Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines Designer Diary #6
In this latest edition of our designer diaries, producer Leonard Boyarsky explains the game's powerful character-creation system.
White Wolf's Vampire: The Masquerade is one of the more popular nontraditional pen-and-paper role-playing games. By nontraditional, we mean that the game isn't based in a fantasy setting with elves and orcs, swords and sorcery. Instead, it's set in our modern-day world, and it depicts the supernatural underworld of vampires and other nightmarish nocturnal creatures. Troika Games' Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines will let you experience this world up close and personal, because this role-playing game is being built using the same technology behind Valve Software's first-person shooter Half-Life 2. And while there will be plenty of action in Bloodlines, Troika emphasizes the strong role-playing aspects of the game. In this edition of our designer diaries, Leonard Boyarsky discusses the game's powerful character-creation system and how you'll be able to create virtually any kind of bloodsucker imaginable.
Choose Your Own Vampire
Leonard BoyarskyJoint CEO, Troika Games/Producer
Character creation in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines can be either a very simple affair or a complex decision-making process. Players are given a myriad of choices, including clan, gender, traits, and, most importantly, disciplines. Bloodlines also incorporates a "quick character creation" ability--where players' points are automatically distributed for them both in character creation and maintenance--but we'll focus on the actual art of distributing points for the purposes of this diary. We're going to look at the choices players can make in both character creation and maintenance.
To begin, players are presented with the choice of picking one of the seven different Camarilla clans: Brujah, Gangrel, Malkavian, Nosferatu, Toreador, Tremere, and Ventrue. Each of these clans has its own independent strengths and weaknesses, which are expressed through the points players are given to distribute in their abilities, attributes, and disciplines (I'll return to point distribution in a minute).
At this point, players are also given the choice of gender and the choice of a history. The choice of gender, while mostly for aesthetics, can still have an effect on gameplay, especially in terms of seduction. The choice of history, on the other hand, can have a large impact on the game, as it basically gives players a bonus effect in certain areas and a negative effect in others. For instance, if players choose "All Star Athlete" as their history, they'll get a bonus to their athletics talent, but they'll never be able to raise their intelligence higher than 4 (the max is 5).
The next screen players will see is the heart of character creation and maintenance. This screen is based primarily on White Wolf's source material, and it will be familiar to anyone who's a fan of the Vampire: The Masquerade pen-and-paper game. This is where the points are distributed and the player character really begins to be customized to the player's vision. The points players are given to spend are split up into different trait categories depending on the clan they have picked.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines Quick Links
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- Activision
- Troika Games
- Role-Playing
- Release: Nov 16, 2004
- ESRB: Mature
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