Review: Vampyre

 I am celebrating 50 years of Dungeons & Dragons this October by reviewing some select Ravenloft products. But before I get into that, I want to review a Pre-Ravenloft product from TSR that fits the same feel. The mini-game Vampyre.

Vampyre (1981)

I covered many of the TSR mini-games a while back. This one is for 2-6 players. Players hunt the minions of Dracula in an attempt to find and destroy his coffins.  There is a "wilderness" map and a map of Castle Dracula. Designed by Philip A. Shreffler. Art by Erol Otus.

I'll avoid calling this a "bite-sized" game, but it is a game you can set up and play in an afternoon. Preferably a dark rainy afternoon in October.

Up to six players can embody most  of the iconic characters from Dracula. This injects some narrative flair right from the start. There are plenty of antagonists like Dracula, his brides, rats, bats and more. There are even demons and werewolves who were not from the books.

Players can even be converted into werewolves or nosferatu.

There is a Basic game, where you go around Castle Dracula trying to destroy all of Dracula's coffins. 

The Enhanced game takes you outside to Transylvania where you hunt down the count in his secret lair. 

So, essentially just like Basic and Expert D&D!

As a B/X Adventure

There is a lot to love about these little games.  The Souvenir font really hits that nostalgia button hard for fans of the Moldvay/Cook Basic and Expert sets. Not to mention some of the best-looking Erol Otus art.   Maybe it is the font, maybe it is the art but when I got these games the first thing I wanted to do was play them as part of my D&D games.  Of course, back then that meant Basic and Expert D&D.  Some of it also came from the desire to get the most out of my purchase with my limited paper route money.

Now, I am a HUGE Dracula and vampire fan, so when I got the Cook/Marsh Expert Set and saw that there were vampires in it, my first thoughts went to vampire hunts.  My first character was a cleric for this very reason.  The game Vampyre is set during the events of the novel Dracula with the same (or rather similar) characters.  So set in the 1890s. Since Ravenloft Masque of the Red Death was still a decade and a half away, I converted this to a simple Expert D&D monster hunt.   If I were to redo it I'd up the threat of Dracula.  In Expert, I made him a Greater Vampire. 

Vampire chic, circa 1981

The dual map, a "wilderness" and a "dungeon" again BEG to be used in the Expert game. The parallels between this game and the Ravenloft adventure. No surprise since both draw from the exact same source materials.  The trick the next time I use this is to make it less like Ravenloft.