How to start playing Vampire: The Masquerade?
Vampire: The Masquerade is not played in a dungeon but in a city, at night, in good clothes. You play a walking corpse, freshly turned, caught between the thirst that pushes them towards the worst and the memory of the person they used to be.
It is a game of drama and politics far more than combat, and it starts quickly: one city, a handful of ten-sided dice, a secret to keep. Here is what the game does, how to build a first character and how to run your first night.
What is Vampire: The Masquerade?
First published in 1991 by White Wolf and now in its fifth edition, Vampire: The Masquerade is the founding game of the World of Darkness. Players take the role of vampires in our contemporary cities, where a secret society of the undead carves up districts, influence and prey. The game master goes by another title here, the Storyteller, and the campaign is called a chronicle.
The system runs on pools of ten-sided dice: you roll as many as an attribute plus a skill, and every result of six or higher counts as a success. No levels and no classes, but a clan, disciplines, a standing in the city, and a moral trajectory that goes down far more often than it climbs.
The Masquerade, the rule the game is named after.
The Masquerade is the supreme law of vampires: the mortal world must never learn they exist. No fangs in public, no witnesses, no body left on a pavement. This is not polite discretion, it is what has held their entire society together for centuries.
At your table, that law is an engine for stories. Every scene becomes a problem with a false bottom: feed without being seen, settle your scores without making the news, and clean up after whoever did not. A breach of the Masquerade draws hunters, police, and above all the anger of the prince of the city.
Starting Vampire, step by step.
The quick start booklet holds the essential rules, ready made characters and a short story. An evening of reading is plenty for the Storyteller.
Three to five players, and above all a coterie with a reason to exist. Vampire plays best in a small group, where every character keeps their own secrets.
The Storyteller plays the city, the prince and every mortal you meet. They prepare a political situation, not a corridor of scenes.
The clan gives you three disciplines and a bane, the concept gives you everything else. A Ventrue loan shark and a Toreador singer play very differently.
Attributes, skills, disciplines, then your mortal ties and your predator type. Allow an hour and a half the first time, the sheet is dense.
One night is enough: a favour owed, a body to lose, an audience before dawn. The chronicle grows out of whatever you broke.
What you need to get started.
The quick start rules are free and cover three sessions. The core book mainly adds clans, disciplines and the city.
About ten ten sided dice per player, three of them in another colour for Hunger. That distinction is essential, it changes what a roll produces.
The official sheet runs to two pages, with ties and predator type on the back. Hunger and Humanity are tracked in pencil, they move constantly.
A short story gives you a city, three NPCs and a favour impossible to refuse. It saves the Storyteller from inventing an entire court.
Three hours is enough for one night of play, four if a court scene is planned. Here conversation takes the space combat usually gets.
Playing in your own city makes every street credible with no prep at all. The players already know where to park, where to drink and who is out at three in the morning.
Building your first character.
Start with the person, not the monster: who were you before the Embrace, the night a vampire turned you? Then comes the clan, which sets your disciplines, those supernatural powers of speed, mental domination or invisibility, and which pins a reputation on you within vampire society.
Finally the game asks you to name your ties: someone close who is still human, a conviction you still hold to. Those are what make the story tense, because the Hunger will eventually put them at risk. Count an hour for a first sheet, or start from a pre-generated character bundled with the introductory story.
Hunger and Humanity, the heart of the game.
Your character carries a Hunger track, from zero to five. The higher it climbs, the more dice in your pool are replaced by Hunger dice, and the greater the chance an ordinary action ends in something monstrous: a torn throat instead of a discreet bite, a witness who does not get up.
Facing it stands Humanity, what is left of the person you were. It drops when you give in. The whole tension of the game sits in that trade-off, repeated night after night: what you do to survive, and what it costs you. A Vampire chronicle tells that descent, not a run of won fights.
Your first night.
Take a city your players know, preferably your own, and a single plot: a debt owed to an older vampire, a body to make disappear, a meeting with the prince. A first session needs no millennia-old conspiracy, one evening going wrong is plenty.
At the table, open on a scene where Hunger is already a problem, and let the players choose who they hurt to get out of it. That is where the game shows itself. Remind them too that a vampire of ten years is no match for an elder of three centuries: in Vampire, you negotiate, you manipulate and you trade favours.
The mistakes beginners make.
A vampire is not a night time hero: they hide a body and negotiate their survival. The game is about compromise, not justice.
One camera, one witness or one file is enough to condemn the whole coterie. The Masquerade is not scenery, it is the first constraint on every scene.
Killing a rival settles one evening and creates three enemies for ten years. The prince's politics always punish whatever leaves traces.
It rises with every discipline used and turns rolls into disasters. It is the engine of the game, not a decorative gauge.
With no mortals around them, a character has nothing to lose and nobody to protect. Ties are what makes Humanity hurt.
Announcing a ten year chronicle before the first night serves nothing. Play three sessions and let the city decide what comes next.
Playing Vampire online.
Vampire is played by the light of a bar, a rooftop or a hushed drawing room. A photograph of a place, slow music and voices dropping a tone do more for the mood than any rule.
Tomeus gathers all of it in one window: you import your city backdrops and your handouts, pick a track, send the link, and your players join with their sheets, the chat and the dice in front of them. Nothing to install, nothing to configure.
Go further with Vampire: The Masquerade.
The Basic Rules of Vampire: The Masquerade
The dice pool and successes, the nine attributes, criticals, Hunger dice, damage and Humanity: the basic rules of Vampire The Masquerade explained.
The Lore of Vampire: The Masquerade
The World of Darkness, the thirteen clans, the Camarilla and the Anarchs, the Traditions, Gehenna and the Jyhad: the lore of Vampire The Masquerade explained, and how to use it at your table.
The Clans of Vampire: The Masquerade
The thirteen clans of Vampire The Masquerade explained: their three disciplines, their bane, their compulsion, the Caitiff and the thin-bloods, and how to pick yours.
The Sects of Vampire: The Masquerade
The Camarilla, the Anarchs and the Sabbat explained: the Traditions, the prince, the barons, the Ashirra, the Inconnu and the Second Inquisition, and how to pick your side.
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Frequently asked questions.
Do you need to know the World of Darkness to play?
No. The setting fits in three sentences: vampires exist, they hide, and they fight over cities. The Storyteller gains from reading up on their city and the clans present, the players discover the rest through play, which matches exactly where their freshly turned characters stand.
Which clan should a first character take?
Brujah, Toreador, Ventrue or Gangrel: their disciplines are straightforward and their place in the city is easy to grasp. Leave the Nosferatu, the Malkavians and the Tremere for later, they ask you to play a relationship to the world that is harder to hold from session one.
Do you need the core book to start?
Not right away. Quick-start rules and starter kits let you run a first story with ready-made characters. The core book becomes useful afterwards, when your group wants to build its own vampires and settle into a chronicle over time.