Vampires: The Masquerade... This game makes me wish I had a terminal illness...
While this game used to have a very good following surrounding it, with lots of chat about various cool goings-ons, etc..., it has lost all of its mystique for me. I recently sat through a 2 hour nightmare while *observing* (clench your first against your chest, since that is the observer hand signal). While I was expecting a rambunctious younger crowd to show up (18-25), it turned out to lure older lonely individuals that don't have a better way to spend their time. Nothing of note really happened, nothing interesting at least, since the game is primarily social. The groups were very quiet about their gatherings and didn't really exude any sort of presence as I would expect from a purely social game.
So what is the problem here? Well, Vampires are granted supernatural powers, period. Most of these powers are clearly outside of the understanding of humans in general. Flying, extreme charisma, powers of persuasion beyond reason, and extremely acute senses. While these can be theoretically applied to a human role-playing a vampire, the human has to actually step up and play the role. However, how do you play the role of something outside of your own abilities. How do you appear as charismatic and interesting as a Vampire when the whole mystique of Vampires is that they have these powers and we don't? Well, everyone else around you has to pretend as well. I'm sorry, I can't really get into a game where the individuals are so deluded as to convince themselves that another individual has features about them that they truely are incapable of displaying and/or role-playing.
Needless to say, I won't be doing the vampires thing again. I missed out on a truly interesting trip to a new bar, Cow Girls, down in Seattle to go to this meeting of the vampires. Another excellent option for the night would have been to head down to the firwood in Fife and watch an excellent band, Kameleon, previously known as KamelToe or CamelToe (not sure how they previously spelled it). The lead guitarist is most excellent, and their lead female vocalist is also extremely good on the guitar. If you get the chance check them out at www.kameleonrocks.com.