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Rand Brittain posted:My personal peeve with Malkavians is the ones whose curse is basically "they are stuck with some delusion which they will never, ever abandon, even when it's obviously counterfactual." Your least favorite Malkavians revolve around a central core delusion, and your most favorite Malkavian is one who revolves around a central core delusion?
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Dec 17, 2019 00:03
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Right but "meta gimmick Malk funtime" is only slightly better than fishmalk. Like nobody wants to play a Malk who constantly wonders if he's a good person or not, and has good days and bad days, and sometimes doesn't bother to get out of bed but that's the reality of mental illness. I'm not sure that's actually a good idea for a clan but they should probably craft something both more fun and more specific.
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Dec 17, 2019 01:31
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Mendrian posted:That's basically the issue though. Malkavians can't both be "vampires with real world mental illnesses" and "vampires cursed by God with madness." The two ideas are fundamentally incompatible. Well, not exactly. It's worth noting that in real life mental illness (along with disability) were commonly thought of as "a curse from God" prior to the medicalization of disability. It's not impossible to combine the two, people did it for hundreds of years. It just really doesn't solve the problem at all -- it's like making a clan of all-women vampires who suffer from actual, literal hysteria. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 01:39 on Dec 17, 2019 |
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Dec 17, 2019 01:36
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Anyways if I were trying to "fix" Malks (and wasn't allowed to throw out literally all other VtM lore in order to specifically make a careful, issue-sensitive game about vampirism and mental illness, which would be really loving hard as it is) I'd probably ditch the mental illness angle entirely and instead lean in really hard on the idea of Malkavians as prophets, along with some kind of mechanical restriction or drawback to disincentivize telling anyone about their prophecies directly.
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Dec 17, 2019 01:46
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I Am Just a Box posted:Your least favorite Malkavians revolve around a central core delusion, and your most favorite Malkavian is one who revolves around a central core delusion? Yeah, it's just that one is kind of fun and doesn't really make "this person needs help" the only thing you think of when they're present in the way that say, the elder who thinks he's two people who both spend eternity pointlessly loving with each other does.
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Dec 17, 2019 01:51
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xanthan posted:And thus my interest in going to read Penny Arcade again died a miserable death, replaced by being happy I fell off of it a long time ago and never bothered to play much of the video games. Definitely gonna checkout LA By Night, but there any good purely audio ones I could put on my phone? LAbN has been converted into a podcast, I listen to it on Spotify. I think it's in all the usual places. Tuxedo Catfish posted:Anyways if I were trying to "fix" Malks (and wasn't allowed to throw out literally all other VtM lore in order to specifically make a careful, issue-sensitive game about vampirism and mental illness, which would be really loving hard as it is) I'd probably ditch the mental illness angle entirely and instead lean in really hard on the idea of Malkavians as prophets, along with some kind of mechanical restriction or drawback to disincentivize telling anyone about their prophecies directly. Dialing back on the WOO HOO MENTAL ILLNESS is done pretty well in V5; they've swung them back more to Victorian madmen, functional except when wracked by their insight, which does manifest as a lot less wacky or hard to deal with than prior editions. MoonKnight fucked around with this message at 02:56 on Dec 17, 2019 |
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Dec 17, 2019 02:53
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Well, not exactly. It's worth noting that in real life mental illness (along with disability) were commonly thought of as "a curse from God" prior to the medicalization of disability. It's not impossible to combine the two, people did it for hundreds of years. It just really doesn't solve the problem at all -- it's like making a clan of all-women vampires who suffer from actual, literal hysteria. The reason why I say they're incompatible is that historically those people were wrong. The Victorian belief that 'madness' is a fairly generic and reductive trait, is typified by Bedlam and padded cells and screaming and wailing at phantoms - is basically just, like, wrong in every way. Vampire, being a horror game, leans heavily on that kind of symbolism to drive home their idea of what 'madness' is. So calling upon and wrapping up 'Curse from God' with 'Insanity' is the offensive, Victorian reductive perspective, so you can't have that and authentic mental illness present in the same game. Tuxedo Catfish posted:Anyways if I were trying to "fix" Malks (and wasn't allowed to throw out literally all other VtM lore in order to specifically make a careful, issue-sensitive game about vampirism and mental illness, which would be really loving hard as it is) I'd probably ditch the mental illness angle entirely and instead lean in really hard on the idea of Malkavians as prophets, along with some kind of mechanical restriction or drawback to disincentivize telling anyone about their prophecies directly. This I can get behind. Just throw out the whole idea of Malkavians having 'derangements' (or whatever shorthand you want to use for mental illness) and instead give them actual insight that they don't actually want and go from there. The clan is already like halfway there, you just need to jettison the parts that don't work with that framework.
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Dec 17, 2019 03:32
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Well, not exactly. It's worth noting that in real life mental illness (along with disability) were commonly thought of as "a curse from God" prior to the medicalization of disability. It's not impossible to combine the two, people did it for hundreds of years. It just really doesn't solve the problem at all -- it's like making a clan of all-women vampires who suffer from actual, literal hysteria. I mean the Daughters of Cacophony are right there.
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Dec 17, 2019 03:37
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Anyways if I were trying to "fix" Malks (and wasn't allowed to throw out literally all other VtM lore in order to specifically make a careful, issue-sensitive game about vampirism and mental illness, which would be really loving hard as it is) I'd probably ditch the mental illness angle entirely and instead lean in really hard on the idea of Malkavians as prophets, along with some kind of mechanical restriction or drawback to disincentivize telling anyone about their prophecies directly. I remember that people with mental illness used to be referred to as "fey." That they were mad because they'd been "touched" by the faerie. Make that true for Malkavians. They can't tell a direct untruth. If they agree to a task three times they're compelled to do it. Cold wrought iron causes them agg damage. Pick stuff like that.
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Dec 17, 2019 05:16
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The best Malkavians are the ones my nWoD group homebrewed up whose “Malkavia” was specifically a kind of conceptual synaesthesia that made it difficult to describe things or communicate normally but which a special bloodline discipline could eventually allow you to control, benefit from, and even inflict on other people. This allowed you to more or less play the VtMB malk/pop culture “crazy person” who speaks in portentous nonsense without having to deal with the actual derangement rules or otherwise make light of real mental illness.
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Dec 17, 2019 05:40
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Ferrinus posted:The best Malkavians are the ones my nWoD group homebrewed up whose “Malkavia” was specifically a kind of conceptual synaesthesia that made it difficult to describe things or communicate normally but which a special bloodline discipline could eventually allow you to control, benefit from, and even inflict on other people. Yeah this is basically the perfect compromise. If I was doing oWoD Malks from the ground up I would give them a sort of shared hallucination/communication problem as well, which makes perfect sense with the lore, without all the bad parts of, 'describe your gimmicky and offensive take on mental illness!'
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Dec 17, 2019 06:59
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Mendrian posted:Yeah this is basically the perfect compromise. A lot of the material seems to loosely suggest that the really old Malkavians don't exactly match the derangement model anyway. e: better idea, make the Toreador a Malkavian bloodline
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Dec 17, 2019 07:20
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Ferrinus posted:The best Malkavians are the ones my nWoD group homebrewed up whose “Malkavia” was specifically a kind of conceptual synaesthesia that made it difficult to describe things or communicate normally but which a special bloodline discipline could eventually allow you to control, benefit from, and even inflict on other people. This is a really good idea and covers most of what I was going to say. Honestly I think the traditional horror behind "crazy people" is the idea that they could do anything at any time, including hurt you oh no, just doesn't resonate anymore. Life isn't really grounded in a sense of normality anymore, encountering crazy potentially dangerous people isn't the exception, it's the norm. Everything feels crazy, so nothing is. I think a more personal, palpable sense of horror would be to make the curse just that people misunderstand and misconstrue everything you say, like the "conceptual synaesthesia" described above. Like, you're talking normally, but the people who hear you keep trying to read meaning and metaphor into your words, and react to what they think you said, rather than the actual words that came out of your mouth. So, you tell a friend some inconsequential news, and then have to convince them that this isn't an elaborate metaphor to express anger about that time, years ago, where they bailed on you at a party. Every conversation eventually becomes a meta exercise in trying to guess at motivations and hinted meaning, isn't that how it's supposed to work when non-malks interact with malks? Just make that feel crushingly mundane, and also inescapable. Honestly, the cackling victorian slasher fishmalk is such a tired outsiders view of mental illness, all you have to do it make mental illness personally horrifying is to ask a healthy person to understand how society treats the mentally flavorful. "You're normal, but the world doesn't know how to exploit your normal" is what it feels like on the inside, so make that the theme that influences the design. Try having a conversation where every third sentence someone looks at you like they're worried you're going to kill yourself. That's your personal horror, every casual conversation runs the risk of the police Wellness Checking your front door to smithereens. Learn that the entire world, including the medical professionals who should keep you safe, instead think that persecuting you is in your own best interests. Another fun thing would be to make it so that occasionally, you just end up switching bodies with someone else who is also infected. I think that's probably the least problematic way to explore themes of DID or even gender dysphoria. Plus, everyone else will just assume you're loving with them, so characters can enjoy having their requests to be named and gendered correctly construed as an insult. Or maybe have a persistent condition of "Neuroatypical" which is just "Every time you interact with someone who doesn't have this condition, roll Willpower. If you fail, gain the temporary condition So loving Tired." So loving Tired: That quote from Watchmen, but as an intrusive thought. There's your tumblr-friendly mental illness representation.
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Dec 17, 2019 16:58
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PHIZ KALIFA posted:I think a more personal, palpable sense of horror would be to make the curse just that people misunderstand and misconstrue everything you say, like the "conceptual synaesthesia" described above. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yawiHC0yDu8
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Dec 17, 2019 17:04
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Does death and rebirth as a vampire cure mental illness?
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Dec 17, 2019 17:09
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Lord_Hambrose posted:Does death and rebirth as a vampire cure mental illness?
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Dec 17, 2019 17:41
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One of the gags my character had once was that he needed a haircut every sunset because he was embraced with a horrible 70s Luke Skywalker blowout
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Dec 17, 2019 17:51
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David Lynch is a Malkavian.
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Dec 17, 2019 18:13
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Lord_Hambrose posted:Does death and rebirth as a vampire cure mental illness? No, and in fact it's what some Malkavian sires look for. What it does cure varies wildly and boils down to the random variables of the Embrace. Or, well, what Flaws you decide you want points for.
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Dec 17, 2019 19:17
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Lord_Hambrose posted:Does death and rebirth as a vampire cure mental illness? Also PHIZ KALIFA posted:Or maybe have a persistent condition of "Neuroatypical" which is just "Every time you interact with someone who doesn't have this condition, roll Willpower. If you fail, gain the temporary condition So loving Tired."
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Dec 18, 2019 00:26
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I failed my roll.
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Dec 18, 2019 02:15
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One thing that was really interesting I remember reading in Wraith 20 is that there is a big segment of the Silent Legion that committed suicide and are now fine because they don't have body chemistry anymore.
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Dec 18, 2019 02:39
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"The last hundred years have seen mortals tricked systematically in many ways by their Secret Rulers. Most humans no longer believe in vampires and werewolves, gods and goddesses, faster than light travel, or Santa Claus. But there is a real Santa, and I was right to be afraid of Him as a kid, because he murders vampires on the side."
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Dec 18, 2019 05:48
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*Deus Ex "I spill my drink" voice*PHIZ KALIFA posted:I failed my roll.
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Dec 18, 2019 06:59
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Loomer posted:"The last hundred years have seen mortals tricked systematically in many ways by their Secret Rulers. Most humans no longer believe in vampires and werewolves, gods and goddesses, faster than light travel, or Santa Claus. But there is a real Santa, and I was right to be afraid of Him as a kid, because he murders vampires on the side." Please source this quote, because it is amazing and now I'm imagining a hunter cell running into Santa while he's killing vampires.
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Dec 18, 2019 07:14
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I like to tell the story of how our Werewolf group saved Christmas once. It was the Spirit of Odin who was Santa. We saved him from the Wyrm.
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Dec 18, 2019 07:18
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Ferrinus posted:The best Malkavians are the ones my nWoD group homebrewed up whose “Malkavia” was specifically a kind of conceptual synaesthesia that made it difficult to describe things or communicate normally but which a special bloodline discipline could eventually allow you to control, benefit from, and even inflict on other people. Oh yeah I've posted them in this thread before but if people want (roughly 1eish but probably 2e-compatible) mechanics for this: https://the-act-of-hubris.obsidianportal.com/wikis/malkavia-and-lucidity This is based on some other years-old house rules but you can basically read "edge" as equipment bonus, "intimacy" as touchstone and "crisis of conscience" as breaking point. We also had willpower points grant something akin to the rote action rule, so you might want to just staple that or some other dice-quality-improver onto Cobweb to give it more kick.
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Dec 18, 2019 08:31
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xanthan posted:Please source this quote, because it is amazing and now I'm imagining a hunter cell running into Santa while he's killing vampires. One of the last stories in Dark Destiny 3. Choc is correct, by the way: Santa is Odin and he kills vampires for Yule for sport.
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Dec 18, 2019 08:53
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Loomer posted:One of the last stories in Dark Destiny 3. Choc is correct, by the way: Santa is Odin and he kills vampires for Yule for sport. That's about as great as "Abraham Lincoln, vampire hunter and inadvertent founder of Task Force VALKYRIE.".  By the way, that's an actual thing in the NWoD. Archonex fucked around with this message at 12:08 on Dec 18, 2019 |
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Dec 18, 2019 12:01
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Here's an idea for a new take on Malkavians: instead of them all being mad, they're all stuck in a Pattern. Every Malkavian has a different way of looking at the world, of interpreting their visions and making sense of things. Maybe it's Astrology, or Kaballah, or Baseball. This even works for already existing NPCs: Doctor Douglas Netchurch, for example, uses the Scientific Method as his Pattern. How does that work as a weakness mechanically? Maybe a willpower roll/point to go beyond that Pattern, to admit that the signs were wrong.
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Dec 18, 2019 13:12
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I also like the Mekhet.
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Dec 18, 2019 13:36
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Mors Rattus posted:I also like the Mekhet. 
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Dec 18, 2019 15:17
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Does the Embrace cure physical ailments? If someone is blind or deaf, do they go into unlife that way? What if they merely had poor sight or hearing? Can vampires see in the dark?
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Dec 18, 2019 18:24
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Jimmy Noskill posted:Does the Embrace cure physical ailments? If someone is blind or deaf, do they go into unlife that way? What if they merely had poor sight or hearing? Can vampires see in the dark? I assume yes to the curing of ailments but I suppose it could go either way depending on storyteller and player choice. Like if you had a wheelchair in life do you still need it after embrace? Could make for an interesting story if you did.
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Dec 18, 2019 18:46
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Jimmy Noskill posted:Does the Embrace cure physical ailments? If someone is blind or deaf, do they go into unlife that way? What if they merely had poor sight or hearing? Can vampires see in the dark? Vampires don't have nightvision as a Thing, although Auspex or Protean at their first level would probably fix that up.
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Dec 18, 2019 18:49
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Jimmy Noskill posted:Does the Embrace cure physical ailments? If someone is blind or deaf, do they go into unlife that way? What if they merely had poor sight or hearing? Can vampires see in the dark? In V:TM I believe it depended on the choices of merits and flaws.
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Dec 18, 2019 19:02
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Sounds like y'alls issue with malks is the people you played with are unimaginative and bad at roleplaying. There's nothing wrong with the mentally ill getting some representation with a vampire clan.
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Dec 18, 2019 19:37
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Jimmy Noskill posted:Does the Embrace cure physical ailments? If someone is blind or deaf, do they go into unlife that way? What if they merely had poor sight or hearing? Can vampires see in the dark? Embrace doesn't cure physical ailments, it locks you in the static condition you're in when you die, wounds, flaws and all. Poor Sight is a flaw, same with bad hearing.
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Dec 18, 2019 19:58
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Metapod posted:Sounds like y'alls issue with malks is the people you played with are unimaginative and bad at roleplaying. There's nothing wrong with the mentally ill getting some representation with a vampire clan. I assume this will also be your defense of the 5E retread of WoD: Gypsies.
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Dec 18, 2019 20:12
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Metapod posted:Sounds like y'alls issue with malks is the people you played with are unimaginative and bad at roleplaying. There's nothing wrong with the mentally ill getting some representation with a vampire clan. As others have repeatedly pointed out, the Malks aren't a representation of mental illness (which is such a ludicrously large umbrella as would be near impossible to turn into mechanics) they are a representation of the Victorian concept of "madness". Calling what Malks have a "mental illness" is insulting in the extreme.
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Dec 18, 2019 20:29
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