I never say that. I say they are significantly better that WoD. You are applying the "slippery slope" fallacy.
If you run burning wheel it is possible to find it lacking. It lacks lots of things. And if we are looking at it with a dramatic, social, political. action yard stick you still might find it lacking. But if you find BW lacking, get a microscope to find WoD.
Proving a better game, not good enough does not magically make WoD better. A person who honestly tries BW may not find it to their liking I never said otherwise.
Good point, and to be honest before I read Shoggothts original post, I had more or less discounted the WoD series completely as something I wanted to play. However, reading the discussion that followed I realised that I may have been wrong.
Last year I played in a Burning Wheel Campaign at a local games club. Good times were had by all. The system was a hurdle to overcome for some of the players who felt that the level of buy-in to master the rules was a bit too high. Other players(myself included) loved the way that drama was funneled through the system. The first combat was an eyeopener for me, it was exciting, crunchy and required tactical decision making while not being minis-based. Compared to my experiences with other games, it was great. However, other players found it slightly tedious. While the use of Beliefs and Instincts did give us a solid handle of the characters(in the sense that the characters were truer to our initial conception of them in terms of personality and behaviour) they sometimes felt a bit like our pet literary creations rather than alter egos.
The Duel of Wits system is where the group struggled the most. While most certainly one of the best approaches to the whole character/player dichotomy in social interactions, the majority of the group felt that this constrained and broke up their flow in what has been referred to as 'the bad acting' that is interspersing the tactical combat in other threads on these boards. These players felt that the system disconnected them from the events in the game-world, and from the actions of their character.
Now, in the very same game-club, two games were running using oWoD games(Mage and Vampire). Now these people had fun and enjoyed themselves greatly. Some of them had even played Burning Wheel before, but still chose to play Vampire. Now, the question is what does vampire do so well, that these players would choose to play it?
My impression is as stated earlier, the accessible, ad-hoc stat-skill task resolution combined with an evocative setting and a holistic character creation system in which the whole character is created at once and the background of the character is fully reflected in their stats(ideally).
This is in contrast to games like Burning Wheel or GDW games(Twilight, Traveller), and to a lesser extent FATE games where the character is created by following a guided chronological exploration of the game. It also differs from D20 games where the tactical role of the character defines it, and games such as GURPS, BESM or HERO which are complicated,
A more interesting question, to me, would not be "Does Vampire do a good job of X?" but rather, "How could X be done better?"
Now this is probably what we are all interested in, and my polemicism caused me to ignore it. What I want from Vampire is a sense of immediacy, which means I want the game to be simple enough to play, through a quick flexible system. I want to identify with my character, and I want to experience the conflict of Humanity vs the Beast.
If possible I also want to mope around in New Orleans and spout puerile poetry about my lost innocence, but that is a bonus.
I
want an implicit social contract that allows for quite a lot of GM fiat(which is a problem for some, I know). The world should be big scary and unpredictable, as if some capricious god hates me. I don't want to worry about inserting things or controlling outside events that are not controlled through my character. I want the GM to do this. I want the system to allow the GM to make decisions on the fly that through easily communicable game-mechanics.
Now, how do we go about this? My approach takes the oWoD Vampire system at its base and suggests ways of tinkering with the system.
I have very few problems with the task-resolution as a whole. I also feel that the list of skills and stats ground the character into the world quite well, so I am not touching them. My primary concerns are how humanity is handled as how the characters background and personality is done.
To start with the last bit, I think a more formal prelude would be in order. I would not like it to determine the stats and skills of the character(You grew up in an inner-city ghetto: Get one dot in firearms etc.), but I would like the choices to have some tangible impact on the gameplay, as constant reminders of the characters previous (human) life.
I think something along the stages Diaspora(FATE3 Scifi) outlines might be good especially as they are based on events that were defining for the character rather than along an arbitrary chronological history. The more difficult question is how to mechanically integrate them. One way could be to sideline most of the Willpower statistic and introduce a series of passions(a la pendragon) related to each stage. In situations that relate to the particular passion, the character could tap the passion to gain the same effect as if they had spent a willpower point. This could then be combined with a revamped humanity system in which humanity loss could be resolved by the loss of these passions (actually come to think of it, this works a bit like Wraith's Fetters...all my long-lost WoD knowledge is flooding back.), possibly replacing them with vampiric ones(thus making eeevil behaviour easier and more human grounded behaviour more difficult), this would have a subtle yet hopefully important impact on the way the descent is modelled.
Hopefully this approach would retain the flexible and immediate feel of vampire, while introducing a more credible loss of humanity. One potential problem with this approach is of course that there is no beatstick involved. Of course, depending on your preferences, the lack of beatstick might be a feature, not a flaw.
However, this system would clearly justify angsty, horrible poetry about being hollow inside that my character can spout at a moments notice:
Hollowness inside
painful memories of school
bullies have dulled
Hollowness inside
loving touch of my mother
tugs no heartstring.