you might find that Guide to Coteries Volumes 1 to 4 have a much better layout (full page preview will give you the info needed). I have absolutely no knowledge of Changeling the Lost, but I know I should consider it. I hope you'll download the updated layout/corrections of this and the Players Guide once they're updated, make sure to follow me on twitter/fb/website to know when it releases! (because I can't give notifications through Drivethru)
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Bordeaux by Night - Storytellers Guide
Publisher: White Wolf
by John S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 09/11/2019 06:41:49

A detailed companion book to the Bordeaux by Night player's guide that is absolutely essential for storyteller's running campaigns in Bordeaux or France in General. Lots of details on the hidden agendas and motivations of the kindred population. You can read my full review, with thoughts [HERE]



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Bordeaux by Night - Storytellers Guide
Publisher: White Wolf
by Fabricio P. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/03/2019 13:10:24

This book is an inspiring read for veterans and newbies alike. The the ammount of work that has been put into this in order to create believeable and detailed characters and settings is staggering, and certainly most reccomended if you want to set your chronicle in the city or need a guideline on how to build and research your own.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Bordeaux by Night - Storytellers Guide
Publisher: White Wolf
by DSC T. G. C. _. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/29/2019 17:48:07

The companion book the Bordeaux By Night Player's guide, the Storyteller's Guide is a can't miss book for storytellers. This book goes into details of the city and the kindred, the player's guide just hinted at. The kindred presented in this book are fully flushed out, with flaws and closet skeletons, which allows for a game filled with social intrigue and in some cases deep personal horror.

This is a must have book for any storyteller wanting to run a game in the Bordeaux area. The quality of this book exceeds many of the professionally done by Night books. The Tabletop Gaming Club loved this setting and strongly recommends it to Storytellers.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Bordeaux by Night - Storytellers Guide
Publisher: White Wolf
by Vincenzo B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/12/2019 07:11:41

Another great Secrets of Masquerade guide. Well detailed, it shows a truly remarkable study of Bordeaux history and Vampire the Masquerade mood, integrated seamlessly. Surely among the best Storyteller's Vault products.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Bordeaux by Night - Storytellers Guide
Publisher: White Wolf
by Arby S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/09/2019 19:07:50

by far my favorite "By Night" setting in both official and unofficial material. This book is full of interesting, memorable, well-researched characters with skeletons in their closet and secrets to be exploited by cunning players and PCs. A treasure trove for any ST wanting to run a "behind closed doors" personal horror tale and weave their characters intothe gripping narrative of the city. There is so many ways to bring Bordeaux crumbling down. Do you dare to open Pandora's Box? Lift the silk blanket off the rotten carcass? Or do you prefer stability over justice?

I give it 5 Stars, one of the best fiction content to come out of STVault and VTM at large.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Bordeaux by Night - Storytellers Guide
Publisher: White Wolf
by Lisa B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/27/2019 14:06:09

If you liked the Players' Guide to Bordeaux by Night, you do not want to miss this book. All of the juiciest secrets are contained within, and as a ST, you should definitely get your hands on it to find out just how many ways your players can blow up the powder keg that is Bordeaux's Kindred society (and trust me, there are a number of phenomenally explosive ways to go, all provided in detail in this guide). Let your players pick their poison; there's no doubt things are going to fall apart around them, but they have the power to pick which corner of the house of cards they want to bring down first. Obviously, as a player you should not touch this book at all, much less read it - spoilers abound within, and it will ruin your enjoyment of the setting since it takes away much of the gut punches your ST could pull off with these plots otherwise. If you want social intrigue, well-made, realistic characters with flaws and skeletons in their closets, and love to poke your nose where it doesn't belong, then you can't pass up the opportunity to explore the city of wine. Come for the chance to secure a foothold in a recently shaken-up domain, stay for the "car crash, can't look away"-levels of awfulness unfolding as you learn just who exactly you're rubbing elbows with in Bordeaux.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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