[RPG] Why does Vampire: The Masquerade have clans that are made or supposed to be unplayable

Mechanically, I think there are really only three big differences.

First is that spending a point of Willpower in Requiem grants you three extra dice on the roll rather than an automatic success, which is a very big deal.

Next is that botching (or "dramatic failure") just doesn't happen as often in the new World of Darkness system. Dramatic failures only occur when you are reduced to rolling a chance die (one die that only succeeds on a roll of 10) and it comes up a 1.

A relatively minor difference related to that is that success really isn't measured in degrees in the new system. You either succeed or you get an exceptional success. The Storyteller has to declare bonuses or penalties (which grant or remove dice) prior to the roll.

The third big difference is that in combat, damage is figured directly from the result of the attack roll. It's faster, but it can be a lot deadlier.

In terms of the story, the Masquerade setting is gone. Requiem focuses much more closely on local action compared to Masquerade's global tone. Clan infrastructures like the Nosferatu's intelligence network just don't exist, and most vampires align themselves with philosophically like-minded covenants.

If you never played Masquerade as anything but a city game, I don't think you'd find it much different. There are some interesting changes to how the vampiric condition works, though. They get more powerful with age thanks to Blood Potency, so lineage doesn't matter as much. Also, vampires instinctively recognize the Beast in each other using a system called the Predator's Taint.

White Wolf has published a good translation guide for playing Masquerade with Requiem or vice versa.

I'm actually using that guide to run my Masquerade game using Requiem's rules.

Hope that helps!

The most important changes in rules I can think of are:

• Presence 1 and 3 powers are switched.
• Health levels penalties were more severe (0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5) instead of (0 -1 -1 -2 -2 -5).
• Celerity worked very differently. Each point of celerity gives an extra action per turn per blood spent, for the duration of the scene. That is, if you have 4 blood points you could spend 4 blood points (normally during 4 turns) and have 4 extra actions each turn during the rest of the scene. Additionally, a character could add their Celerity rating to any Dexterity roll.
• Potence didn't add automatic success to Strength rolls, but simply extra dices.
• Virtues were used on a different way:
  • Frenzies were divided by hunger, rage or fear. Those types were resisted with Conscience, Self-Control and Courage, respectively. (In second edition, hunger frenzy is resisted with Self-Control).
  • Degeneration rolls (losing Humanity) were resolved using one of the three virtues. If the violation is made during a frenzy, the virtue with you tried to resist the frenzy was used. If not, roll Conscience when the character harms someone, Self-Control when the character gives in to his urges, and Courage when the motivation was cowardice.