Vampire: The Masquerade

The original RPG setting Vampires in a modern Gothic-Punk world.

Vampire: The Masquerade was an original RPG allowing players to explore a dark world of modern vampires in a Gothic-Punk world. The game took players away from traditional elements of RPGs and vampiric lore and into a modern 1990s view of style and performance which was much darker and bleaker than before.

It was designed on a Storyteller system using the dice pool as a main mechanism. The success of this original game lead to a series of similar horror games covering Werewolves, Mummies, Demons and other horror favourites. The White Wolf games led the way in story centred gaming and the move from dice rolling to role playing. It also encouraged RPGs to try the newly developing Live Action Role Playing (Larp) scene (it being easier to dress up as a Goth Vamp than an Elf.)

This database entry covers every edition of the Vampire: The Masquerade RPG with the exception of 5th Edition. Although there are some mechanical differences in the system between 1st edition to 20th Anniversary edition, these are small and all supplements are compatible with the first four editions of the game.

• Vampire: The Masquerade (1st Edition) (1991) which was the first Classic World of Darkness book released.
• Vampire: The Masquerade (2nd Edition) (1992) which amongst other tweaks, notably updated the combat system.
• Vampire: The Masquerade (Revised Edition) (1998) which amongst other tweaks, fixed a bug with botches.
• Vampire: The Masquerade (20th Anniversary Edition) (2011), a re-release of the game following the setting's 2004 closure with Gehenna.

Related Microbadges

For 5th Edition see:

Vampire: The Masquerade (5th Edition).

For more information see:

Vampire: The Masquerade on VideoGameGeek.