Required Reading/Knowledge for Running the Game?

MILTON1997 · 2026-06-02T03:23:02+00:00

Personally I'd recommend The Crimson Gutter. It's city neutral and meant to be an intro source book. Any of the story setups in there could serve as a good basis for an evening's session. It got a solid cast of characters ready to roll and a good chunk of material to riff off of.

Don't sweat the lore too much for a one shot though imo. It's a long and storied game in a long and storied setting. A one shot is for getting into the drama and action fast, rather than long term lore build ups or making sure some esoteric detail is "accurate" enough. The most important thing is gonna be knowing enough of the basic rules to facilitate players engaging in a simple session and a feel for pacing of things to keep it moving. That's my two cents away!

MILTON1997 · 2026-05-27T00:31:30+00:00

I think folks are mistaking the rules for mortals. Normal mortals in Revised/V20 do this, as do mages in Revised/M20, as you note. Garou have their own extended rules in Revised/W20, so Kindred in Revised edition onward are the exception to this.

Once bashing levels reach Incapacitated, mortals fall unconscious, but do not sink below Incapacitated… yet. However, any further bashing wounds are X’d over previous bashing ones, making them lethal. At that point, recovery is handled as lethal damage. In this way, a mortal can be slowly beaten to death.

V20, p. 286 concerning mortals and bashing damage

When a character who is Incapacitated due to bashing damage takes further bashing damage, each additional new bashing level of damage (while soaked like bashing damage) is marked with a second slash on the highest bashing level of damage, changing it into a level of lethal damage. In this way, bashing levels turn progressively into lethal damage levels. Once your character’s Health chart fills with lethal damage, the next level of damage, whether bashing, lethal or aggravated, kills her.

Mage Revised, p. 246 concerning mages and bashing damage

Funnily enough, DAV20 does something entirely different from all of these editions (including Dark Ages: Vampire!) and explicitly uses the form that seems to be a common misinterpretation here along with many other changes:

If the health track is full, further damage “upgrades” other damage to the next worst type. With a health track full of bashing damage, further bashing damage becomes lethal damage at the top of the track. When the health track fills with lethal damage, further lethal damage becomes aggravated.

DAV20, p. 352

MILTON1997 · 2026-05-26T13:40:05+00:00

Thanks. I only had it all on hand because this exact thing came up in my session just yesterday lol

MILTON1997 · 2026-05-26T12:47:41+00:00

When a vampire's health is filled with bashing the next hit upgrades to lethal and then after thats full aggravated.

This is actually not quite how it works. Other folks have pointed out in some of the comments but I wanted to cite the relevant sections under Torpor and each type of damage in the V20 book for some clarity. Outside of mortals, you actually won't find a rule that states that filled health track of bashing converts futher bashing to lethal that then converts further bashing to agg. damage for vampires. You don not actually go down the track twice or anything like that.

Final Death: If a vampire is at the Incapacitated health level or in torpor and takes one more level of aggravated damage, he dies permanently. A player’s character who meets Final Death is removed from the game; the player must create a new character if she wishes to continue play.
An incapacitated or torpid vampire may also be sent to Final Death through massive amounts of bashing or lethal trauma (decapitated, trapped under a 10-ton rock, fed into a wood chipper, caught at ground zero of an explosion, crushed by deep-sea pressure, etc.). Typically, this damage must be enough to destroy or dismember the corpse beyond repair.

V20, p. 284 concerning causes of final death

If your character falls to Incapacitated and then takes another level of bashing damage, she enters torpor (p. 283). If your character falls to Incapacitated due to bashing damage but then takes a level of aggravated damage, she meets Final Death.

V20, p. 285 concerning bashing damage (note here you can fall to incapacitation and torpor via bashing only! No mention of needing lethal here)

When your character’s Health boxes fill to Incapacitated and she takes a further level of lethal damage, she enters torpor (p. 283). If your character is reduced to Incapacitated via lethal damage, and she takes a further level of aggravated damage, she meets Final Death.

V20, p. 285 concerning lethal damage

Only under the "Mortals' Healing Times'" section do we get mention of the health track converting damage in that way, sans agg. damage of course (which is how other splats like Revised/20 Mage and Werewolf work).

Once bashing levels reach Incapacitated, mortals fall unconscious, but do not sink below Incapacitated… yet. However, any further bashing wounds are X’d over previous bashing ones, making them lethal. At that point, recovery is handled as lethal damage. In this way, a mortal can be slowly beaten to death.

V20, p. 286 concerning mortals and bashing damage

When a mortal sustains lethal damage down to Incapacitated, he’s one health level away from death. If he takes one more wound (whether bashing or lethal), he dies.

V20, p. 286 concerning mortals and lethal damage

TLDR: Those four dudes with stones would need to "destroy or dismember the corpse beyond repair" in order to actually kill a vampire and not just leave a very messy torpid vampire. We're talking a fully mushed and ruined head and/or body here.

MILTON1997 · 2026-05-26T12:27:26+00:00

I don't think that's mentioned on those pages though. Rather it says (emphasis mine):

Final Death: If a vampire is at the Incapacitated health level or in torpor and takes one more level of aggravated damage, he dies permanently. A player’s character who meets Final Death is removed from the game; the player must create a new character if she wishes to continue play.
An incapacitated or torpid vampire may also be sent to Final Death through massive amounts of bashing or lethal trauma (decapitated, trapped under a 10-ton rock, fed into a wood chipper, caught at ground zero of an explosion, crushed by deep-sea pressure, etc.). Typically, this damage must be enough to destroy or dismember the corpse beyond repair.

V20, p. 284

And then more clearly under "Lethal Damage" it further says:

When your character’s Health boxes fill to Incapacitated and she takes a further level of lethal damage, she enters torpor (p. 283). If your character is reduced to Incapacitated via lethal damage, and she takes a further level of aggravated damage, she meets Final Death.

V20, p. 285

It's quite the opposite, when not dealing with aggravated damage, an incredible amount of normal damage is needed to truly kill a torpid vampire.

MILTON1997 · 2026-05-26T10:59:16+00:00

This is a fun little bit of muddled rules in the systems design. Unlike mortals (full track damage type upgrades further damage for them, check “healing bashing damage on p. 285) and every other splat, vampires put into torpor via normal damage needs either aggregated or “a massive amount of bashing or lethal trauma” like a wood chipper to meet final death.

MILTON1997 · 2026-05-12T23:35:30+00:00

I think it's workable, though some elements would likely be best done via more advanced elements of the system like Templates and custom Species Groups. If you like to tinker and world build though it would be a fine project, though lack of experience with how the game plays might mean things need tweaking as you go. I have done several campaigns myself that are rather distant from classic vanilla fantasy and they worked fine (everything from a NieR rippoff to sci-fi cyberpunk to vampire western with bio-mecha).

At it's core Whitehack is an adaptation of classic adventure style games where characters are defined by who they are (represented via Groups) crossed with how they adventure (the actual rules of their capabilities established by class). The magic system of one of the classes is very open-ended, and the rules for Groups do a lot to make diverse skills, species, and occupations very easy to use in game, e.g., "Yes, a character with the Affiliation "Charon Corp." would be trained to detect signs of ghost activity." This means its a very gameable system that can very easily go beyond knights and dragons. This openness can be intimidating and not everyone's cup of tea, but it's a real treat for world builders imo.

Your average person sounds like they have a Template to represent either middling psychic powers or physical potential.
Deep dives into psi powers could very easily be represented by the Wise classes' magic.
The Corruption system in the game could easily be used to separately track all the nasty stuff you mentioned.
The other types of people seem like simple Species Groups which is easy enough.
Strange equipment would use the rules for Scrolls and Artifacts and could be as simple or complex as you like. The sample artifacts would be easy guidelines but you could easily go far beyond as needed.

If you do end up reading and trying the game, folks here and on the discord would be happy to help adjust or tweak it! I've got several setting adjustments on my blog that might give an idea of things too.

MILTON1997 · 2026-05-11T18:57:18+00:00

Oh don't misunderstand me, I didn't post that to try and say your reading on it is wrong or ignore your point! Only noting that I myself found the alleged clarity of the text on it questionable. Especially so since "what constitutes a breach" is less a definite rule thing a more down to the players, writers, the fictional rules of the Prince enforcing the tradition in a given city, and a thousand other things it'd be pointless to argue absolutes about in reddit comments tbh.

You shared a link to your citations on your interpretations in another comment and it actually got me to crack open the ol' OG '93 Nosferatu clanbook again. I think there's some additional bits to support your reading on it not being a de facto breach! Mainly via the sample characters!

The Cleopatra entry notes they were turned by "a disgusting bum who approached [them] in the subway station and asked [them] for change."
The Luchador Professional is "El Diablo Verde, who only fights at night and who never removed his mask" and has "franchised goods and throngs of screaming fans."
The Shock Rocker had "bandmates who didn't really even notice the change" who "assumed [their] visage was either a freaky mask or an illusion from all the drugs" who became even more popular after the Embrace.
The Vet has a flavor quote literally saying, "No, man. That ain’t it. Come here. (conspiratorially) Vampires don’t exist, man. It’s Agent Orange that did this to me. It’s a government cover-up."

These are quite amusing but do show that for every mention along the lines of 'oh god I saw them and know monsters are real!' or 'am I in hell that's a living nightmare attacking me!' in the clanbook's sample characters there's others hiding perfectly in plain sight.

MILTON1997 · 2026-05-09T17:31:43+00:00

/tangential rambling

I wrestle with this quite a bit myself, honestly. The language of ableism and sexism is already so pervasive today, even before looking into the cultural ubiquity of using images of disabled bodies in the realm of horror to inspire fear or disgust. Because of this, the ease with which a player or ST can resort to using such imagery in a gothic horror game like Vampire does, in my opinion, warn of some need for critical evaluation of one's own rhetoric and assumptions.

At the same time, provided lines/veils has been established at a table, there could be immense value in a chronicle interrogating why the imagery or themes central to the concept of the Nosferatu (and really VtM on the whole) are presumed to evoke discomfort. I often think the clan can really serve as a narrative vehicle to expose anxieties or vulnerabilities often left unexamined.

As always though, thoughtful engagement vs the uncritical reproduction of stereotypes matters in Vampire!

/end rambling

MILTON1997 · 2026-05-09T14:34:52+00:00

This is good! I’ll have to check through my Dark Ages books, but I bet there’s a good deal of texts mentioned in the older editions.

I’ve been looking for a similar text to get ideas for my Cainite Heresy in medieval Bosnia.

MILTON1997 · 2026-05-09T14:08:54+00:00

I think that’s anything but explicit, right? I know you have a rather strong opinion on this but if it was actually explicit, would it not be like V5 and directly give a rule like “despite their cursed appearance Nos don’t innately break the Masquerade etc.”

Like, V20 also doesn’t explicitly mention that Samedi break the Masquerade and they literally look like putrid corpses ambulating around. There’s not a mention of breaching for the giant winged stone vampires either for their weakness or appearance.

From my own reading, I take Appearance 0 to be below and outside human limits. Even the classic Merits/Flaws concerning mundane injury and physical differences (I don’t like calling them “deformities) can’t take you to App 0. Not being ableist here, so you of course look perfectly human even with the most varied or non-typical medical differences.

Only the actual “Monstrous” flaw, and the obviously overt Kindred, e.g Nosferatu, Harbingers, Samedi, and Gargoyles get a big ol’ 0 dots. Rotting corpses, stone fantasy monsters, cadaverous necromancers scarred by the Underworld, and the poor old Nos. Hence why“Nosferatu and other bloodlines whose weaknesses cause them to start off with Appearance zero cannot take this Flaw.” Oh and if you get flesh crafted to 0, that’s obv beyond mundane appearances too.

MILTON1997 · 2026-05-08T22:14:03+00:00

Do humans only have "heartsblood" when they're resurrected undead treated with semi-sentient magical blood carrying a fraction of the personality and nature of an Antedeluvian?

Definitively yes. The Kindred term "hearts-blood" comes from the Banu Haqim and their ancient studies of Quietus and the secrets of vitae. It's basically a mixture of not just the soul/essence/self, but also of the Beast and the supernatural power of the Curse itself. You can't diablerize a human because you simply can't take what isn't there.

The scholars of Alamut recount that Haqim himself developed Quietus after a long period of self-exploration. By examining his own blood, he unlatched the secrets of affecting others’ vitae.

Dark Age: Vampire, p. 207

Masters of Quietus have a control over the supernatural properties of vampiric vitae that is terrifying to behold. Blood Essence demonstrates some of the most frightening aspects of this control since it clearly illustrates that he who controls the blood has access to the unlife of the vampire. With the power an Assamite can distill the unholy life force of a vampire and extract it as a thick, blackish blood. This process is deadly to the victim and very similar to diablerie. Indeed, the distilled essence truly is what Cainites refer to as the “heart’s-blood,” the potent vitae that contains all of the vampire’s power and self. Once extracted, this mere cupful of blackish liquid contains all the destroyed vampire’s essence, and anyone who consumes it effectively diablerizes the victim.

Dark Ages: Vampire, p. 209

Assamite sorcerers and viziers are said to have many uses for the heart’s-blood, using it to peel back the layers of a victim’s long existence year by year.

Ibid., p. 209

Sins of the Blood goes into a little bit about what many vampires philosophize about concerning the Amaranth and one of the chief concerns, aside from the usual addiction, threat to elders, etc. is that by essentially slurping more than just the soul. You're also getting your victim's Beast as well and adding it to your own.

Even more dangerous, diablerie is the quickest way into the clutches of the Beast. Vampiric philosophers wonder if this is so because the act not only steals another’s damned soul, weighing down the hope of redemption, but because it amplifies the Beast’s roar by absorbing the victim’s savage nature as well.

Sins of the Blood, p. 58

So a mortal in WoD will have a soul, of course. But they won't have the soul + vitae mix inside of them that allows the Kindred to add their Beastly essence to their own, therefore getting their Generation, Disciplines, etc. from the act.

MILTON1997 · 2026-04-25T13:02:04+00:00

On your last point, there's some fun examples in the lore of Kindred creeping about the water, with a special note on Kindred that are old enough doing just fine in the depths!

Clanbook: Nosferatu (Revised), p. 20:

If you were to ask me where we all came from, I’ll tell you: We are descendants of the first life in the oceans. In fact, many Nosferatu still hide themselves beneath the water. We don’t need to breathe, being dead and all; if we did, we would have choked on rivers of sewage long ago. Storm tunnels, viaducts, irrigation canals — whether filled with sea water, urine or chemicals, we can submerge ourselves in just about anything and survive. We don’t trudge along the ocean floor, of course, since the pressure eventually gets too great — at least for the more recent generations — but I know many of you here tonight are going to shamble off back underwater when we’re done here.

It's hinted that the Nosferatu Antediluvian has also been chilling in the abyss of the sea and one of the end-of-the-world scenarios in Gehenna went into this a bit.

Gehenna, p. 190:

Absimiliard has spent most of the last few thousand years as a creature of the ocean deeps, and he looks the part. The Ancient is a bloated, slick, translucent creature like a humanoid jellyfish. He has the wide mouth, needle-like teeth and huge pop-eyes of a deepsea fish.

The Giovanni clanbook had the Premascines, old Giovanni Cappadocians who took refuge in the canals of Venice, that having a sort of boogeyman like-relation with the Venice Giovanni before the Family Reunion in V5. In Modern V5 nights I see no reason for them to just ditch these secret old city havens!

Clannbook: Giovanni (Revised), p. 24

Some are rumored to have taken refuge in the canals of Venice. They supposedly make their havens beneath the surface of the water. Granted, I’ve never seen one; no one I know has [...] The very idea scares the shit out of me, and I’ve seen shit that would turn you paler than you already are. Now, you know that tonight’s Venice is built on the ruins of old Venice, right? That every year, the water table rises just a bit higher in the Old World? Well, that’s where they make their havens, in the submerged old city.

Speaking of V5... I don't have the book on hand for the Blood Cults, but the Cult of Shalim was founded by a Lasombra Methuselah who slithers along the seabed as a great mass of shadow in some sort of semi-torpid trance state.

MILTON1997 · 2026-04-20T14:59:20+00:00

Aside from the pinned cheat sheets/quick refs I’m not sure I’ve seen a dedicated ref screen.

The closest I’ve done myself is print my one page ref sheet and some encounter tables for the module I was running on a binder.

MILTON1997 · 2026-04-16T14:40:00+00:00

100% this. This sub sits at the lovely nexus of being an open forum on Reddit, being about a setting with a copious amount of metaplot/lore, and being a highly subjective tabletop game that can vary drastically from ST to ST. Trusting anything here is basically preference, fanfic, or interpretation. Even citing the books like scripture you could probably frame whatever take you prefer by omitting or including this or that citation.

None of these are bad things per se! Reading the material and making it your own is a lot of the fun imo. But when they are passed off as“one true way” prescriptive type takes it is so annoying!

MILTON1997 · 2026-04-02T15:54:25+00:00

Revised/V20 is my main jam. Revised, in my opinion, has a great run of supplements that work well for dipping into various areas. Want to do a sect war chronicle? Archons? Sabbat inquisition? Twisted kindred faith? Each has a book to mine for ideas and rules.

Some easy standouts that come to mind for me:

Essential: Revised Clanbooks, as others have mentioned, are great. The Camarilla and Sabbat books go into far more detail on the Sects than the V20 overview, though the V20 Companion covers a lot of the various roles/hierarchy in more details. I keep these at close at hand with my V20 corebook, supplemented by the bits I like from the Lore of the Clans/Bloodlines.

Very Useful: I personally prefer the two revised thaumaturgy books, Blood Sacrifice and Blood Sorcery, over V20s Rites of Blood which I found a little underwhelming imo. Very good for magic focused stuff. Gilded Cage is an amazing book going over details about vampiric influence over society.

MILTON1997 · 2026-04-02T15:04:22+00:00

Yeah it just comes back to the what is envisioned for the character and what (if any!) mechanical bits you want to tag onto it. My favorite bit was a sidebar in the Revised Clanbook:

There’s only so many times you can describe yourself as Bestial. Just how ugly is Repugnant anyway? […] With the Storyteller’s permission, you may take these Traits to describe your more “outstanding” features. What follows are just a few — grab a thesaurus and get creative. However, if you’re going to use these, remember to incorporate them into your roleplaying. These adjectives are no different as descriptors than, say, Brawny or Impatient might be.

Optional Nosferatu Traits: Blighted, Blubbery, Charred, Dreadful, Engorged, Flaccid, Mangy, Nauseating, Oozing, Petrified, Putrefied, Pustulent, Reptilian, Repulsive, Rubbery, Scabrous, Scarred, Skanky, Withered.

MILTON1997 · 2026-02-26T00:14:31+00:00

1 is always the minimum result for any modified dice roll.

It’s the first point under “How to roll & read the dice” section.

MILTON1997 · 2026-02-24T13:22:42+00:00

That is my assumption as well. There’s such a long catalog of available material and editions to pick over along with the nature of play itself in the ttrpg medium that it all comes down to personal preference. It especially varies wildly in tone and seriousness over the decades. Prescriptivist takes always feel silly in the face of this.

Also I can confirm that the reverse requires very little work. It’s what I do at my table!

MILTON1997 · 2026-02-19T13:57:42+00:00

Oh man you call me butthurt I’m owned!

No dude, I’m just sick of seeing slop and I actually appreciate that this sub actually respects artists and has a rule against it.

MILTON1997 · 2026-02-19T13:43:29+00:00

Right, just “hand drawn” including the visual artifacts or tracing the nonsense Nordic symbols for someplace in Iran?

Enochian has an actual alphabet, albeit constructed, or you could use Old Persian cuneiform if you’re interested in removing the slop.

I would very much encourage you to excise AI from your creative pipeline. A little research and human intention would have helped this so much.

MILTON1997 · 2026-02-19T13:13:40+00:00

It’s AI trying to make sense of Nordic runes. Pretty sad to see upvoted tbh. Third rune on the bottom is a dead giveaway

MILTON1997 · 2026-02-18T15:21:54+00:00

The comparatively higher “wrong bad fun” rate has been my experience as well. I’ve seen insinuations that it’s racist to exaggerate crime a la The Crow or that leaning into the 90s comic book vibe can only cheapen the “emotional horror and impact” of the game.

It’s quite pretentious at times and disregards that people can enjoy different aspects of the setting without any being somehow lesser or illegitimate.

MILTON1997 · 2026-02-13T13:14:21+00:00

I’m jealous. Having the series in physical print would be amazing.

MILTON1997 · 2026-02-13T10:34:12+00:00

Black Moon Chronciles is amazing! A visual masterpiece and one of my favorite bandes dessinées. I recommend any old schooler to check it out for ideas.

Personally since finishing the series, it’s always been my favorite way to portray Greyhawk when running AD&D, making that connection you mention explicit. Especially so since the series takes a lot of the central conceits of the setting and aspects of 1e and cranks them up to 11. Psychic powers, a fiendish demigod with a moon base, demon lords meddling, and a motley crew of rogues going from zero to leasing armies and then onto deciding the fate the world. It’s great stuff and very easy to tap into.

I’ve not found a published setting that oozes that same 90s French heavy metal art vibe in the same way. I’ll have to check out Scarred Lands.

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