Vampire: The Masquerade

Vampire: The Masquerade is a tabletop role-playing game (tabletop RPG), created by Mark Rein-Hagen and released in 1991 by White Wolf Publishing, as the first of several Storyteller System games for its World of Darkness setting line. It is set in a fictionalized "gothic-punk" version of the modern world, where players assume the role of vampires, referred to as Kindred or Cainites, who struggle against their own bestial natures, vampire hunters, and each other.

Several associated products were produced based on Vampire: The Masquerade, including live-action role-playing games (Mind's Eye Theatre), dice, collectible card games (The Eternal Struggle), video games (Redemption, Bloodlines, Swansong and Bloodlines 2, Bloodhunt), and numerous novels. In 1996, a short-lived television show loosely based on the game, Kindred: The Embraced, was produced by Aaron Spelling for the Fox Broadcasting Company.

Vampire was inspired by role-playing games (RPGs) such as Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest, and Nightlife, as well as the writings of Joseph Campbell and vampire films such as The Lost Boys. Rein-Hagen felt that hunting vampires would get boring as a game premise, so he came up with the idea of a game wherein the players played vampires instead of hunting them. Rein-Hagen said he purposefully did not read Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles until "very late" in the development process but admitted she was probably an influence on the vampire films that inspired the game. He wanted to go beyond what Anne Rice to create a whole secret vampire society and culture.

Some of Vampire's central themes of the power of belief developed out of Rein-Hagen's religious upbringing. Inspired by a comic book given to him by White Wolf business partner Stewart Wieck, Rein-Hagen developed the idea that the Biblical Cain was the original vampire. Rein-Hagen has said the idea of Cain (spelled Caine in the game) as the progenitor of all vampires was a "big turning point." After initially "trying to shy away from religion", this encouraged him to lean into the religious themes.

Vampire was conceived as a dark urban fantasy game, with a gothic feel similar to TSR's Ravenloft. It would also be the first of a series of linked games sharing the same game world. Shannon Appelcline suggests that its visual style was considered striking at the time – its simple cover featured a photo of a rose on green marble. The game also focused on plots, intrigue, and character as opposed to more straightforward dungeon scenarios. While the RPG industry in general had been trending towards a more narrative approach, Vampire is considered one of the first mainstream games to focus on these elements. The vampires, or Kindred, were also given an extensive list of broad supernatural powers called Disciplines, which included superior strength, speed, and toughness, as well as other powers such as mystic senses, mind control, and blood magic. This helped the game appeal to fans of the superhero genre, which was more marketable at the time than horror. The 13 clans, based on vampiric archetypes, were added late in the development process, after a suggestion by Chris McDonough that players needed greater structure, similar to the character classes of other games. This system proved very popular with players and led to the popularization of the splatbook.

For the game's mechanical elements, Rein-Hagen turned to Tom Dowd, co-designer of Shadowrun (1989). Vampire's system of "comparative" dice pools drew on the mechanics innovated by Shadowrun, changing only the type of dice rolled from six-sided to ten-sided. Players rolled a number of dice determined by their skills, similar to games like Champions, but rather than adding the results of the dice together, Vampire counted the number of dice which met or exceeded a target number or difficulty. Skill levels were relatively low, ranging usually from one to five, and were represented with dots rather than numbers, which was the standard of its contemporaries. Players could quickly calculate their dice pool and roll against the assigned difficulty rating. Appelcline suggests this system aided a style of play which emphasized story over mechanics, as it was easy for new players to quickly grasp, though it sometimes produced unexpected results, such as a highly skilled character being more likely to fumble.

The original 1991 version was superseded by a second edition in 1992 and the Revised Edition in 1998. The Vampire: The Masquerade game line was discontinued in 2004, at which point it was superseded by Vampire: The Requiem. In mid-2010, White Wolf switched exclusively to a print-on-demand model via online role playing game store DriveThruRPG, starting with a number of formerly out of print Vampire: The Masquerade books and gradually making more titles available as they were ready for print.

On March 17, 2011, White Wolf announced Vampire: The Masquerade, 20th Anniversary Edition, which was published during the Grand Masquerade event in New Orleans on September 15–17, 2011, and released to the attendees. Customers not attending The Grand Masquerade were offered a limited time preorder option. The 20th Anniversary Edition (or V20) contains revisions of rules and is a compendium of information previously provided in supplemental material in the game's earlier life. V20 officially revived Vampire: The Masquerade as part of White Wolf Publishing's shift to a print-on-demand business model, and multiple new Masquerade products were subsequently announced. After White Wolf ceased publishing books directly, the licences to its tabletop roleplaying games, including Vampire, were transferred to Onyx Path Publishing, founded by former White Wolf Art Director Rich Thomas. White Wolf's live-action Mind's Eye Theatre products were published by By Night Studios.