Introduction

Vampire: New Trago

Vampire: New Trago is a tabletop roleplaying game and a mod of Vampire: the Masquerade 5e.
If you're not sure what any of that means then I am so confused about how or why you're reading this document. Ehh… Look up TTRPG online I guess.

I don't love horror.
I am fine with horror but it is not a passion of mine. Therefore I don't run horror roleplaying games. Even when I've tried to, it didn't become that scary or even spooky since it wasn't an aspect of the game which I got that excited by.
I do however love the setting of Vampire: the Masquerade. There is so much potential for intrigue, mystery and awesome stories. It is so easy to come up with plot hooks and interesting scenarios in that dark and gritty world and there are few cultural touchstones with such a strong identity as that of vampires.

That is why I have made this mod. I want to run games about vampires in a modern setting which, instead of horror, focuses on intrigue and creative problem solving with supernatural powers. Those are the aspects of roleplaying which I do get excited by.

I don't think there is a single part of the rules I haven't touched. And in this introduction I provide an overview of what I have changed in this mod and why.

Sorcery and Disciplines

The foremost thing that is changed with V:NT is the introduction of sorcery, the option to play as human sorcerers as well as the revamp of all disciplines and bloodlines (which were called clans in V:tM)

Sorcery

Sorcery is much inspired from games such as Mage: the Awakening, Invisible Sun and Ars Magica, as well as the Cosmere books.
Sorcery is creative and you come up with your own effects within the limitations of the game by combining intents and keys.
Intents represent what you do and keys represent what you do it to. Which intents and keys you have access to and how powerful they are is picked at character creation as well as being part of the character progression.
For example: By combining Behold (intent) and Weapons (key), a sorcerer may cast a spell which informs them of who is hiding firearms nearby and at more powerful ranks even know information about those weapons such as when they were fired and why.

Sorcery shares weaknesses with Vampires such as not working in sunlight or against fire.
Notably, Sorcery is not meant for combat. There is no intent that would necessarily hurt an enemy better than a gun. However, sorcery can make you better at aspects of combat with intents such as Alter and Transfer or it can provide more approaches and options with intents such as Animate or Control.

Disciplines

In V:NT I go back to each bloodline (clan) having their own discipline unique to them to make them feel more special.
I use the bloodlines from Vampire: the Requiem, since that was one the starting point of this project and I think that they have stronger identities. I have changed the disciplines to make them less about unlocking new abilities and more about having one ability which is made more powerful and flexible as you rank up.

I also include the concept of vampires without bloodline since the world and the GMs workload becomes weird when every vampire the players encounter is also “special”. I want to be able to make vampires who are just goons when I run a game.

I have added two new bloodlines, Silk and Amareth which I hope provide a bit of a new vibe and inspiration for how vampires can be played.
Silk are scheming shadowcrafters, they create items, eyes and creatures out of shadows and have a lesser weakness to all light, not only that of the sun.
Amareth are rare future tellers, with abilities that interact with the immediate future, while hopefully avoiding to be an absolute nightmare for a GM.

Resistance

I have introduced the stat of resistance to the game which is a character’s ability to withstand any supernatural effects.
I feel that it is a good way to add balance to the powers, not only for players but for the world. I want powerful Vampires to be able to be confident and scary in a way which would be undermined if they did not have a way to overcome the powers of lesser Vampires.
Resistance is also there to alleviate elements of paranoia. At least in my games the players can get a bit too overly careful when they realize how powerful some of the disciplines are and how many potential enemies have access to them.

Combat

I am trying something a bit new for TTRPGs (I think) when it comes to combat in V:NT.
This is not a tactical board game and I therefore do not want to make combat too advanced or long. Tactical elements are to some degree handled by the characters skills rather than the player.
But I do want combat to be a game, one that feels static and indifferent to the players as protagonists. If the player outmatches their opponent then combat should be easy and if they are outmatched then there should be options which don't just result in death.
I want combat to feel dangerous, fast and have an element of creativity.

Inspired by Blades in the Dark, my take on combat is based on preparation, creativity and managing risk.
Each combat encounter has different challenge ratings and risks based on what the players want to do.
The players may just want to kill their opponents and win. This could be possible with a single roll and their characters will be able to approximate how hard that might be. If they're fighting a lone human it may be trivial. If they're fighting an Elder vampire it may require more successes than they have dice. Doesn't have to stop them from trying though.
The players may ask for challenge numbers for as many approaches they want and are encouraged to come up with their own solutions.
Players take on risk every time they roll in combat so they are incentivized to end it quickly.
This combat system might even create encounters that players will consider retreating from, imagine that.

Health is measured in 7 levels of injury which corresponds to the levels of risk in combat.

Attributes, Skills and Stats

Attributes

I have removed attributes.
Although there were fun combinations you could create with them and skills, there is in my opinion a fundamental disconnect which is created by the concept of attributes. To me attributes are unbalanced and limit nuance and potential for who you want your character to be. I am myself a player (when I get to)  who can’t play characters with a low Intelligence score. I cannot help overanalyzing every situation in an rpg, if I played a character with low Int I feel that I would misrepresent that character. But this suddenly limits how social or fit I can be which is (unfortunately?) not an accurate representation of reality.
Increasing attributes also feel out of place to me.

Edges

Instead I have added edges, inspired by the Wildsea. Edges are any descriptor which can represent how you approach problems. A character has three edges and an edge can almost always be used, guaranteeing one die to basically every roll in the game. Edges then provide an additional die if the GM accepts that the approach is particularly appropriate.

Advantages

In addition to edges there are also advantages which can provide dice to most rolls. Advantage is applied as long as there are any circumstances making the challenge easier. Up to two advantages can be applied to any normal roll.

Skills

I have made my own set of skills that players can have. I choose them primarily based on balance and what I think will actually come up as a relevant challenge. It's not perfect, something like Research might still be rolled less than most others but it is there to provide breadth.

Some notable skills I have comments on:

Persuasion/Command/Provoke - Three skills all meant to convince people in different manners. V:NT is a social game and although I am a fan of players making their own arguments in place of skill-rolls, players aren't characters and sometimes dice are better arbiters than a GM.
Persuasion is to me also the single best skill in other RPGs and it gets better the more social the game is. My hope is that by making it into three approaches players will feel that it is appropriate to have at least one of them and still have space for their characters to feel different without excluding anyone from the most important tasks in the game.

Melee/Ranged - Two skills almost exclusively used for combat. Not sure I like there being two but I also don't like having a single combat skill, that feels too broad. Ideally I would have the combat skills also being useful for other things, but oh well.

Law - This skill has particular significance in my setting since there is an entire separate law magic system (did I say that I like world building). In a modern setting, especially if it focuses less on politics it might be replaced by something like Computer.

Background skills

Inspired by Eclipse Phase I have added the concept of background skills. These are additional skills which describe the character and the world which I don't think will represent relevant challenges in the game.
A character may be great at painting and this is a place to express that. I don't think that painting will come up much in a campaign or if it does, be particularly relevant. Therefore I don't want a character to divert skill points for it.
Background skills are binary. Either you have them or you don’t. If you have a background skill and a challenge does come up, you succeed.

Resources

In place of merits I have the concept of resources. In my opinion merits weren't consistent in what they did, sometimes interfered with things like skills and had a granularity which was overly complicated to keep track of.
Like knowledge skills, Resources are binary and represent something relevant a character has access to.
Not having a resource does not mean you can't have something in the narrative but it does mean that you won't be able to utilize it in a relevant manner. A character can be part of a faction without Faction Membership, but then in a manner where the faction won't just help them with whatever.

Dice

V:NT uses pools of d10s, like V:tM and it of course retains the hunger dice since it is one of my favourite mechanics of the game. Sorcerers even get a similar system with Fracture.

I like the 50% success rate per die with higher challenge ratings requiring many successes. It creates great scalable normalized rolls with nice manageable 1-9 dice being rolled (or technically up to 12 dice for you advanced people) with some base dice being applicable to most rolls for those who spend the effort. I think it works great!

I am however not a fan of the crit system of V:tM, it has annoying math and feels even less special than V:tR which at least rerolled on 10s. I don't like that either though.
So I instead added boons and banes, inspired by Daggerheart and the Star Wars Roleplaying Game. They represent strokes of luck and complications. Boons are 10s on normal dice and introduce good circumstances aside from the roll. Banes are 1s on all dice as well as 10s on Hunger and Fracture dice. Banes introduces complications to the narrative.

Personal story and progression

I have removed humanity from the game. V:NT is not about the spiraling downfall of the protagonists. All moral decisions are left to the players who may choose for themselves the impact those decisions have on their characters.

Instead, inspired by Slugblaster and development sessions from Invisible Sun, I have introduced the mechanic of Personal story.

Personal story are separate narratives for each player character. These are played out with one character at a time, in my case, the last hour of our normal 4 hour-sessions.
The players choose their own premise for a personal story and it progresses with a structure of hardships ending with a resolution. It is important that personal stories can come to a close.
Personal stories take a lot of time and by their nature creates scenes which most players do not participate in but in my experience they can also provide some of the most rewarding moments roleplaying can offer.

Personal story is also directly tied to progression to gather up everything people want. Disciplines and Alignments (which is the progression you care about) are increased for every hardship a character goes through in their personal story.
Resolutions which are endings of personal story arcs can provide additional progression as well. It is needed for rank 7 or for learning new Alignments and Disciplines.

The Setting

I am using my own alternate world setting for this game, hence the name: New Trago. The setting is extra optional but there is a section for it in the back if you're interested.

Vampires and Sorcerers

Some notes about how vampires and sorcerers are handled which I like as a foundation.

Vampires

Vampires are the rulers of the night and strictly uphold the Masquerade, the pretense that all things occult don't exist. Vampires in V:NT are not specifically categorized by generation. A vampire is a vampire and can rise high or fall low on their own merits.
Bloodlines are uncommon and the general sentiment among common vampires is that the bloodline disciplines are simple tricks which of course do not work against kindred who can resist that.
Elders are of course respected and feared, and although they are more likely to be strong, they are not required to be. Vampires do not in-world know how to get stronger in their disciplines.

Sorcerers

Sorcerers are uncommon and part of the Masquerade but as an oppressed element. If a player chose to play as a sorcerer, they start as one of the most accomplished sorcerers around. Sorcery takes luck, resources and obsession to learn, and it is not known how to get stronger within that as well. Most vampires view sorcerers as novelties, tools or prey.
Vampires are still the focus of the story and likely to be the main antagonists.