Tired of the Vampire Role Playing Game? - Try NightLife, a Horror Classic

Vampire, the Masquerade was a great role playing game, but sometimes it just seemed too serious. If you're looking to play a role playing game as a monster, and you don't feel like playing through a dissertation on Jungian philosophy, then the Night Life role playing game is for you.

Night Life RPG was published in the 90's by Stellar Games. Although it is out of print today, you might be able to find a copy on the Internet or in a used bookstore. I remember seeing a website that will sell it to you in PDF format.

Night Life had a real "beer and pretzels" feel to it. You could play as a vampire, werewolf, ghost or anything in-between. The last edition printed had about 30 playable races in the one book, so you didn't have to shell out a ton of cash to get the whole Night Life experience. If you don't have any of the books yet, try to get your hands on the last edition. This thick tome contains the most information.

Vampire: The Masquerade had a mood that described itself as "gothic-punk." This was meant to be a dark and foreboding atmosphere that was still cool and fashionable. Night Life's atmosphere was "splatter-punk". Splatter-punk style has lots of blood flying around, as well as game systems for determining exactly how big a hole you just put into a demon's chest with your gun. Although this sounds complicated, the game devotes less than a page to this, so it's more about style than rules.

The great thing about Night Life was that it maintained a tone that made it easy to play and create games for. You could throw together a gang of supernaturals and have the players fight them in a dark alley, and you didn't feel guilty if you didn't write up all the particulars. Whereas the Vampire RPG tended to hammer you into stereotypes, Nightlife had more of a "devil may care" attitude. In the Vampire RPG, for example, vampires and werewolves almost never hung out together. Also, vampires were categorized into clans, each with their own powers and viewpoints. In contrast, Night Life characters were more free-form, if you're a vampire, you have a big list of powers to choose from, so you could custom create the kind of creature you want to play.