Tuesday, July 10, 2012

The Fall of the Vampires

You ever notice how modern pop culture influences the way we run and play our RPG campaigns?  Think about how different your Dungeons and Dragons campaign turned out the day after you saw Lord of the Rings for the first time.  Let me tell you, it was a good day for wizards and rangers who now had Ian McKellen and Viggo Mortensen to model their characters after.  And this is just one example.  Think of how Firefly altered your perception of space opera games, or how the recent string of superhero movies gave new life to your comic book superhero games.  I made my own version of Spiderman in a Mutants and Mastermind game shortly after the second movie came out that was both unoriginal and completely awesome fun to play -- I have no regrets.  The more well done the movie, video game, book or comic franchise, the more influences we've had to create bigger worlds, better characters, and eager players.  Movies and TV shows in particular seem to have the strongest influences over me and my band of players.

"I saw this show and had a great idea for our characters... wait, you haven't heard my idea yet."

But it hasn't all been joy rides and Michael Bay explosions.  There's one genre in particular that's taken a sour turn for the toilet bowl -- and I'm talking of course of the once very popular series "Vampire: The Masquerade".  Okay, maybe I'm being harsh and it's still doing super with its loyal if creepy fan base.  Hard to say.  I just know that ever since Twilight came out and showed us a sparkly and somewhat emo/goth homoerotic version of what we once dubbed lethal blood-sucking killing machines, my group of friends has been hesitant to play anymore.  They don't even want to hunt them, much less be them.  They'd rather vampires simply didn't show up at all.

"Vampires show up?  Well, for my first action I'd like to..."

I'll admit it's a bit of a bummer.  Vampires made great bad guys.  In RIFTS they're crazy-hard to kill, will regenerate damage at a cartoonishly unstoppable rate, have an equally cartoonish-style weakness, and can wipe out a party of adventures in a few short rounds.  In D&D they're a challenging undead creature for the party to face off against because they can think, plan, and ambush your party (though they are far from the strongest undead creature you can unleash on them).  Let's face it, they rank right up there with Stormtroopers, Nazis, and robots.  And as far as playing one in the Vampire RPG, well I've had several great characters in a number of campaigns throughout the years.  It can be fun being the antihero for a little while and exploring the darker side of human nature.  Although I have noticed Vampire campaigns are usually short.  I think it's because we're not a group of black-candle-lightin', patchouli-oil-and-eyeliner-wearin', black clothes long haired over one eye purple lovin' emo goths... and would rather be the heroes of an adventure.

 "What did you do to us?!"

But then, Twilight happened.  Now my players and fellow Gamemasters won't go anywhere near the subject, and I can't say I blame them.  So I guess until they decide to reboot BLADE or make some other form of bad-ass vampire movie that a group of guys can all admit to having seen in a theater together, the vamps will be sitting on the shelf collecting dust.  Or maybe that won't be enough.  Maybe all we'll ever see is Twilight-Sparkles-Pony every time we think Vampire.  In which case, my apologies to the hard working folks at White Wolf, but we're going to have to pass. 

So how about you?  Was there a particular genre or campaign you once played that you won't go back to now because some piece of pop culture ruined it for you?

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