Go to the Vamp home page at This walkthrough attempts to show how to get Vamp running for the first time and use some of its basic functions to design a deck. The main areas of Vamp functionality it doesn't cover are peeling off lists of results, dragging cards between those lists, saving and loading filters, filtering with arbitrary regular expressions, and configuring Vamp to use multiple sources of card data. If there is interest, those topics might be covered in an advanced Vamp walkthrough.
Go to the Vamp home page at
The file is called Vamp.jar. The ".jar" extension identifies it as an executable Java archive. Once you have the Java Run-Time Environment installed, Vamp.jar will behave just like a ".exe" file.
You can save Vamp.jar anywhere you want on your computer. However, you may find it convenient to place it in its own directory (such as "C:\Program Files\Vamp") where you can also save Vamp's card data files and filters.
You can skip this step if you already have Java installed. How can you tell? Try double-clicking on Vamp.jar file you downloaded in the previous step. If Windows tells you that you can't open the file, you need to install Java.
This step is optional. If you have a good broadband connection, skipping this step ensures you will always have the most up-to-date card data available directly from White Wolf's web site. However, even with a good broadband connection, local card data will decrease the amount of time it takes Vamp to start (once Vamp is started it doesn't matter whether it is using local or remote card data).
Go to White Wolf's web site at http://www.white-wolf.com/VTES/downloads/Cardlist.txt. Make sure you wait for the page to fully load. Once it has, use your web browser's File menu [3] to save the page on your computer. Make sure that you save it as a plain text file, not as HTML!
You can save the file anywhere you want on your computer (or even another computer on your LAN), and you can name it whatever you want. However, you may find it convenient to place it in the same directory you placed Vamp.jar.
Once you have saved the card data locally, you need to complete this step so that Vamp knows to use it. Start by launching Vamp by double-clicking on Vamp.jar.
Vamp has three main areas separated into three card tabs. The areas are Configuration, Crypt, and Library. To set Vamp to use local card data we need the controls on the Configuration card tab.
In the Data locations group box on the Configuration card tab, click the Local button [4] next to the Card data field. This will pop up a dialog that lets you browse to where you saved the card data in the previous step. Select the card data file you saved and close the dialog. You will see Card data field [5] updated with the path of the local card data file.
The next time you launch Vamp it will use the local card data file.
Now we'll explore building a crypt with Vamp. As we do this, keep in mind that there aren't many differences between the Crypt card tab and the Library card tab; most of the things we do here will also apply to building a library.
Click on the Crypt card tab [6] to start. There are six areas on the Crypt card tab, each of which has its own card tab. The first time you use the Crypt card tab, its General card tab will be selected. No matter which card tab you select, the Filtered crypt results list will always be displayed at the bottom. When Vamp is in its default, unfiltered state, those results list every vampire available in the card data you are using.
If you want, you can control what columns of information are displayed in the Filtered crypt results list by selecting and deselecting check boxes in the Displayed columns group box. Vamp will remember the settings you choose between launches.
You can also resize the columns of the Filtered crypt results list. Often, particularly with the Text column, there won't be enough room to display all of the cell text no matter how you resize things. Hovering the mouse over a truncated cell in the table will show you a tooltip containing the complete cell text.
Let's say we want to look at just Tzimisce vampires. To filter by clans, click on the Clans card tab [7].
Then reselect the Tzimisce check box [9]. The Filtered crypt results list will display just Tzimisce vampires.
Now let's further restrict our list of vampires by requiring that they have certain disciplines. To filter by disciplines, click on the Disciplines card tab[10]. We'll look for Tzimisce vampires with any Presence and superior Vicissitude. (You'll note we aren't trying to build a real deck in this walkthrough. :-)
Open the Presence combo box [11], currently labeled Disregard Presence. Choose Presence from its drop-down list. When you're done, the Presence combo box will display in green to make it easier to tell that it is active.
Then open the Vicissitude combo box [12], currently labeled Disregard Vicissitude. Choose Superior Vicissitude from its drop-down list. You'll see you have a much smaller number of vampires in your list, and that all of them have the disciplines you requested.
There are some miscellaneous vampire traits that you can filter for. Click on the Other card tab [13] to see them.
These filters let you filter for or against their property. For example, open the increased strength combo box [14], currently labeled Disregard Increased Strength. Choose No Strong Vampires from its drop-down list. Note that Lambach disappears from your list of vampires.
Of course, filtering out vampires with increased strength is unlikely to be very useful. There are other settings, however, that it can be nice to filter out: the Blood Curse, sterility, etc.
Instead let's filter for just vampires with increased strength. Open the increased strength combo box [15] and choose Only Strong Vampires from its drop-down list. Now only Lambach is in your list of vampires.
Often you want to keep some vampires in your list even though you are going to continue changing your filtering. Pushpins allow you to keep vampires displayed even if they do not satisfy your current filter.
The pushpin column is always displayed as the leftmost column in the Filtered crypt results list. A check in that column indicates that the vampire has been "pinned", and will continue to be displayed even if it doesn't match the current filter. If there is no check in that column, the vampire is displayed because it matches the filter.
Let's keep Lambach around as we look at other vampires for our crypt. Click on Lambach's pushpin check box [16].
To look at other vampires we will need to reset our filter. Click on the General card tab[17]. To the right is a set of buttons. Click on the Reset Filter button [18] to restore the filter to its default state, which will show all vampires.
Now let's say we want to look at some Inner Circle vampires to go along with Lambach. To filter by sects and titles, click on the Sects card tab [19].
Initially all of the sects and titles will be selected. To see only Inner Circle vampires, first click the Show No Sects & Titles button [20] and then select the Inner Circle check box [21]. This procedure is identical to the one we used on the Clans card tab.
Now that Lambach has less company in the list, you can see that his pushpin check box is indeed still selected, and that he continues to be displayed even though he is not an Inner Circle member.
Another piece of information associated with each vampire, regardless of the current filter, is its card count. The card count is used when deck building to include multiple copies of a card. To demonstrate this, let's say we want 3 copies of Lambach in our increasingly useless deck.
Click on the cell immediately to the right of Lambach's pushpin cell [22], in the list column labeled #. Type 3 and press Enter. This information will be associated with Lambach until you change it manually or use the Zap Counts & Pushpins button.
Note that you can hide the card count column from the General card tab if you wish.
It can sometimes help you process a list of vampires by sorting it in different ways. Each displayed column in the Filtered crypt results list is sortable. If a column is unsorted, clicking it once will sort it with a forward sort, and clicking it a second time will sort it with a reverse sort.
Click the Clan column header [23] to sort the displayed vampires by their clan now. You might do this when filtering for a certain discipline set to see if there is a predominate clan to build your deck around.
Note that whether you forward or reverse sort a column, blank cells will always be sorted to the end. For example, not all vampires have titles. If you display the title column and sort by it, all titled vampires will always be at the top of the list whether you use a forward or a reverse sort.
Before we move on, if you are connected to the Internet it is also possible to look at images for many vampire cards. When you have a vampire selected in the Filtered crypt results list, click on the View Card Image button [24]. If an image is available for the selected vampire, it will be displayed in a pop-up window.
Note that vampire card images are not full card scans. Only the vampire portrait is scanned from its card. The remaining card information is composited into the image. This lets us use most recent printing data and errata to the vampires generation, clan, disciplines, and card text.
Library card images are simply full card scans.
Since almost everything that we've done on the Crypt card tab also applies to the Library card tab, we won't spend much time on the Library card tab in this walkthrough. However, we do want to make a library selection so that we have a complete (if small and nonsensical) deck.
Click on the Library card tab [25]. There are seven areas on the Library card tab, each of which has its own card tab. The first time you use the Library card tab, its General card tab will be selected.
Select the first four cards [26] in the Filtered library results list to complete our walkthrough deck. Multiple selection can be accomplished either by shift-clicking over a range of cards or by control-clicking on individual cards to add them to the current selection.
Vamp has several different output options. It can output in several different formats, including Vamp's own HTML format. When using Vamp's HTML format, your currently displayed crypt and library list columns are used to determine the information that Vamp outputs. Vamp can also print out a graphical listing of a deck using clan and discipline icons.
The Print Preview dialog shows you precisely what your deck will look like when it is printed out. It attempts to scale its display to match its size, so you may want to maximize it for the best preview. Click on a corner [29] of the dialog and drag it until it is the size you want.
The printing format may need a little explanation.
If you like what you see, you can click the Print Deck button [30] at the bottom of the dialog. Of course it isn't necessary to preview your deck before printing; you could also have just selected the Print option from the pop-up printing menu.
That's it for this walkthrough! We hope this has been helpful in installing Vamp and learning how to use some of its features.