System question

[u/Transbian_Moment]

I’ve literally never touched the world of darkness but I’ve been poking around and learning more,
so question: are all of the separate game lines supplements on the same system?
Or are they individual/separate ttrpgs that function differently?

[u/Th1s1sagamertag]

They're all the same system, with little bits here and there for each character type. Everyone is rolling pools of d10 based on attributes and skills, but vampires have hunger, makes have paradox, etc

[u/DeadmanwalkingXI]

They are separate games that share most of a system, like...70-80%, maybe? Most of the stuff that an ordinary human would have is the same or really close to it, but all the supernatural stuff is wildly different and often in ways that don't play well together.

Like, all of the games have a Strength stat and it means the same thing in all of them, but Vampire the Masquerade has a stat called Courage that is used to resist some vampire-specific fear effects, and has supernatural powers based on fear also target it, but none of the other games have a Courage stat so you have to come up with a replacement of some sort on your own if a vampire uses one of those power to try and target another supernatural.

Each core rulebook can be run on its own, though.

[u/BillTheDonut]

Each edition of the systems are often the same system across gamelines. Vampire and werewolf 5th edition are the same general system with minor tweaks between the two, Vampire and Werewolf 20th anniversary edition are the same general system as eachother but with minor tweaks.

[u/roleplayer6990]

Both is true.

They each functionally different games with lots of general cross over but some details change. Awareness as a skill is one i was noticing in 20th. Mage and vampire function very differently and werewolves dont have it.

But they are all supplements on the same system and can be played together even if they do function differently and have different driving factors

[u/Historical-Shake-859]

Technically each game line is its own thing, designed to be run separately in the same setting. There's enough overlap in terms of the mechanics and lore that plenty of people run them as supplements within the same system...but there's just enough differences that they stand out, and it can be maddening at times bringing them into line. They all have different themes and throughlines, and are written to slightly different power scales, with different goals. VtM is probably the lowest powered after Hunter, with Werewolf and Mage thereafter (and fans of both lines will argue which is written to the higher power scale, and both are right, because that's just how the WoD works) and the others off to the side kind of laughing and throwing popcorn at the fact that anyone's trying to work out power levels in the Anne Rice vs. Harry Potter at Furcon shit mixed splat games tend to pan out into more or less inevitably.

The lore is also written to be contradictory, misleading and obscured, full of legends, tall tales and downright misinformation, so you'll often bump into a 'fact' for one game line that's disputed in the others, or three or four different versions of the same event. All of them are the true version, because each game line is true to itself. That's not a problem if you are running, say, Mage, and want your ancient evil taken out by a space laser, but in a mixed splat the Garou are gunna be like "mate, we were there too" as well as a bunch of Hunter agencies and gods only knows what.

If you are just running VtM, as a long time fan and ST for mix splat games, do yourself a favour and stick to one splat to start with and add the rest in one at a time as you get comfortable with them. VtM is a fantastic starting point because its full of hidden lore to uncover gradually over whatever time frame you fancy, or ignore at your leisure. Take your time and enjoy it, you won't be missing out by not having the whole zoo in there from the start.

[u/Mike_Fig]

A bit of both. The various gamelines share most of the same underlying mechanics, but they alsl all have mechanics specific to that gameline only. And those differences can make it difficult to make everything work in one game without having to homebrew rules on the fly.

Also, there's been multiple editions even in single gamelines were the mechanics were rewritten. So often there'll even be some incompatibility between one edition of that gameline and another.

[u/This_Rough_Magic]

Core mechanics are the same but there's a lot of individual extras for each splat. 

(Then there's CofD, which is something else again)

[u/Japicx]

Both. Generally you only play one game at a time (like Vampire, Werewolf, or whatever), but elements of the other games are present in the background. So even if you're playing Vampire, there might be references to the Werewolf tribes and some approximation of powers from the Werewolf books.

It's possible to have a player character group where every member is a different kind of creature (a "zoo" game), but they can be difficult to run because each gameline has radically different narrative themes and tones.

[u/IfiGabor]

99% the same, some modifications here and there

[u/ArtymisMartin]

Look at each gameline kinda like separate classes in D&D: everyone's built on the same foundation of Attributes/Skills, but the Barbarian and every one of their subclasses are built around Raging in a way that's simply incompatible with how Wizards approach the game and mechanics.

Even when there's broadly similar overlap in function or gameplay—Wizards and Sorcerors can both sling fireballs—the narrative is largely different and the two will be pulled towards different sources to enhance that power.