MySpace

I have been infected by the plague of the day. Find me at www.myspace.com/indigonegative (simplebrilliance was taken, even though the owner looks borign and uncreative). I may migrate this blog there or not. God knows. I just work here.

Review of Vampire the Requiem

Just skimmed Vampire the Requiem. It's a helluva lot different from The Masquerade. I don't know why. I appreciate that they simplified the system, or at least I thought they did. It looks like they tried to keep everything, reorganize it (unsuccessfully), and add a plethora of new (and questionably interesting) content.
Complaints: 1. The heading font is light, handwritten cursive in pale red. Some of the headings are simply indecipherable.
2. The headings have no clear order. Some are bigger than others for emphasis, while others to denote categories and sub-categories. Plus, and worst of all, things are addressed multiple times. Why do I have to find clans listed in 3 or 4 different places? Holy shit.
3. Why all the new content? Covenants, Clans, Bloodlines ... Your character can be a member of at least three overlapping categories and for what? I can understand one or two levels of complexity in vampire society, but why a third? There are so many levels of organization THINGS AREN'T ORGANIZED.
4. Why drop or drastically change the old content? The old bloodlines mostly survive, but some are clans and some bloodlines. (And Malkavian is now Malkovian) It's like they want the names to pull in older players, but it's in a parallel universe where things aren't related in the same way. Why, pray tell, is the Camarilla dismissed as a silly historical construct? I thought it was central to the old system. Keeping only three of the five traditions? I just don't get it.
5. Now you need an extra book? There are a few places in Requiem where it directs you to the new World of Darkness "core" book. Thing is, the core book doesn't add much to Requiem that you need. And alone, the core book is barely playable. You can only be a mortal, and there are no explanations of vampires, werewolves or mages AT ALL. That means you can't fight them or hunt them down, much less play them. The best you can hope for with the core book is an encounter with police and wild animals, or maybe some ghost hunting.
Conclusion: Play Masquerade or Requiem. Expect no carry-over from the old World of Darkness to the new. If you switch, disregard your previous experience because it's so different you will only be confused. Personally, I prefer the style, layout, feel and mood of the Masquerade. I am, however, torn because the new system has such straightforward usage of morality. Vices, virtues, degeneration, derangement ... It all works, but I think it falls apart when you have to be a member of a coterie, a clan, a bloodline, and a covenant while still obeying your prince.

Questioners of Christ

Dan Brown (author of the Da Vinci Code), Gnostics old and new, James Cameron (who made Titanic and The Lost Tomb of Jesus), writers of "lost" gospels, some extreme feminists (happy to have Mary Magdalene as a church leader), possibly even Muslims (who claim Jesus was a real human prophet not the son of God), and many amateur historians who work with these questionable materials ...
They all point to the New Testament and say, "This book is a lie that proves my truth."
How can lie prove truth? An how can you use the Bible to support your "truth," if your revelation questions the central message of the Bible itself?
It's a good thing Dan Brown and James Cameron and others make a lot of money. They don't make much sense.