Editing Vampire: The Masquerade (section)

==Editions==
Vampire: The Masquerade has largely had a contiguous ruleset, with each "edition" being effectively a clean-up and expansion of the previous edition. This is unlike other popular RPGs (such as [[Dungeons & Dragons]]) or even other tabletop games (such as [[Warhammer 40,000]]). Things from any edition are (mostly) mechanically compatible with any other edition, from V1 through to V20. This inter-compatibility [[skub|ended abruptly with V5]].

===First Edition: The Early Launch===
The first edition of Vampire: The Masquerade was published by [[White Wolf]] in 1991 (and retroactively known as '''V1''').  It established the basic premise, tone, and canon; which still define the game today. V1 was more mysterious than later editions, completely lacking or remaining vague on some of the more esoteric lore which would come later.

V1 became popular on the early internet as well as in IRL RPG gaming spaces, leading to an improved re-release the next year.

===Second Edition: "The Original"===
Published in 1992, '''V2''' incorporated improvements from a year of additional development by White Wolf and feedback from the unexpectedly large playerbase; intended to be an "expanded re-release" on V1. This edition included new kick-ass art by Tim Bradstreet, which would go on to become iconic to V:tM. This edition also introduced the idea of the "[[World of Darkess]]", where other White Wolf games all share a canon with each other.

V2 also saw the release of the ''Mind’s Eye Theatre'' ruleset, enabling the <s>now-infamous</s> V:tM [[Live Action Role Playing]] scene. If you are an old crusty V:tM player, this is the game you probably played "back in your day".

===Revised Edition: LARP Intensifies===
During the height of V:tM, White Wolf would release '''Vampire: The Masquerade: Revised Edition''' (a.k.a. '''V3''') in 1998. This book compiled as much of the V2 splatbooks and post-release content as possible into a single cohesive tome. Players could now pick up ''Revised Edition'' and have everything at their fingertips.

This was the era where V:tM LARP was big. The huge, sprawling, interconnected conspiracy world of ''Vampire'' was in full swing (for better or worse), and so was the fandom. This was when ''the'' conventions were happening, and ''the'' novels were being published.

In 2005, White Wolf would invoke Gehenna and end the world, "finishing" Vampire: The Masquerade after over a decade of play, lore, novels, and sweaty conventions. Free from the massive weight of that which came before, White Wolf was free to usher in the [[New World of Darkness]]...

===20th Anniversary Edition: Grognard's Choice===
In the depths of the [[World_of_Darkness#New_World_of_Darkness|Chronicles of Darkness]] era and [[Vampire: The Requiem]], [[Onyx Path]] would release '''Vampire: The Masquerade: 20th Anniversary Edition''' (confusingly known as '''V20''') via [[Kickstarter]] in 2011. Intended as a small nostalgia trip, V20 tried to compile everything that made V1, V2, and V3 great into a single release, intended for dedicated V:tM die-hards and potential new fans who were too young to have been around for [[oWoD]]. The success of this Kickstarter campaign lead to Onyx Path re-releasing more OWoD games via successive Kickstarter campaigns.

For people who don't like V5 or [[nWoD]] (i.e. a lot of /tg/), the ''20th Anniversary Edition'' is the current way to play a game of Vampire: The Masquerade.

===Fifth Edition: Vampire V===
The announcement of fifth edition Vampire in 2017 was met with a mix of excitement and wariness. V20 was still going strong, and even if it would take a while for the next edition to be released, it meant that the current one would bedying. Some people were encouraged by the announcement that Kenneth Hite of [[GUMSHOE]] fame had been hired as the lead designer, and then immediately discouraged when he said that White Wolf had already vetoed several of his ideas. 

====The Playtest & New Lore====
May 2017 saw the release of the first Vampire V pre-alpha playtest and... people were not impressed. Sure, it was only a pre-alpha, but the retooling of the game was significant. Major changes to how damage works, how the blood pool works, how Hunger works, how Frenzy and associated compulsions work, and what skills are like (the same physical/mental/social split of Chronicles of Darkness, instead of the Talents/Skills/Knowledges split of yore). And the Brujah clan's weakness was literally called 'Triggered.' Overall the game feels like a dumbed-down version of earlier editions, but since it was only a pre-alpha there was still hope.

As for the new metaplot... well, vampire society has gone to shit when NSA found out the vampires' parallel internet and the entire world's mortal governments ''found out the vampires exist''. The Second Inquisition, made up of the Leopold Society which now carries Papal approval along with every alphabet soup intelligence agency across the world, found out about SchreckNet and is now hunting the Kindred like dogs in a covert war. The intelligence agencies know what they're up against, though they hide it from the public and elected leadership by using post-9/11 anti-terrorism measures as cover for operations and red tape. 

After a massive raid and destruction of Vienna Kindred blamed on ISIS, the vampires are forced to hide even deeper, with the Camarilla closing it's doors to all but the most "exceptional" kindred, resorting to messenger birds, dead drops and graffiti for communication. The Anarchs aren't as low tech, opting for burner phones and throwaway emails and have become the most welcoming faction for any new Kindred without a home; the Sabbat, for reasons we mentioned earlier, got curbstomped hard (apparently the whole edgy "cattle Kine" rhetoric doesn't survive a welcoming shout of "[[Meme|FBI OPEN UP]]", followed by copious amounts of Willy Pete and napalm rounds by SWAT descending in broad daylight). 

And if all that mayhem wasn't enough, all the elders of 8th Generation or lower are suddenly being drawn to the Middle-East, where Sabbat survivors are fighting Camarilla and Ashirra (Muslim Kindred). [[meme|It's not the end of the world, but you can see it from here!]]

It's very much the beginning of a Nightshade situation, but much more drawn into it's own setting. The lore was mostly explained in the V5 corebook and Beckett's Jydhad Diary but the first taste was in the pre-Alpha test module "The Last Night". Unfortunately the test is one of the most god-awful [[railroad]]ed messes ever released by White Wolf, and that's discounting all the [[Skub|political nonsense]]. Not to mention that one of the premade characters for the scenario literally was a serial killer that could only feed from children. [[Beast: The Primordial|White Wolf has form in this.]]

====The Full Release====
Then the core rulebook for '''V5''' was released on August 2 2018, and the early reactions were pretty damn negative. All the artwork had been replaced with corny photo shoots (like in the semi-official Mind's Eye Theater LARP books) because [[Derp|the head of the new White Wolf was a Vampire LARPer in its heyday]]. There's an absolute dearth of material compared to V20 (there are no rules for Sabbat or Anarchs in the corebook, with the former seeming to be wiped out/forced into deep hiding in-lore), and furthermore none of the clunkiness of the crunch was fixed. On top of everything else, the new fluff actually ''encourages'' being the kind of edgy, psychotic, superficial asshole that made White Wolf players a fucking running joke in the RPG community.

The Camarilla splatbook that came out post-launch would become the straw that broke the lolcow's back for one simple and very important reason: They brought the anti-homosexual purges in Chechnya, a ''real-life atrocity which was in progress at the time of writing'', into the story as a vampire cover-up plot. Sure, they've made less-than-tasteful allusions to real-life events before, but even when [[Wraith: The Oblivion|Wraith]] did a splatbook about the Holocaust, they at least had the good taste to put all their effort into being respectful, because even the company that published [[Werewolf: The Apocalypse|''Freak Legion'']] and let [[Phil Brucato]] write books on playing as a [[furry]] knew where to draw the line. These fucking LARPers claimed that real people involved in the killings were totally sick vampires, just for some cheap angst and an unoriginal plot hook.

Paradox has pulled all copies of the Camarilla and Anarch [[splatbook]]s for a full rewrite, and every single White Wolf manager has been thrown out ass-first and replaced with seatwarmers. White Wolf as a game development company no longer exists; they are now a glorified holding company, folded into Paradox's corporate structure, that will license their properties to other publishers (read: Onyx Path, who are currently working on a V5 update to Chicago by Night, by-the-way) for future World of Darkness books. [[Lulz|That's how much of a trainwreck White Wolf has become - they couldn't be trusted to write their own material anymore]].

All that said and done, V5 isn't quite dead yet. New releases are slowly coming out even if they often of mixed quality. For example: Cult of Blood Gods provided extensive fluff and crunch, whereas Sabbat provides no play options and is basically useless. The popularity of V5 is niche, but it's slowly growing, as indicated by the [https://www.youtube.com/@worldofdarkness World of Darkness YouTube channel], which continues its LA by Night series, and having even brought Matt Mercer of [[Critical Role]] fame onto the show to appear as Beckett.

The future of V5 is incredibly uncertain, but what we have so far seems to indicate that the current writing team moving with some level if confidence - even if the final product might not be what /tg/ exactly wants.