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V20 Classical Age - Nightfall: the Vampire's Survival Guide Pay What You Want
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V20 Classical Age - Nightfall: the Vampire\'s Survival Guide
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V20 Classical Age - Nightfall: the Vampire's Survival Guide
Publisher: White Wolf
by DSC T. G. C. _. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 04/12/2022 16:30:05

Another product from the V20 Classical Era product line; one that swiftly became a beloved staple at my playgroup's table even during time periods or locations not germane to the chronicle.

For the purposes of this review we will divide it up into multiple parts as there are four products in one here in our opinion.

One thing we will say on this English Translation: A few spots have been glossed over and the writer's native language is still present. A minor hiccup and easily fixable with some google translate, but this might be a mark against the product for some customers.

Part 1: The Vampire Survival Guide: Nightfall This alone is worth the price of admission. For veteran and new players/storytellers alike this handles the multi-splat question quite nicely. Some rough translations on how to play Wraiths, Changelings, Garou, and Mages completely self-contained within Vampire the Masquerade.

The rules are simple, easy to understand, and feel like a somewhat faithful representation considering the ruleset it is filtered through. This is head and shoulders better than the "antagonists" section at the back of any core book and balances it so that it is also table friendly in the hands of players as well. From personal experience involving the Mage and Changeling chapters specifically it ran smoother using Disciplines instead of Pillars or Domains respectively. This is less to do with balance and more to do with work on the STs part involving equivalency of power X to discipline Y.

Even if a ST doesn't allow a player to play a Wraith or Garou or Changeling there are some useful things towards the end of this section in the shape of combination disciplines. Some of these are reprints from previous editions, as is the way of this product line, but a couple entirely new ones are peppered in as well.

Part 2: The Nightfall Chronicles So we have a small collection of stories to run as a chronicle. Those familiar with D&D/Pathfinder will remember things like Adventure Paths, those familiar with other White Wolf Products will think back to The Giovanni Chronicles. This comes with all the same pitfalls and problems involving a pre-written adventure: A wonderful story is written here that looks like it can be great fun if the players bite into it, but there will be some work if players don't buy into the concept. The writing here, however, is a little better than most in addressing that. The story is written like stage directions and notes than a full on story. It still requires buy-in from the players but keeping it this open means it can be less of a hassle for the players to be looped in.

The NPCs presented here are nice and serve their purpose, the only minor gripe would be with how the sheets are laid out being shown in dots in a truncated character sheet instead of either a full on sheet akin to how the old Clanbooks gave archetype sheets or in small text statblocks do for NPCs in the back of a core book.

Part 3: Humanity Revised Alright, so this is another take on changing how Humanity works. We are not sure if we like it or not, but the basic gist of it involves starting low on the track to represent closer to your "self" and the closer you approach 10 the closer to your beast you are; effectively inversing how we usually look at Humanity. It's a little weird, but easily fixable if it's a struggle to think that way. Once we get past this part and look at how there is a secondary system of The Beast calling out to you and encouraging to commit these violations and you sometimes need to roll Self-Control or otherwise engage in these acts, this is where the new system shines. It is the P'o system from Kindread of the East or the Shadows for Wraith the Oblivion! After this we get some new Philosophies (setting version of Roads/Paths), which are great, but it also goes back to the 10= Far from Beast. 1= Beast almost completely controls you normal scaling.

Part 4: Foundation Revised: Honestly there isn't much to say here. If you liked the Pillars/Foundation system found in the the V20 Guide to the TMR this is great. It's more content for that. It also comes with a full primer and some charts to make it quick and easy. Not bad if you want to simulate spheres, but like the TMR version it will probably still make a Mage player a little frustrated.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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