GamerMage said:
Mind telling me a little more? I've heard of this series before, via Spoony's "Counter Monkey" shows. It sounds...interesting.
Sure, though I'm not sure what more to say.
The essential theme of the "Werewolf: the Apocalypse" gameline is that the end of the world is coming. The werewolves who were supposed to stop it didn't. Now it's too late, you and the other werewolves in your pack can't stop it, you can only hope to slow it down a little bit.
Said end is coming via pollution and corruption, so werewolves are cast as protectors of nature. (It's very Native American themed.) Thus they are violently opposed to vampires, who they are MUCH stronger than, as vampires are unnatural and corrupt. Werewolves spend more of their time fighting other forces of corruption, like the wicked Black Spiral Dancers tribe of werewolves, though.
For "Vampire: The Masquerade" you are a vampire, an heir to the curse of Cain, the first killer. Caught up in the machinations of generations of scheming elders who use younger kindred as pawns in their own struggles. On top of that, rumors are increasing that gehenna, the vampire's own apocalypse, is swiftly approaching. So things are heating up as the scramble for survival begins.
The best way to get introduced to VtM and the classic World of Darkness is probably the PC RPG "Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines". It's a pain to get working [footnote] You have to use "The Unofficial Patch" or the "True Patch Gold", either way I recommend playing the vanilla fan-patched version of the game without any modifications first. Also don't play a Malkavian until at least your second playthrough, their dialog is completely different and often very funny. So most valuable in being fresh on a re-play. Also don't play a Nosferatu on the first playthrough. [/footnote] but it's so worth it. One of the best games I've ever played, bar none.
It's just kind of unfinished because Troika was pushed to release it that way by Activision and White Wolf, and closed before they could patch it any more. Thankfully fans have fixed all or almost all of the bugs over the years. Do be sure to turn "stereo sound" OFF in the options if the dialog and sound sounds like it's coming out of a tin can when you start though. I've seen so many let's plays with horrible audio because the person didn't turn stereo off. Oddly you still get stereo you just don't get the horrible echo effect.
In 2004 the world did end for these game lines, each publishing a book on the end of the world for the setting. And The "New" World of Darkness was launched shortly after. This new world of darkness is very different. The rule set for the nWOD is much better and more flexable than for the cWOD, to the point that you could pretty easily play a cWOD game with the nWOD rules if you want to. In recent years Vampire the Masquerade and Werewolf the Apocalypse have been ressurected as well, in 20th Anniversary editions on drivethrurpg where you can get them on PDF or print-on-demand. Along with many of White Wolf's other games.