How Narrative Meets Role-playing in Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong

If vampires really existed, what would you do? Imagine these bloodthirsty predators living amongst us and carefully planning their strategies over many centuries. Imagine if they were you! That’s the world of Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong, a narrative RPG in which your choices determine the fate of our three main characters, and the entirety of Boston’s vampiric society.

SwansongEmem, Galeb and Leysha are three centuries-old vampires who investigate on the ashes a horrible attack that has brought down your secret agency, the Boston Camarilla. Is there anyone after you? What will be the cost of your loyalty to Prince Boston when it is compared against your own personal motives? And how long can you respect the Masquerade, the vampiric law that conceals your existence from mortals?

Each character can be played in the order and the style you choose, intimidation, and stealth are just some of the options on the table. Each character comes from a unique Vampire Clan and a distinct bloodline that unlocks certain vampiric abilities called Disciplines. Emem, for instance, has Celerity that gives Toreador Clan members superhuman speed and reflexes. Throughout your journey, you’ll earn experience that can be spent in the character sheet, developing those disciplines further.

Alternativly, you could invest in more generalized Skill and Attributes Technology or psychology, which makes it easy to communicate with people and navigate the current human technology. That’s not all, your play style and choices you’ve made will also influence your character sheet through the addition of permanent Traits. With the overview out of the way, let’s see how Emem can tackle one of the many situations in Swansong by using either her vampiric powers or her wits.

The Boston Camarilla is the main vampiric sect in Boston, but it’s far from the only one. You can find the game in one of the missions in the game, Emem is sent by the Prince to try and convince the leader of rival vampiric group to join forces. In Swansong, there are multiple ways of dealing with tricky situations like these. Depending on your play style, your character sheet and previous decisions the options available to you can be vastly different.

One way is to listen to local vampires and listen with your ears. You might discover that someone is willing to compromise his boss by doing this. You can choose between helping him bring down his boss or reporting his betrayal and possibly winning the trust of said boss, if they’ll believe you.

This time, we’re going to bring down the boss and it’s a classic frame up job. We’re tasked with gaining access to a secure room and placing some compromising documents in a safe that only the boss has access to. You might find it easiest to practice vampiric discipline. PrescenceOr the ability to do so. PersuasionTo fool the guard, you can enter the room. But it’s important to keep in mind that every character in Swansong also has their character sheet and if your stats aren’t high enough, then you’ll be left in an awkward position.

Alternativly, they can look behind locked doors to find a way and use it. CelerityYou can gain entry to hidden passages on the roof and through the sewers, which will allow you to sneak into the security area completely unnoticed. It’s an option that leaves less witnesses if you have the skills for it. 

These are just four of the options available to you, but whether you’re tampering with documents, convincing mortals and vampires alike with either your rhetoric or your vampiric charisma, finding secret passages or more, one question will remain. Do you want to be held accountable for your decisions? We’ll see when the game releases on May 19 on Xbox series X|S! 

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