#RPGaDAY2021 Vampire 4V: Weapon

#RPGaDAY2021

Vampire: The Masquerade

4V: WEAPON

As noted in my main post the Highlander combination of katanas and trenchcoats became a cliché in Vampire: The Masquerade partially because of the concealment rules in the weapons table following Shadowrun’s example in the original Players Guide. So much so that a game called Katanas & Trenchcoats exists and some of the guest writer names may be familiar.

The modern armour in Redemption is a trenchcoat although the best magic weapon is a two-handed scimitar. Likewise the armour for most clans in Bloodlines, and the katana is the best melee weapon and there’s a magic one as well. It’s the best melee weapon in the gun-focused Bloodhunt as well, getting in the trailer and title sequence, because it has an alternate mode that lets you deflect bullets with it!

See also the first opportunity to buy gear in Vampire: The Masquerade - Night Road.

Vampire also leans into this by making bullets pretty ineffective against vampires, as in the moment in Near Dark where Jesse coughs one back up. But that also has him and Severen playing gunslinger, and one of the original Tim Bradstreet chapter frontispieces references Severen’s six-shooter with the cross on the handle.

Stakes paralyse Kindred, so mostly get used to deactivate them for capturing.

It all nudges things to encourage close combat, an RPG standard which makes for more dramatic fighting than sniping at a distance. Other Darkness games lean into this even more - the Werewolf games have assorted magical mostly melee weapons as well the characters’ innate strength and Changeling: The Dreaming has a big focus on knightly combat.

Shotguns are pretty good though, especially at close range. Incendiary rounds optional.

So where does this go with a Vampire game about characters who want to stay on the down-low?

Redemption and Bloodlines both have weapon sales under the counter, as does Night Road, and Bloodhunt has an atmospheric touch where most of the big guns you can find date back to WWII or the Cold War. If you want something new, you have to take on the high-tech hunters who will be happy to demonstrate it for you before handing it over.

Vampires with a lot of resources can get the state of the art, but like most criminals most Kindred have to make do with what they can get on the sly...

1.04: Beats

The Sheriff stalks into Nocturne and asks the coterie if they know anything about a militant Anarch gang from out of town looking to smuggle weapons into the city. Led by one of Shane’s brood.