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It's not that you have a different opinion, it's that you and Oberst only post in this thread when your single pet issue comes up, don't really interact outside of it, and constantly warp other people's arguments and move the goalposts to make having any kind of meaningful debate with you somewhat impossible, as when you start to lose the high ground you shift the topic to something else. Seriously this conversation over the past week has gone The only ethical feeding is from animals-->feeding from humans is abusive because informed consent doesn't exist-->Vampires aren't actually people This negates the initial argument about there being an ethical way to feed because Vampires are now objects and not, you know, Human(Despite them having a humanity stat). Turning vampires into an Other (using an object pronoun to describe someone, even a fictional someone, in 2020 is pretty gross Not gonna lie) also kind of defeats the purpose of the game, as we are supposed to relate to and in some way embody these roles we play. Having them be consequential consumption engines rather than people with drives, ethics, and morals(warped as they may be) makes the game less enjoyable, not more.
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Feb 18, 2020 18:15
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I have never moved a goal post. I state my opinion then defend the parts that are being opposed. If you think the argument is changing in a way that looks like goalposts are moving maybe look at the other side as well because all my posts are based around the same point I start with. Vampires are not human I stand by this. They are parasites that offer zero good for humans and any ethical vampire would let the sun take them. The most "ethical" way for a vampire to drink from a human is equivalent to a payday loan which are monstrous in their own right. A walking corpse (vampire, zombie) is an other. If we were talking about werewolves or any other supernatural creatures that still embodied humans I would agree with you. As an aside i'm intrigued why so many of you are interested in the good vampire? Almost all stories of vampires depict them as evil.
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Feb 18, 2020 19:45
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CottonWolf posted:Do we know why there was never a DtF 20? Did Onyx Path just think it wouldn't make enough money?
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Feb 18, 2020 19:45
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Metapod posted:I have never moved a goal post. I state my opinion then defend the parts that are being opposed. If you think the argument is changing in a way that looks like goalposts are moving maybe look at the other side as well because all my posts are based around the same point I start with. Vampires are obviously not humans. However, vampires are people. The issue isn't whether they breathe or poo poo, it's whether they're minded beings with identities and personalities. Lots of people can't survive on their own without continued sacrifice on others' parts (in fact I would say this is true for all people but that's another discussion). Do you think the only ethical option for someone on an assisted living scheme is to jump off a bridge?
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Feb 18, 2020 19:54
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Personally I think that whether 'stop existing' is the only acceptable outcome for a vampire depends hugely on the metaphor in play. Saying 'all addicts should stop being addicted or die' is grotesque and cruel; saying 'all capitalists should stop being capitalists or die' is a lot less so. Saying 'all abusers should stop being abusers or die' similarly, I'm not going to complain about a setting that leans on that metaphor where you either attain Golconda or get staked, no middle ground. Of course, all of these examples are still people. They can still have hopes, dreams, ideals, etc. Just, we summarily judge certain people to be beyond the pale and defending their victims comes before their wellbeing by a huge margin.
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Feb 18, 2020 20:00
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Totally right. Generally, I think discussions as to the ethical treatment of vampires have to take place in contexts in which vampires are on equal footing with us or practically speaking under our power, as is the case with some hypothetical recent embracee who has no idea what's going on and has come to you, their friend or family member, for help, OR in the case of some sort of revolutionary state in which the vampires' power structure has been overthrown and now we have to decide what to do with them.
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Feb 18, 2020 20:11
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If a vampire has devolved to the point that they're a consequential predator interested only in their own survival and advancement, that's probably someone deserving of a 5th degree sunburn. But that's not where vampires start, it's where they end. If it's where they started then that's just Beast and that definitely does not need to exist.
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Feb 18, 2020 20:12
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"Vampires are obviously monsters" and "playing Vampire should and must be an exploration of grotesque monstrosity" are both premises we can challenge but I think most people ITT are more prepared to challenge the latter rather than the former. If it is utterly impossible to play a good vampire, being a bad vampire is dull, because it isn't a choice. Drinking blood from fawning, willing doners is obviously less bad than taking blood from the unwilling or murdering for blood. I hope this clears things up. Mendrian fucked around with this message at 22:26 on Feb 18, 2020 |
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Feb 18, 2020 20:25
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Lord_Hambrose posted:I miss the good old days when being a Vampire was a metaphor for being a rapist, instead as a living manifestation of Capitalism. My character Alexis "Pippi Redstocking" MacKenzie, the Marxist-Feminist vampire-hunter, wants you to know there's no difference!
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Feb 18, 2020 21:05
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I'm not sure what Metapod's endgoal of arguing that all vampires are inherently inhuman monsters that should be put to death is? Like, a game that a bunch of people enjoy playing assumes that there's some value in at least trying to live ethically even though it's hard and ultimately futile. Should we stop? Should no one play Vampire? Why are you arguing this?
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Feb 18, 2020 21:24
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Spoiler: the goal is making GBS threads up the thread.
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Feb 18, 2020 21:29
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Metapod just wants " 30 straight pages of Magechat" back.
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Feb 18, 2020 21:30
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pseudosavior posted:Metapod just wants " 30 straight pages of Magechat" back. Also, for the record, "it's impossoble to live ethically as a vampire" is a dumb argument to make if only for the reason that vampires aren't real and that deep dives into lore can only take you so far. This isn't history, there are no deeper truths about the human existence to be mined here. It's a story. It's fake. It's not real life.
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Feb 18, 2020 21:34
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Yes but vampires let us explore "is it possible to be an ethical capitalist" This is why their quest for golconda is doomed
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Feb 18, 2020 21:43
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Froghammer posted:I'm not sure what Metapod's endgoal of arguing that all vampires are inherently inhuman monsters that should be put to death is? Like, a game that a bunch of people enjoy playing assumes that there's some value in at least trying to live ethically even though it's hard and ultimately futile. Should we stop? Should no one play Vampire? Why are you arguing this? It's either straight trolling or to convince the thread the correct way to play Vampire is being 'that guy' in every group who pushes the boundaries of good taste by "exploring evil."
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Feb 18, 2020 22:28
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Mendrian posted:It's either straight trolling or to convince the thread the correct way to play Vampire is being 'that guy' in every group who pushes the boundaries of good taste by "exploring evil." Disgustingly, I believe this. It lines up with previous threadshitting.
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Feb 18, 2020 22:42
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Mendrian posted:It's either straight trolling or to convince the thread the correct way to play Vampire is being 'that guy' in every group who pushes the boundaries of good taste by "exploring evil." I'd ask about his trenchcoat/katana wielding character but I have him on ignore. It makes reading the thread a bit of a challenge because it means theirs a bunch of replies to whatever dumb poo poo they said with no context until someone quotes it and it's even dumber than I expected.
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Feb 18, 2020 22:55
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Mendrian posted:It's either straight trolling or to convince the thread the correct way to play Vampire is being 'that guy' in every group who pushes the boundaries of good taste by "exploring evil." TBH, a lot of roleplaying advice from various Vampire products has suggested that over the years. It's not the only way or the best way but it is sadly something supported by a lot of the text.
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Feb 18, 2020 22:58
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Arivia posted:TBH, a lot of roleplaying advice from various Vampire products has suggested that over the years. It's not the only way or the best way but it is sadly something supported by a lot of the text. We come here not to praise bad vampire discussion and lazy, pawing trolls from people who can't post less than 3 times in a row and would be threadbanned if the moderation were awake, but to bury it.
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Feb 18, 2020 23:01
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Playing vampires as strict monsters who lick blood off their fingers and purr over the bodies of their victims is honestly just so boring. Leaving aside the fact that it's gross, and also leaving aside the fact that it's basically reading the various in-universe justifications for vampiric monstrosity as ooc gaming advice - there's just no depth to it. Like I can write grossout fiction and keep it in a box under my bed, I don't need other people to practice it on. Once you buy the belief that humans don't matter the whole game gets way less three dimensional. I think vampires - even very old vampires - are really great at compartmentalizing. They aren't evil, they're doing what they have to in order to survive, not like *those* heathen assholes over there who play with their food etc etc. I think most vampires are probably a mixed bag, protecting those things they care about and rationalizing or being haunted by their worst behaviors. It's probably safe to say most vampires are a net bad for the world, but even a regular human serial killer is undebtably worse than your average neonate or ancilla.
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Feb 18, 2020 23:33
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Vampires have the same Dunbar's Number as anybody, it's just that all 150 of those people are other vampires. Not having to think of the people whose blood you have to drink as actually being people comes as naturally as the CEO not really thinking the people who'll get cancer drinking the water his company dumps toxic runoff into are actually people, really, when you think about it. Now the SHAREHOLDERS, those are the real people.
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Feb 18, 2020 23:44
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CottonWolf posted:Do we know why there was never a DtF 20? Did Onyx Path just think it wouldn't make enough money? They were probably going to go year by year as each gameline hit its 20th anniversary, hence the edition name. Then Paradox bought the White Wolf intellectual property and said they didn't want any more new WoD products distracting or confusing from their plans for transmedia empire licensing, and that meant rolling the clock back to the beginning again, because they're probably not going to release any Fallen material until they've worked their way through Apocalypse, Ascension, Oblivion, Reckoning... The Demon Translation Guide is actually very good, although with a few key flaws. One of those key flaws is the Torment check for whether you get a high-Torment Lore result. It's "check whether your Torment exceeds your successes + Faith points spent." Or in other words, you are always going to roll high-Torment unless you bleed Faith like mad solely to avoid it. Mendrian posted:If it is utterly impossible to play a good vampire, being a bad vampire is dull, because it isn't a choice.I hope this clears things up.  Arguments about the possibility of a vampire being better aren't really about vampires being good. They're about how when vampires are bad, they are responsible for their actions. They are not some inhuman beings that are beyond good and evil by their very nature, no matter how some vampires try to sell you on that idea. They just took the easy way out. I Am Just a Box fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Feb 19, 2020 |
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Feb 18, 2020 23:56
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pseudosavior posted:Metapod just wants " 30 straight pages of Magechat" back. I was born ready.
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Feb 19, 2020 00:20
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Dave Brookshaw posted:I was born ready. How do I turn the moon into a Manichaean engine to collect and purify goodness so that all may eventually transcend the cage of flesh, which darkness seals them in by the lures of lies, procreation and hate?
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Feb 19, 2020 00:33
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Mors Rattus posted:How do I turn the moon into a Manichaean engine to collect and purify goodness so that all may eventually transcend the cage of flesh, which darkness seals them in by the lures of lies, procreation and hate?
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Feb 19, 2020 00:36
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Uhhh.. Prime.
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Feb 19, 2020 00:36
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Oh gods, what evil have I brought forth? I didn't mean to invoke this, I swear it.
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Feb 19, 2020 00:37
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pseudosavior posted:Oh gods, what evil have I brought forth? You’ll just have to live with the terror that you have spawned. I guess you’ll think twice about trying to summon supernal creatures next time. Even with pure intention, the abyss can creep in.
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Feb 19, 2020 00:38
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No, see, the moon-engine will stop that. And collect all the light in the sun for storage. Now we just have to stop all procreation so that the light doesn’t get sealed in the falsity of flesh and ignorance, and also end the consumption of all meat, as animals have souls and light within them, but plants don’t. Except beans.
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Feb 19, 2020 00:40
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The forums posting end goal
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Feb 19, 2020 00:47
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It has always seemed to me that at best Vampires are deeply deeply conflicted, and that's putting it at absolute best. Metapod's argument seems to draw the line that no vampire can harbor any good at all, which really isn't true but he is raising a point that I feel is valid that at absolute best vampires are predatory shitheads.
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Feb 19, 2020 00:49
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I feel like if your average vampire pc isn't a person trying deal with this new life and slowly falling into darkness, something has gone wrong. Just give me that well intentioned slide into Hell.
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Feb 19, 2020 00:55
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Mors Rattus posted:No, see, the moon-engine will stop that. And collect all the light in the sun for storage. Now we just have to stop all procreation so that the light doesn’t get sealed in the falsity of flesh and ignorance, and also end the consumption of all meat, as animals have souls and light within them, but plants don’t. Except beans. Yes, but animals cannot awaken, so they mean much less to the Supernal. And that’s truth that you can measure. You don’t gain near the amount of mana from sacrificing an animal as you do from sacrificing a sleeper (according to a book of course, I’m not left handed). So by measuring the mana you gain you can measure supernal importance which clearly means that lesser beings are less important than mages, so you can eat that cheeseburger with a clear conscience. Also, it’s local grass fed beef which was transported via clean energy (magically enhanced), so the carbon footprint is negative to help rebalance the ecosystem.
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Feb 19, 2020 00:59
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Top Hats Monthly posted:It has always seemed to me that at best Vampires are deeply deeply conflicted, and that's putting it at absolute best. Metapod's argument seems to draw the line that no vampire can harbor any good at all, which really isn't true but he is raising a point that I feel is valid that at absolute best vampires are predatory shitheads. Finally someone reasonable thank you. Yeah its not that no vampire has good in them it's that no matter how much good they have they are still bad.
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Feb 19, 2020 01:01
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Top Hats Monthly posted:It has always seemed to me that at best Vampires are deeply deeply conflicted, and that's putting it at absolute best. Metapod's argument seems to draw the line that no vampire can harbor any good at all, which really isn't true but he is raising a point that I feel is valid that at absolute best vampires are predatory shitheads. Well the thing is that, as usual, he is wrong. "At best" vampires aren't predatory. "On average" and even "by default" they certainly are, but that's owed to circumstances, not to nature.
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Feb 19, 2020 01:17
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Speaking of Magechat, I've posted it in here once before, but I wrote up my campaign DaveB-style on RPGnet and last weekend we played our last session (not yet written up) thanks to a player getting a new job with an incompatible schedule. We finished up decently, though - if it was a TV show, it would've been the end of 'season 1'. It went pretty well and players had a pretty positive feeling about the game! They enjoyed the political scheming the most, I think - a few of them said that (especially as we were playing via Discord/roll20) they never got quite as good a handle on the magic system as they wanted. All of them would've gladly kept going, but felt it wouldn't be the same without the plot threads that the leaving player contributed to. Also my players are big babies and almost never ever risked paradox.
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Feb 19, 2020 03:05
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My players are also big babies and almost never risk paradox either. On one hand, it makes me sad. On the other, I totally understand why they don’t. The few times it’s gotten through it does complicate their night. So working as intended, because those are the times they’ve had to push and risk things. I smile when I do get to roll for it, even if they’re going to mitigate or soak it. They’re much more likely to agree to dramatic failures than they are to paradox, and we use a static XP gain system now.
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Feb 19, 2020 03:23
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Ferrinus posted:Well the thing is that, as usual, he is wrong. "At best" vampires aren't predatory. "On average" and even "by default" they certainly are, but that's owed to circumstances, not to nature. Yeah, I just don't think it's healthy, as a player or as a storyteller, to make a vampire's cruelty just another fact of life. Rather, I think it's a grim inevitability. At some point, you will get desperate. At some point, the Beast will take over. You will not intend for it to happen. It will hurt. The game is in how you struggle against that, and Humanity is the tool to measure how much you care.
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Feb 19, 2020 03:42
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Soonmot posted:Because we have no mod to ban them from the thread. Let’s be honest here, this thread hasn’t been good since Etherwind got banned.
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Feb 19, 2020 04:14
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My players have been really careful with Paradox, but I figured out this was in large part because they found the paradox effects like 'spell hits wrong target' incredibly frustrating, pretty quickly. So I talked to them and got a much crueler but less frustrating system: When they got Paradox, I could just mark it down by character and store it up until it could pay for a more interesting Abyssal manifestation. This led to one of the characters having their second personality (created with Mind out of their Vice goetia) get infected with an Acamoth, which represented an artificial Daimon, which could help this second personality develop and change despite being the result of a spell... but only to become a worse and more paradoxical person. This ended with a huge Astral showdown in the Oneiros this last week, I had a blast (it was the first of three or four epilogue sessions for the main plot).
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Feb 19, 2020 06:24
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