Dominik

WTA 5 is in it's core about being fed up with the greed and corruption that destroys and poisons the place we call home. Except the evil CEO is sometimes literally a monster and the rage that drives you lets you transform into an 8 feet tall killing machine to stop them! Still there is a swinging scale between whether to use that rage or get lost in it. It leads to fantastic deep options for roleplay and combat alike. And roleplay something the World of Darkness games excel at! The 5th edition of the game relies on a d10 system, and is a re-imagining/reboot of the WTA series. So new players do not require previous knowledge of the older editions or its metaplot to get into it.

Been playing in Nicola's Curse of Strahd game, and it's been great! He's good at setting a spooky tone both in roleplay and with music and visuals in Foundry VTT. I remember feeling unnerved the first time the party met Strahd (as one should be!) Also I appreciate when the NPCs engage with my player character's roleplay, that I often at times improvise on the spot.

Starting with the best positives, Jabber was quick with helping me with character creation. I was brand new to VTM at the time and he helped me with every step and suggested fun character quirks. The first session is why this review isn’t 5 stars. I joined an ongoing campaign. So the first session I played in I spent 3/4 of the session just listening to other players talk in character about plot I wasn’t caught up on. It felt more like I paid to listen to a random live-play episode. Eventually my character was introduced in the latter half of the session after roughly two hours. This is something I communicated to Jabber after the session. In hindsight I wish I’d asked for a partial refund, but since this was my first game I wasn’t aware that was a thing that’s available. The continueing sessions however were quite fun! I would still recommend Jabber as a gamemaster, even if my first impression wasn’t the most ideal.

Mikael is a great game master! When I originally joined his VTM game I was a bit sceptical of him choosing a clan based on my character’s archetype rather than me picking itself. But he was really in depth with character creation and over time I came to really like this as my character was expertely woven into the setting and story! The characters players and NPCs really feel alive (or as alive as a vampire can appear haha). Despite having played a little VTM before, I still feel myself asking game mechanic and lore questions frequently, which he is helpful with. Good for new players!! Was also very chill with me playing a gay character, which I appreciate. He takes safety at the table seriously and paused the game to check up on me when something came up.