Learning Vampire The Masquerade V5

I love Vampire the Masquerade V5. I love its flavour, I love its focus on low-level, personal horror stories. I am, however, happy to concede that the rules for Vampire the Masquerade are opaque. The rulebooks are a mix of lore and rules and neither the order nor the layout is conducive to learning the game from scratch. Frankly, they are a mess. So new players generally need some help, either from experienced players or Storytellers or from some internet resource.

I have put together some resources here - some I've written, some elsewhere on the Internet - looking to get new players or Storytellers up to speed enough to engage with the books effectively.

A great combination can be these intro documents to learn the terminology and base mechanics, then use that information to hit the Wiki, then the Wiki can provide page numbers into the book for even more detail. Reading the books cover-to-cover trying to learn to play is hard.

These resources are intended to be simplified, intended to be an introduction. The lore for this game has been built over decades and the rules now run into the thousands of pages. There will be things wrong here. That's fine - what's here can get you running or playing a game and when you learn enough to know what's wrong, you won't need them any more.

1. An Introduction to the world of Vampire the Masquerade V5 - this is a basic introduction, by me, of the terms and themes of Vampire the Masquerade V5 and the World of Darkness.
2. Introduction to the Mechanics of Vampire the Masquerade V5 - a basic introduction, by me, of the fundamental mechanics of Vampire the Masquerade V5 - this is intended to get you rolling dice and understanding a character sheet, in conjunction with the intro to the world above
3. How To Run Combat - a treatise on running combat in Vampire the Masquerade V5 by ElmerG on v5homebrew.com - I found this invaluable when I was learning to Storytell V5 and I wish Paradox had been this clear in the books
4. Progeny and Schrecknet are two character creators for Vampire the Masquerade V5. I absolutely did not write these, but I do really like them, especially for new players. Hopefully, in conjunction with the guides above, you will be able to get a character built
5. Paradox's Vampire the Masquerade V5 Wiki - a great quick reference Wiki on rules and some of the lore. Contains page number references into the books. Doesn't have nearly all the detail, but so much faster to find things than looking in the (rather poor) indexes of the books and often has enough information to answer the question anyways

Hopefully, these resources can be helpful to you in your Vampire the Masquerade V5 journey. I love the game, I hope they help you have a ton of fun.