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Even if that didn’t happen, I think the best you could hope for if the masquerade came down is full vampire genocide. I cannot imagine any other way it would go down, especially if it came out they can control minds. The panic would be uncontrollable, the motives of anyone who said you shouldn’t kill them would be immediately suspect. Also, Christianity would have been proven at least partially true, and the weight of the Catholic Church saying that they need to be purged would be much higher in that circumstance. Vampires 100% need the masquerade. Humans are scary.
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Feb 17, 2020 12:19
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The bourgeoise already exist. Vampires are small-time. If the amount of human misery that all vampires cause, collectively, amounts to even a whole percentage point of the total I'd be shocked. Also, your blood doesn't make them immortal. They're already immortal. Your blood just lets them wake up and heal from injury. Immortality just means that, post-Masquerade, the actual rulers of the world are going to make sure to either turn themselves into or enslave vampires. None of this bears on the fact that, under a sane mode of production, people unfortunate enough to be afflicted with vampirism could just appeal to the welfare state for a weekly donation or whatever.
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Feb 17, 2020 12:36
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And then japanese scientists develop a way to cheaply manufacture synthetic blood able to be consumed by vampires, they call this new product True
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Feb 17, 2020 13:06
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Angry Lobster posted:And then japanese scientists develop a way to cheaply manufacture synthetic blood able to be consumed by vampires, they call this new product True
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Feb 17, 2020 13:14
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What caused True Blood vampires? Is it a curse from God too? It's a pretty incomprehensible plot point that it would be possible to make fake blood that works if so.
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Feb 17, 2020 13:17
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CottonWolf posted:What caused True Blood vampires? Is it a curse from God too? It's a pretty incomprehensible plot point that it would be possible to make fake blood that works if so.
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Feb 17, 2020 13:28
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CottonWolf posted:What caused True Blood vampires? Is it a curse from God too? It's a pretty incomprehensible plot point that it would be possible to make fake blood that works if so. Curse/blessing from God, but no one is entirely sure. True Blood's Caine figure was a pretty big fan of God, but the origins of the vampire are less than clear.
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Feb 17, 2020 13:29
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Boron_the_Moron posted:I wonder how a NWoD Neonate would get along with Changelings. Feels like there'd be some common ground there in terms of the nature of their transformations, and their reluctance to be the monsters that their masters made them into. This was, in essence, what made a larp I participated in a very very good one. A whole bunch of people wounded and changed by mystical bullshit trying to deal with it and finding companionship in the similar but not same things they had survived. There were changelings, a Sin-Eater (played by me), two Neonates and a bunch of other stuff. So many discussions about it means to be human and what are you willing do to to keep from losing your humanity.
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Feb 17, 2020 14:21
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Blockhouse posted:I mean I feel like that ignores an entire niche of the population that would be down with letting vampires drink their blood yeah, especially if it gives Megagasms and access to the ruling elite. just look at how quick the petit bourgoise sold out the proletariat. Plus, if the masquerade fell America would just transition overnight into using the penal system as a massive involuntary blood bank. they'd justify it to the public by claiming that inflicting moderate anemia on their prisoners keeps them calm and prevents violence. community service would be replaced with blood donations. cash bail would be replaced by draining the family members of the imprisoned. basically anything in the real world which is facilitated by economic exploitation would become a vampiric lever for extracting blood.
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Feb 17, 2020 14:29
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Ataxerxes posted:This was, in essence, what made a larp I participated in a very very good one. A whole bunch of people wounded and changed by mystical bullshit trying to deal with it and finding companionship in the similar but not same things they had survived. There were changelings, a Sin-Eater (played by me), two Neonates and a bunch of other stuff. So many discussions about it means to be human and what are you willing do to to keep from losing your humanity.
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Feb 17, 2020 15:15
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PHIZ KALIFA posted:yeah, especially if it gives Megagasms and access to the ruling elite. just look at how quick the petit bourgoise sold out the proletariat.
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Feb 17, 2020 15:24
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Kurieg posted:Or, you know, friends or relatives who are willing to put up with a little suffering to help keep their now undead mate alive. That's an abusive relationship op What? No one was talking for like 10 hours lmao
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Feb 17, 2020 17:13
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Metapod posted:That's an abusive relationship op That is not an abusive relationship. People donate their time and energy, i.e. their labor-power, i.e. their life-force for the sake of their friends and relatives and neighbors all the time. Often they suffer in the process of doing so. Taking care of a sick friend or aging parent is a legitimate drain on your reserves and yet it is also your moral obligation by most standards.
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Feb 17, 2020 18:02
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People also literally give their blood for blood drives, and that's not even for people they know! They just do it to help out, especially if they have a common type and/or there's a big need for it! And also, donate kidneys, etc. to loved ones.
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Feb 17, 2020 18:03
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And hey at least vampires will drink blood from gay men and trans women 
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Feb 17, 2020 18:13
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It's possible to play a "good" vampire, but it's also very, very hard and you have all these powers that would make being an evil vampire very, very easy. Also all these powerful evil vampires try to recruit you into their weird organized crime thing and make your life extra difficult. Especially when they tell you you're no longer allowed to feed off your giving friends because they're someone else's "herd", or demand you pay them a frankly ridiculous amount of human blood to continue living where you do, or they'll send legbreakers after you.
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Feb 17, 2020 18:18
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Only tangentially related but it really bugs me that in Vampire the Requiem Theban Sorcery requires high Humanity and Cruac requires low Humanity. I know Humanity isn't exactly a morality meter but uh, it's pretty loving close to one. It's really easy, maybe even intended then, to read in that the Lancea et Sanctum is a "good" faction and the Circle of the Crone a "bad" faction. I guess I get why, fictionally, Cruac requires low humanity - it draws on The Beast - but I don't get why Theban Sorcery demands you stay softhearted. Both factions are generally presented as assholes, hell the Lancea's whole ideology is "be as terrifying a monster as you can because God" and yet advancing their special super secret blood magic makes that hard to do. I could see a strong case for ANY blood magic being limited by Humanity, but not one flavor over another. Maybe it's just aesthetics, that I'd rather not "Vampire Catholicism" be the "good guys" and vampire Paganism be the "bad guys." Maybe it's political, in that I find systemic evils way more threatening. Regardless it always left a bad taste in my mouth.
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Feb 17, 2020 18:50
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Ferrinus posted:That is not an abusive relationship. People donate their time and energy, i.e. their labor-power, i.e. their life-force for the sake of their friends and relatives and neighbors all the time. Often they suffer in the process of doing so. Taking care of a sick friend or aging parent is a legitimate drain on your reserves and yet it is also your moral obligation by most standards. Most abusive relationships start by getting the victim to believe in false sense of security. Sure the first few drinks might be consensual but after that the vampire isn't going to let it's food source deprive him/her of nourishment. Being a vampire isnt like a disease or getting older. You are becoming a whole different type of animal, an all powerful leech specifically. People should actively not help them out friend or not. It is a weird problem where the vampire is your friend but your friend is a plague on the world what do you do I must admit.
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Feb 17, 2020 19:12
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I feel like the Sanctum is pretty clearly just the opposite number to the Circle in a very ‘both evil in different ways’ kind of framework. So yeah, I’m with you on Theban Blood Sorcery being a weird fit for requiring high humanity. I could potentially see it if it were framed around denying the Beast, but I’d want it to involve explicit hypocrisy, where the Sanctum does at least as much evil as the Circle, they just do it in the name of self-control rather than wild abandon.
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Feb 17, 2020 19:16
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Metapod posted:Most abusive relationships start by getting the victim to believe in false sense of security. Sure the first few drinks might be consensual but after that the vampire isn't going to let it's food source deprive him/her of nourishment. Vampires are people. Your shift to “it” pronouns, animal/virus metaphors, etc, cannot elide this simple fact. It sounds like you just haven’t thought about this for very long and are defaulting to the reactionary viewpoint rather than taking the trouble. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Feb 17, 2020 |
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Feb 17, 2020 19:19
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LatwPIAT posted:It's possible to play a "good" vampire, but it's also very, very hard and you have all these powers that would make being an evil vampire very, very easy.  It's not necessary to exaggerate the intrinsic parasitism of vampirism when the systemic and circumstantial pressures towards parasitism are so high.
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Feb 17, 2020 20:29
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Ferrinus posted:Vampires are people. Your shift to “it” pronouns, animal/virus metaphors, etc, cannot elide this simple fact. It sounds like you just haven’t thought about this for very long and are defaulting to the reactionary viewpoint rather than taking the trouble. If vampires aren't people and instead are just some monolithic and generic force of parasitism then why the gently caress would I want to play one in a roleplaying game
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Feb 17, 2020 21:08
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Ferrinus posted:The bourgeoise already exist. Vampires are small-time. If the amount of human misery that all vampires cause, collectively, amounts to even a whole percentage point of the total I'd be shocked. The vampire's blood can stop your aging without giving you that problem with the sun.
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Feb 17, 2020 21:53
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Zereth posted:No, they weren't saying that your blood makes the vampire immortal. Oh, yeah, my bad, Warthur. But that's what I'm getting at in my post basically by accident - suddenly-revealed vampires wouldn't be purged as a terrible threat or cause mass panic because they upturn everything we thought we knew or something. They'd just get commodified.
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Feb 17, 2020 22:44
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I think they backed away from this in 2e, but Requiem 1e had a cool thing where a vampire's psyche was basically a collection of animated memories and emotion. A vampire mob boss yelling at a disloyal lieutenant might slip into yelling at his ungrateful son from life. Maybe every subject a vampire artist painted had echoes of the lover she left behind. It wasn't full on vampire dementia / senility, but basically "life" was over and the vampire's requiem was a melting pot / recycle bin remix of the lived life. It was a cool concept that left a lot of creative secondary effects. A vampire teen would only ever have a teen's experience and perceptions to draw from, for example. But for practical purposes, it didn't make much difference in-game, since it was more of a ceiling to character growth than anything else.
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Feb 17, 2020 22:44
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Blockhouse posted:If vampires aren't people and instead are just some monolithic and generic force of parasitism then why the gently caress would I want to play one in a roleplaying game They're "people" in the way that the factory workers exploited by the factory are still workers. They're a human soul hijacked by an enormous Exploitation Monster, and now the question is "how long do i maintain a cohesive personality before i give up and glut myself at the expense of others?" The Strix are just explotation monsters without the pretense of moral justification. It's like a small business owner having to juggle between paying decent wages and accruing enough capital to expand the business. Every iota of energy you invest into others is an iota you didn't spend safeguarding your own eternity.
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Feb 17, 2020 22:56
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At least one Vamp had to have done a Batman at some point
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Feb 18, 2020 00:34
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Ferrinus posted:Vampires are people. Your shift to “it” pronouns, animal/virus metaphors, etc, cannot elide this simple fact. It sounds like you just haven’t thought about this for very long and are defaulting to the reactionary viewpoint rather than taking the trouble. I'm using it because it's a general pronoun. What else am I supposed to say?
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Feb 18, 2020 01:41
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PHIZ KALIFA posted:They're "people" in the way that the factory workers exploited by the factory are still workers. They're a human soul hijacked by an enormous Exploitation Monster, and now the question is "how long do i maintain a cohesive personality before i give up and glut myself at the expense of others?" The Strix are just explotation monsters without the pretense of moral justification. There's nothing saying this is true. The Strix are probably some form of demon-spirit-hybrid thing. It's also likely that at least some vampires have absolutely nothing to do with the Strix. In 1e there were a number of potential groups that'd fit with this. Hell, one of VII's potential origins is that they're humans that made a pact with an entirely different sort of demon to become vampires. Mind you, the Strix's earlier motivations are described as being jealous of the Kindred. Not that they're just rampant exploitation monsters. Vampires can experiences all the bodily pleasures of the world without having to deal with the whole "Everyone I hijack turns into a rotting corpse or gets broken down from my insane chaotic evil hedonism" issue. They also hate the way that vampires are still human because they literally can only pretend at it. This gets to the point that even a humanity 1 vampire is too human for them. Of course, when you factor in the fact that a humanity 0 vampire usually isn't going to be able to enjoy all those things (Since it's all hunt-feed-kill-sleep at that level.) it puts that jealousy in even further perspective. The hate they have for them is at least partially the hate that someone has when they envy someone else's blessings. It might be more accurate to say that they're demons of vice, shadow, and envy. In fact, the supposed origin myths that involve Strix from the vampire end of things all seem to involve envy in some way. If you really believe that the Julii were made by the Strix (And there's evidence against this too.) then they were literally created due to envy from Romulus getting to found the roman empire while Remus was left in the dust. Likewise, the Daeva origin story involving Uruk literally has a vampire getting created (And has direct references to Prometheans, oddly enough.) because of envy over love and the spite of someone else not getting to enjoy it. Heck, if I could dig up the old RPGnet forum where the writers of the Clan books chimed in and people pieced the original and finished story together one mentioned that his ideas got waylaid into something else. That thread made a pretty convincing case that the creation of the Ventrue (and the destruction of the Julii) may have also been the result of envy. And yet again, the Strix show up as antagonists there as well. Likewise, the example Strix in 2e don't all fit your profile of them being rampant exploitation monsters. Edit: I should also add that given 1e's nods to Exalted and the OWoD that the Strix are very similar to the Nemissaries. The only difference is that the Strix get way more of a detailed write up than the Nemissaries ever got so there's more room to fill things out. Nissin Cup Nudist posted:At least one Vamp had to have done a Batman at some point This is literally what some Nosferatu do, yeah. Also, the 1e Chicago book had a communist Nosferatu Robin Hood that'd take from the rich (In the novels he's even shown raiding the house of a drug dealer to rob him.) to try and inspire the people to rise up. It probably wasn't intentional but given that Chicago is thought to be one of the inspirations for Gotham... Archonex fucked around with this message at 02:10 on Feb 18, 2020 |
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Feb 18, 2020 01:47
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Even though I haven't really ever played it, my heart is still warm to have a complete collection of Promethean 1e. Reorganizing a bunch of my shelves and that goes right at the front of the World of Darkness stuff.
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Feb 18, 2020 02:06
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Archonex posted:There's nothing saying this is true. uhhhh actually i think you'll find that the strix are the friends we ate along the way
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Feb 18, 2020 02:08
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Digital Osmosis posted:Only tangentially related but it really bugs me that in Vampire the Requiem Theban Sorcery requires high Humanity and Cruac requires low Humanity. I know Humanity isn't exactly a morality meter but uh, it's pretty loving close to one. It's really easy, maybe even intended then, to read in that the Lancea et Sanctum is a "good" faction and the Circle of the Crone a "bad" faction. I guess I get why, fictionally, Cruac requires low humanity - it draws on The Beast - but I don't get why Theban Sorcery demands you stay softhearted. Both factions are generally presented as assholes, hell the Lancea's whole ideology is "be as terrifying a monster as you can because God" and yet advancing their special super secret blood magic makes that hard to do. I could see a strong case for ANY blood magic being limited by Humanity, but not one flavor over another. This is because Theban Sorcery is really just pagan sorcery they stole from another culture on a severe downturn around the time when they were trying to get the power and justification to tear down the Camarilla. 1e went into this quite a bit. There's a section in...I forget which book, really. Maybe ancient mythologies? Anyways, it goes into how there's a bunch of ancient Egyptian vampires coming out of torpor. The example character join the Circle since he was a priest or something back in his era but finds that he just can't perform blood magic with the same skill that he used too. The reason turns out to be that it's because he's one of the original practitioners of Theban Sorcery before it got hijacked by the Lancea et Sanctum to justify their claims that they were chosen by god. The Lancea et Sanctum are also implied to be less than thrilled that all these vampires from the days of old are waking up with a potential laundry list of their crimes and why they're a bunch of frauds hidden away in their memory addled heads. In this case, being less than thrilled means that they will straight up loving murder anyone that figures out that they're a bunch of phonies. Be it being one of those vampires or anyone chancing across ancient texts that name them as being thieves that literally lied their way to power. Sadly I don't think 2e ever really addressed this plot line again. Which is a shame. Because the Lance are right up there with Beast's in the whole self justifying abuser issue. PHIZ KALIFA posted:uhhhh actually i think you'll find that the strix are the friends we ate along the way Cool story bro. 
Archonex fucked around with this message at 02:33 on Feb 18, 2020 |
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Feb 18, 2020 02:17
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Metapod posted:Most abusive relationships start by getting the victim to believe in false sense of security. Sure the first few drinks might be consensual but after that the vampire isn't going to let it's food source deprive him/her of nourishment. No you see the literal walking corpse that drains the life force of others is the good guy and getting a yes absolves them of monstrosity
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Feb 18, 2020 02:35
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Metapod posted:I'm using it because it's a general pronoun. What else am I supposed to say? "They/them" is a good inclusive for people.
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Feb 18, 2020 02:40
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Oberst posted:No you see the literal walking corpse that drains the life force of others is the good guy and getting a yes absolves them of monstrosity It's neat that you guys found another thing that you two exclusively agree on
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Feb 18, 2020 02:41
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PHIZ KALIFA posted:uhhhh actually i think you'll find that the strix ate the friends we made along the way You were so close Archonex posted:Sadly I don't think 2e ever really addressed this plot line again. Which is a shame. Because the Lance are right up there with Beast's in the whole self justifying abuser issue. Dark Eras 2 surprisingly has a pretty good set of vampire covenants for the Abbasid Empire, and the covenant that guards and practices Theban Sorcery (which they call Karamat) in the Muslim world there is explicitly not the traditionalist covenant that thinks vampires have a role to play in God's plan, but the covenant of vampires who think being cursed to drink blood is horrible and the best thing you can do to justify your unlife is spend it finding even worse monsters and killing them. The covenant that practices Crúac is also pretty good, outsiders united by their sense that the Curse disproves any sense of divine justice they believed in life, who aren't violent self-worshipping owl cultists but lost seekers looking for meaning in overlooked and forgotten ways. Too bad vampires have to share the chapter with Beasts. I Am Just a Box fucked around with this message at 03:00 on Feb 18, 2020 |
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Feb 18, 2020 02:47
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Oberst posted:No you see the literal walking corpse that drains the life force of others is the good guy and getting a yes absolves them of monstrosity The human being also exists only by consuming the life force of other beings. The difference is we are alive and are usually predator, not prey.
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Feb 18, 2020 02:51
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Oberst posted:No you see the literal walking corpse that drains the life force of others is the good guy and getting a yes absolves them of monstrosity So what, in this hypothetical scenario there is literally no way a vampire can be a good guy? Because simple logic says you're wrong. [quote] Warthur posted:The problem vampires have isn't so much consent as it is informed consent. Withhold the information about what you need it for, and the consent is instantly questionable at best when it's given and much more likely to be withheld. There's a reason why the Masquerade exists. Outside of the obvious benefits to the older vampires and keeping it secret creates narrative tension in that an actual way to help their condition becomes dangerous. Kurieg had it right in that consent is pretty much necessary for vampires to have a life that isn't plagued with fighting off rear end in a top hat gangster vampires wanting to run a racket on you or dealing with starving and murdering people by accident. It's why Annabelle gets so much awe from other vampires in LA by Night. And it's why there's really a game to begin with. I mean, are you saying that there's no hope for people treating them decently? Because i've got bad news for you. People give up far worse things than a bit of blood for friends and loved ones all the time. poo poo, my neighbor donated a kidney to her dying father when she was twenty and he was so old he probably wasn't going to get use it for more than a few years. With her health issues she probably shaved a good twenty years off of her life and made a good number of the ones she has left pretty miserable. Speaking personally, if someone came up to me and demonstrated that yes they do in fact need blood to live i'd not consider it an issue to give a bit of blood if it meant someone not dying. Why? Because i'm not a sociopath for one. And secondly i've seen people do far better than that. You underestimate your average person's sense of decency and altruism. Also, this ignores that what you're saying happens in a game where the Masquerade is going. Cheiron is mentioned to harvest vampires not just for their parts but also for their blood. Theres's a little blurb somewhere in one of the books that mentions that one of their inventions is a little red pill that's a combat stimulant. I think it's mentioned that it's being as being given to armed service members overseas without them knowing what they're being forced to take. Which cannot go wrong at all. Nor will it ever make more vampires, larvae, or revenants. No siree. At least in a post Masquerade world that sort of thing stands a chance of being regulated out of existence. Archonex fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Feb 18, 2020 |
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Feb 18, 2020 02:51
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Archonex posted:This is because Theban Sorcery is really just pagan sorcery they stole from another culture on a severe downturn around the time when they were trying to get the power and justification to tear down the Camarilla. See this is neat, and makes sense, and furthers the theme of "pagan-ish or catholic-ish, all vampire religions are loving horrifying." Still it doesn't answer the question of Humanity - why would one branch of pagan blood sorcery fail if you tell a little white lie and another fail if you don't murder anyone who mildly inconveniences you?
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Feb 18, 2020 02:52
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Oberst posted:No you see the literal walking corpse that drains the life force of others is the good guy and getting a yes absolves them of monstrosity Again, you're just trying to sneak in as much othering language as possible in order to dodge the basic moral issue: vampires are people, and people need blood to function. Can you actually explain what's monstrous about receiving a blood donation?
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Feb 18, 2020 02:56
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