BEING SMOOTH IN VAMPIRE THE MASQUERADE-BLOODLINES

Becoming a high-society vampire.

- By Ian Evenden

Everything is dark, and I’m being asked questions. Someone is following me, what do I do? I’m caught by the spouse of someone I’m trying to sleep with, do I tell them I’m a distant cousin or hide and sneak away? There’s an intruder in my house, do I fight them or shoot them? Vampire the Masquerade— Bloodlines' character creator offers you the choice to answer these questions instead of getting down to it in the traditional character creator, and my answers mean I end up in Clan Toreador. Among the artists, visionaries, and members of high society, I feel right at home.

More importantly, Toreadorians fit right in among mortals, which is important to me. I want my twilight existence to be as a smooth-talking master of the vampiric arts, not as a wretched sewer dweller existing on rats, too disgusting to step above ground. As such, I end up with one point in things like strength and stamina on my character sheet, and two in wits, appearance, and manipulation. I have points in brawling and firearms, if I end up in a tight spot, but none in stealth. And with two points in celerity I’m quick too. I’m not going to hide, but I might make a hasty getaway. I have a humanity score of seven, which is average, but which I mustn’t allow to fall, lest I become bestial.

I’m playing VTMB with the unofficial patch installed, which brings a lot of quality-of-life improvements and a few surprising additions to a 20-year-old game that had the misfortune to be released on the same day as Half-Life 2, and which was notorious for its bugs at launch. Today, with patches and updates, it’s mostly a smooth process, and runs well even on integrated graphics. Its narrative design and writing are still some of the best out there, and its open-ended nature means you may never play it the same way twice.

THIS SUCKS