Vampire the Masquerade Winter's Teeth issue 3 review

Winters Teeth 

Issue 3 

Vault Comics

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This issue hits the stand with quite a bit of action between the covers. The story picks up with Cecily's investigation into the slaughter of the Nosferatu that occurred last issue. Showcasing the brutality of what happened while bringing along her Ali whom she is still declaring as her childe. We get to see some build up, some story stings coming together and even a fight with the surreal looking bad guys who did the massacre. Don't get attached to anyone by the way. Also we discover something bad has happened to Prince Samantha while all this was going on.

The Anarch Tales secondary storyline also picks up quite a bit. We get a bit more details on one of the group members and their motivations. Then their escape from the hunters which captured most of them last issue. So it's going together nicely as well. Still wondering if this will tie into the main story or not. 

In the back we get more material for the roleplaying game. Information for the Wolves in Sheeps clothing bad guys, some new powers and another group of villains called the Nictuku.

The art continues to be at the same quality standard as the previous issues. I feel the writing is maybe a little bit better than the first two issues. Still giving us necessary details for the story without dumping a ton of setting information in order to do so. 

So once again, two thumbs up and recommended for fans of the new and old versions of Vampire the Masquerade. Heck even those who are not fans may enjoy this story.

Vampire the Masquerade Winters Teeth issue 2 review

 

Vampire the Masquerade: Winters Teeth issue 2 from Vault Comics 

Find it at DrivethruComics.

Find it on Amazon.

Or find it at your local comic shop.

This issue starts off by finally giving us Prince Samantha and some insight into her past and the way she thinks now. While at an event Cecily brings forth Alejandra with the claim that she is her progeny. For those unfamiliar with the setting it's given some discourse so you will not be lost. Actually they do this quite well through out the issue with discussions of the hunger, hunting and other such topics. I will say I am impressed with how they are handling giving readers all this information. It's done in a way where it is well written so any fans of the game already don't feel bored and those new to all this aren't completely lost. 

There is not so much about Colleen and her crew, a little backstory and then running into something really bad. I'm not so sure about them being major characters in the story now. Maybe even just collateral damage but we will see with the next issue or two of this series. There have been at least four issues announced so far. 

All in all the writing is pretty good. The story gets a bit wobbly with some "before" scenes but it recovers nicely. The characters do come across as different and three dimensional instead of just card board cut out vampire templates. The art is the same as last issue, maybe even a little improved. Thankfully there is a bit more color being splashed around this time so not everything looks like it's coated in mud. 

The game material in this issue is giving some more information on Minneapolis and St. Paul. Including what information characters may know based on their knowledge of the sister cities. Then a two page character sheet is also included. Having not read the newest edition of Vampire The Masquerade I'm not sure if this is improved or just of a different layout. But it does look nice. 

Vampire the Masquerade Winters Teeth review

 

 

 

Vampire the Masquerade

Winters Teeth issue 1

from Vault Comics

 

Find it at DrivethruComics here

Find it on Amazon here

This issue is obviously the set up for the series. So be ready to go in with some expository dialogue explaining the world of V:TM for new readers. But, to their writers credit, they manage to keep it down to a minimum and only touching on what is necessary instead of feeding you everything at once.

The main characters we have so far are Cecily, a former Brujah Anarch, Colleen, a thin blooded Caitiff I think, and maybe Alejandra, just can't tell what she is going to be in the series yet. It sets up Cecily as a problem solver for the local prince of Minneapolis who is doing her job exceptionally well. We see how she is juggling the remnants of her pre-embraced life and her duty to her masters. Alejandra is newly embraced, confused and not what she seems and runs into Cecily as soon as she arrives in the city via train. While Colleen is caring for her own little vampire family adopting a mothering roll over them.

We don't really get an idea of where exactly everything is going but several plot directions are sat up. A vamp named Calder is warning Cecily of potential changes and strife that may be coming to the city. Colleen and crew are hiring themselves out to do dirty work. Oh and we get a quick panel of what is probably some hunters as well. Plenty of direction to go.

All in all the writing is solid so far. The art is good, not exactly my preferred style but better than a lot of other indie comics out there. Honestly I think the coloring is actually the worse thing about this issue. Getting way to much of a muddy feel from the palette being used.

In the back is a section called 'Anarch Tales' which gives you 5^th edition stats for some of the characters along with a bit more background on them. For those who run V:TM this could turn out to be a nice little wealth of NPC's to use in your games. Already fleshed out and ready to use.

I will be picking up the next issue without a doubt.



World of Darkness Documentary

Watch it on Amazon Prime.

Watch it for free on YouTube.

Finally got around to watching the World of Darkness documentary charting the rise and fall of White Wolf Studios, mainly focusing on their game Vampire: The Masquerade. I remember this coming out a couple years back but never got around to trying to give it a view. Which is odd considering how much time I spent running V:TM back in the day.

Although they do seem to show a lot more about the LARP version of the game while talking more about the tabletop version. But that's okay, it's easier to show what you mean with people in costumes than folks setting around a table rolling dice. But it does give us a nice view of the path from where the company started, when V:TM exploded and up to the inevitable end. So for those who do like a bit of history of gaming this is worth watching.

Now some of this I experienced first hand as the game came out when I was really doing a lot of roleplaying. I actually bought a copy the day it hit the game shop shelves and begin running it within a week. One this I will agree on is that it changed the hobby and was quite different from everything else out there at the moment. Different as nearly everything else out at the time was just another book full of rules (which they mention) with sourcebooks that were additional books of rules. V:TM was pushing to be something different than that, tried to make the system more light and wanted players to keep the roleplaying more important than the mechanics.

There is some eye rolling parts though. They attempt to lay claim to the shift of the club scenes into more goth and vampire that happened at the time. From what I've been told the shift happened before VTM and the game itself was more likely inspired by that than the other way around. Now maybe more convention parties went goth because of it but not mainstream clubs.

Also they covered the fallout that happened between the global live action community that had sprouted up and the company. Issues over copyright and IP infringement which led to a really jagged break between the two. The failure of the video game to materialize. Plus a few other downfalls.   

So I recommend this to just about anybody out there who has even some passing memory of the glory days of Vampire the Masquerade and White Wolf as a company. 

Jaded Gamer - Vampire part three

Okay a bit late on part three but here we go.

Like I said before I will be running my Vampire campaign using the 1st edition setting and rules. So not having an actual physical copy of said first edition I've been having to reread the book in pdf form. I was given a copy of 2nd edition by a friend to use so I figured I would be using it for a rules reference at the table since the rules changes weren't to terribly broad. One evening I was going to be outside and decided to grab that edition and take it outside to read.

I think I got whiplash from doing this.

The shift in the style of writing and the way they chose to give information was a lot different. And not in the most pleasing way.  The rules were fine and most of the nuts and bolts of system description are solid and in some ways better than the original. But damned a lot of the other stuff.

You ever know that guy who gets a bit of success under his belt? Like in school the jock who is suddenly making the game winning shots, or the person at work who is getting promotions all in a row out of nowhere? You remember how their attitude would change and that smell of arrogance would reek when they walk into a room? Yeah that's what I'm getting here.

You can absolutely tell that they are starting that movement from being something different and cool to trying way to hard at being edgy and really cool. I mean they haven't hit the level of the Revised edition yet. (just to note I tried coming back to VTM when Revised originally came out and promptly sold my copy off within a couple weeks) So needless to say all I didn't read to much just when and refreshed myself on some of the disciplines a bit.

I will say that thankfully they still keep the setting information to a lull. But I think that's because they are fully focusing on splat books by this time. The artwork is a big improvement in many places. But a little bit of me still misses that little vampire story they did through the entire 1st edition book. I can see why it was removed though.

So I'm still setting it up for Chicago 1991 using 1st edition setting and system. Going to run the Forged in Steel set up from the corebook and then work my way out into Ashes to Ashes and the rest of the Chicago Chronicles. That being said does anybody have any suggestions about what books from 2nd edition that I may want to look at in the future? Maybe something that really added to the setting at a local level or had some really great ideas in it? Drop me a message in the comments below.

Tuesday Promo - The Primogen

This week on my Tuesday Promo is a youtube series that I have begun watching lately. As I've mentioned before I'm getting ready to start up a Vampire TM game here soon and discovered The Primogen while looking online to get myself back on track with the lore. What I like about most of his work is that he does one piece at a time instead of trying to forward load everything. So if I'm not interested in something I can simply skip that video or point out a specific area I need info on and watch that. He has a patreon account sat up and is producing new videos every few days.

Please click here to take a look at his youtube channel.

Also I would like to note that he has starting doing the same for Mage the Ascension. Which is good because that is the other old White Wolf game that I am most interested in running again in the future. So I'll likely be watching his videos quite a bit into the future.

Jaded Gamer - Vampire part two

As I said at the end of my last post the 'when' part of my upcoming Vampire game is rather important. So I'm rolling back the date to the original year the game came out. I'm running Vampire 1991.

There are a few reasons for doing this and of course one of those is the nostalgia feeling once again. I mean that's the year I started running VTM back in the day. Another is technical limitations while being on the very brink of big technical advances at the same time. Two places in particular are with the internet and cellular phones.

1991 is the AOL broke out onto the public market in a big way. Up until then most of what was could be classified as the internet was limited to connections between universities and government offices along with so many small time BBS's that you could not keep track of them all. In that one year so many things changed in the way we could communicate and share information.

Also portable phones were still a rarity in many areas. Those that did exist were either mounted in cars or were big bricks that had to be carried around. They weren't cheap and they were pretty shaky on what areas they would work in well enough to be useful. The first digital cellular service was launched in 1991 across the pond in Europe. But the movement forward of the technology gained speed rather quickly.

Why are these two things important in the WoD? The instantaneous transfer of information changed a lot of things on all levels. Anybody doing some detective work could network easier than ever before. Hunter groups could now exchange their leads and years of data. It became less of a chore to track down who owned what and for how long making many centuries old kindred estates vulnerable to anyone, anywhere in the world. This put a lot of vampires and their holdings at significant risk rather quickly.

Of course the ability to adapt quickly to new and changing situations isn't something the kindred are known for. Especially those who have become comfortable I their old ways and learning new tricks and not something they do easily. The most logical step to help them react to this would be to either ghoul or embrace those who are knowledgeable of such things. So a jump in newly created vampires would occur starting a population rise that may put some Princes on edge in their carefully controlled cities. Plenty of drama and plotting to work with there.

Also this gives a great entry point for new characters. Those who picked the lower generation background may have simply been created to hide their sires computer trail in the real estate business. Or to infiltrate various groups who are now communicating online more and more. It could place more value on them than they would normally get if their technical skills are high enough.

That's all for this time. See you next week.

Jaded Gamer - Vampire part one

Slowly going back to a game that I used to run and enjoyed quite a bit. That would be Vampire: The Masquerade, but not just any edition, you see I bought the game when it was originally released the day it hit the FLGS. So I'm talking about the 1st edition of V:TM and maybe a little about 2nd edition. Back in the day I used to have a pretty dedicated group or two for Vampire and the World of Darkness in general and we had a lot of good times. Eventually I drifted more and more into Kult and that style of horror roleplaying and the old got left behind.

I think it's time to revisit the past as I've hit a rut in the hobby. The direction a lot of games are going is something that I don't find enjoyable as a GM or a player. While the OSR vein isn't somewhere I want to go after running into several assholes in that movement years ago. That and I never was a big DnD guy either.

Problem number one facing me on this endeavor is that I got rid of nearly all of my Vampire books years ago. I think the only thing I possess in print now is Hunters Hunted and the original Storytellers Screen (complete with highlighter marks and notations in a few spots). Now my first edition core book fell apart and was kept in a binder that vanished so many years ago and the rest I sold off with a couple 'vanishing'.

Finding print copies of those older books isn't that easy or cheap in most cases. When I saw that the first edition of Mage was available in POD over on Drivethru I thought maybe I could find it there. But sadly they only have a pdf of Vampire 1st edition available. Actually the only edition they have in POD is the 20th Anniversary edition which isn't what I'm looking for. So for the corebook it appears that I may have to go the route of printing off what I need for rules and character generation at home and hoping I find a copy eventually (if anybody has a lead on an affordable copy let me know).

The Players Guide was a different story. They have it available via POD for both 1st edition and 2nd edition. Originally I was going to purchase the 1st edition version as it's the one I remember so well. But then I noticed the dirt cheap pricing for the POD 2nd edition and that sealed that deal. So right now I'm waiting for it to be printed and shipped.

As I am currently planning on running the chronicle in Gary and Chicago (maybe even using the Forged in Steel story) I looked for some other books that I may be needing in the future. I was very happy to find Ashes to Ashes and the Chicago Chronicles books in POD. These contain the three books I used quite a bit in the past as I even ran one group through A2A back then. Just need to wait until I get more funds together to order them.

Next time I'm going to talk a bit more about where I'm setting the chronicle. Actually it'll more likely be about WHEN I'm setting the chronicle.