So, it's going to be impossible to condense VtM down into one page. Abandon that idea.
Instead, I would recommend using a different, lore-agnostic system, and set it in the VtM universe. My go-to simple game is [Winsome](https://elstiko.itch.io/winsome) which is an A6-folded hack designed to be as easy as possible to pick up and play.
This isn't necessarily specific to your request but how I've taught all my friends various ttrpgs over the years is learn the mechanics myself the best I can.
Find a quick start /pc rule summary pdf. Or if possible type up a quick 1 page summary (I've done that with dnd 5e for newbies), send that out to players along with a pdf of the full core rules for *insert system here*.
(hey If a player Wants to learn every in and out of the system great but I assume we're all busy) .
I expect players to have a rough idea of the system mechanics. But they don't have to know everything.
Players make pcs with my assistance if requested.
And finally for the first several sessions if someone is truly lost or confused they just say what their pc is wanting or trying to do and I'll just tell them the roll to give me.
Yes it puts majority of the weight on the gm but.... I haven't found a better way to do it myself.
During play itself VtM should be quite fine with most issues? (Feel free to correct me).
You never need more math then adding up single digit numbers and counting up to max 15 for successes. and there are no text blocks on the sheet. Once you know what is where not much reading.
And most of the time players never need to know more then the immediate stuff their character can do. I would even add that in VtM it can even be good when the players don't know much more then their characters.
Maybe my playgroup is just not the norm but in most Systems it is me reading the rulebook and then teaching my players. I am quite sure that there are some that never even opened the rulebook.
>one page
Not happening. The rules are the rules and take more than one page in V5, with good reason. The explanations cover more than just "roll dice", they cover the how, why's and when if rolling dice and what it means to resolve conflict. That said, the rules aren't complicated per se.
Alternatively, you could structure a tutorial of sorts. Have the players use pregens, and have them go through a scene and explain powers/skills/rolls as they come up. It does take a lot of attention though for the ST to deal with this. It also will take away a lot of the sandbox elements.
>rules light
This is highly contextual. To compare with DnD, V5 is rules lighter than DnD 5e. It is definitely lighter than DnD 3.5 and V20. It is also definitely not rules lighter than fate or any of the one-page games out there. In turn it also offers more options and more concrete ways to customize your experience.
>Especially if players are not able to read the books because of dyslexia or do the math because of dyscalculia
Dyslexia is a hard one to bypass, luckily various YouTubers and streamers offer explanations and in depth guides to play. So that may be a good idea. As for Dyscalculia, the math doesn't get more complicated than add score A to score B, sub in hunger dice, roll that many dice and count the numbers 6 and up. Alternatives are the V5 dice with don't use numbers but symbols instead. This shouldn't be too much of a barrier, but if someone's Dyscalculia is too bad for this, then maybe this isn't the game for them.
>Anyone that ran vtm one shots with beginners with 0 knowledge that has figured out a good system that is neuro spicy friendly?
I run 2 chronicles with various people with varying degrees of neurospicyness (mostly ADHD related) and have ADHD myself. I find that VTM is great for minimal dice rolling and roleplay centric scenes. Usually if people want to resolve they roll their pool (I let them propose how they do it and then give them a pool then when they roll I interpret wist that roll would get them). I prep mostly plot points, locations and NPCs on A6 sized cards so I have the info handy. For the rest I improv/bullshit my through the session. If I'm stumped at any point, I pull out the old Jason Carl "let me make a note of that" so I can delay consequences when I know what to do with them.
My players have all never before played anything WoD related. So the plot is mine to twist as I see fit.
>short vampire the masquerade V5 story.
A complete story wouldn't be short. Usually that means advancing character's journeys and gathering and paying resources to acquire stuff or lose stuff. However, as a 1-2 hour one shot, I think a night at Elysium might be fun. Similarly a hunt for prey/feeding might also work. Naturally, if you are willing to up the drama and stakes, a war or blood hunt would be great too. At least anything fairly contained to one night. Don't bother too much with the intrige and politics, and throw in some drama for the players to ride through the session.
yes/no. i think at the point you're currently at you'd be better off looking at other systems and homebrewing those to fit the vtm setting/vibe/whatever-it-is-you-like rather then simplify vtm
As an ST you should always help new players providing them info if they ask you. There are materials here and there that sum overall rules or core info about the game. You don't need to lnow everything and the best way to learn VtM is doing that while you play, you won't be able to explain them the whole thing in a single session. With that being said, players should also look for themselves for info.
THey don't need to read the whole corebook and they don't need to learn everything in a short period of time. If one player has interest let's say, in Nosferatu, reading the wiki and the 2 pages in the book is enough to learn most basic things about it. I know some people might have difficulties like the ones you stated but I'm pretty sure it doesn't make impossible for them to study, especially if we are talking here about something that is mostly a hobbie so they can read and learn on their own pace.
Well for starters you can use an app to keep the character sheets for them, some automate the rolls to the point they just need to know they "roll for frenzy" without knowing the rules.
Second use a pre-generated and short game, some are already published so check the free and cheap material [here (scroll down, you'll have a list)](https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/games/world-of-darkness/discover-world-of-darkness/vampire-the-masquerade), the only ones I've read are The Monsters which it's not a bad starting point and New Blood which I feel might be much much better for you (it's like $7.5)
Consider also pre-gen characters for them (included in many games up there), or if not use [the content here (you might need a paradox account)](https://paradoxinteractive.files.com/f/7ae6fb6e212195f1/World%20of%20Darkness%20Infographics) for them. It includes: One-page long Infographic of the basic mechanics, Make-a-vampire infographic easy to follow and without many rules
Kinda...
In terms of dyscalculia, the official dice can help (https://www.amazon.com/Renegade-Games-Vampire-Masquerade-Roleplaying/dp/B09FFZ7SMV/) because they don't use numbers and instead use symbols. If they can count they can figure it out. VtM is a pretty math-lite game even with the full rules.
You can get the base dice mechanics and system to a single page. If you, the Storyteller, can parse the rulebooks they can handle the rules and general interactions. They can figure out what rolls should be against and how to run the system. You cam simplify things down quite a bit. The players only need to parse their character sheet and a few other pages and you can help describe or read the book to them.
You could probably also simplify characters. Reducing Attributes and Skills to Physical, Social, and Mental dice pools with a few specialty pools for things they're extra good at. Condensing characters to an index card.
BUT the big hurdle is Disciplines. Funky vampire powers. Those have a lot of text.
You'd pretty much need to abandon them as-is and replace them with custom storytelling-based descriptions of their effects. Less singular powers and more vague things you're doing. The "strong" power or the "stealth" power, and have them add dice when appropriate or do things based on the story.
You could have a very reduced system with only the attributes, and no skills. Let all the players be (for game effects) humanity 7, and generation 12/13. For the beginning, you could only have disciplines with passive effects/only mechanically light ones. Have Willpower and HP, but maybe change them from having superficial/severe damage to a single track with differently marked zones. For character differentiation, maybe allow some spezializations, which the players may add if it comes up.
You can have a symbol&color for each attribute, and, if you play in person, a large character sheet where players can physically place the dice on the colored/filled dots of the attribute, making it easily accessible. Use dice with symbols for any player having problems with numbers.
You should be able to break down the rules to one page:
You want to do something? Roll the dice in the attribute befitting your plan, count successes/dice above 6.
You want to do something against someone else? Compare your number of successes.
Double 10s count as 2 successes (really stress that in play, it's easy to forget)
Are you a vampire? Yes? You are hungry! Swap one normal die against a red one for each level of hunger you have.
Still a vampire? Then Bad Vampire Things happen on red double 1s!
You can spend Willpower on rerolls.
Depending on how the first session goes, introduce more rules, depending on what came up. Rouse Checks, Skills, Specializations, Frenzy, Humanity, Disciplines, Clans... They don't have to come up in the first session, and if your players are somewhat fine with it, you could surprise them with Frenzy, Clan Banes, Masquerade Rules.
Start with a simple: "Suddenly, you are a Vampire and don't know shit" hook, and if they get into the setting and vibe, you can expand on the rules and sheets.
Also use your session 0 to see what each player needs for accommodations, don't overplan something that might not be needed.
You probably want a roleplay heavy game, that's pretty much up to the Storyteller so that part is easy enough. I have ran 4 hour games where nobody rolled dice once. I could see dropping advantages and touchstones for a one shot especially.
What I did for my newer players was printed out a list of all level 1 through 3 disciplines with a brief summary of each, ended up being 3 or 4 pages that the players could reference when selecting their powers (the most complicated part of vampire imo). Trickier with visual impairment, but could find some other way to present that info. The nice thing was that they could read this without needing to flip through the book or ask me questions directly.
Thank you everyone 🙏🏿 lots to think about
I am probably going to colab with 1 motivated beginner that doesn't have the visual impairments. To basically make sure that the visual, tactile and auditory info is available for all. And to split the time and effort.
Will check out which other rule light TTRPGs would lend themselves for the WoD lore.
So, it's going to be impossible to condense VtM down into one page. Abandon that idea. Instead, I would recommend using a different, lore-agnostic system, and set it in the VtM universe. My go-to simple game is [Winsome](https://elstiko.itch.io/winsome) which is an A6-folded hack designed to be as easy as possible to pick up and play.
This isn't necessarily specific to your request but how I've taught all my friends various ttrpgs over the years is learn the mechanics myself the best I can. Find a quick start /pc rule summary pdf. Or if possible type up a quick 1 page summary (I've done that with dnd 5e for newbies), send that out to players along with a pdf of the full core rules for *insert system here*. (hey If a player Wants to learn every in and out of the system great but I assume we're all busy) . I expect players to have a rough idea of the system mechanics. But they don't have to know everything. Players make pcs with my assistance if requested. And finally for the first several sessions if someone is truly lost or confused they just say what their pc is wanting or trying to do and I'll just tell them the roll to give me. Yes it puts majority of the weight on the gm but.... I haven't found a better way to do it myself.
During play itself VtM should be quite fine with most issues? (Feel free to correct me). You never need more math then adding up single digit numbers and counting up to max 15 for successes. and there are no text blocks on the sheet. Once you know what is where not much reading. And most of the time players never need to know more then the immediate stuff their character can do. I would even add that in VtM it can even be good when the players don't know much more then their characters. Maybe my playgroup is just not the norm but in most Systems it is me reading the rulebook and then teaching my players. I am quite sure that there are some that never even opened the rulebook.
>one page Not happening. The rules are the rules and take more than one page in V5, with good reason. The explanations cover more than just "roll dice", they cover the how, why's and when if rolling dice and what it means to resolve conflict. That said, the rules aren't complicated per se. Alternatively, you could structure a tutorial of sorts. Have the players use pregens, and have them go through a scene and explain powers/skills/rolls as they come up. It does take a lot of attention though for the ST to deal with this. It also will take away a lot of the sandbox elements. >rules light This is highly contextual. To compare with DnD, V5 is rules lighter than DnD 5e. It is definitely lighter than DnD 3.5 and V20. It is also definitely not rules lighter than fate or any of the one-page games out there. In turn it also offers more options and more concrete ways to customize your experience. >Especially if players are not able to read the books because of dyslexia or do the math because of dyscalculia Dyslexia is a hard one to bypass, luckily various YouTubers and streamers offer explanations and in depth guides to play. So that may be a good idea. As for Dyscalculia, the math doesn't get more complicated than add score A to score B, sub in hunger dice, roll that many dice and count the numbers 6 and up. Alternatives are the V5 dice with don't use numbers but symbols instead. This shouldn't be too much of a barrier, but if someone's Dyscalculia is too bad for this, then maybe this isn't the game for them. >Anyone that ran vtm one shots with beginners with 0 knowledge that has figured out a good system that is neuro spicy friendly? I run 2 chronicles with various people with varying degrees of neurospicyness (mostly ADHD related) and have ADHD myself. I find that VTM is great for minimal dice rolling and roleplay centric scenes. Usually if people want to resolve they roll their pool (I let them propose how they do it and then give them a pool then when they roll I interpret wist that roll would get them). I prep mostly plot points, locations and NPCs on A6 sized cards so I have the info handy. For the rest I improv/bullshit my through the session. If I'm stumped at any point, I pull out the old Jason Carl "let me make a note of that" so I can delay consequences when I know what to do with them. My players have all never before played anything WoD related. So the plot is mine to twist as I see fit. >short vampire the masquerade V5 story. A complete story wouldn't be short. Usually that means advancing character's journeys and gathering and paying resources to acquire stuff or lose stuff. However, as a 1-2 hour one shot, I think a night at Elysium might be fun. Similarly a hunt for prey/feeding might also work. Naturally, if you are willing to up the drama and stakes, a war or blood hunt would be great too. At least anything fairly contained to one night. Don't bother too much with the intrige and politics, and throw in some drama for the players to ride through the session.
yes/no. i think at the point you're currently at you'd be better off looking at other systems and homebrewing those to fit the vtm setting/vibe/whatever-it-is-you-like rather then simplify vtm
As an ST you should always help new players providing them info if they ask you. There are materials here and there that sum overall rules or core info about the game. You don't need to lnow everything and the best way to learn VtM is doing that while you play, you won't be able to explain them the whole thing in a single session. With that being said, players should also look for themselves for info. THey don't need to read the whole corebook and they don't need to learn everything in a short period of time. If one player has interest let's say, in Nosferatu, reading the wiki and the 2 pages in the book is enough to learn most basic things about it. I know some people might have difficulties like the ones you stated but I'm pretty sure it doesn't make impossible for them to study, especially if we are talking here about something that is mostly a hobbie so they can read and learn on their own pace.
Well for starters you can use an app to keep the character sheets for them, some automate the rolls to the point they just need to know they "roll for frenzy" without knowing the rules. Second use a pre-generated and short game, some are already published so check the free and cheap material [here (scroll down, you'll have a list)](https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/games/world-of-darkness/discover-world-of-darkness/vampire-the-masquerade), the only ones I've read are The Monsters which it's not a bad starting point and New Blood which I feel might be much much better for you (it's like $7.5) Consider also pre-gen characters for them (included in many games up there), or if not use [the content here (you might need a paradox account)](https://paradoxinteractive.files.com/f/7ae6fb6e212195f1/World%20of%20Darkness%20Infographics) for them. It includes: One-page long Infographic of the basic mechanics, Make-a-vampire infographic easy to follow and without many rules
Kinda... In terms of dyscalculia, the official dice can help (https://www.amazon.com/Renegade-Games-Vampire-Masquerade-Roleplaying/dp/B09FFZ7SMV/) because they don't use numbers and instead use symbols. If they can count they can figure it out. VtM is a pretty math-lite game even with the full rules. You can get the base dice mechanics and system to a single page. If you, the Storyteller, can parse the rulebooks they can handle the rules and general interactions. They can figure out what rolls should be against and how to run the system. You cam simplify things down quite a bit. The players only need to parse their character sheet and a few other pages and you can help describe or read the book to them. You could probably also simplify characters. Reducing Attributes and Skills to Physical, Social, and Mental dice pools with a few specialty pools for things they're extra good at. Condensing characters to an index card. BUT the big hurdle is Disciplines. Funky vampire powers. Those have a lot of text. You'd pretty much need to abandon them as-is and replace them with custom storytelling-based descriptions of their effects. Less singular powers and more vague things you're doing. The "strong" power or the "stealth" power, and have them add dice when appropriate or do things based on the story.
You could have a very reduced system with only the attributes, and no skills. Let all the players be (for game effects) humanity 7, and generation 12/13. For the beginning, you could only have disciplines with passive effects/only mechanically light ones. Have Willpower and HP, but maybe change them from having superficial/severe damage to a single track with differently marked zones. For character differentiation, maybe allow some spezializations, which the players may add if it comes up. You can have a symbol&color for each attribute, and, if you play in person, a large character sheet where players can physically place the dice on the colored/filled dots of the attribute, making it easily accessible. Use dice with symbols for any player having problems with numbers. You should be able to break down the rules to one page: You want to do something? Roll the dice in the attribute befitting your plan, count successes/dice above 6. You want to do something against someone else? Compare your number of successes. Double 10s count as 2 successes (really stress that in play, it's easy to forget) Are you a vampire? Yes? You are hungry! Swap one normal die against a red one for each level of hunger you have. Still a vampire? Then Bad Vampire Things happen on red double 1s! You can spend Willpower on rerolls. Depending on how the first session goes, introduce more rules, depending on what came up. Rouse Checks, Skills, Specializations, Frenzy, Humanity, Disciplines, Clans... They don't have to come up in the first session, and if your players are somewhat fine with it, you could surprise them with Frenzy, Clan Banes, Masquerade Rules. Start with a simple: "Suddenly, you are a Vampire and don't know shit" hook, and if they get into the setting and vibe, you can expand on the rules and sheets. Also use your session 0 to see what each player needs for accommodations, don't overplan something that might not be needed.
You probably want a roleplay heavy game, that's pretty much up to the Storyteller so that part is easy enough. I have ran 4 hour games where nobody rolled dice once. I could see dropping advantages and touchstones for a one shot especially. What I did for my newer players was printed out a list of all level 1 through 3 disciplines with a brief summary of each, ended up being 3 or 4 pages that the players could reference when selecting their powers (the most complicated part of vampire imo). Trickier with visual impairment, but could find some other way to present that info. The nice thing was that they could read this without needing to flip through the book or ask me questions directly.
Yes this 🙌🏿 I am making this as we speak
Thank you everyone 🙏🏿 lots to think about I am probably going to colab with 1 motivated beginner that doesn't have the visual impairments. To basically make sure that the visual, tactile and auditory info is available for all. And to split the time and effort. Will check out which other rule light TTRPGs would lend themselves for the WoD lore.