Ready to be embraced into the dark storytelling of Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition on SPG? Let's create a vampire character that's uniquely yours. In this guide, we'll walk you through every step of the process—just grab your 5th edition character sheet and let’s begin.

Vampire: The Masquerade is a roleplaying game of personal and political horror. You will take on the role of a vampire who must navigate the nights while battling an ever-present hunger and struggle to maintain their fading humanity. You’ll want to grab a copy of the Core Rulebook and Players Guide for Vampire: The Masquerade 5th edition for full access and details on much of what is outlined in this guide.

Concept & Clan

First, take some time to decide your character’s core concept. What is their name? What did they do in their mortal life, and who are they now after their Embrace? These details can be added to the top of your character sheet under Concept, Ambition, and Desire.

Once the initial concept is decided, you’ll next make one of the most important decisions in the character creation process: choosing a clan or bloodline. This vampire clan is your character’s supernatural lineage from which they inherit their powers and weaknesses.  

There are 13 clans to choose from, each with their own identities, powers, and banes tied to them. Generally, you’ll want the concept of your vampire to tie into the core identity of the clan you choose, but your character can also be considered an outlier to those specific identities. Take time to look through the 13 Vampire: The Masquerade clans and decide which calls to your concept the best – this clan will be part of them for the rest of their unlife.

Attributes & Skills

After a clan is chosen, it’s time to define your character’s Attributes and Skills. Attributes are your vampire’s core capabilities, while skills are your vampire's learned aptitudes. Skills and attributes are categorized by physical, social, and mental—you’ll want to distribute them according to what you feel best fits your character concept. For more details on these Attributes and Skills, check out Page 155 of the Core Rulebook.

For Attribute distribution, you’ll follow this guide:

• Take your best attribute at 4
• Take your worst attribute at 1
• Take three attributes at 3
• Take the rest of your attributes at 2

For Skill distribution, you’ll have 3 options to choose from. Choose one of the following:

• Jack of All Trades: One Skill at 3, eight Skills at 2, and ten Skills at 1
• Balanced: Three Skills at 3, five Skills at 2, and seven Skills at 1
• Specialist: One Skill at 4, three Skills at 3, three Skills at 2, and three Skills at 1

Once your Attributes and Skills are allocated, you’ll be able to determine your Health and Willpower, which both are tracked during gameplay. Health is determined by how many dots you have in your Stamina, and then add 3. Willpower, which is your mental fortitude in game, is determined by your total Composure + Resolve.

Advantages & Flaws

Next, you’ll want to pick some Advantages – these can be various Merits, or Flaws, or Backgrounds that tie you to the mortal or vampire world. Merits vary from specific methods to your vampire feeding, their looks, or even some psychological quirks they may have. Backgrounds are types of relationships, influence, and status that your vampire has acquired. Many of these Merits and Backgrounds also have Flaws to choose from.

You’ll get 7 points to spend on Advantages, and 2 points on Flaws. You can find all of the details on these in page 179 to 194 of the Core Rulebook, with some added Merits and Flaws on page 118 of the Players Guide. 

Predator Type

After all this, it’s time to think about your character’s predator type. How does the vampire usually feed? Predator Types represent how your vampire prefers to hunt—whether through the nightlife scene, seduction, or even simply feeding from blood bags. The Players Guide has a list of predator types on page 62 and details on page 149 of the Core Rulebook.

Some predator types also come with added advantages, flaws, or disciplines that you will also add to your character sheet. These additional predator type perks don’t count toward the points you’ve been allocated for the other aspects of character creation.

Disciplines

Next, you will want to choose your character’s Disciplines, or your vampire’s supernatural powers. Each clan has three Disciplines and you can choose two of your clan Disciplines to start. Put two dots in one and one dot in the other. Pick one power from each discipline level you have, for a total of one power per dot. See details on disciplines in page 244-287 and page 69-106 of the Core Rulebook. A list of Disciplines can also be found on page 62 of the Players Guide.

Touchstones & Convictions

Another crucial part of the character’s identity is their Touchstones and Convictions. Convictions are guiding principles that help your vampire cope with their decisions. And the Touchstones are mortals who ground them in those Convictions. You’ll want to get one to three Convictions detailed on pages 146, 172, and 205 of the Core Rulebook – you can also make up your own! 

For each of these Convictions, you’ll want to make a Touchstone character related to this conviction. These can be any character you and the storyteller wish to add to your background - a mortal lover, relative, or person you were close with in your mortal life.

Finishing Touches

You’ll see at the bottom of your character sheet are two trackers for Hunger and Humanity. These are two important trackers that will be important to your gameplay. The default Humanity for a new character is 7, sometimes modified by Predator Type, so mark that under your Humanity Tracker.

Lastly, you’ll want to add some other details, like your Blood Potency, which is how strong your blood is and is determined by your vampire’s age. The details of Blood Potency can be found in the Core Rulebook on page 215. You can also add other details to the character sheet, like character descriptions and other notes.

Time to Play

Congrats, you’ve made it through the process of building your vampire – now they are ready to take on the night! Once you've finalized everything in this character sheet, there may still be some additional details you want to flesh out, like building a relationship map with other players at the table.

With this new character ready to go, it’s time to bring them to unlife in a fully immersive Vampire: The Masquerade chronicle on StartPlaying.

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‍Tracie “Miss Magitek” is an award-winning World of Darkness Storyteller who crafts stories in Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, and Hunter: The Reckoning. She is also a published writer for various books from R. Talsorian Games’ Cyberpunk RED.