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Fuzz posted:Where Requiem started to annoy me was the 100+ Bloodlines, each with their own special Discipline, because I hated that poo poo in VtM and they just quadrupled down on it unnecessarily when they could have gone the Devotion route and it would have been fine. V5 takes that idea and runs with it, but the amalgams actually replace basic powers and you have to pick and choose, which is pretty divisive though overall, I don't mind it that much. That said, even the one chronicle I played to completetion so far none of us got any Discipline above 4, so it didn't ultimately matter. 90% of those Bloodlines are never mentionne doutside of their one appearance, so they're more examples of the mutability of the blood in Requiem, imho. The Khaibit get some stuff?
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Jul 7, 2022 02:36
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Making all those proprietary disciplines instead devotions would actually be a bad idea, since it creates an oWoD situation in which a character could hypothetically know thirty different weird barely-on-theme-for-vampires powers. In fact, never joining a bloodline is a solid mechanical as well as character choice because that way you don't get a second clan weakness and can just spend your XP on regular stuff anyway. In fact, one good piece of V5's design is that it does VtR-style bloodlines whose secret powers you can only access by being a member!
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Jul 7, 2022 02:56
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Ferrinus posted:Making all those proprietary disciplines instead devotions would actually be a bad idea, since it creates an oWoD situation in which a character could hypothetically know thirty different weird barely-on-theme-for-vampires powers. In fact, never joining a bloodline is a solid mechanical as well as character choice because that way you don't get a second clan weakness and can just spend your XP on regular stuff anyway. Yeah, speaking as a Storyteller I really like the bloodline model, because it's both easier and a lot more creatively interesting if vampires qua vampires have a relatively tight mechanical identity and a bunch of peripheral esotery. It keeps NPCs distinct, is so much easier to balance, and creates clear hooks for PCs who want to develop those powers and clear hooks for Storytellers who want to work them into the story. They're also, I think, a much better use of VtM style "bloodline politics". Vampires siloing off politically by clan always felt corny to me in exactly the same way as like, sapient races having fixed alignments in D&D. But if instead of one fifth of the vampires (or whatever historically contingent fraction) it was just one bloodline which might be anywhere from one guy to a couple of furtive freaks to an entrenched dynasty, it feels a lot less, uh, let's say race-essentialist. That said, I'd probably agree there are a bunch of Requiem bloodlines that could've never gotten printed at no meaningful loss to the line, but that's the nature of the 90s/2000s supplement treadmill era).
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Jul 7, 2022 04:16
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Ferrinus posted:The problem with getting down to street level and just playing with broad concepts of clan and whatnot in the oWoD is that the broad concepts of clan in VtM - and, in general, the splats of all the various OWoD games - are just bad, a series of exercises in para-racial or actually-racial profiling. Also, "clan and whatnot" is misleading because "clan" is basically all there is; the sects are either enormous or tiny and marginal and have no real game-mechanical weight, so while Requiem lets you consider what a Sanctum Gangrel is like as opposed to an Ordo Gangrel as opposed to an Invictus Gangrel the oWoD is just, well, here's your animal guys, go nuts. And V5 has if anything doubled down on clans and clan stereotypes, because if you roll poorly on literally anything at all you could find your Nosferatu character suddenly becoming extra nosy or your Ventrue character suddenly becoming extra bossy because, well, that's just what they're like, isn't it? This is my problem with it too. In Requiem you really do get this super cool intersection of clan, covenant, and who the vampire was in life that immediately suggests without forcing a ton of different directions you can go with your roleplay. I think the biggest contributing factor is that each of the covenants is about deciding what the members should become, and they all have very different answers that take on interesting permutations. Every vampire you meet is a totally unique and bizarre individual, rather than all the Nosferatu being sassy sewer-dwellers who look like Max Schreck. That's not to say OWoD vampires can't be unique, but they're very very strongly encouraged to fit a pretty small number of molds. I think this might be why the setting ended up having so many thousands of clans and microsplats, everyone wanted their own original character do not steal. NWoD didn't totally jettison that but NWoD bloodlines are just a little quirk, not your whole identity.
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Jul 7, 2022 04:34
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Ferrinus posted:Making all those proprietary disciplines instead devotions would actually be a bad idea, since it creates an oWoD situation in which a character could hypothetically know thirty different weird barely-on-theme-for-vampires powers. In fact, never joining a bloodline is a solid mechanical as well as character choice because that way you don't get a second clan weakness and can just spend your XP on regular stuff anyway. My point was that 90% of the weird edge nonsense disciplines were pointless chaff and could be easily excised to just hone it down to useful stuff that's thematic. Weird perfume power? Nope. Ridiculously powerful discipline tree that "manipulates luck" by letting you reroll poo poo constantly? Nope. Funky powers that let straight up control your actual Haven and weaponize it? Sure, but make it literally one power, not 5. The 6 clans (if you include Requiem for Rome and why wouldn't you, it was one of the best books) were solid enough and evoked archetypes just fine on their own. Weird singing vampire and vampire with murder hair were really unnecessary to add in. Attorney at Funk posted:They're also, I think, a much better use of VtM style "bloodline politics". Vampires siloing off politically by clan always felt corny to me in exactly the same way as like, sapient races having fixed alignments in D&D. But if instead of one fifth of the vampires (or whatever historically contingent fraction) it was just one bloodline which might be anywhere from one guy to a couple of furtive freaks to an entrenched dynasty, it feels a lot less, uh, let's say race-essentialist. This has always bugged me about oWoD, but at least V5 has attempted to move away with it in some fashion by removing poo poo like the antitribu and it just being the same drat clan. The problem is they straight up double down with a bunch of it like the narrative that "oh, the Brujah left the Camarilla" which seems blanket and definitive to new and old players, but then at the same time there's a bunch of story and sample campaigns that straight show the exceptions to the rule, like Winter's Teeth and some of the Chicago campaigns/NPCs. The problem is by making the initial statement seem so definitive, they poo poo themselves in the foot and make these randos seem like either a mistake, an afterthought, or possibly a clear hint to not trust them even if that has nothing to do with the actual campaign being outlined. Thankfully from what I've seen, most games don't really give a poo poo, and while LAbN wasn't the greatest example of a table game, it at least consistently showed a bunch of "traditionally Camarilla" clans as Anarchs, and Seattle did the same but showing some Camarilla types from clans that traditionally were not. The Salubri are still dumb and bad, though, sucks that they kept them in and weighted their presentation alongside the Tzimisce and Ravnos. Big oof. Fuzz fucked around with this message at 06:04 on Jul 7, 2022 |
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Jul 7, 2022 05:55
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i like the luck vampires because they were balanced by always pinging positive for diablerie, and that it was luck vampirism so that someone else would have to take the fall for your rerolls, which means they get blamed for everything from being in proximity to so many unfortunate accidents, investigated, then oh hey it turns out it's a soul-eater. just a very good implicit endless loop of a curse
Mister Olympus fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Jul 7, 2022 |
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Jul 7, 2022 05:58
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Fuzz posted:My point was that 90% of the word edge nonsense disciplines were pointless chaff and could be easily excised to just hone it down to useful stuff that's thematic. Weird perfume power? Nope. Ridiculously powerful discipline tree that "manipulates luck" by letting you reroll poo poo constantly? Nope. Funky powers that let straight up control your actual Haven and weaponize it? Sure, but make it literally one power, not 5. I'm not really seeing the problem that the unique disease power, or haven weaponization power, or shadow control power, or whatever come in five tiers rather than two. Obviously you could have a bloodline that just gives you access to a single boutique Devotion, and IIRC some 2E bloodlines actually do this, but... so what? The problem with, say, V20-and-prior Thaumaturgy was not that there were a million Paths (except for the fact that like 10% of them at best felt like they had anything to do with being a vampire) but that the same character could learn as many as they could afford. If there are like three vampires with murder hair somewhere in Luxemburg, what's the issue? Mister Olympus posted:i like the luck vampires because they were balanced by always pinging positive for diablerie, and that it was luck vampirism so that someone else would have to take the fall for your rerolls, which means they get blamed for everything from being in proximity to so many unfortunate accidents, investigated, then oh hey it turns out it's a soul-eater. just a very good implicit endless loop of a curse They were absolutely not balanced. In fact I distinctly remember the power's writer being like "well it's fine because if a bunch of vampires all team up against the luck vampire they could successfully... run the luck vampire out of town" on the official White Wolf forums back in the day.
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Jul 7, 2022 06:05
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see that's pretty plausible to me, but my circumstances are particular since i enjoy vampire most in larp form. with 15~30 players, any given person attracting sufficient heat will get run out of town, or staked, or what have you, because the individual factions and conspiracies are bumping up against each other. and in this case, it's not a GM invoking fiat to shut down a character out of frustration, it's other vampire players being schemey vampires. heck, in the larp context, even just having that extra weakness of the black aura is playing with fire even before you start your powers up, because someone is going to check you on that eventually. i can see a problem player with this being much more of a problem in tabletop, but frankly that's just not on my radar by default Mister Olympus fucked around with this message at 06:29 on Jul 7, 2022 |
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Jul 7, 2022 06:27
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Attorney at Funk posted:Yeah, speaking as a Storyteller I really like the bloodline model, because it's both easier and a lot more creatively interesting if vampires qua vampires have a relatively tight mechanical identity and a bunch of peripheral esotery. It keeps NPCs distinct, is so much easier to balance, and creates clear hooks for PCs who want to develop those powers and clear hooks for Storytellers who want to work them into the story. Personally, I think bloodlines would be a lot easier to like if they were actually sold as fun but rare vampire concepts you could insert into your game/use as an example when building your own weird mechanics. That fits into nWoD/CofD's strengths, and that's a reasonable role for something weird like Hair Vampires in most games. As-is they were sold as basically vampire prestige classes because that sells more books, and that makes the whole concept sound a lot worse.
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Jul 7, 2022 12:53
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Lurks With Wolves posted:Personally, I think bloodlines would be a lot easier to like if they were actually sold as fun but rare vampire concepts you could insert into your game/use as an example when building your own weird mechanics. That fits into nWoD/CofD's strengths, and that's a reasonable role for something weird like Hair Vampires in most games. As-is they were sold as basically vampire prestige classes because that sells more books, and that makes the whole concept sound a lot worse. Yeah I'm not a big fan of the implicit assumption that a vampire isn't "finished" until you've got a bloodline, or a mage with a legacy, or whatever. Luckily there's nothing requiring that read at the table.
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Jul 7, 2022 12:59
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a7m2 posted:Thank you so much for that. If you're going to start pre-embrace, then I actually reccomend VtR. Even without their disciplines, vtr vamps have a nice set of baseline powers. Night vision, the ability to smell blood and detect heartbeats, predatory aura to intimate, seduce, or terrify, their healing and ability to use blood to enhance their physical atrributes. THere's a link in the OP about things every splat can do, check over that. But my point is that you can ease her into things by showing how much she's changed and then bringing in the really weird powers once she thinks she has a handle on things.
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Jul 7, 2022 13:19
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Ferrinus posted:The problem with, say, V20-and-prior Thaumaturgy was not that there were a million Paths (except for the fact that like 10% of them at best felt like they had anything to do with being a vampire) but that the same character could learn as many as they could afford. If there are like three vampires with murder hair somewhere in Luxemburg, what's the issue? Thaumaturgy was the easily in the top 5 worst things about older editions, it was so stupid. Sadly there's this vocal subset of dumbasses in the V5 community lamenting how weak Blood Sorcery is compared to the old stuff and how so many powers are missing. The fact that one of the next books is Blood Sigils, which is gonna focus on Sorcery and Alchemy, has me really leary. From my chats with Achilli and Dawkins over the last few months it seems like they're well aware that the old paradigm of Thaum doing everything and then some was terrible. We'll see. I fully expect it to be lighter than people are hoping for and carry some bogus loving price tag because Renegade seems to love fleecing people. My hope is they mainly just focus on the weird alternative Sorceries, namely Koldunism and Setite Sorcery, without actually being as stupid as a lot of the old powers from both of those were and mainly just reapplying the existing stuff with a handful of extra powers and rituals and primarily focusing on the lore and mechanical/narrative ways of bringing them into your campaigns, hopefully with some cool loresheets too.
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Jul 7, 2022 13:47
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Ferrinus posted:The problem with getting down to street level and just playing with broad concepts of clan and whatnot in the oWoD is that the broad concepts of clan in VtM - and, in general, the splats of all the various oWoD games - are just bad, a series of exercises in para-racial or actually-racial profiling. Also, "clan and whatnot" is misleading because "clan" is basically all there is; the sects are either enormous or tiny and marginal and have no real game-mechanical weight, so while Requiem lets you consider what a Sanctum Gangrel is like as opposed to an Ordo Gangrel as opposed to an Invictus Gangrel the oWoD is just, well, here's your animal guys, go nuts. And V5 has if anything doubled down on clans and clan stereotypes, because if you roll poorly on literally anything at all you could find your Nosferatu character suddenly becoming extra nosy or your Ventrue character suddenly becoming extra bossy because, well, that's just what they're like, isn't it? I think Toreador might get it the worst. A penalty to Disciplines in an area that they don't consider beautiful and just 'out and about' never counts for it? So basically all the time if you play it RAW. MonsieurChoc posted:90% of those Bloodlines are never mentionne doutside of their one appearance, so they're more examples of the mutability of the blood in Requiem, imho. The Khaibit get some stuff? Yeah, they get some play in the Mekhet book I believe which is really cool and everyone should read.
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Jul 7, 2022 14:04
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Attorney at Funk posted:Yeah I'm not a big fan of the implicit assumption that a vampire isn't "finished" until you've got a bloodline, or a mage with a legacy, or whatever. Luckily there's nothing requiring that read at the table. Bloodlines in requiem are also sufficiently specialized that I've never felt the need to take one. The new discipline has never been worth the extra bane, plus a bunch of them are so laser focused on one specific thing that they are obviously meant to be used as NPCs despite the rules being there to use as PCs.
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Jul 7, 2022 14:27
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a7m2 posted:I want to start pre-Embrace because my wife, who will be the sole player (at least initially), knows nothing about the setting. If it goes well I'll play with other friends who are very familiar with the setting, which is why I think I'll pick V5. I know folks recommended various premade adventures for this, but I'm going to go the opposite way and say make something up. I'm currently (technically on hiatus) running a V5 game with one player who knows nothing about the setting but was willing to give it a shot after I gave her the elevator pitch. I started pre-embrace and told her to make her character thinking about who she was as a mortal and then choosing the clan that seemed the like what she'd want to play. Once I had her sheet and NPC list, I started to put the pieces together. I went into the session with a couple things locked in, who her NPC sire was, the clan and that session 1 would be her embrace and easing her into the game. I asked her a couple of questions before we started to set the scene of where her character would be on a Friday night, how her character feels, etc. Once we started, I already had the frame of the session written out and just plugged in her answers. The story started with Dankia(PC) going to a special effects exhibit in San Francisco (setting of the game) on Friday night in October. Outside the museum she met a goth girl smoking a clove (an NPC coterie mate who officially entered the story the following session) then went in and met her soon to be sire Corrie while wandering around and looking at stuff. She was embraced at Corrie's home and from there the session was Danika coming to terms with what had just happened to her, being openly defiant like a teenager at one point (which was delightful) and then being taken to meet the Toreador Primogen. And I'm pretty sure we did her first feeding scene that night as well. In writing terms, I had the rough idea of the how and where of the embrace and then kept the rest of the session loosely planned as "Sire explains the deal" and then "Let's get some political poo poo introduced" with the Primogen introduction. The following session was when I rolled the full Camarilla carpet out and introduced the Prince and Elysium. I've kept the main conflict of the setting a simmering tension related to a truce between the East Bay Anarch controlled cities and the Camarilla stronghold of SF, with the threat of a Sabbat invasion hanging over everything, and the introduction of mortal Hunters a couple sessions ago. But that's all the bigger setting, the street level poo poo I've had the player doing has been mostly hanging out with a couple of Anarch NPCs she's made friends with, and the trio has been drafted by the Prince (after said trio found an abandoned Sabbat hideout) to go find another vampire who is a scholar who the Prince believes has information on how to deal with the Sabbat. Why is a Camarilla neonate hanging out with a couple of Anarchs? Because I wanted to give the player the chance to make her own decision about which faction she wants to settle with, the implied choice is of course the Cam because of her sire, and it added a bit of dramatic tension as the Primogen was the one who requested the player meet and work with this other Toreador (the Anarch, who was revealed to have been embraced by the same vampire who embraced the players Sire) who the players sire does not like, and the second anarch of the team, a Malkavian is there mostly because she's best pals with the Anarch Toreador (the idea of a Malkavian and a Toreador being BFF's was very funny to me). It's been a super fun game to run and I've gotten a lot of great feedback from my player after each session to figure out what is working and what isn't. As I've said previously about Metaplot, there are elements of the V5 metaplot that I am using as well as elements from previous editions because it's stuff I specifically enjoy, like bringing the Voerman Twins to SF, but I'm also not chaining myself to it and have taken elements from both the old meta as well as bits of the CoD stuff that I feel flavor the world I'm presenting in a more interesting way. For example, I suggested that Prometheans existed in one session when the Malkavian (Abigail) mentioned she knows "A Frankenstein", which could be read as "There are literally creatures built from dead bodies walking around" or "Abigail is a Malk, she's clearly confused about this". That never got followed up on because I realized it really didn't add anything to the story at hand and how things were shaping up, but it's still sorta floating around in my head as something to pull out later on down the line should it make sense. TL;DR write your own thing, have fun with it and get weird. Mix and match poo poo as much as you want, make it Your vision of the World of Darkness. joylessdivision fucked around with this message at 15:41 on Jul 7, 2022 |
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Jul 7, 2022 15:27
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Time for another recap! We continue with Styx & Stones from Cults of the Blood Gods, and this session kicks off with a bang. The coterie has a shared nightmare (or daymare?) of them seeing through the eyes of someone or something stalking prey amid art installations, before very brutally murdering some dude. Then they are woken up by Sheriff Qadir kicking down the door of their Haven and informing the coterie that they are invited to meet Prince Panhard and refusing is not an option. The players kindly obey and are taken to a room in the basement of Empire State Building. Prince Panhard asks the coterie to introduce themselves, before explaining to them that once there was a time, when vampires ruled the lands and did as they pleased, but that was before Second Inquisition butchered Kindred in many cities. But New York remains untouched thanks to caution and restraint. “That’s why I will not tolerate acts like this” she says and hands the players a folder of crime scene photos, matching the shared nightmare they had. There is also the Tremere symbol painted in the victim's blood. Prince Panhard doesn’t believe that the coterie are responsible, if she did they would already be on a bonfire. But clearly the culprit is some Tremere, or someone wanting her to believe so. So the situation is officially the coterie’s problem, solve the case and Prince Panhard will continue to tolerate Tremere presence in her city and council. The coterie investigates the crime scene at MoMA PS1, but can’t find anything. This was also one of those times where I question myself how I prepare for sessions, but the coterie had a chance to admire some art pieces I had researched to have been at the art museum at the time period of the adventure. They also researched the victim, learning that he was a public prosecutor with a pretty alright career, but was overall quite unremarkable. Asking their Tremere contacts also proved fruitless. Aisling Sturbridge suggested some avenues of questions, but mainly focuses on setting up an exit plan, in case Prince Panhard decides to exile Tremere from her domain. Leila Badr, Thomas’ sire, revealed that she also had the same nightmare as the coterie. Clearly the ritual had somehow connected them. Asano was absent. Viorica, now inhabiting the body of Trevor Calhoun, was still learning about the modern day, as well as trying to remember how to speak, move and have a body. The coterie’s touchstones had received threatening messages. Benedict’s father had received a bouquet of dead flowers. Thomas’ Triad friend and colleague had found four bullets in front of his door. Someone had been stalking the homeless veteran, who Augustus was fond of. But the night was over and the day brought another shared dream. This time they were transported to a cemetery where they saw the grisly murder of a young couple. After waking up, they talked with their Tremere contacts again. Asano was still absent. Viorica found the idea of obeying orders from a Prince to solve a bit of bloodshed absolutely ludicrous, (she was from a time before Camarilla after all). Aisling and Leila recognized the murdersite as Evergreens Cemetery, with Leila pondering that the crimes take place in the early hours, but they experience them during the day, which leaves them at least 12 hours behind. The players arrive at the crime scene and find several ghoul and Terrence Rusk already investigating the site. The players had previously stolen the Venetian Jar used to resurrect Viorica from Terrence Rusk of the Cult of Mithras, but he didn’t seem to hold a grudge. Terrence made clear that eventually they would have to pay for the theft, but eternity is too long to let awkward first impressions spoil a relationship. Rusk encouraged the coterie to investigate the scene and then they could compare notes. The crime scene had the Tremere symbol painted with blood, like in the previous murder. The victims were two young adults, a music teacher and his student, and like in the previous case, quite unremarkable. There was nothing to obviously link the victims of the two cases. At this point Terrence informed the coterie that his people can’t keep the police from the scene any more and they should follow him where they can discuss in peace. Terrence Rusk takes the coterie to his mansion, where they learn what the Cult of Mithras is and his theories on these killings. He had learned about the murder by having his people observe all the cemeteries in the area, the Venetian Jar is used to resurrect the dead so it seemed logical. At first he assumed the players were responsible for the murders and he’s still not quite sure this isn’t the case, but he believes that when the Venetian Jar was used in a ritual, some ghost or evil spirit was unleashed. And now, Terrence Rusk is willing to help with notable resources and networks, in exchange for the Venetian Jar. The coterie agrees. To close things out, the touchstones had been bothered again. Benedict’s father had been arrested, the homeless veteran had been beaten badly and hospitalized, and the Triad’s warehouse had burned down. Finally, Fiorenza Savona called Benedict and demanded a report on the task she had given. We did a bit of social combat (I haven’t quite figured out how that works, so this was a sort of practice run). Fiorenza asked about all three candidates and wanted to know who they were, does Benedict consider them useful and were they on board. Benedict hadn’t completed the task perfectly, but thanks to some skillful rolls, Fiorenza was only slightly disappointed. Fiorenza trusted Benedict to do as he wished with these contacts and blamed any shortcomings on lack of training from Benedict’s sire (who will be quite miffed about getting thrown under the bus). And that’s it for that session. One of the players started to get the right idea that the murders are connected by location, but to keep the mystery going I had all the NPCs suggest that there must be a connection between the victims. We’re also caught up in these recaps so more will come once we play more.
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Jul 7, 2022 15:30
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This thread seems to pretty mostly prefer VtR. Why is VtM5e so popular both online (way more content about it) and in other media (video games specifically)? I'm taking all your points to heart, though it does seem a number of them just kinda depend on how the GM runs things. Initially I didn't much like the idea that Requiem has only a few clans though I think I misunderstood what that meant and that a lot of the archetypes from Masquerade still exist in Requiem via bloodlines? It's pretty easy to find playthroughs of VtM on Youtube or whatever. Are there any good Requiem playthroughs you guys recommend so I can get a real idea of how they are different in practice. As I mentioned before I'm more interested in exploring the personal horror, ethics and emotional struggles than anything else, and from what I gather 5e is very street-level which attracts me. Right now I'm still undecided. joylessdivision posted:TL;DR write your own thing, have fun with it and get weird. Mix and match poo poo as much as you want, make it Your vision of the World of Darkness. I really appreciate this. Why was the PC embraced? I'm mostly interested in learning the reasons why characters might get embraced other than that they possess very valuable talents and would be an asset (like highly effective politicians, artists, etc). The embrace seems like such a big deal and hassle for the sire. This is the main reason I was looking for a pre-made module. I'm not too bothered by the rest. Love these posts by the way
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Jul 7, 2022 16:01
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Ferrinus posted:
Are you talking about Loresheets or something else? Because amalgams are mix and match.
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Jul 7, 2022 16:21
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a7m2 posted:This thread seems to pretty mostly prefer VtR. Why is VtM5e so popular both online (way more content about it) and in other media (video games specifically)? Because it's currently being developed and promoted, and Onyx Path has never had the kind of funds to VtR 2e any actual promotion. This edition started as a weird 1.5 edition in name because no one knew if they could actually get permission to make a new edition, and in the time since Onyx Path has gotten deeper and deeper into doing small kickstarters and trying to develop properties they don't have to license. (As for why VtR 1e didn't have anything, they had a bit of a post-millennium slump in terms of cultural influence and the rights were locked up by CCP failing to make a WoD mmo from 2006 to 2014. nWoD had a rough time, is the point.)
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Jul 7, 2022 16:23
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I feel like if any game company besides CCP owned White Wolf we would have seen licensed nWoD games, or even just more oWoD stuff, but EVE is all they've ever understood or been able to manage.
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Jul 7, 2022 16:46
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There were definitely Requiem bloodlines without their own spiffy discipline. For instance, I played a Cabaretti in a game and they're Nosferatus that look frozena nd have a cold aura and they just get Celerity as their fourth discipline. They also get access to a couple unique Devotions, but nothing world-shattering. Me and my sire were the only Bloodline member in town, and it never really came up. Anothe rplayer was a Khaibit and that got more play.
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Jul 7, 2022 17:01
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Kavak posted:I feel like if any game company besides CCP owned White Wolf we would have seen licensed nWoD games, or even just more oWoD stuff, but EVE is all they've ever understood or been able to manage. On some level I think you can also file it away under "the better game never gets adaptations even if they make more sense" along with the actual grid-based strategy ttrpg D&D4e being aggressively ignored by WotC's licensing department for its entire lifespan in favor of repurposing NWN engine for the hundredth 3e (and now 5e) game. You can make a bloodlines game with VtR instead! You should! It's not like VTMB1 actually gave a poo poo about the implementation of VtM rules other than power names and the appearance of the character sheet anyway.
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Jul 7, 2022 17:12
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What the others have said, V5 is new and as terrible as it's launch was in other ways, they were laser focused on cross media promotion and implementation. Those youtube larps that get posted really rope folks in and of course they'll go for the game they see instead of a similar game that isn't being developed in a meaningful way anymore. CCP hosed things up for video games too, as was also mentioned.
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Jul 7, 2022 17:27
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a7m2 posted:This thread seems to pretty mostly prefer VtR. Why is VtM5e so popular both online (way more content about it) and in other media (video games specifically)? The original three editions of VtM were a phenomenon in tabletop gaming that not even V5 can probably ever match and existed at the height of White Wolf's heyday (and when it was an actual company and not a license holder or a brand name for a larger company), so it could throw the IP out in all media. There were constant books, and even a TV show. VtR first came out only a few years from the Retail Apocalypse and the Great Recession, got hampered by White Wolf merging with CCP for an MMO that would never see the light of day, and only managed to net a film deal with New Line Cinema, a studio in for a bad time (and I can't imagine the D&D movie made another tabletop game adaptation very attractive). If I recall correctly, there were rumors of Obsidian looking to obtain video game rights to Requiem but the price was too high. VtM has just enough of a following from both gamers and consumers of its related media that a brand new Masquerade was bound to get attention. I think everyone knew it, which is why Onyx Path was going to do a VtM 4e set Post-Gehenna before the Paradox buyout and the (probably long dead now, given Achilli's most recent Hunter interview) One World of Darkness initative leading to V5's development. WoD5 with this new brand management team is fascinating because it feels the edition's shifting into a peek into an alternate universe where we got the version of nWoD that I think was considered for a hot minute before it became as we know it now: a soft reboot of the previous setting with a mechanical refresh. V5 also has the benefit of coming out during the Actual Play boom, and I think that's the secret sauce. When Critical Role is playing a playtest version of V5 and there's a five season web series with an established hashtag (hello, "Vamily"), that's a headstart that no edition of VtR could ever hope for. The only CofD property that's come anywhere close is Hololive's Mythbreakers campaign for Hunter: The Vigil, but in true CofD luck I don't know if there could be much capitalization on it since it was 1e HtV with bits of WoD content, its Vtubers so its a niche of a niche compared to LA by Night, and it happened too early to promote HtV 2e. The WoD youtube channel was there promoting WoD, which was strange at the time but now immensely obvious since H5 had to be in active development at the time. So basically it's just bigger market saturation, a more fortunate timing for a product launch, and a high accessibility of seeing the game in action. Free Cog fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Jul 7, 2022 |
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Jul 7, 2022 17:31
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Mister Olympus posted:see that's pretty plausible to me, but my circumstances are particular since i enjoy vampire most in larp form. with 15~30 players, any given person attracting sufficient heat will get run out of town, or staked, or what have you, because the individual factions and conspiracies are bumping up against each other. and in this case, it's not a GM invoking fiat to shut down a character out of frustration, it's other vampire players being schemey vampires. heck, in the larp context, even just having that extra weakness of the black aura is playing with fire even before you start your powers up, because someone is going to check you on that eventually. On top of the general idea of it being okay if a mechanic is overpowered because other players can be expected to socially punish the one player who has access to it, I see two more specific problems here: 1) Someone trying to read your aura, interrogate you about your aura, get other people to believe them about your aura, get other people to join them in a witch hunt against you, etc is only going to succeed on the requisite discipline activation, mental, and social rolls if you let them. Likewise, insofar as you can make social rolls of your own to get out of trouble, they will succeed. 2) If you can honestly offer the explanation "yeah I look like this because I'm the victim of a bloodline curse, I can't do a thing about it, sorry" (and flawlessly sell it because you succeed on every social roll you want to, remember) you're not only going to be able to get yourself out of hot water, you'll open the door to diablerie veins being less of a big deal in general. They're as socially explosive as they are because they're supposed to be smoking gun evidence of someone committing the worst crime against vampires that a vampire could possibly perform. But now it turns out they're only sometimes that. Sometimes they're just a weird birthmark. Fuzz posted:Thaumaturgy was the easily in the top 5 worst things about older editions, it was so stupid. Sadly there's this vocal subset of dumbasses in the V5 community lamenting how weak Blood Sorcery is compared to the old stuff and how so many powers are missing. The fact that one of the next books is Blood Sigils, which is gonna focus on Sorcery and Alchemy, has me really leary. From my chats with Achilli and Dawkins over the last few months it seems like they're well aware that the old paradigm of Thaum doing everything and then some was terrible. Boiling down vampire magic into Blood Sorcery and Oblivion was an absolute slam dunk for V5 if you ask me. Power over blood and power over death are the two kinds of sorcery I expect to see vampires doing unless something extremely unusual and probably temporary is going on. One thing I remember liking from somewhere in the oWoD was a Tremere Path called "father's vengeance" or something like that which was specifically about visiting biblical punishments on people. I don't remember if the actual powers or mechanics were any good but it's something else I wouldn't mind popping back up in some form. In VtR, the two kinds of blood sorcery are basically "power over blood" and "power over damnation" with very little traditional necromancy. MonsieurChoc posted:There were definitely Requiem bloodlines without their own spiffy discipline. For instance, I played a Cabaretti in a game and they're Nosferatus that look frozena nd have a cold aura and they just get Celerity as their fourth discipline. They also get access to a couple unique Devotions, but nothing world-shattering. Me and my sire were the only Bloodline member in town, and it never really came up. Anothe rplayer was a Khaibit and that got more play. My longest running VtR game, which preceded even hints of Blood and Smoke by years, featured a Gangrel bloodline that was basically just the corebook Brujah (+Vigor, -dice to resist hunger frenzy) but which would tend to automatically and involuntarily learn and activate a particular devotion for combining your Vigor, Resilience, and Protean ratings into an always-on monster form. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Jul 7, 2022 |
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Jul 7, 2022 17:41
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a7m2 posted:This thread seems to pretty mostly prefer VtR. Why is VtM5e so popular both online (way more content about it) and in other media (video games specifically)? As others have pointed out, V5 is new so it's getting the marketing push and is everywhere plus it's got that Masquerade name that folks know and recognize. Requiem unfortunately suffered (and all the NWoD really) because it was the new take on the whole setting. White Wolf was all in on "This is THE END" of the original WoD and then introduced NWoD a year later (give or take) and it never really got the mainstream attention the OWOD had. As to why was the PC embraced, at the start of the game I didn't really have a good answer and the player asked in character point blank "Why me?" And handwaved it away with "Oh I saw potential in you". To get all "MUH CHARACTERS" for a moment, Corrie, the sire is an Irish Toreador who was a brilliant mind when alive and sort of similar to the Rachel Weise character from the Mummy, a bit of an adventurous type who fell into the arms of a dashing monster named Chance Parker. As time rolled on, Corrie continued her quest for knowledge and art, but also became a hardcore true believer in the Camarilla cause, to the point that she still feels personally slighted by Sherry (the Anarch Toreador) jumping ship to the Anarchs even though the two of them hadn't been in contact for decades at that point in their respective histories. Corrie's first childe was a dude named Michael who I honestly don't have any notes about beyond "Suffered the final death during the Sabbat wars of the early 00's"* Because of her own part in fighting the war and the loss of her childe, the previous Prince of SF (Canon on this is sketchy with some stuff saying Vannevar Thomas, some saying Sara Anne Winder, I went with Sara) she was granted right to sire another childe when she was ready. Which brings us to the PC and the setting at hand with a new Prince recently in power and another Sabbat invasion on the horizon. Why did Corrie embrace Danika? Part of it was loneliness, part of it was Danika is a very intelligent character with good stats in computers and worked at a tech company (owned by the Prince which was revealed several sessions later) that she saw could be of potential use to her, but the primary reason to me is that she was lonely and the PC caught her attention for the same inexplicable reasons someone sometimes catches your eye. I've had a couple other authority figure characters(the Primogen and Toreador Baron of Oakland) comment on the PC being an interesting choice for Corrie, mostly to keep the player wondering why she's special and because Vampires are catty assholes. Basically at this moment I don't have a particularly great excuse for why the player was embraced but as the game unfolds and her actions effect the world, something will likely jump out as something I can point to and say "Ah that's what they saw in you" Don't worry about having all the answers right away. A lot of my plot ideas have been built off things that happened in a session that made me stop and say "Ohhhhhh, this thing happened in session 3, and now as I'm writing session 5, I can call back to that thing because it was leading to this revelation!" The PC's previous employer being owned by the Prince wasn't revealed until after she'd broken in and watched as Janette Voerman torched the place from the inside and then went to cover her rear end by telling the Primogen what happened, who then informed her of the situation, and that she was in extremely deep poo poo, but that she would cover for her, because the Primogen has taken the PC under her protection after Corrie left the story the previous session. (I needed an excuse to keep the focus on the PC and her coterie and having Corrie around was making that difficult, so I had Chance show up, tossed in the reveal of Corrie and Sherry's shared sire, giving a little more weight to the previously mentioned tension between Corrie/Sherry and justifying the sort of 'Big Sister' role that Sherry had taken on with the PC) Why did the Primogen step up to take protect this neonate? Well, who did the PC and her coterie mates go to first with the information about the Sabbat hideout they found? The Toreador Primogen. As a reward for this information, the Primogen welcomed the PC into her inner circle of Toreadors in the area, including Sherry, Corrie and the Baron of Oakland (the Primogen is a firm believer in Clan first, Sect second despite her title). Seems like a lot of favors being showered on one neonate huh? Surely none of this will cause trouble for the player down the line  *I don't like Kindred of the East and unfortunately that game is all over San Francisco metaplot, so I just ripped them out and replaced the late 90's period of them causing trouble with the Sabbat joylessdivision fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Jul 7, 2022 |
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Jul 7, 2022 18:02
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Oops, forgot to actually answer this one:citybeatnik posted:Are you talking about Loresheets or something else? Because amalgams are mix and match. Yes. Amalgams are just Discipline powers, really, but (unless I am misinformed) in V5 you can only have one (1) Bloodline loresheet and therefore only one weird slightly-off-theme-for-vampires powerset. I forget if this also gives you a second clan weakness of some kind but I think it's a good way to do it. And while I'm here, Attorney at Funk posted:Yeah I'm not a big fan of the implicit assumption that a vampire isn't "finished" until you've got a bloodline, or a mage with a legacy, or whatever. Luckily there's nothing requiring that read at the table. I'm with you on this one and one of the few things I don't like about Mage 2E is the standing assumption that basically everyone is going to get a Legacy at some point in their career. I'd like for there to be some basic incentive not to in the same way that there's an incentive not to develop a Bloodline, even if for many the benefit is worth the drawback.
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Jul 7, 2022 18:13
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Kavak posted:I feel like if any game company besides CCP owned White Wolf we would have seen licensed nWoD games, or even just more oWoD stuff, but EVE is all they've ever understood or been able to manage. And even that not very well.
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Jul 7, 2022 18:48
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Ferrinus posted:I'm with you on this one and one of the few things I don't like about Mage 2E is the standing assumption that basically everyone is going to get a Legacy at some point in their career. I'd like for there to be some basic incentive not to in the same way that there's an incentive not to develop a Bloodline, even if for many the benefit is worth the drawback. Personally I could forgive this if they had more than one example for what a Legacy even looks like in 2e. I know Rand Brittain talked about either making more to sell on the WoD marketplace or how someone should make more, but it'd be nice if there was just... anything to build on if I wanted to make 3-4 custom ones for my PCs. (But then, I'm also someone who really likes the custom stuff in Demon despite them being effectively completely unsupported, so maybe I'm just weird.)
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Jul 7, 2022 18:55
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Lurks With Wolves posted:Personally I could forgive this if they had more than one example for what a Legacy even looks like in 2e. I know Rand Brittain talked about either making more to sell on the WoD marketplace or how someone should make more, but it'd be nice if there was just... anything to build on if I wanted to make 3-4 custom ones for my PCs. The bits of Legacies scattered through Nameless & Accursed were good for helping to bring into focus just what a Legacy is supposed to look like, mechanically, even though it was mostly just the first and sometimes second Attainments stuffed into an NPC block. In fact, I think the need to be incredibly brief and straightforward helped them be clearer. The stuff on Nimbuses also helps clarify what they're supposed to look like, though it's still an incredibly overcomplicated subsystem for a frequently occurring minor-ish power aura.
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Jul 7, 2022 19:27
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Crossposting this from another thread: I have a question for someone wanting to play a Lasombra character in the tabletop game. I'm a beginner but wanted to try to be as close to the spirit of VtmV5 as I can. What would be the best way to describe the kind of person your character might have been as a human before they were turned? Then what sorts of ambitions or goals could a Lasombra character have once they start their unlife? Shadows of New York had some decent references to their powers and abilities and that their blood makes them extremely ruthless in their pursuit of power and status. What are some other examples of this manifesting during campaigns? What are some key characteristics about a Lasombra that makes them different from Ventrue characters, besides having access to shadow powers and communication with extra dimensional beings? I want my character to have a rivalry and disdain for the Venture while still being able to differentiate them as two culturally separate clans and still being legit under the Camarilla but trying to shake things up without being a full blown Anarch. My goal for the character I have in mind is to build a Lasombra character who was down and out, rock bottom before their Embrace, gets thrust into Camarilla politics as a total outsider and one of the only ones of their clan in the domain. Then over the course of the campaign they develop their powers in oblivion, build a good rapport with their coterie but occasionally shock and horrify everyone with the lengths and extremes they'll go to achieve a goal before reverting back to a more civilized appearance. Basically I want my character to still have some friends, be ever striving to get stronger and take power for themselves by any means necessary and to occasionally frighten other kindred but I don't want them to have the same prim and proper attitudes of the ventrue. Its going to be a phoenix rising from the ashes kind of story where the character has to fight and strive for every good thing they get while occasionally causing extreme and often unnecessary collateral damage, having to reckon with it and sometimes make ammends, only to do it again in a fit of passion on another occasion. Like blowing up an entire building just to get rid of one person.
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Jul 7, 2022 19:57
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No it seems like you got it. Lasombra are win at any cost type people. Or even "lose in a way that causes the most damage to your enemy". Previous versions also had them pretty catholic. Pre-embrace, prospective sires usually gently caress up the mortal's life to see how they persevere, ending up only embracing the ones who can survive this trial of tragedy.
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Jul 7, 2022 20:19
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Kraftwerk posted:Crossposting this from another thread: It sounds like you've got a pretty good concept going already, you don't really need the books to tell you who a Lasombra would embrace. Obviously this character you're cooking up has some depth to them, so focus on who they were as a mortal, you can fill in why their Sire chose them from there. Also as a Lasombra being thrust into the Camarillas shenanigans as an extreme minority clan (and one that has been an active hostile enemy for centuries) that should be your focus of why you're different than a Ventrue. The Ventrue are comfortable, they believe they've got everything under control, and if it's not, it's only a matter of money or domination to regain that control. They also have respect such as it is, among their sect. You don't. You're not just a lick, but you're a Lasombra lick too? Buddy, ain't nobody got respect for you or your clan and as I often say, Vampires are Assholes, so they're definitely going to make sure you remember just how unimportant and disrespected you are. You want power and influence and control? Then you're going to have to be ten times as cunning and ruthless as those Armani suit wearing pricks who believe themselves kings of the night.
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Jul 7, 2022 20:24
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Working backwards can be more interesting than working forwards. Don't invent a mortal that a Lasombra would want to embrace. Invent the mortal you want, then figure out, retroactively, why a Lasombra embraced them. And why said Lasombra then immediately hosed off to another domain, leaving the poor bugger all alone.
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Jul 7, 2022 20:59
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Kraftwerk posted:What are some key characteristics about a Lasombra that makes them different from Ventrue characters, besides having access to shadow powers and communication with extra dimensional beings? Consider this: there is nothing that makes you different from a Ventrue except for access to different powers and having one foot in the abyss (which incidentally gives you problems being reflected, recorded or otherwise interacting with a lot of modern technology). Don't fall into the trap of thinking that your clan just ad hoc staples a new personality onto your character for no reason but tradition, that's boring. However, these basic material differences are always with you and add up to a lot. Both a Lasombra and a Ventrue can control people's minds directly. However, Ventrue can also pull at heartstrings and gently sway crowds, and their physical Discipline makes them more secure and difficult to move or dislodge. Meanwhile, if you can't simply push an order through someone's cerebellum, you have to rely on main force or cosmic horror. You're more disquieting to deal with (especially as an antagonist) and have a harder time offering people anything like stability or a new normal if you do get to be in charge. How might it affect your character's long-term strategy and night-to-night mood when they can't so much as use Facetime without making the other party think they're being called on the phone by the slender man? Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Jul 7, 2022 |
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Jul 7, 2022 21:16
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joylessdivision posted:It sounds like you've got a pretty good concept going already, you don't really need the books to tell you who a Lasombra would embrace. Obviously this character you're cooking up has some depth to them, so focus on who they were as a mortal, you can fill in why their Sire chose them from there. Are there any Sabbat tendencies that can still linger? Since the character would've been embraced after the Lasombra switched out to the Cam, they wouldn't necessarily know what the Sabbat days were like. I'm thinking the character can have some Sabbat-like tendencies like being anti-antediluvian or whatever their sire might have instilled in them before it all gets going. Being a total underdog without any respect is part of why this scenario appeals to me, especially if I have an opportunity to surprise everyone in really dramatic ways. This character has been striving their entire life, and unlife is where they get the chance to finally show everyone they're worthy of more than obscure mediocrity. The thought that came to mind was they would get sent from Argentina to America to study, engage in an entrepreneurial activity maybe related to tech and then find people/investors hostile to their idea but through perseverance and cunning they find ways to get around the obstacles and succeed in spite of it. Growing more successful in business they face hostile take overs and even catch the interest of Ventrue who might earmark them to be embraced but the Lasombra get to them first. Then they find their family back home is dead, business deals start falling through, their business partner fucks them over and gets to sell the company for big money (to a Ventrue owned shell company no less). The whole life destruction package... Then they try to get even through a combination of cunning and finally outright blackmail and violence with plausible deniability that seals the deal to make them a full Lasombra. The irony of it all is having built a career out of tech they'll need to reinvent themselves after the embrace because technology no longer works properly for them. Kraftwerk fucked around with this message at 21:23 on Jul 7, 2022 |
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Jul 7, 2022 21:21
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The old Lasombra Antitribu (the Antitribu distinction was always political btw), and the Ashirra Qabilat al-Khayal are probably the top dogs in the Lasombra clan right now, so that's gotta figure into it a bit.
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Jul 7, 2022 22:21
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Kraftwerk posted:Are there any Sabbat tendencies that can still linger? Since the character would've been embraced after the Lasombra switched out to the Cam, they wouldn't necessarily know what the Sabbat days were like. I'm thinking the character can have some Sabbat-like tendencies like being anti-antediluvian or whatever their sire might have instilled in them before it all gets going. God drat that sounds awesome. I'd say grab the V5 Sabbat book and Chicago by Night where the Lasombra are brought in just to get an idea for where the broader Clan thought process is, and the Sabbat book might give you some ideas for what your sire might have clung to after leaving the old ways. Vampires are creatures of habit and they get set in their ways so I would guess a Lasombra who makes the jump probably still has a few...less than palatable ideas that the Camarilla would object to. Pretty sure that Sabbat book covers the updated Paths, but more from a storyteller perspective(the whole Sabbat book is essentially a monster manual) so that might give you some ideas to play around with. When you say anti-antedeluvian do you mean being opposed to them or do you mean it in the Camarilla "They don't exist" sense, because the former would absolutely make sense as a thing a Lasombra would pass down to their childe even after bailing out. I somehow don't see abandoning that belief being particularly easy.
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Jul 7, 2022 23:00
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joylessdivision posted:God drat that sounds awesome. I'd say grab the V5 Sabbat book and Chicago by Night where the Lasombra are brought in just to get an idea for where the broader Clan thought process is, and the Sabbat book might give you some ideas for what your sire might have clung to after leaving the old ways. Vampires are creatures of habit and they get set in their ways so I would guess a Lasombra who makes the jump probably still has a few...less than palatable ideas that the Camarilla would object to. Pretty sure that Sabbat book covers the updated Paths, but more from a storyteller perspective(the whole Sabbat book is essentially a monster manual) so that might give you some ideas to play around with. Good advice I'll check it out. Now I just need to decide if I want a male or female character or something in between. And yes, I like the idea of resisting and opposing antediluvians.
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Jul 7, 2022 23:26
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Kraftwerk posted:Good advice I'll check it out. Now I just need to decide if I want a male or female character or something in between.  hell yeah. Antediluvians ain't poo poo.And yeah deciding on character gender is tough. Which (despite the work) is why I enjoy being storyteller, I can play a ton of different characters in a night, although I admittedly really enjoy playing my Malkavian NPC, and my player has really connected with her as well which is awesome. I had expected her to gravitate more towards the other Toreador NPC I play in her coterie but the Malk won her over.
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Jul 8, 2022 02:57
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