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thespaceinvader
Mar 30, 2011

The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

Hattie Masters posted:

I just want you to know that this is poo poo, you are poo poo and the whole thing is the worst.

Cambridge By Night on the other hand...

I'm joking, I love reading it and just wanted to poke fun at the other half. I swear if the boat race isn't solve sort of mystic rite...

We'll get to why that isn't a thing going forward soon. London was. Messy.

But it may well have been previously.

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CobiWann
Oct 21, 2009

Have fun!
Tzimisce - it might be time to change your topsoil.

Lasombra - take a good hard look in the mirror and ask yourself what needs to change.

Loomer
Dec 19, 2007

A Very Special Hell
I've identified eight core types of feeding:
1. Herd-based feeding
2. Active Predation
3. Passive Predation
4. Animal-based feeding
5. Bloodbanking
6. Raiding and Migratory feeding styles
7. Bulk Feeding
8. Predator's predators - vampires who feed only on other vampires using any of the above models, but whose feeding requires additional consideration in terms of supportable population and considerations around blood bonding, mortal vessel impacts, and the care and feeding of the vampiric herd.

Between this and an exploration of the basic mathematics and statistics of what various populations can actually support (e.g. the way 100k:1 can shrink as a ratio to 50k:1 and lower I did earlier) under each model, Dr. Acula's article is going to be a doozy.

Digital Osmosis
Nov 10, 2002

Smile, Citizen! Happiness is Mandatory.

Mulva posted:

You know thinking back to the oWoD there's really no downside to being a vampire if you aren't a monster to begin with and are willing to do some occult research. There's powers that take care of all the flaws. Hell I know like 3 powers that let you walk in the sun, and it's not like they are all crazy 9 dot super powers or something. Want to be immortal but afraid you'll miss chocolate? There are powers for that. Too narcissistic to live a life were your downstairs don't work right? Also powers for that. Frenzy? You can mitigate it. Having to drink blood? It's not too hard to make animal blood as filling as human blood or even pure vitae. Any particular downside you care to name was dealt with somewhere, by someone, and most of them could be learned by practically any vampire. And the Thin-Bloods that can't learn some of them can still learn the rest, and the ones they lose are generally covered by the innate perks of being Thin-Blooded.

e: Really, I don't know what those jackasses were so angsty about.

my oWoD vampire lore has fallen off the deep edge, care to mention a couple of the specifics of those powers? Like what disciplines or books they're from? Really just a bit curious here so nbd if you don't know them off the top of your head.

PHIZ KALIFA posted:

Tremere: The House of Tin will melt when Mars draws ascendant. Are you Fortified?

Setites: Tongues smell better when they're forked.

Giovanni: You get no grain if you do not pay the Millner.

Shreknet's the only Setite in his game, right? He should just have one that says Setites: Everyone appreciates the hard work you're doing launching the princedom's finest news source

Pope Guilty
Nov 6, 2006

The human animal is a beautiful and terrible creature, capable of limitless compassion and unfathomable cruelty.
There was an article on one of the old Cam/MES wikis that tried to reason out how many people an area would need for you to feed without causing noticeable local health problems or feeding on people without them comparing notes. Came to right around 100K:1.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Pope Guilty posted:

There was an article on one of the old Cam/MES wikis that tried to reason out how many people an area would need for you to feed without causing noticeable local health problems or feeding on people without them comparing notes. Came to right around 100K:1.

And that's why NYC has a total of 80 vampires, and most cities have less than 10.

MonsieurChoc
Oct 12, 2013

Every species can smell its own extinction.
When I did my own take on Montreal, I went with 1 for 50K. SO about 40 vampire tops.

Pope Guilty
Nov 6, 2006

The human animal is a beautiful and terrible creature, capable of limitless compassion and unfathomable cruelty.
It makes the Herd background even more attractive-every meal you get from a consenting human who won't say anything to anybody is one less meal's impact on the Masquerade. "Everybody must get at least a small herd" is not an entirely unreasonable rule for a Camarilla Prince to enforce.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Pope Guilty posted:

It makes the Herd background even more attractive-every meal you get from a consenting human who won't say anything to anybody is one less meal's impact on the Masquerade. "Everybody must get at least a small herd" is not an entirely unreasonable rule for a Camarilla Prince to enforce.

...on his six subjects

A Renaissance Nerd
Mar 29, 2010

Mors Rattus posted:

...on his six subjects

This is my problem with the 100,000 : 1 ratio, basically. In my Chronicle the coterie has set up as the Baron of Pasadena and Her Friends. Pasadena has a population of about 140k. Not enough for a single coterie. If we include all the neighboring cities in the general area, you can push it up to about 600k. That's enough for a four person coterie and two NPCs. If we go with 50,000 : 1 then that's twelve, so a coterie and eight NPCs, which feels more reasonable in terms of having enough core and incidental NPCs to have some good politicking.

But then because this is the Anarch Free States there's another dozen Thinbloods running around, but I'd imagine they aren't as long term as full blooded vampires. :v:

Angry Lobster
May 16, 2011

Served with honor
and some clarified butter.
WoD is pretty much like the 40k setting regarding numbers and logistics, everything falls apart when you think about it. Just keep going, use as many vamps and humans as the plot demands and don't look back.

Pope Guilty
Nov 6, 2006

The human animal is a beautiful and terrible creature, capable of limitless compassion and unfathomable cruelty.
My point is, vampires who keep herds don't impact the population as much, and you can squeeze more vampires into smaller towns with less risk.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

I mostly just think giving solid population statistics is a very bad idea.

Jhet
Jun 3, 2013
But then what would Loomer have done with all that time?

I too don’t bother with population limits. They make for tedious story. For me it’s a lot like tracking encumberance in D&D. Great once in a while for a good reason, but otherwise it just gets in the way.

Soonmot
Dec 19, 2002

Entrapta fucking loves robots




Grimey Drawer
Currently putting one of my werewolf players through his Mystery Play in the Primal Wilds since OF COURSE he had to score an exceptional success at trying to decipher the strange, shifting runes that gave you a stomach ache when looking at them in the creepy underground lab they're investigating. Now a manifestation of Life needs to tell him to gtfo of places he doesn't belong

For context: Chuckie was supposed to awaken as a Mage, but something switched his fate with his rear end in a top hat dopleganger Charles who was supposed to be a werewolf. No one knows how this has happened or why it was done, but it's a source of anxiety and even anger for Chuckie.

Chernobyl Peace Prize
May 7, 2007

Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Jhet posted:

But then what would Loomer have done with all that time?

I too don’t bother with population limits. They make for tedious story. For me it’s a lot like tracking encumberance in D&D. Great once in a while for a good reason, but otherwise it just gets in the way.
See I think of this in the opposite direction: population limits bring conflict over limited resources to the forefront, which gives vampire games a tangible and perpetual reason for conflict beyond ideological slapfights, Sabbat poo poo-stirring, and pissy courtly intrigue. Not that they should be a hard-and-fast thing, but I think they give more plot hooks than they take away, and also help you start to think how VtM as a macro setting functions, if at all.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Mors Rattus posted:

I mostly just think giving solid population statistics is a very bad idea.

There's certainly a role for something like "Detroit has a relatively low population density for its physical size, and this creates different dynamics for feeding and struggles over the supply of blood for the city's vampiric population." but those things aren't especially aided by hard population numbers as opposed to descriptions of the general resource and population dynamics for a subsetting.

And when you consider how often hard population numbers end up completely ridiculous, all the more reason not worry about them. "Toronto has a surprisingly low number of vampires." is more useful than "Toronto has 3 vampires, and they are all named Keith." (I have no idea what Toronto is like in either WoD).

Jhet
Jun 3, 2013

Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:

See I think of this in the opposite direction: population limits bring conflict over limited resources to the forefront, which gives vampire games a tangible and perpetual reason for conflict beyond ideological slapfights, Sabbat poo poo-stirring, and pissy courtly intrigue. Not that they should be a hard-and-fast thing, but I think they give more plot hooks than they take away, and also help you start to think how VtM as a macro setting functions, if at all.

I guess that's sort of fair, but I can think of other ways to do that that are just as effective? I've never had any issues with making it a thing in Requiem either. I just make it a thing because power is the real drug and control of food supply is just one way to manipulate and control the masses. I've just never needed an arbitrary rule to make it interesting and not a requirement. Forced plot hooks based on somewhat random numbers is not at all useful for stories I'd prefer to tell.

Scarcity of resources can be a thing without putting population caps on things that only sort of make sense in major metropolitan areas. It's just the choice that they made when they wrote the books. I'm not sure it's necessary in that form to put forth that setting function, when really the idea is scarcity of resources and not over-hunting so as to raise suspicious, not population density. It's fine if it works for you, but the fact that it comes up in ways that routinely make people go "huh?" doesn't make it necessarily a good design decision to get that point across.

Dawgstar
Jul 15, 2017

Mors Rattus posted:

I mostly just think giving solid population statistics is a very bad idea.

Yeah. Everybody knows being able to flesh out a city with as many vampires as you want is just more fun. Having a city where you can have a Prince and Primogen if there's only one of each clan is kinda boring. Broods are fun, and having a PC be a member is fun, because nobody fights like undead family. Just go as the spirit moves you.

joylessdivision
Jun 15, 2013



Night10194 posted:

And when you consider how often hard population numbers end up completely ridiculous, all the more reason not worry about them. "Toronto has a surprisingly low number of vampires." is more useful than "Toronto has 3 vampires, and they are all named Keith." (I have no idea what Toronto is like in either WoD).

The council of Keith's has convened once again.

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

Night10194 posted:

There's certainly a role for something like "Detroit has a relatively low population density for its physical size, and this creates different dynamics for feeding and struggles over the supply of blood for the city's vampiric population." but those things aren't especially aided by hard population numbers as opposed to descriptions of the general resource and population dynamics for a subsetting.

And when you consider how often hard population numbers end up completely ridiculous, all the more reason not worry about them. "Toronto has a surprisingly low number of vampires." is more useful than "Toronto has 3 vampires, and they are all named Keith." (I have no idea what Toronto is like in either WoD).

Honestly by their nature I don't know that even "low" vampire population would be free of struggling over blood; can't remember where I read it, but I recall one Vampire quote basically saying they all saw only what they wanted, not what they had. That one stuck with me and really kind of summed up a lot of the dickishness of vampire society, they might have more sources of blood and power than they could ever need but they still want yours because they don't have it. So really population numbers don't need to be "too high" or something to justify fighting, if there were only two vampires in a country of millions they'd still fight over it.

Chernobyl Peace Prize
May 7, 2007

Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

MadDogMike posted:

Honestly by their nature I don't know that even "low" vampire population would be free of struggling over blood; can't remember where I read it, but I recall one Vampire quote basically saying they all saw only what they wanted, not what they had. That one stuck with me and really kind of summed up a lot of the dickishness of vampire society, they might have more sources of blood and power than they could ever need but they still want yours because they don't have it. So really population numbers don't need to be "too high" or something to justify fighting, if there were only two vampires in a country of millions they'd still fight over it.
Yeah if there's way more people than vampires to eat, and the vampires are still all over each other competing for the herd, that's a story in and of itself! Vampires are awful parasites who should not be suffered to exist, but here we are!

Basically I don't think you lose anything by having population-number-guidelines, and if I'm going to pay for sourcebooks I'd much rather get guidance for setting development beyond "yeah I dunno whatever's Right For Your Campaign." Worst-case scenario I can just ignore it, but I don't get the hostility. Not like The Vampire Police are going to come into your house and slap the books out of your hands if you have an anime convention's worth of vampires sitting in a small college town, and there aren't mechanical ramifications that I'm aware of (whether stated or implied) for it, so like...why not? You lose nothing.

Loomer
Dec 19, 2007

A Very Special Hell
There’s slightly more leeway in classic vampire for overpopulation and overpredation due to the generally poor conditions of life and higher mortality providing a smokescreen for vampire-related illness and death. We can also consider the buffer made available by Domination and such in terms of cover ups, which will help in reducing visibility of the vampire population even where overpopulated. That said, the setting was definitely very inconsistent with it and the numbers don’t quite add up in most areas. One issue is that vampires feed too much - if they need one blood only every few nights (closer to some of the originating myths) then you can have correspondingly higher populations to play with.

Metapod
Mar 18, 2012
obviously vampires dont need to breathe but if you hit one in the gut would it be possible to knock the air of them?

Loomer
Dec 19, 2007

A Very Special Hell
If they have air, yes.

Aoi
Sep 12, 2017

Perpetually a Pain.
Kind of answered your own question, but I always kind of figured the vampire 1/2 bashing damage (or the Req 2e version thereof) mechanics, in their various forms, were meant to account for things like that. They aren't immune to getting punched in the gut and taking damage from it, but at the same time, it's not going to feel like it would for a living person, and they certainly aren't going to be gasping for air or wheezing on the ground as a result.

So largely ST/player fiat, but I'd generally assume that no, vampires don't take hits to anatomical weak points the same way living people do, particularly when that anatomic weakness is related to blood flow/oxygen distribution/etc, rather than 'the neck is narrower than the torso and thus easier to sever with a sharp blade' level of things.

edit: blush of life changes the calculations, of course

Aoi fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Oct 11, 2019

Mulva
Sep 13, 2011
It's about time for my once per decade ban for being a consistently terrible poster.

Digital Osmosis posted:

my oWoD vampire lore has fallen off the deep edge, care to mention a couple of the specifics of those powers? Like what disciplines or books they're from? Really just a bit curious here so nbd if you don't know them off the top of your head.

The Corpse in the Monster [V20] is a necromancy branch *about* your undead condition. It can make you kind of alive-ish at 5 dots [Eat food, go big horny, walk around in the sun fairly easily if you cover up and have increased chance to soak it if you don't cover up] for an entire day at the risk of increased frenzy for a few days after and costing a lot of blood. Bardo [Also V20] lets you, among other really neat perks, get full benefit of animal blood at all times at 3 dots. A cow has about 4 times the amount of blood as a human. Think of all the cows, the pigs, the chickens [Small, but we sure do kill a lot of them]. That's a lot of blood nobody is going to miss as much. The Path of the Focused Mind [Rites of the Blood] lets you think more gooder in general, and at 5 dots makes you completely immune to frenzy for a scene.

Beyond everything else those 3 things right there [And the associated rituals you can learn because hey, Necromancy and Thaumaturgy. If you need to fake humanity outside the sun and don't want to drop a person's worth of Vitae fake it with the Domino of Life. Simple 1 dot ritual.] basically cover all the flaws of being a vampire. On the way to those big powers there are other things you get to [5 dot Focused Mind might be immunity to frenzy, but the powers up to it make you think faster and better, and even hold two entirely separate thoughts at once. Bardo makes it easier to regain Humanity and defend from magic before you get to the animal bit. The Corpse in the Monster gives you a cheaper way to resist a lot of the flaws for a shorter amount of time if you want to be more corpse instead of more alive.]. That's just a really solid package of things that aren't exactly state secrets [Bardo was the most secretive and would legitimately be some work to track down in the modern day, but the Corpse in the Monster was a big Cappadocian thing, and the Path of the Focused Mind, while not the flashiest Path, is certainly known].

And there are side things depending on what you are willing to give up. Don't mind having a third eye? Valeren Healer/Obeah 4 Fortitude 4 Penitent Resilience [DA20]. Lets you redirect the sun to your curse, so it burns up vitae before your body. Also immunity to Rötschreck while you have blood in your system. Combine it with The Corpse in the Monster you could be bare rear end naked in the sun and the worst you would be is rolling 4 dice at difficulty 5 to resist, and worst case you still aren't taking damage for a few turns. And there's probably a million other weird things here or there that I've forgotten, and some I've skipped [Bardo 9 also lets you walk in the sun. It's 9 dots. That'd take someone a hot minute to learn even in the best of times].

The general idea is that there are all sorts of ways to get rid of most of the flaws of being a vampire, most of which are fairly well known, and if vampire society was focused on teaching new vampires how to use them and not be monsters it'd take like half a decade for all their problems to be wrapped up forever. Instead, well.....they sure didn't try to mitigate any of their problems it seems.

PHIZ KALIFA
Dec 21, 2011

#mood

To be fair, these examples are either bloodline-specific disciplines, or Thaum/Necromancy, which has always just been more powerful than other gribbly powers. Either way, difficult for most to get their hands on generally speaking.

Mulva
Sep 13, 2011
It's about time for my once per decade ban for being a consistently terrible poster.
Because it's made difficult. It's not like it's objectively hard to learn blood magic. Like 9 different Clans and bloodlines have their own version of it. Same for necromancy, there are like 5 different versions of it. And because there are so many clans that know so many versions of these things, it's as hard as you want it to be. The Giovanni might not be willing to teach you the Corpse in the Monster. What about the Harbingers? The Samedi? The Maeghar? The Tremere aren't willing to hand out magic....what about literally every ancient culture that used Dur-An-Ki? Are they all going to ride your rear end as hard?

Is this easy? No, in practice it'd take you years and years and years to jump through all the hoops and learn all the things required. The end result is all your flaws are mitigated. And if you do it, just you, once, you can make it easy for everyone that comes after. You could just...teach them. No hoops, no favors, no dire pacts, no years of study to track you down. You could just do it, and it'd be done. And everyone you taught could do the same thing, and on and on and on, and there would never be a single problem with being a vampire ever again.

Loomer
Dec 19, 2007

A Very Special Hell
You might as well attain Golconda while you're at it.

Mulva
Sep 13, 2011
It's about time for my once per decade ban for being a consistently terrible poster.
Ah, but you can only lead someone *towards* Golconda. You can flat out teach people stupid magic tricks.

PHIZ KALIFA posted:

Meanwhile, everyone embraced around the same time as you has built up an undead empire and can use telepathy to send their army of supersoldiers to knock down your door and douse you with kerosene.

Do you want your character to be Better Than Just Undead? Sure. Do you want that MORE than hurling fire or turning your blood into BEES?

Well sure, but some of the powers that mitigate the other problems mitigate the weakness to fire too. And their army of super-soldiers are vulnerable to some of the other powers you know. A 5 dot power has 4 powers that come before it after all, and it's a big blow to that reputation you've built up as a stone cold manipulator if our friend the aesthetic makes you constantly poo poo yourself in public. The ability that lets you subsist on animal blood easily comes after the power that lets you dodge literally all forms of pure magic [So someone tries to throw magic fire at you, by all means. Someone uses magic to be strong enough to bounce a car off you head, not so much]. The power that makes you immune to frenzy also makes you able to lock someone into repeating a single action. Yon badass elder can have 8 million extra actions, but if he has to spend one to move at you all the million that follow are going to be related to moving towards and around you.

That's what makes it insane. It's not be a badass or be human, you'd be doing both at the same time. Everyone would rather be an rear end in a top hat than just....exist.

e: Too many posts, I think I edited one instead of adding. Oh well!

Mulva fucked around with this message at 06:55 on Oct 11, 2019

PHIZ KALIFA
Dec 21, 2011

#mood

Mulva posted:

Because it's made difficult. It's not like it's objectively hard to learn blood magic. Like 9 different Clans and bloodlines have their own version of it. Same for necromancy, there are like 5 different versions of it. And because there are so many clans that know so many versions of these things, it's as hard as you want it to be. The Giovanni might not be willing to teach you the Corpse in the Monster. What about the Harbingers? The Samedi? The Maeghar? The Tremere aren't willing to hand out magic....what about literally every ancient culture that used Dur-An-Ki? Are they all going to ride your rear end as hard?

Is this easy? No, in practice it'd take you years and years and years to jump through all the hoops and learn all the things required. The end result is all your flaws are mitigated. And if you do it, just you, once, you can make it easy for everyone that comes after. You could just...teach them. No hoops, no favors, no dire pacts, no years of study to track you down. You could just do it, and it'd be done. And everyone you taught could do the same thing, and on and on and on, and there would never be a single problem with being a vampire ever again.

I think the conversation here will break down along two main points, that discipline powers both occupy "things i want my character to do" and "things that would make an interesting story." Flaw suppression is big in power fantasies, but also represent fairly large turning points and dramatic twists. it'd make sense it would be a well that gets revisited by multiple parties, it's a fairly simple twist.

But, from a story perspective? If a character manages to leap through those hoops, and dedicates themselves to working with enough disparate bloodlines and fringe groups as to have recovered the ability to be Almost Human? That's a fine payoff. It took a century of study and you're indebted to all kinds of utterly untrustworthy powers, but in exchange you can fake being alive slightly better than you used to. I don't see that as overpowered.

Meanwhile, everyone embraced around the same time as you has built up an undead empire and can use telepathy to send their army of supersoldiers to knock down your door and douse you with kerosene.

Do you want your character to be Better Than Just Undead? Sure. Do you want that MORE than hurling fire or turning your blood into BEES?

Loomer
Dec 19, 2007

A Very Special Hell
Possibly the most interesting feeding model to write up is herdraiding. Vampire rip-and-runs, basically - why go to the effort of cultivating a bloodcult, agreeable band of SM freaks, or conditioned suburban cul de sac when you can simply hide, watch, and then sweep in and feed on someone else's? The danger, of course, is in getting caught, which necessitates migration between cities or the ability to go entirely unnoticed and either caution or an extreme capacity for violence, and the reconnaisance element requires ghouls or animal spies. This leads us to two natural herd-raiding populations: City gangrel and Nosferatu. Both possess the requisite capacity for violence and ability to hide easily in their innate discipline spread, with the Nosferatu being the best placed for the unnoticed herd-raider and the City Gangrel for the migratory. Drift into a city, announce yourself at Elysium so you have a chance to find out who's who and who's likely to have a herd, follow them home and merge into the soil. Watch them for a night or two and either they lead you to their herd or their herd comes to them (in which case you engage in opportunistic feeding and move on to the next target), and if you find out where that herd's located, feed to your heart's content for a few nights, then move to the next likely mark. Then when you've exhausted the easy options, on to the next city. Herd-raiders, in theory, present the lowest impact of all feeding types in terms of potential masquerade breaches, as they don't expose themselves as vampires to anyone but kine already in the know who are already prey and whose voices can be very quickly silenced by the court and their owner. There are knock-on effects if the herd's owner has to replace members who die of overuse between the multiple vampires exploiting them, but in the case of large herds this is less of a problem.

Of course, the best herd to avoid this with and in terms of lowest risk of exposure more generally is one kept contained in cells in the basement, but that presents it's own logistical challenges. Herding's chapter is divided appropriately into three forms of herding - subtle herds (herds that don't know they're herds - reliable fuckbuddies, for instance), coercive herds (imprisoned or otherwise coerced herds who may or may not be aware they're a herd - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n41ze_SUHxI), and social herds (blood cults, secret societies, and so on - herds that both know and accept that they are herds). Each one in turn presents distinct ramifications for supportable populations, risks of exposure, and the management of herdkine health, obedience, and concealment.

Xinder
Apr 27, 2013

i want to be a prince

Jhet posted:

I guess that's sort of fair, but I can think of other ways to do that that are just as effective? I've never had any issues with making it a thing in Requiem either. I just make it a thing because power is the real drug and control of food supply is just one way to manipulate and control the masses. I've just never needed an arbitrary rule to make it interesting and not a requirement. Forced plot hooks based on somewhat random numbers is not at all useful for stories I'd prefer to tell.

Scarcity of resources can be a thing without putting population caps on things that only sort of make sense in major metropolitan areas. It's just the choice that they made when they wrote the books. I'm not sure it's necessary in that form to put forth that setting function, when really the idea is scarcity of resources and not over-hunting so as to raise suspicious, not population density. It's fine if it works for you, but the fact that it comes up in ways that routinely make people go "huh?" doesn't make it necessarily a good design decision to get that point across.

I was thinking this way yesterday, but a good night’s sleep and morning coffee has shifted my opinion and now i like the 100k:1 number.

Let’s say I’m running a game in Helsinki. That gives me 15 vampires to work with, right? Wrong. That gives me 15 vampires actively predating on the populace (sustainably without noticeable health problems in the population) to work with. Plenty of vampires have herds which removes them from the competition, some vampires come and go so their presence isn’t felt over a long term, and sometimes vampires are just assholes who embrace too many people and overpredate an area leading to all sorts of problems (read: plot hooks).

Anyway that’s still a decent number of vampire npcs in an area for my player coterie to interact with. Most of the minions are going to be ghouls instead of vampires anyway, and now i have a web of intrigue with ~25ish major players. That’s plenty! That feels good actually!

And if that number doesn’t work for you, just change it like people said. Nobody is going to get upset with you for “breaking the holy ratio” or whatever. Do what works for your game.

Archonex
May 2, 2012

MY OPINION IS SEERS OF THE THRONE PROPAGANDA IGNORE MY GNOSIS-IMPAIRED RAMBLINGS

EimiYoshikawa posted:


So largely ST/player fiat, but I'd generally assume that no, vampires don't take hits to anatomical weak points the same way living people do, particularly when that anatomic weakness is related to blood flow/oxygen distribution/etc, rather than 'the neck is narrower than the torso and thus easier to sever with a sharp blade' level of things.

edit: blush of life changes the calculations, of course

Pretty sure it was mentioned somewhere in 1e that head shots and heart shots do extra damage or something like that.

I don't think 2e ever really got into minor "what if?" exceptions like that as a general rule of thumb. 1e however has stuff like The Blood and Danse Macabre for all your setting specific minutiae needs.

In character head shots apparently hurt like hell too. We're talking "crippling pain for the rest of the night" levels of awful if you go by one novel. Heck, in one of the novels it's even used as a threat to get one grade A rear end in a top hat vampire to fall in line and stop causing trouble for everyone else. The main character straight up threatens to dome them in front of everyone else if they won't calm the gently caress down. Which is admittedly a fairly novel way to enforce discipline, if not a bit hilariously dickish.

Archonex fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Oct 11, 2019

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO
May 8, 2006
character concept/pun free to a good home: someone who believes that seeking Golconda is “internalized Abelism”

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009
Werewolf the Apocalypse is getting a video game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NziTWE3DcwQ

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Mulva posted:

Ah, but you can only lead someone *towards* Golconda. You can flat out teach people stupid magic tricks.

You can’t, though. Setting aside the fact that your one weird trick for defeating the curse of Caine involves learning four or five dot powers in obscure sorcerous disciplines to which access is generally mutually exclusive, the fact that a player has the executive power to spend XP in order to declare their character learns something does not mean that all characters can learn all things, especially when those things are esoteric magic as opposed to, like, Potence. It’s like asking why every villager in Greyhawk doesn’t simply take a level in cleric in order to make use of divine magic’s ability to erase wounds and conjure water. Rules of chargen aren’t rules of physics, and plenty of people simply don’t have the knack, or the time, or the star chart, or whatever else you need to start cherry-picking secret arcane powers.

There’s also, obviously, the materialist/game-theoretical reason this isn’t appealing and doesn’t work: if you spend all your energy learning how to subsist off cows and control your temper, you’ll just be at the mercy of someone who’s instead learned to control minds or punch through concrete. Admittedly, your low iron footprint will make you a great subject and unlikely to raise anyone’s ire.

MonsieurChoc
Oct 12, 2013

Every species can smell its own extinction.

Helical Nightmares posted:

Werewolf the Apocalypse is getting a video game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NziTWE3DcwQ

Better have racist stereotypes!

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Loomer
Dec 19, 2007

A Very Special Hell
That's some jank-rear end CGI.

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