Publisher White Wolf has announced Vampire the Masquerade Sixth Edition, an all-new overhaul for the iconic gothic tabletop RPG. Revealed in a Gen Con Keynote on July 30, V6 promises it’s “modernizing its dice mechanics, character creation, and Storyteller tools”.
Vampire’s sixth edition is the debut project for White Wolf’s current creative director, former VP of the Dungeons and Dragons franchise Jess Lanzillo. “We’re finally able to unveil that we’re working on Vampire: The Masquerade 6th Edition, and that we have a strong creative vision guiding us”, she says in a press release from Thursday.
“Never before have we been able to bring the community into a Vampire: The Masquerade project at such an early stage, and we’re confident that will help us build a line of V6 books that speaks to both new and longtime players.”
Lead game designer Diogo Nogueira says this new edition offers “a faster engine that still keeps the things Vampire: The Masquerade veterans love, while removing friction”.
Vitae and Willpower/Health have been combined as a single resource, for example, which you can spend to temporarily raise a Discipline. Plus, Difficulty subtracts from a dice pool instead of raising a target number – a system trialed way back in 2004’s Vampire: The Requiem. Additionally, Humanity has been revamped (pun intended) with an extra Beast/Nature tracker.
Other resources like Quickening and Drama add narrative depth to the scenes. Character creation, it seems, has been overhauled to focus on “lifepaths, natures, clan traits, and merits”. The press release also says Discipline powers scale with dots and favor “rather than passive use”.
New mechanics also include Devil’s Bargains and Choose Your Pain, which apparently “support player-driven failure states”. Storytellers also get expanded safety tools and “a smoother, level-based building system for NPCs”.
“With Vampire: The Masquerade 6th Edition, players get a faster engine that keeps the things Vampire the Masquerade veterans love, while removing friction,” says Diogo Nogueira, Lead Game Designer at White Wolf.
“There’s less book-flipping, quicker NPC creation, and more mechanics that support the tension at the table”. A free alpha playtest of the new system is coming to Demiplane.
The new edition doesn’t yet have even a rough timeline for release, so we can expect it to be at least a year away – but at the Gen Con panel, Lanzillo and team do make clear the specific products they’re working on.
First, we’re getting a full player’s guide – with all 14 core clans, plus Caitiff playable, and playable options for neonate, ancilla, and elder. Second is the storyteller’s guide (title pending) which, from White Wolf’s description, is the standard, full-enchilada GM book, including in depth rules, campaign building guidance, expanded character and setting lore, and such.
And the spicy final flourish to White Wolf’s one-hour panel? Lanzillo & co. revealed which specific Vampire spin-offs they’re considering revamping for the new VtM V6 – and it’s:
- Mage: The Ascension
- Vampire: The Dark Ages
- Changeling: The Dreaming
We’re still so early in development for this overall new edition that White Wolf isn’t officially committing to definitely doing all of those, let alone which and in what order – but the fact that it’s created brand new logoes for each and included them in their Gen Con presentation is a rather exciting vote of confidence at the very least.
If you’re thirsty for more VTM info, keep it locked to Wargamer – because we’ll be playing in one of the very first playtest sessions very soon at the show, with Jess Lanzillo themself as storyteller! So you can expect some juicy, viscous first impressions there.
Want to learn more about what’s happening at Gen Con? Wargamer is on the show floor, and we’ll be sharing updates in the official Wargamer Discord.
Source: Wargamer
