Despite the heresy, I actually like Requiem better. Cities feel more isolated than they did in Masquerade, which is a good thing. The background of the world is less defined, so there's less opportunity for Plot Lawyers to screw things up. The clan+covenant system allows for more diversity of characters. And the Camarilla, though a beloved concept, never made any damned sense* and I'm okay with it being gone. *L*
What's a Plot Lawyer?
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So, if this is a "bad thing", why have background fluff at all?
It basically boils down to breaking immersion to show off your knowledge of the fluff. In general, unless it's at right angles to the entire setting (like a time travel conspiracy in Exalted), it's usually better just to roll with it.
Needless to say, there's a huge excluded middle between "we shouldn't be totally chained by every minor detail of the fluff" and "we shouldn't have fluff at all".
Fluff is good, in that it gives you a world to play in. But the World of Darkness is supposed to be about mystery and horror, and ironically, old Wo D (especially old Vampire) had things so well defined that a GM either had to purposefully ignore all the fluff in order to surprise people (meaning that, yes, fluff is largely worthless) or end up ceding control to those players who had the time and excess cash to read all the books.
Here's the difference in more solid terms: in Masquerade, a primary antagonist was the Sabbat. The Sabbat had as much detail as the Camarilla, and if your players cared to read about them at all they could quickly understand how they are organized, what their goals and M.O.s are, and, in general, all the stuff the GM might have hoped to give out over the course of a campaign as you got more and more involved in the story.
In Requiem, a primary antagonist is VII. The VII book presents several options, all of which are mutually exclusive. If the player buys the book and reads it, they still won't know every chink in the armor of VII in the game, because it could be any of the options in the book - or something else entirely, since there is no "canonical" VII to be violated in the first place. Thus, when someone tries to mind-read a vampire and see that big ol' VII instead of any other information, you still have reason to get your brown trousers because they're still scary and unknowable.
All I know of Vampire: The Masquerade is pretty much from Bloodlines (damn fun game, I love it. Clan Malkavian for the win!) and a bit of reading. Don't really know anything about Requiem.
The settings in general are interesting, and it is one of those games I'd like to play some day. The tabletop RPG, that is.
This. I've actually played more Live-Action than tabletop when it comes to old Vampire and Werewolf...though its been a while since I checked into either.
I don't really know all that much about the new Vampire, but from what I've seen I didn't much care for it. Though I'll readily admit to some Nostalgia Filter clouding my vision.

Which tabletop in your opinion has the more interesting take on vampires (identity, characteristics/powers, culture, etc.) and the lore/history concerning them?
edited 16th Feb '12 4:13:09 AM by nervmeister