Still under conjuration

The incantations are very fresh and the glyphs on this page are just in the process of being conjured into existence. Leave this place for now and return later to witness the full glory of this ritual or stay and be in awe of what is yet to come.

Come hither and hear about the World of Darkness

Even though it has so much jank and technical issues, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines (VtM:B / Bloodlines) still easily ranks as one of the greatest RPGs and is a cult-classic for good reason

If you want to grab it, get it from GOG

Genuinely. Unless it's been patched in the past years, the version on Steam (or maybe Epic if they have it?) does not include the unofficial patches that fix compatibility issues and a whole lot of bugs. I'm a firm subscriber to Josh Strife Hayes' mantra of "Games can be difficult, but they should not be difficult to play" and without the unofficial patches, you're just making it unnecessarily difficult for yourself to play the game even.

Quick opinion on the sequel, Bloodlines 2

I have watched extensive reviews/playthroughs of the gameplay, story and extent of player-choice in the quests. It's not a bad game per se. It's just not what I had hoped for in a VtM game. The combat mechanics seem to be pretty cool, as well as the traversal mechanics. But I'm disappointed that not only have the most interesting Clans been removed (specifically those that would require big additional programming effort because they inherently need to be played very differently) and most of the Disciplines are just cosmetic variations of "deal damage" or Dominate, also are there just no real narrative branching paths from what I've seen. Granted, in Bloodlines, you also will always play through the same big missions, but the characters treat you quite differently depending on your Clan and dialogue choices and you get different boons/perks and the endings are also very much different from each other.

So yeah, Bloodlines 2 isn't a bad game. I just think the super interesting aspects of the previous game have been removed and I think some narrative choices are silly. Lastly, no I don't dislike it because it's "woke". I'm so woke, I sleep only around six hours daily and feel very fine. It's not not my taste because some silly people call it woke. Like Disney-Star-Wars, it's not my taste because I think it's a bit too silly at times and doesn't do anything of the interesting stuff I hoped for from what has been established by the previous game.

The night of all nights

This game starts — I literally just now noticed — somewhat similar to every Elder Scrolls game, in that you are a prisoner for crimes you didn't even know were crimes in the first place. What did you do? Well, you unknowingly fucked with (literally) a vampire and he/she (depending on your character's chosen gender), thought it would be fucking hilarious if they turned you into a vampire, too. Turns out, that's a crime punishable by death, if they did not ask for permission from the city's Prince (not that Prince). And similar to every Elder Scrolls game, you are not a prisoner for very long, thanks to Nines Rodriguez interjecting right before the Sheriff's blade — that looks like he stole it right from Cloud Strife — can remove your shoulders from the burden of having to carry your stupid head.

Who is Nines and why did he intervene? You dunno, you only know he went "This is fucking bullshit" while this Prince guy was about to command your execution and this was enough to save you. Shortly after, you were released back onto the street and some rocker vampire took pity on you and decided to show you the ropes of your new life.

The intricate character creation

When you first start a new game, you get to make your character and if you've only played modern AAA RPGs, you're probably going to be a bit overwhelmed for choice. The first screen is still somewhat similar to the Skyrim or Oblivion character creation, where you choose your gender and type of vampire (Clan). But right after that, you'll be hit with a Pen&Paper-like character sheet, which is because that's where Vampire the Masquerade originated.

There are just so many stats and, luckily, all of them do have a cool usage. Of course, some of them come into play much more often. Bloodlines is a pretty combat-focused RPG (as in, there are many parts that you literally cannot complete without engaging in some way with the combat mechanics of the game), so speccing into those stats is never going to hurt you. That aside, stuff like Hacking will help you skip entire puzzles or combat encounters.

Picture credit for this and the character sheet Eye of Center video on YT

<insert The Office woman going "They're the same picture!">

Similarly, putting points into Charisma and Appearance — attributes that will increase your Seduction feat — will make your unlife easier by making it possible to get a free meal in public and with humans watching. You're not draining a person of their blood, you're just passionately making out! Of course, if you kill them, you'll still be hit with a breach to the Masquerade. A limp body hitting the ground will be noticed and cause a panic — the game is set around the early 2000s, after all, and not in the era of TikTokers doing weird Fortnite dances in the Fußgängerzone.

Any character you make, will have a set of Disciplines; their clearly-supernatural abilities. In the vanilla game, you'll have three Disciplines. A few of them are exclusive to certain Clans. In the screenshot, the character is of the Clan Tremere and they have the exclusive right to "Thaumaturgy", which is Blood Magic (imagine an even more brutal version of Bloodbending in Avatar). Most Disciplines are shared between at least two of the playable clans, though. Even though you only have three Disciplines, it's not like you only having three spells like in Elder Scrolls Online. Instead, the Disciplines are more akin to "schools of magic". Some Disciplines (like Auspex, which is just magic supidupi vision) do simply increase in their power, but for most you will gain additional "spells" in that Discipline — such as Dominate that will leave you with spells to make people forget you for a short moment, fall into a rage fit against their peers and strangle themselves to death.

The Masquerade and your Humanity

The two systems that are unique to the Vampire the Masquerade RPG are Masquerade and Humanity. Sure, vampires clinging to their inner human is not a novel concept, but the VtM RPG makes it into a concrete stat with consequences if neglected (or intentionally tanked to shit). If you kill innocent people or do other reprehensible things, you'll lose some of your Humanity. Restoring Humanity is much more difficult, as it should be. It's simple to burn a bridge, but much harder to span a new one when the old is gone. You will only gain (back) Humanity points by doing certain quests or doing things that are beneficial to humans, not necessarily your fellow Kindred. So what the fuck does Humanity even do? It periodically checks against your health (and the type of damage you received) and blood levels, applies some randomisation magic and if your Humanity is too low to pass the check, you will enter a state of Frenzy, during which your offensive stats are massively boosted at the detriment of being a passenger in your character's body for a little while. They will kill anything and everything in their sight and seek out to drain any living being from their blood until the Frenzy is over. For a hilariously badly-timed example of Frenzy at work, check out this Short (that for whatever stupid reason just wouldn't let itself be embedded as an iframe in my site, so it's a hyperlink only).

The aforementioned Hacking skill in action (it's very simple; you hit Ctrl+C and if your Hacking skill is higher than the required, you'll automatically figure out the password)

Pic credit Elisa Prey's stream VOD on YT