Bloodlines 2 Dev Diary #3: Tabletop to Desktop - Vampire: The Masquerade V5 and Bloodlines 2
Bloodlines 2 Dev Diary #3: Tabletop to Desktop - Vampire: The Masquerade V5 and Bloodlines 2
Development Info - posted by Infinitron on Mon 12 August 2019, 23:30:56
Tags: Hardsuit Labs; Paradox Interactive; Rachel Leiker; Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2Paradox and Hardsuit have published another Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 dev diary over at the game's official forum, rather sooner than anticipated. This time the author is lead UI/UX designer Rachel Leiker, who describes how Hardsuit adapted certain aspects of the latest edition of the Vampire: The Masquerade tabletop ruleset. It's sort of a recap of some things she mentioned in an interview session with IGN last week, I think. Here's an excerpt:
Rachel Leiker from Hardsuit Labs here to bring you some tasty treats about the development of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2! Today I’d like to speak to something we get asked quite frequently – How do you translate a tabletop RPG into a first-person video game? Well, it takes a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. Mostly blood. Actually, it’s pretty much all blood.
When we first began work on Bloodlines 2, Vampire: the Masquerade Edition 5th (V5), the latest tabletop version of the game, was also in development. We were able to work closely with the V5 team to co-develop a lot of the systems you see in both games. The process was very interesting from a developer perspective because we wanted to maintain the tone and freeform nature of the TTRPG (tabletop RPG), but there were many challenges to get it to work on a digital platform.
The first Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines was a very true and accurate representation of the pen and paper version at that time. Many of the systems and designs were direct translations pulled from the core rulebook. For Bloodlines 2 we were less interested in a one-to-one implementation of systems in the tabletop version and more interested in what lies at the core of those mechanics – Being a Vampire.
Ka’ai outlined it perfectly in his previous post about the design pillars - there should always be a sense of supernatural power. How this is expressed mechanically is up for interpretation. We worked on really getting down to the nitty gritty of what that means and then set out to build it in a digital format.
One of the first things we worked on with the V5 team was Resonance, created to emphasize the “you are what you eat” part of feeding. Blood is great as a resource, but Resonance incentivizes feeding as more than just Hunger management and makes it more strategic.
Certain types of Resonance give certain benefits and buffs in both games and is a huge part of the hunting and feeding cycle. But finding and feeding on specific Resonances in V5 is a fundamentally different experience than in Bloodlines 2, and for very good reasons.
In the tabletop game, Resonance type can be determined by a skill check against a character Advantage or by physically tasting the blood. There are 4 types of Resonance (for humans...) and 3 levels of strength depending on the victim’s emotional state (Temperament). An amount of Resonance may be gained via feeding, in the cases where there is an extreme amount of Resonance, a Dyscrasia, or clot, is formed. This Dyscrasia acts as an immediate buff to the Vampire and is determined by the storyteller to serve specific needs (I’m simplifying a lot here, if you’d like more information, check out p.227 in the V5 corebook). There is a lot of flexibility and on-the-fly numbers rolling for the tabletop version, which works well for that format, but can be cumbersome when applied to a video game.
In Bloodlines 2, our Resonance system is expanded to 5 types and several different levels of strength. Delirium, Desire, Fear, Pain, and Rage are all emotions that can be discovered and devoured in the game and act as a secondary XP to unlock and activate Resonance-specific buffs, or Merits. The Resonance and Merits in Bloodlines 2 are more rigid in their implementation, but they allow players to quickly hunt for and manage the resource throughout the game.
Another example of applying tabletop systems in a video game world are the Thinblood disciplines developed for Bloodlines 2. We chose the playable Clans in the game because they most closely resembled typical player archetypes – Brujah = Fighter, Tremere = Warlock, Malkavian = Paladin (just kidding, Bard) - they are familiar enough that most players will immediately identify with one Clan based on their playstyle even if they are not familiar with Vampire: The Masquerade. Thinbloods were something of a challenge because at the beginning of the game players don’t choose to become a Thinblood, it is foisted upon them and discovering why is the crux of the story. We had to somehow give players some say in their situation in the form of Thinblood Disciplines.
The three Thinblood Disciplines – Chiropteran (Affinity to Bats), Nebulation (Mist Form), and Mentalism (Telekinesis) have mostly traversal and defensive applications. Thinblood Alchemy in V5 is much the same way – Thinbloods are at the very very bottom of the food chain, so survival is the number one priority. We maintain the core feeling of what it means to be a Thinblood and use those powers but make it more video game friendly by expressing it in familiar ways. Who doesn’t want to glide across the Seattle skyline, travel as mist with the wind, and move objects without touching them?
Next stop for Bloodlines 2 is Gamescom and PAX West, I guess.When we first began work on Bloodlines 2, Vampire: the Masquerade Edition 5th (V5), the latest tabletop version of the game, was also in development. We were able to work closely with the V5 team to co-develop a lot of the systems you see in both games. The process was very interesting from a developer perspective because we wanted to maintain the tone and freeform nature of the TTRPG (tabletop RPG), but there were many challenges to get it to work on a digital platform.
The first Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines was a very true and accurate representation of the pen and paper version at that time. Many of the systems and designs were direct translations pulled from the core rulebook. For Bloodlines 2 we were less interested in a one-to-one implementation of systems in the tabletop version and more interested in what lies at the core of those mechanics – Being a Vampire.
Ka’ai outlined it perfectly in his previous post about the design pillars - there should always be a sense of supernatural power. How this is expressed mechanically is up for interpretation. We worked on really getting down to the nitty gritty of what that means and then set out to build it in a digital format.
One of the first things we worked on with the V5 team was Resonance, created to emphasize the “you are what you eat” part of feeding. Blood is great as a resource, but Resonance incentivizes feeding as more than just Hunger management and makes it more strategic.
Certain types of Resonance give certain benefits and buffs in both games and is a huge part of the hunting and feeding cycle. But finding and feeding on specific Resonances in V5 is a fundamentally different experience than in Bloodlines 2, and for very good reasons.
In the tabletop game, Resonance type can be determined by a skill check against a character Advantage or by physically tasting the blood. There are 4 types of Resonance (for humans...) and 3 levels of strength depending on the victim’s emotional state (Temperament). An amount of Resonance may be gained via feeding, in the cases where there is an extreme amount of Resonance, a Dyscrasia, or clot, is formed. This Dyscrasia acts as an immediate buff to the Vampire and is determined by the storyteller to serve specific needs (I’m simplifying a lot here, if you’d like more information, check out p.227 in the V5 corebook). There is a lot of flexibility and on-the-fly numbers rolling for the tabletop version, which works well for that format, but can be cumbersome when applied to a video game.
In Bloodlines 2, our Resonance system is expanded to 5 types and several different levels of strength. Delirium, Desire, Fear, Pain, and Rage are all emotions that can be discovered and devoured in the game and act as a secondary XP to unlock and activate Resonance-specific buffs, or Merits. The Resonance and Merits in Bloodlines 2 are more rigid in their implementation, but they allow players to quickly hunt for and manage the resource throughout the game.
Another example of applying tabletop systems in a video game world are the Thinblood disciplines developed for Bloodlines 2. We chose the playable Clans in the game because they most closely resembled typical player archetypes – Brujah = Fighter, Tremere = Warlock, Malkavian = Paladin (just kidding, Bard) - they are familiar enough that most players will immediately identify with one Clan based on their playstyle even if they are not familiar with Vampire: The Masquerade. Thinbloods were something of a challenge because at the beginning of the game players don’t choose to become a Thinblood, it is foisted upon them and discovering why is the crux of the story. We had to somehow give players some say in their situation in the form of Thinblood Disciplines.
The three Thinblood Disciplines – Chiropteran (Affinity to Bats), Nebulation (Mist Form), and Mentalism (Telekinesis) have mostly traversal and defensive applications. Thinblood Alchemy in V5 is much the same way – Thinbloods are at the very very bottom of the food chain, so survival is the number one priority. We maintain the core feeling of what it means to be a Thinblood and use those powers but make it more video game friendly by expressing it in familiar ways. Who doesn’t want to glide across the Seattle skyline, travel as mist with the wind, and move objects without touching them?
