WW "Dark Ages: Vampire"

[DamienJ]

Being the sap for advertising I am, I noticed the ad for Dark Ages in the back of some RL books, and got interested. Has anyone played this? Is it any good? I'm not familiar with the vampire system as a whole, so I don't know how it compares to d20. It looks interesting, but I'd like to hear from more experienced people...

Another note, their webstore shows the core rulebook as being out of stock. Is this usual for WW? Will they replace it eventually, or should I start looking in the used book stores?

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

The Storyteller system is not without it's faults, but it does encourage roleplaying over rules.

I play on a online Vampire site at www.jusnoctis.co.uk and the rules seem fine. Granted this is the closest I've got to the WW system as I've never table topped it.

[Big Bad Jack]

Longtime WW'er here.

The Old World of Darkness ruleset works fairly seamlessly, and the setting is well-developed (and not as overbearing as it was in the modern era of Masquerade).

The odds of getting Dark Ages: Vampire is poor, however -- the Dark Ages line went out of print soon after the rest of the Old World of Darkness.

I much prefer the Storyteller system (in both its incarnations) to d20, myself. As Drinnik said, the focus is more on roleplaying than rules.

[Dion of the Fraternity]

Dark Ages Vampire, IMHO, offers more Gothic potential than the OWoD Masquerade, and thus is one of my few favorite game systems. The modern nights of Vampire: the Masquerade was too punky for me, anyways. Plus (I might sound blasphemous to many OWoD fans when I say this), the Dark Ages accessories seem to fit well with the new Vampire: the Requiem game, storywise if not rules-wise.

Added to that I also have really aged second-hand copies of DA Mage, DA Werewolf and DA Fae, the Dark Ages line of the OWoD is pretty good.

[DamienJ]

I found Vampire: The Requiem for a slight discount, so I had to get it and start reading! I know it's not Dark Ages (which is what I really wanted to see... ), but it definitely seems to have potential. I ran into exactly what Jack was saying - you can't get Dark Ages core books easily anymore. Kind of disappointing, since it seems good.

Anyways, back to Requiem. The setting is does seem to be a bit "overarching." Everything seems to center on vampires (heh, I know, I should've read the title of the game...), which feels like it might limit story-lines a bit (Players: "we're fighting the evil prince of New Orleans who's trying to deceive us again?! "). I should emphasize feels like. The clans/bloodlines/covenants offer plenty of material to counteract this, and when you throw in mortals, Lupines, mages, etc., you can probably make some pretty good games ("Chronicles," I believe they're called?).

Also, Storytelling does seem like it is superior to standard d20. I really like the idea of experience points being used to develop a character, instead of having them advance in some nebulous rank/level system. BTW, what does happen when a PC gains HP? Do his innards toughen?

Obviously I don't need to do a report on WW, but I was wondering how accurate these impressions are to more experienced gamers? And, in the interest of becoming a "more experienced," if there's somewhere online I can join in a World of Darkness campaign. Drinnik mentioned Ius Noctis. Are they accepting new characters? Are there others out there?