Join Eviliv3 Play as we examine how to play @Renegade Studios’ Vampire The Masquerade 5th Edition in this episode focused on hunger. Originally created by Mark Rein-Hagen and released in 1991 by White Wolf Publishing as the first of several Storyteller System games for its World of Darkness setting line. In 2015, Paradox Interactive purchased White Wolf. Vampire: The Masquerade (also known as V5) was then released in early 2018. You can buy Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/256795/vampire-the-masquerade-5th-edition?affiliate_id=50797 and you can learn more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire:_The_Masquerade.
Time Stamps:
- 0:00 Intro
- 0:38 Preface
- 1:19 Hunger Dice
- 2:53 Compulsions
- 5:37 Rousing the Blood
- 6:19 Slaking Hunger
- 7:26 Afterword
- 7:42 Outro
About Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition
Vampire: The Masquerade is the original and ultimate roleplaying game of personal and political horror. You are a vampire, struggling for survival, supremacy, and your own fading humanity — afraid of what you are capable of, and fearful of the inhuman conspiracies that surround you.
The classic that changed roleplaying games forever returns! This fifth edition features a streamlined and modern rules design, beautiful new full-color art, and a rich story experience for players. Powered by the innovative Hunger cycle, the game also includes rules for creating system supported character coteries, Loresheets to directly involve players with their favorite parts of the setting and The Memoriam, a new way to bring the character’s detailed backgrounds and expand on them in-session.
V5 is a return to Vampire’s original vision, moving boldly into the 21st century. While the rules have been redesigned, this new edition honors the deep story of the original, advancing the metaplot from where it left off and detailing exactly what has happened in the world of the Kindred up until tonight. The terror of the Second Inquisition, the conspiracies behind the Gehenna War, and the rekindling of the War of Ages: these are the building blocks of the modern V5 chronicle.
Mature Warning: Contains graphic and written content of a mature nature, including violence, sexual themes, and strong language. Reader discretion is advised.
This PDF version of the V5 core book contains everything the physical book does, plus the implemented errata and a few bonus sections. These sections comprise 26 pages of added bonus material, and they include the following:
- More Loresheets: Descendant of Tyler, Descendant of Zelios, Descendant of Vasantasena, High Clan, Low Clan, Ambrus Maropis, Carmelita Neillson, Fiorenza Savona, Descendant of Karl Schrekt, Descendant of Xaviar.
- An Appendix on Standard Feats: A list of examples for various typical feats your character may do over their unlife, divided among Mental, Physical, and Social.
- An Appendix on Projects: Advanced rules with which your character can attempt long-term projects in order to accomplish goals that go beyond their night-to-night unlife.
- An Appendix on Considerate Play: Excellent advice on how to present complex topics in your game and to ensure everyone at the gaming table is having a good time.
Transcript
Cold Open
The blood jet is poetry, There is no stopping it.
Intro
Welcome to Eviliv3 Play, a celebration of my favorite tabletop role playing games. This is a sister channel to Eviliv3. Subscribe if you’re new to the channel, because today we are continuing our How to Play Vampire the Masquerade series with this episode Hunger.
Discussion
Preface
There are a number of game mechanics tied to being a vampire in V5. Arguably the most important is the insatiable hunger vampires possess. This is more than an appetite, it’s lust, it’s an addiction, and it fuels the vampire’s power. As much of a blessing as feeding is, it is also a curse, for every nightfall a vampire awakens to hunger and they must kill to silence it. As a side note, there are a number of different predator types in V5 and not all are incumbent on killing. A vampire’s hunger is scaled in levels from 0 where they are sated to 5 where they are ravenous!
Hunger Dice
For each level of hunger a vampire possesses, they gain a single hunger die. These are typically identified as a different colored dice. Hunger dice replace a regular die in the dice pool on a one-for-one basis. The only exceptions are Checks, Willpower or Humanity dice pools. Hunger die acts as regular die in simple tests or contests, but they cannot be re-rolled using Willpower. The downside is when you roll a 10 on a hunger die; this means you have a messy critical and/or bestial failure.
Messy Critical
A traditional critical means you exceeded your expectations and performed your action flawlessly. A messy critical means you exceeded your expectations but the beat within you came out. So you may have killed the bouncer as you planned, but you lost control and snapped his spine, or opened the door, but pulled it off its hinges. This is decided between the player and storyteller resulting in a stain, breach of the masquerade, losing a dot in an advantage or acting out a compulsion.
Bestial Failure
Failing a roll with a hunger die roll of 1 is a bestial failure. This means the beast within has manifested in an inopportune moment, and you are forced to act out a compulsion as your blood is dictating your actions. The storyteller may decide this is too great a price for newer players and instead they may lose a dot in an advantage, suffer one or more points of aggravated health damage or perhaps your hunger raises by one.
Compulsions
Compulsions are the result of the beast driving your impulses through its hunger. When you experience a Messy Critical or a Bestial Failure, you may be forced into taking a compulsion. This may be chosen or rolled for by the Storyteller. When it is chosen, the player must act out that compulsion. These actions are natural to the character in the moment and may result in a restored Willpower point. There are a number of compulsions that may affect a vampire like Hunger, Dominance, Harm, Paranoia, or a Clan Compulsion.
Hunger forces the vampire to feed, forcing hot blood to wash over their tongue. They will do anything to slake this hunger from violence, subterfuge or begging. Until this need is met, they suffer a two dice penalty to their dice pool. And it will end as soon as they slake at least one hunger level. Dominance forces the vampire to come out on top and revel in it, taunting the weak and challenging the strong. They will use any and all means in their next interaction, forcing it into a competition and rubbing their nose in the loser’s defeat. They cannot accept teamwork and any action that avoids establishing dominance suffers at a two-dice penalty. It will end after having won and gloated over the victory.
Harm forces the vampire to turn things ugly. They must hurt and destroy, not to win or feed, but to cause harm. They will revel in the social, emotional, or physical pain they inflict. Anything that does not immediately result in someone getting harmed suffers a two-dice penalty. It ends as soon as the vampire incapacitates, destroys, or drives the target away. Paranoia forces the vampire into fearing they are being hunted. The blood reminds them of their vulnerabilities and they must disengage from anything or anyone that is a perceived threat. Any action not taken toward this end suffers a two-dice penalty. It will end after an hour in a safe spot.
Clan Compulsions are specific forms of the Blood which flow down from the Antediluvians who warp their inheritors, suiting the millenia-old patterns. It may manifest in an inherited defect, necessary release valve, or a result of some ancient working. Regardless of where it comes from, it is always inconvenient at the moment. Brujah stands in rebellion, Gangrel reveals feral impulses, Malkavians experience delusions, Nosferatu suffers Cryptophilia, Toreador suffers an obsession, Tremere are forced into perfection, and Ventrue exhibits Arrogance.
Rousing the Blood
Whenever a vampire rises at sunset, calls upon their vampiric powers, or stirs the Blood in some way they risk rousing their hunger. So when a vampire surges Blood into their Attributes, takes on the Blush of Life, mends body damage, or activates most Discipline powers, they must make a Rouse Check. This means you roll a single die hoping for a 6 or higher. On a failure, the vampire earns one more point of hunger. At Hunger 5, the vampire’s body is too starved for blood to provide supernatural power, and they can never intentionally rouse the blood. If an external force provokes a rousing of the blood, the player must make a frenzy test with a 4 difficulty.
Slaking Hunger
Drinking blood reduces the vampire’s hunger level by a fixed amount. Only by killing a human can you reduce your hunger to 0. Blood Potency affects this as a Blood Potency above 7 cannot reduce a vampire’s hunger to below 3 without killing them. Vampire bites produce a supernatural intoxicant while opening the blood vessel. If the vampire takes the time to hit a vein or artery and licks the wound closed after, the victim only remembers a drug trip, weird sex or drunken intimacy. A vampire can kill a helpless or unresisting human in five turns. For vampires above Blood Potency 2, no amount of animal blood can slake even a single point of Hunger. Without the Iron Gullet Merit, vampires don’t even gain sustenance from processed bagged blood. Unprocessed bag blood only slakes Hunger from a Blood Potency above 2. Feeding from a vampire reduces one hunger in the drinker and inflicts one hunger in the victim. If the victim is 2 Blood Potency levels higher, the drinker gains 2 hunger for each point suffered by the victim. This may be done in a bite attack as well.
As you can see, Hunger drives the Vampires daily existence, and must be paid attention to lest the beast reveal itself in a compulsion. Next episode will cover The Blood, generation, potency, gifts, prices and danger.
Outro
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