V20 Companion
By
Justin Achilli and Eddy Webb
2012, 79 pages
As the first supplement for Vampire
the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition, the V20 Companion offers expanded
information on the World of Darkness Setting including titles for various
sects, Prestation rules (trading favors) for each sect, how vampires exploit
technology, and finally a selection of locations for use in any Vampire the
Masquerade Game. Those topics have been
covered in a variety of other books; so for long time Vampire the Masquerade
players, this book may not seem a necessary purchase. However, because V20 left out the rules for
running a Caitiff, players and Storyteller must have access to this book just
for those two pages. Besides those two
pages, the rest of the book offers some useful information and ideas for
games.
Chapter One covers the various
titles available for all of the major sects:
Camarilla, Sabbat, Anarchs, Tal’mahe’ra (True Hand), and Inconnu. The Camarilla and Sabbat titles should be
familiar to anyone who already owns V20.
Prince, Sheriff, Ductus, or Priest are all titles that are familiar to
anyone who has a copy of V20 or has played Vampire the Masquerade in the
past. Some additional titles have been
added like the “Chancellor,” who is responsible for keeping track of the favors
owed and who owes them. If the
Storyteller is emphasizing Prestation, favor trading, then this new position in
the Prince’s court will be a great help.
The Sabbat has the usual series of titles, including the title “Shovelhead,”
which is for just Embraced Sabbat who have yet to prove themselves and earn the
title “True Sabbat.” The Anarchs have
several titles but essentially operate the same as the Camarilla titles. A “Baron” runs the Domain, a “Reeve” keeps
order for the “Baron,” and so on.
The Tal’mahe’Ra also have series of
titles, but it is in this section of Chapter One where the V20 Companion offers
its first real revision to the World of Darkness. While the core principles and history of the Tal’mahe’Ra
remain the same as in Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand, the V20 Companion
updates the tone of this sect, making it darker and more fitting for the World
of Darkness. Just the update to the tone
of the True Hand makes this chapter worth reading. The V20 Companion emphasizing the sect as a
death cult that kidnaps mortals and tries to further its goal of vampiric
supremacy.
 |
| There is no way these characters are going to get along! |
As the least worldly and most
secretive sect, the Inconnu are given only two titles. Beyond those titles the mystery of the
Inconnu is still intact which stays in line with past works on the
Inconnu. On the whole this chapter
reinforces the information already available in V20, but if you are interested
in running games involving Anarchs or the Tal’Mahe’Ra, you’ll find this book
helpful in fleshing out the domains. Beyond
just a short description of the title, each entry offers some advice on how the
title fits into the sect’s goals and world view.
Finally,
there are several clan-specific titles that are written broadly enough to fit
just about any clan. Titles such as
Mystic can be modified to fit either the Tremere or their hated enemies, the
Assamites. My favorite title out of this
entire chapter is “Consul” which is a diplomat between Sects, clans or any
other groups. This title offers
opportunities for designing cities with visiting clan members that may not
normally be there without them necessarily being antagonists. Now an Assamite or a Giovanni could be in a
Camarilla city and be protected by this title, and not just hiding out in the
city hoping the Sheriff doesn’t notice them.
Chapter
2 explains the rules for Prestation for Kindred. Prestation, of course, is the practice of
trading favors or boons. This represents
the other currency for vampires, the first being blood. This material has already been covered in a
variety of other source books, but this is the first time it’s been put in
print since the release of V20. The
interesting part of this Chapter is that the Prestation system has expanded
beyond the Camarilla. Every sect has its
own approach to trading favors and even trading favors with vampires of
different sects; so, even sects that are spilling each others’ blood are
meeting and talking and trading favors regardless of animosity. Of course, if a Sabbat member is caught
trading boons with a Camarilla member then things might get unpleasant for both
of them. Storytellers will love having
updated and expanded rules for Prestation for their games.
Technology
in the World of Darkness is the focus of Chapter 3. According to the V20 Companion, vampires can
become stuck in the era in which they were Embraced. Because of the rapid pace of change in
technology in the modern nights, vampires can be quickly overwhelmed or lost as
technology overtakes them. Older
vampires who were Embraced hundreds of years ago may struggle to understand
modern technology such as computers and smart phones. Newly Embraced vampires, however, can
understand modern technology quickly because they’ve been surrounded by it for
their entire lives. Technology becomes a
weapon that smart Neonates can use against their Elders. Elders, on the other hand, are not wholly
defenseless against techno-savvy Neonates; they ghoul mortals who are capable
of managing that facet of the modern world.
Even scarier, the Elders make a point to stay up to date with
technology.
Technology
allows vampires to conduct attacks from distant domains. Anarchs can lead rebellions from the safety
of the Anarch Free States. Sabbat can
give orders to distant packs with just a tweet.
Technology can be used in a variety of ways in the World of
Darkness. Not to mention that maintaining
the Masquerade in the modern world with ubiquitous use of smart phones with
video cameras is becoming more and more difficult. Stories can be built around stopping the
spread of a viral video or tracking down its source. This chapter offers many hints at story ideas
that Storytellers can build upon for their campaign, but none of the topics are
explored in depth.
 |
| The new art is beautiful! All the V20 art has been awesome! |
Chapter
Four offers a variety of locations for adventures in the World of
Darkness. These locations range from an
up to date Succubus Club, that travels between cities putting on various shows
for the Kindred residents of those towns, to the Cathedral of Flesh, a Tzimisce
created building made from the flesh of hundreds of mortals that may still exist
in the modern nights. Twenty-five locations are described, and each
location has about three paragraphs dedicated to it. The location, itself, is explained along with
some NPCs who might be present, and a story hook is hinted at. Although each location description is little
more than a tease for the potential of an adventure set there, the variety of
locations that games can explore is awe-inspiring. Whether the game’s tone is gritty and street
level about the perils of being neonates or a pulp adventure with a group of
vampires seeking lost artifacts, there is a good location in this chapter.
As
an aside, for people interested in how The Onyx Path and White Wolf Publishing
are taking advantage of modern technology in game development, the Introduction
and the Appendix of the V20 Companion explains how fans have contributed to what
is actually in this book. The authors
explain why certain material was cut, such as a mechanical system for titles,
or why certain material was expanded upon, extra clan-specific titles were cut
because of lack of space. It’s exciting
to see the publishers are listening to the people who play the games and making
changes to the works as they are being written.
So, make your opinions heard on the upcoming books because they are
listening.
 |
| The V20 Companion reused this art, and so am I! |
The
V20 Companion is not a book necessary to play or run a Vampire the Masquerade
game except for the fact that this is the only book that has the rules for
Caitiff. For Storytellers looking to
explore Prestation rules or are looking for new locations, this books has
plenty of both. However, the biggest
problem with this book is that it doesn’t go indepth on any of the topics. Each chapter, aside from the chapter on
Prestation, could have been expanded into a book on its own. Because technology is so pervasive and has
changed the world so much in the last 10 years, that any discussion of
Technology in the World of Darkness is going to require more than just one
chapter. As with everything else in this
book, more space is needed to really explore the topics addressed in this
book. The V20 Companion is useful for
Storytellers, and one person in your gaming group should probably have it just
for the information on Caitiff. In
truth, I wish the information for playing Caitiffs should be made available in
a free format because it should have been in V20.
The
V20 Companion is available at DriveThruRPG.com as either a PDF or Print on
Demand formats!
Nice review. If I may, I’ll add some observations not so much about the content as about the way the book came to market.
ReplyDeleteI bought this book through the Kickstarter, having backed the excellent V20 book. Off the back of that, which generate quite a buzz for being a lovely, and massive, product, the V20 Companion felt like an incredible slim, and therefore outrageously over-priced, exploitation of the success of its predecessor. In a shop we would have seen what we was buying, and if it had been released we could have read reviews and seen the page count: with Kickstarter you have to trust the company to deliver value for money – and in this case it seemed that they really didn’t.
In the case of something like V20, Kickstarter can be leveraged to produce a high quality product that gets a lot of fan buy-in and generally to create a real buzz around a product. While the V20 Companion book itself is fine, as your review says, I know a lot of people who are now much more wary of backing games on KS because of feeling exploited by paying for a book that they expected would be much more substantial than this.
Kickstarter has the potential to be a hugely powerful tool for the industry, and a wonderful enabler for independent developers, but if too many big companies exercise too little control over the value they deliver through it then they could quickly undermine people’s belief in it.
Thanks for giving a quick review of the V20 Companion Kickstarter experience. I bought the book through DriveThruRPG so I had a good idea of what was coming. It seems like White Wolf/The Onyx Path has learned from the V20 Experience because both Werewolf 20 and Hunters Hunted 2 have been excellent experiences, as far as quality of the books. However, the Kickstarter contributors are still waiting for their Deluxe Editions of W20 while people like me already have their Print on Demand copies.
Delete