From: durrell@pinball.arcade.uiowa.edu (Bryant Durrell)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: Re: Vampire and GURPS
Keywords: Vampire, GURPS, stereotypes
Date: 19 Nov 92 00:46:22 GMT
Article-I.D.: news.1992Nov19.004622.11931
Organization: University of Iowa

In article <BxwA75.JKL@news.cso.uiuc.edu> dv52151@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (RedSwordTarga) writes:
>I think I mentioned most of them. Let's run over them again though.

>1) The combat system, even the advanced Storyteller one included in
>Werewolf and some supplement or other for V:TM, is horrible. It is
>the only combat system on the market that's worse than SR. 

This is two points.  I'm going to treat them as such.

Course, this is an easy rebuttal.  "Not in Second Edition."  White
Wolf seems to have fixed it.  Simple enough.

>The 
>better you get in Vampire, the more likely you are to make a horrible
>blunder (I won't drag out the mathematic forumlae for this, but rest
>assured, they've been gone over before.) The damage system is just
>as bad.  Gross scale for damage, making SR look reasonable.

This is kind of true.  I won't repost the percentages, but it's true
that there's a really screwed curve in Vampire.  For most target 
numbers, as I recall, your chances of botching peak somewhere in the
middle and then decline again.  It's odd.  It's a flaw.  It's not
enough of a flaw to blow my enjoyment of the game, which is of course
my own personal opinion; anyone telling me I'm wrong will have to 
prove they know me better than I do.  Anyone telling me I must be a
bad gamer will be ignored.  Sowwy, but I don't really care what you
think my priorities should be.  In return, I won't tell you that you
MUST like Vampire.  That would be silly.

>2) The statistics are only adjustable in gross steps. The difference
>between a stat or skill at 3 and 4 is enormous. This, of course,
>relates up to 1) A Horrible Combat system. This, I suppose, we could
>call a Horrible Skill system.

True enough.  See above.  I think this makes you focus more on 
roleplaying -- since you can't distinguish your character by stats
alone, you have to roleplay more.  I admit that I would like the 
option to distinguish my character with stats a bit more, but hey,
it's not a big enough flaw -- wait, I went over that already.  OK.

>3) An experience system that adds abilities in vast quantities. The
>effect of adding 1 or 2 points to a character in Vampire is enormous
>when compared to a system such as GURPS or HERO. 

"Not in Second Edition."  Well, it's slowed down a lot, in any case.
In my campaign, characters progressed pretty quickly to a certain 
level and then stalled there.  I didn't have much of a problem with
people taking skills for the price, rather than for character 
conception.  It is not that hard to minimax the experience system.
It's also real easy to make a GURPS or Hero character who puts all
her skills into one area.  The spread-out Vampire character will be
more effective in play, admittedly, but then again as a GM who's
played all three systems, I wouldn't let any of those characters get
away with it.

>4) Character creation is limited to the game creators vision of 
>Vampires (and even more so in Werewolf). The stereotypes are very
>much in place.  While some may argue that many fantasy games
>do the same thing, those systems that do their best to function
>in all genres (and do a passable if not excellent job - GURPS, HERO)
>have no such built in stereotypes. 

<snork>  This has been dealt with.  Look, it's true -- you can't 
play a vampire who, say, can go out in daylight.  Big deal!  AD&D
doesn't allow elves to be paladins (the last time I looked).

>	Yes, there are stereotypes that can be created in these
>games. However, it is far more difficult to create a non-standard
>character in Vampire than to create one in GURPS or HERO. Neither
>system comes with built-in stereotypes, the GM and players have
>to add them.  

Vampire is easy for munchkins to screw with.  I admit it.  It's a
long leap from this to "it's a bad system."

>Long time roleplayers tend
>to gripe about these things simply because after a while, using someone
>else's imagination and ideas runs out of steam. You then have to carry
>the campaign on with your own personal ideas and imagination. Most of
>us don't like trying to do that while saddled with a defective system.

Yeah yeah.  Don't generalize, OK?  I'm a long term roleplayer, and I
like Vampire just fine.  I also like GURPS.  I like lots of games.

Me, I don't let my knowledge of the system's flaws get in the way of
working with the background.  If I have an idea, I can usually make
it happen in any appropriate system.  My Faerie "invasion" of Boston
(no, it wasn't that blatant) could have been done in any modern day
fantasy system.  I don't see how the Vampire mechanics could have
blocked the basic idea.  I know where the flaws are; I know where to
work around them.  It's worth it for the attribute plus skill 
mechanism, which I will defend as a brilliant idea forever, even if I
admit that the form in which it was realized is faulty.

Bryant
durrell@chop.isca.uiowa.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy