Since I already mentioned this world, here I will get the chance to elaborate further on the wonderfully dark and ambiguous world created by White Wolf's Games Studios, and portrayed in the 2004 computer game Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines.
First - some history....
In 1991 White Wolf published the first edition of the so called "Vampire the Masquerade" series. The settings was a grim gothic-punk world where the supernatural creatures coexist and what's more feed off of the human populace. Of every one race of supernatural beings - the vampires, given the "curse of Kain", have divided into 13 clans, each with it's own convoluted history. However some of them chose to keep vampirism a secret and so "The Masquerade" was born. Upheld by "The Camarilla" and perpetually assailed by "The Sabbat" the Masquerade kept an unsteady balance, a desperate ruse that all is well with the world. And that concept quickly brought "The Origins Award" for the table top game in 1991. Following the second edition in 1992 and the subsuquent third one in 1998 there was a game called "Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption" a generally accepted one with astounding graphics for it's time. Sadly it was hard to manage and had a lot of technical problems. And then in 2001 Troika games started working on a new Vampire the Masquerade game using Valve's Source Engine. Finally, after a grueling and somewhat disappointingly ineffective process of "polishing" it and waiting for the Half Life 2 craze to die out, the gamers were presented with "Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines"....
The protagonist of the game can be either manually chosen from the seven given clans, or can be a result of a quick test to discern you mode of play. The "World of Darkness" is so diverse that for gaming uses the 7 clans are reduced to and roughly divided into "Talkers"- characters that focus on NPC interaction and story diversity like Ventrue, Malkavians, Toreador and Tremere and "Fighters" - characters that uphold their clan's tradition and kinsmen in their mode of play - Brujah, being as close to the "Anarchs" as one can get, Nosferatu having more missions with Bertram Tung and being at home with the spooky Gary Golden, and Gangrel which upholds his/her own philosophy of being as detached from anyone and as independent as possible.
And then comes the character sheet:
As you see the character sheet is divided into physical, social and mental attributes and abilities such as talents, skills and knowldedges. they enhance the feats which your character will posses whilst the humanity and the masquerade bar determine the chance of which you will go into a "frenzy" and drink from the first hapless mortal you find and the chance you will find vampire hunters skulking in the shadows to ambush you respectively.
There is also atleast 1 unique Discipline and 2 more common ones. I will briefly list the clans and their Disciplines' effectiveness whereas M will mean "a must have", S - "sure if you want to" and U - "useless"...
Toreador: Celerity- M, Presence - S, Auspex - U.
Malkavian: Dementation - M, Obfiscate - S, Auspex - U.
Nosferatu: Animalism - M, Obfuscate - M (you gotta be invisible when you're hideous :P), Potence- S.
Tremere: Thaumaturgy - MM (vomit blood owns everything!!!), Dominate - S, Auspex - U.
Brujah: Potence - M, Celerity - S, Presence - S.
Ventrue: Dominate - S, Fortitude - M, Presence - S.
After your character's gender, clan and specifics are chosen you are introduced in the world by a vampire of the opposite who "embraces" you in the heat of passion. You both are quickly for this unsanctioned act, your maker, your "sire" is dealt with and you are spared so that you owe your life to the ruler of Santa Monica, the Napoleon soldier - LaCroix.
The story provides much of the background needed to for one to me immersed and consumed by the world's atmosphere. The game features 4 mission hubs- Santa Monica, Downtown, Hollywood and Chinatown, there are roughly 5 paths you can follow - align yourself with LaCroix, with the Tremere primogen Strauss, with the Anarchs led by Ninez Rodriguez, with the Quei Jin, or you can choose to decide by yourself and either leave unattached or strive for the power yourself.
Ming Xiao (Quei Jin)
LaCroix (despotic Camarilla)
Strauss (Camarilla)
Ninez (Anarchs)Said power is the mysterious Ankaran sarcophagus, supposedly containing an Elder vampire, whose blood will give unimaginable powers to the vampire who drinks from it.Of course taht power is quickly stolen by the Nosferatu, attacked by the Sabbat's Tzimizce led by Andrei and the way to opening it will lead the player deep into the Vampire hunters' Sanctuary and the Quei Jin Stronghold.
The story as I said before features enough details and a lot of morally questionable choices, the hallmark for the world of darkness. It gives you the chance to acquaint you hero and develop her through numerous side quests all throughout the 4 mission hubs, sometimes requiring you to go back ( most often to Santa Monica). Finishing
quests is the only way you get experience points and fill out your character sheet. And overall that was what the game was praised for - it gave a good reason for
the gamer to explore an original world with diverse quests and
NPCs, the downside, however, is that just like it's predecessor the game
had a lot of bugs to the point of which a person would think he's playing an
alpha version. Thankfully the undying fanbase of the game has made numerous patches since then fixing the bugs, creating new dialogues ( 3-4 max per patch) and a few new items. But if you choose not to follow the rules in the game (it's difficulty is about average) you can just press "`" and write "impulse 101" that will give you all the items you need including blood packs and clothes. If not, have fun roaming the night feeding off unsuspecting victims until you get to the bottom of the mistery and hopefully survive the deadly twists along the way...
