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::''A Storytelling Game of Personal Horror.''
 
The tabletop roleplaying game that started the [[Old World of Darkness (Tabletop Game)|Old World of Darkness]] line. Subverted many tropes of roleplaying games from that time by making the player characters monsters (as opposed to heroes who hunt them) and installing a [[Karma Meter]] that makes violence a dubious solution in many situations. In this game, players take the roles of vampires (aka the Kindred, aka the Damned), undead beings gifted with eternal (un)life and superhuman power, but forced to endure such drawbacks as compulsive bloodlust, poor impulse control, danger of degenerating into a mindless monster by committing too many evil acts, weakness to sunlight, and being bitches of older and more powerful vampires. The common ways to spend your unlife in this game include angsting over your condition, engaging in political intrigues and games of status within the vampire society and kicking ass with your newfound superpowers (called Disciplines).
 
Of course, these vampire powers range from those inspired by classic vampire tales (turning into bats, invisibility, [[Mind Control]], and so forth), to the truly bizarre (shadow manipulation, body-morphing, or the ability to drive others into insanity).
 
Recently, Crowd Control Productions, makers of [[Eve Online]], announced that their upcoming [[Old World of Darkness (Tabletop Game)|Old World of Darkness]] MMO will start off centered on ''Vampire: The Masquerade,'' rather than the [[New World of Darkness (Tabletop Game)|New World of Darkness]] and ''[[Vampire: The Requiem (Tabletop Game)|Vampire: The Requiem]].'' White Wolf (now a CCP subsidiary) has released a "20th Anniversary Edition"<ref>officially abbreviated as "V20", since "20th Anniversary Edition" is kind of unwieldly</ref> of the rulebook, and will be releasing other "Classic" World of Darkness titles, though they have said they will not be updating the metaplot.
 
== Vampiric society tends to be divided into a number of Clans, each of whom claim a different vampiric Antediluvian as an ancestor. Some of these clans are found primarily in the Camarilla, the society dedicated to preserving the [[Trope Namer|titular]] [[Masquerade]]: ==
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** In general, most of the bloodlines and independent clans were "one trick ponies" to show off cool new vampire powers and then became an albatross around the setting's neck.
* [[Ascended Demon]]: Golconda.
* [[Attack of the Fifty50 Foot Whatever]]: The Cathedral of Flesh is almost exactly what it sounds like -- a mass of constantly-mutating living flesh large enough to serve as a literal cathedral. It may or may not actually be the Tzimisce Antediluvian, and is Vicissitude incarnate either way.
* [[Aura Vision]]: The Auspex discipline has the ability to do this among its powers. In particular, vampires who can read auras can tell if someone is a Diablerist (their auras have nasty black veins running through them).
* [[Authority Equals Asskicking]]: Vampires' supernatural powers, as a rule, grow and develop with age, and positions of authority are, as a rule, again, occupied by old vampires, so...
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* [[Bad Boss]]: More abstract parts of fluff, such as descriptions of vampire society in core rulebooks, imply that most vampire elders treat their progeny and other underlings like this. Specific examples of elders provided by city books are ''usually'' much more rational and prefer to mix carrots with sticks.
* [[Beethoven Was an Alien Spy]]: And Cain was [[Monster Progenitor|the first vampire]] (spelled Caine when referring to him as a vampire). Many modern-day vampires think that this is a myth. They are wrong. Many other people from history and mythology were/are vampires too, from Helen of Troy to Rasputin.
** Rasputin's origin was deliberately muddled for a [[Metaplot]] that never took off -- various [[Old World of Darkness (Tabletop Game)|Old World of Darkness]] books describe him as a mage, werecreature, and at least three different vampires. The idea was that Rasputin was a powerful alchemist and Ventrue ghoul who mastered mystical blood magic and distilled the blood of all his vampire allies into the Blood of Caine. Ingesting it caused him to become a "clone" of Caine - with the powers and attributes of all vampires - who would show up as the [[Big Bad]] of a Gehenna scenario where killing Rasputin would prevent Gehenna because the universe would be fooled into thinking Caine died. Since it was a relatively happy ending for the game ([[True Art Is Angsty|and God forbid that]]), White Wolf rejected it and Rasputin remained in limbo.
*** Really, the Rasputin references were just thrown into every clanbook as a joke, because early White Wolf was very clearly a place where no one took themselves very seriously. Once the game became "High Art" and fun was replaced with "tragic angst", multiple retcons were created solely to justify why Rasputin was apparently a member of every clan.
* [[Beware the Nice Ones]]: Tremere (the clan founder, not the clan) decided to gain the power of an Antediluvian and establish his followers as a full-fledged clan by {{spoiler|consuming the soul of Saulot, founder of the most pacifist vampires in the setting}}. Maybe he should have kept researching and noted that {{spoiler|Saulot also founded the uber-evil Baali}}.
* [[Biblical Bad Guy]]: Most prominently Cain(e), the first vampire, but Lilith shows up as part of his backstory, and Elimelech ([[Ascended Extra|a minor character from the Book of Ruth]]) is one of the leaders of the Sabbat.
* [[Blessed Withwith Suck]]: This seems to be the general idea. Many books from the first and second editions tend to disregard it.
* [[Blood Bath]]: One of the sacred rites of the [[Religion of Evil|Sabbat]]. Although it isn't about rejuvenating youth or beauty, like in other depictions, but more a ritual of baptism and consecration interpreted through the Sabbat's "Crusades-era Catholicism on PCP" lens.
* [[Blue and Orange Morality]]: Some vampires abandon the Humanity [[Karma Meter]] for Paths of Enlightenment, which don't follow any human sense of right and wrong.
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*** Most notable is the Malkavians, where no one is sure of their origin, and some clans see them as a genetic dead end... The Clanbook in the first edition for the Malkavians states several purposes your Malkavian can take, the last one being "Hahahah you think we have a purpose?!"
* [[The Commandments]]: The Traditions.
* [[Complete Monster]]: [[In -Universe]]; it is a game about vampires, so sooner or later this will come up. Most vamps labor very hard to avoid becoming this trope, either out of latent morality or because it ultimately endangers their psyche, but as the years turn into decades turn into centuries it's very hard to care anymore, with Antediluvians often being hinted at as the ultimate monsters of vampire kind. On the other hand, some vamps, particularly those in the Sabbat and particularly who follow the Path of Night, actively pursue this trope as their ultimate goal. Tzimisce and Baali become this almost by default. And anyone who winds up on the Camarilla's Red List has gotten there by committing atrocity on a grand scale, such that the Inner Circle deems their very existence a threat to the sect and the Masquerade.
** Camarilla unofficial motto: "Just because you are an undead fiend who stalks the night to drink the blood of the living is no reason to be a sick bastard about it." Sabbat unofficial motto: "Oh yes it is!"
*** Not quite. The Camarilla and the Sabbat do not differ much in the way of sickness. Only the Camarilla does not like to flaunt it and tends to play the monstrosity down, while the Sabbat goes no holds barred to appear EVEN MORE monstrous than that.
** It's a bit more complicated than this. While the Camarilla generally sees the Sabbat as prime examples of this trope and ignore any at all hints to the Antediluvians, the Sabbat themselves see the Camarilla as ignorant fools who willingly let themselves be manipulated by the Antediluvians, who they see as the ultimate evil in the world. The Sabbat themselves usually have morals that are [[Blue and Orange Morality|too alien to be actually classified as good or evil]], but this generally does not matter when it comes to mortal terms anyway, since they will most likely mercilessly kill or torture humans anyway.
* [[Crapsack World]]: The World of Darkness in general is one of these in a nutshell. There ''are'' some small glimmers of hope, but you must work hard just to keep yourself from sinking into ever-greater depravity.
* [[Cross -Melting Aura]]: Powerful Baali vampires can do this.
* [[Darkest Africa]]: The Kindred of the Ebony Kingdom supplement paints unlife in Africa as quite different.
* [[Deadly Decadent Court]]: Camarilla, the main world-spanning sect of vampires is one big example of this.
* [[Deaf Composer]]: Any vampire cooks, by virtue of having normal food taste utterly rancid.
** Unless they have the Eat Food merit, which does allow them to taste the food in addition to not having the food turn to ash in their mouth.
* [[Deal Withwith the Devil]]: Sometimes this is what makes you a vampire in the first place. Sometimes it's what happens when you try to make deals with older (smarter) vampires. A ghoul's relationship to his or her master often takes this form too. Literal deals with actual devils are possible, and they usually turn out about as well as can be expected (later versions of the game strongly discouraged the use of literal demons since it adds an element of [[Black and White Morality]] that undermines the game's central themes).
* [[Defector From Decadence]]: Inverted. The Salubri turned their backs on the violent lives of vampires, and as a result were largely obliterated. The Salubri antitribu are defectors ''to'' decadence - Adonai, their founder, got so pissed off by Salubri pacifism that he stormed out of the bloodline and joined the Sabbat.
** Adonai's problem wasn't pacificism so much as restraint from taking bloody vengeance on the Tremere. He was the founder of the Vengeful Salubri faction from the Dark Ages.
** This is technically one of the reasons why many vampires go anarch, particularly Lasombra who believe that the Sabbat has become everything the original anarchs were trying to resist in the first place, only much worse.
* [[Deus Angst Machina]]: A common, though by no means exclusive, approach to the game.
* [[Distracted Byby the Sexy]]/[[Distracted By the Shiny|Shiny]]: Clan Toreador's weakness. It might sound lame until it comes up at the worst possible time, say if it clouds their judgement, or if they're driving...
* [[The End of the World Asas We Know It]]: Gehenna, usually envisioned as the time when the godlike Antediluvian ancestors of the 13 vampire clans will rise to devour their progeny and royally thrash the world in the process.
** Make that 12. The awakening of an Antediluvian is detailed in one sourcebook. It was a fight from almost the very moment he woke up and lasted a whole week, resulting in the destruction of: 2 ancient [[Our Vampires Are Different|Asian]] [[Game Breaker|vampires]], a significant portion of the population of the Middle East, a massive corner of the lands of the dead, most werecreatures in the general global neighborhood, and the ENTIRETY of said Antediluvian's clan. Everything but the last item on that list was caused by the fight between the founder and the forces attempting to contain him, but the last was all the work of the founder himself. [[Omnicidal Maniac|He needed to break things, he was hungry, and his kids had a handy leash tethered to his very essence]]. Many people noticed and were affected by this event. Some 100 or so Ravnos managed to survive but they are often in hiding to keep the rest of the supernatural community from gutting them out of anger for what their Antediluvian did.
*** The Salubri Antediluvian is dead too, his soul was consumed by Diablerie by Tremere to found the clan of the same name... Or so he thinks, it's hinted that Saulot's soul still sleeps within his body and is biding its time.
**** And a few other Antediluvians are confirmed dead in the Gehenna sourcebook as well. {{spoiler|Ventrue was murdered, probably by Lasombra, as he left the First City. Lasombra, Malkav and Set are all bodily dead but still around in various spritual ways and may or may not be able to return. Troile (the Brujah Antediluvian) was diablerised a long time ago. But the ones that are left are still quite enough to cause [[The End of the World Asas We Know It]].}}
* [[Enemy Within]]: All vampires suffer from the Beast, an animalistic, id-like force with a hint of supernatural malice, that attempts to compel them into immediately satisfying their instinctive urges, such as consuming blood, fleeing fire and sunlight, or fighting at the slightest provocation, no matter the circumstances.
** On the other hand, complete removal of the Beast (possible if you suffer a ''[[Critical Failure|botch]]'' with a couple of disciplines) also [[Heroic BSOD|robs a Kindred of all willpower and self-motivation]].
* [[Enlightenment Superpowers]]: The Salubri.
* [[Evil All Along]]: [[Your Mileage May Vary]] with Saulot thanks to the [[Darker and Edgier|clusterfuck]] [[True Art Is Angsty|of]] [[Retcon|Retcons]] since first edition. According to rumours, he was basically a saint who helped the poor, healed the sick, and farted fairy dust, who may or may not have reached a state where he didn't even drink blood anymore. [[The Chessmaster|This was all just part]] [[Depending Onon the Writer|of the plan to take over the world]] and he might have {{spoiler|created the Baali, the Wu-zao and Nkulu Zao}}.
** Well, depends which Gehenna version you go for. But even the nicest version of him is a [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] at best.
** This is all muddied up to eleven since {{spoiler|he is the key to save the world and mankind and he very rarely survive the apocalypse, normally either destroyed or making a heroic sacrifice to take the other Antediluvians}}.
** If you decide Saulot is this trope, it makes the fate of the few surviving nice Salubri even [[Broken Pedestal|more tragic]] then it [[Hero Withwith Bad Publicity|allready is]].
* [[Evil Feels Good]]
* [[Evil Tastes Good]]: The act of drinking blood is described as incredibly addictive and tempting to vampires. To further the analogy, vampires who are low on blood risk losing self-control and attacking people on sight to get a "quick fix" right now.
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* [[Eye Remember]]: One of the Giovanni powers.
* [[Fantastic Drug]]: Vampire blood. In humans, it induces feelings of ecstasy, super strength and speed, and eternal youth. After three tastes, a human is "blood bound," becoming hopelessly addicted and usually falling in love with the vampire supplying it. Vampires who are fed three tastes of another vampire's blood become "thralls," utterly unable to resist the will of the supplier.
** Also, the blood of other supernaturals - particularly [[Changeling: The Dreaming|fae]] and [[Mage: The Ascension (Tabletop Game)|"mystic" mages]] - supposedly work this way for vampires. Results... vary.
* [[Fantastic Racism]]: The linchpin of the Sabbat's ideology. As openly ruling "human cattle" is beyond their ability, they often make up for this with random atrocities.
** Caitiff (rare vampires who do not exhibit blood traits of a specific Clan) are treated as sub-vampire mongrels by almost everyone, but they're lucky compared to thin-blooded vampires that did not completely transform into undead - those are hunted and killed as supposed harbingers of [[The End of the World Asas We Know It]].
*** Little does anyone know that, since nothing wakes a sleeping vampire more than other vampires going * poof* , killing off the thin-blooded is what ''makes'' them said harbingers.
* [[Fantastic Slurs]]: A lot. The books provide us with derogatory nicknames for every single Clan.
* [[Fictional Document]]: ''The Book of Nod'', ''The Prince's Primer'' and ''Revelations of the Dark Mother''. All three underwent [[Defictionalization]].
** All three were referenced and dwarfed by the last document in the game line, "The Encyclopædia Vampirica."
* [[Final Death]]: As an [[In -Universe]] [[Invoked Trope|technical term]], no less.
* [[Flat Earth Atheist]]: Recurring [[NPC]] character Beckett the vampire archaeologist refuses to believe the more magic or religion-oriented vampire mythology. He's wrong about that. Usually right about everything else, though.
** Malkavian Dr. Netchurch does a lot of scientific tests on vampires (which science can't fully explain), studies thin-blooded seers, and knows that certain sites and individuals imbued with great faith repel vampires like himself. Of course there are perfectly rational explanations for all that...
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** Every once in a while you do get someone who plays a wacky Malk and then proceeds to explore the more serious consequences of things like lack of inhibition/impulse control... but don't hold your breath.
*** In LARP parlance these "wacky" Malks are often referred to as Bunny Eared Malks, Fluffy Malks, or Fish Malks.
* [[Fur Against Fang]]: The natural enemies of the vampires are the eponymous creatures from the sister game ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse (Tabletop Game)|Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'', who are the reason most vampires other than the Gangrel are strictly urban dwellers.
* [[Gambit Pileup]]: And ''how!'' Many campaigns have become entirely self-sustaining (the Storyteller only serves as referee) because of this.
** Probably the best part is the occasional mention that the entire Jyhad, the long-running game of control and conquest between vampires, may have started as a ''practical joke''. Oh, Malkav...
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* [[God]]: Who do you think marked Caine in the first place?
* [[Gothic Punk]]: Pretty much the [[Ur Example]] and the [[Trope Namer]].
* [[Hell Onon Earth]]: What would happen if a [[Omnicidal Maniac|Baali vampire]] managed to succeed in using the "Open the way" power. Fortunately this ritual is so complex, costly and likely to fail it never worked whenever it was attempted. And [[Too Dumb to Live|those who tried it]] got what was coming to them.
* [[Hemo-Erotic]]
* [[Sociopathic Hero]]: Among the favorite tropes of clan Brujah.
* [[Hero Withwith Bad Publicity]]: The six surviving Salubri healers (if you believe they actually exist). The Tremere [[He Knows Too Much|want them dead]],so they convinced the Camarilla of the supposed horrible crimes comitted by the "soul eaters". In the extremely unlikely event a Salubri is discovered in a Camarilla city, a bloodhunt is quickly called. The Sabbat, meanwile would love to snack on their innocent but potent blood. And the [[Sibling Yin-Yang|Baali]]...best not to think about what they would do to them. But they are supposedly [[Friendly Neighborhood Vampire|pretty nice guys]] once you get to know them. They have to be since they can only get nourishment from willing donors.
* [[Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act]]: The vampires may have run society from the shadows since time immemorial and had a hand in everything from Rome to modern politics... But it's explicitly stated that the Third Reich was all human-made. Not necessarily out of any moral consideration, mind you, but rather that they hate the idea of their food source killing itself off.
** It is made clear in most of the books that vampires ''don't'' direct society. They usually ''react'' rather than ''direct'', riding on the coattails of mortal trends rather than creating them. A powerful vampire or group of vampires can still achieve a lot, however. The Camarilla tends to view itself as the steward of mortal affairs, despite the fact that the Masquerade is there to protect vampires from the well-armed mortal backlash that would ensue if their existence were discovered. Even the Sabbat, in all their howling anti-Masquerade vitriol, tend to follow the Masquerade!
** There ''is'' a grand conspiracy directing and controlling the fate of mankind, or trying to at least, but this is [[Mage: The Ascension (Tabletop Game)|the Technocracy]], a human cabal of [[Magitek]] [[Manipulative Bastard|manipulative bastards]]. They are basically the reason no-one believes in magic anymore, as they find that the more people believe in science, the easier it is to control them, though they also regard magic as dangerous (which doesn't mean they won't use it if they need to).
* [[Hive Mind]]: Malkav currently lives in the head of every vampire of Clan Malkavian. They call it the Malkavian Madness Network, and it's normally tuned down. When he turns it ''up'', things get... weird.
** ''Weirder'', you mean. The Malkavian Madness Network is actually ''connected to the Digital Web'', the magical shadow of the internet of Mage: The Ascension.
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* [[I Am a Monster]]: Really evil vampire factions also tend to use alternate [[Karma Meter|Karma Meters]] based on this trope, so that they may wreck shit and do [[Squick|Squicky]] stuff without instant degeneration into animals.
* [[I Hate You, Vampire Dad]]: Even when a new vampire isn't created purely as a servant, and doesn't mind his new condition, his relationship with his sire often goes sour sooner or later, because vampires have centuries to get sick of each other and their unlifestyle greatly facilitates distrust and paranoia.
* [[It Got Worse]]: And then [[It Got Worse]] again. With [[The End of the World Asas We Know It]] on the horizon, that's the most logical direction of plot development, really.
* [[Karma Meter]]: One of the major sources of angst is the fact that you ''will'' lose points on your Humanity [[Karma Meter]], unless your Storyteller (as gamemasters are called in ''WOD'') is more lenient than the rules suggest (many Storytellers tend to not subtract points of Humanity for violent actions in self-defence, for example, but the rules as written say otherwise). And when you lose them all, it is game over. It is possible to stabilize at low Humanity level (most older non-player characters do this), as long as you abstain from acts of extreme cruelty, but a character suffers penalties for this.
* [[Kill It Withwith Fire]]: Theoretically, this is the next best thing against vampires after sunlight. In practice, supernatural beings, including other vampires can and often do have better means of vampire-slaying, although white phosphorus grenades are still not to be underestimated.
* [[Killed to Uphold Thethe Masquerade]]: As well as "Killed for ''breaking'' the Masquerade."
* [[Kiss of the Vampire]]: A vampire's bite is actually called "the Kiss," and is described as being unspeakably pleasurable for both vampire and victim. Except for the Giovanni. Their clan weakness is that their bite hurts ''more'' than it reasonably should.
* [[Living Doll Collector]]: Depraved masters of Dominate. The Tzimisce. Mortals in third stage vinculums. People under enough Majesty. Really, we could go on all night.
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**** Actually, this rule STILL varies from book to book. In the Revised Vampire Player's Guide from 2003 there is a series of essays toward the back. One goes into the matter of sex with great frankness. It states that while humans get aroused organically, vampires get aroused intellectually. However, they can move blood to the right places, and all of their nerve endings still function just fine, so they can certainly experience pleasure during sex, though it is sensual and not sexual. They can even reach a form of climax, though there is no ejaculation.
**** Oddly enough, it's mentioned that half-human/half-vampires and even vampire/werewolf hybrids ''are'' possible in the games, so that just makes it ''more'' confusing.
***** Well, not the werewolf/vampires. They have nothing to do with sex, they are just [[Werewolf: The Apocalypse (Tabletop Game)|Garou]] who had the misfortune to be Embraced. As for half-humans, that's a result of Thin-Bloods, who are more human in many other ways as well.
* [[Villain Protagonist]]: The Kindred are not [[Friendly Neighborhood Vampires]]. Vampires can be as good or as evil as any human; just being a vampire does '''not''' make you any eviler than your average human unless you let the Beast get a grip on you (usually by being too hungry around people). Some vampires become as good as any saint. The Sabbat's "freedom" philosophy saps their morality and makes the Paths of Enlightenment more attractive, which of course leads back into acting more inhuman in a vicious circle.
* [[Villainous Breakdown]]: Can happen when you frenzy too much. Vamps who let their karma meter slide too much may end up in this as well, as will those who run afoul of powerful Malkavians.
* [[Warrior Poet]]: Older members of the Brujah clan have tendencies toward this. Younger members tend to be less cerebral and more smashy.
* [[Weaksauce Weakness]]: As there are thirteen vampire clans, never mind multiple bloodlines, and each of them has a unique weakness, some examples of this trope are inevitable. Not having a reflection simply isn't in the same league as being an obviously hideous monster, incurably insane, or at the mercy of great beauty.
* [[Wham! Episode]]: The Week of Nightmares, depicted at the end of the Time of Thin Blood book. The Ravnos Antediluvian wakes up and goes on a rampage in Bangladesh, causing the entire Ravnos clan go insane for a week, trying to kill each other and anyone else around, spitting out dangerous illusions. The three most powerful Eastern vampires try to stop him, conjuring a hurricane to block out the Sun. The hurricane prevents the [[Mage: The Ascension (Tabletop Game)|Technocracy]] from using their orbital mirrors, so they launch a dual-plane (Skinland/Shadowland-affecting) nuclear weapon. It kills the Kuei-jin and hurts Ravnos. The hurricane dissipates and the Technocracy hits Ravnos with their mirrors of doom, which may not have worked if the Kuei-jin and the nuke hadn't hurt him first. In the wake an entire clan is near dead, the Antediluvians are clearly real and other consequences reverberate [[Werewolf: The Apocalypse (Tabletop Game)|across]] [[Mage: The Ascension (Tabletop Game)|all]] [[Changeling: The Dreaming|the]] [[Hunter: The Reckoning|other]] [[Demon: The Fallen (Tabletop Game)|games]].
* [[Your Soul Is Mine]]: How Diablerie generally works.
 
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