Thread 96239816

Enemies Edition
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>>96215396
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>Thread Question:
Who or what is the biggest and baddest enemy you fought in your chronicle?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8rpIBCCw0Y
lmao

Reminder:
Super villains with fangs is the only correct way to play vampire and all other ways to play it are cringe, unfun shit

Misery porn players are annoying and should be ejected from all tables

Reeeeeeeeeeee why are minis so FUCKING expensive!!!!! I just want cool retro little dudes from grenadier and whatnot! why are nu minis either wizkids trash or tumbler art garbage!!!????

>>96240029
Wrong thread bro

Ought to stop putting First Teams in OPs. Space Marines are getting confused about the infernal mutants firing chainguns.

Has a character of yours ever used a proper magical item (fetish, wonder, thaumaturgy item, sorc talisman, treasure, etc.)? I've only had a talisman for my Tremere, because why wouldn't you if you're playing one, shit's great. Haven't played any games of WtA or Mage.

>>96239952
telling people they have fun wrong is worst cringe desu

>>96239816 (OP)
>Who or what is the biggest and baddest enemy you fought in your chronicle?

If by fought you mean rolled initiative against? A Lasombra Methuselah, old one at that something like 9000-ish. We did not win mind you, the fight was largely performative, part of a lengthy campaign to mess with her psyche that was starting to break under the weight of millennia while also reassuring her of her invincibility. Long story, promise it made sense in context.

>>96240081
As a mage, sorcerer, tremere or eastern hunter/supernatural? Always.

The background/merit is too ridiculously overpriced to take, though, so you have to make them yourself or rely on your cabal's enchanter. The only exception is if the item lets you ignore dox or negative casting difficulty modifiers with non-crippling catches, or grant you a mastery effect for one specific purpose (so you don't need to wait for a while before you can begin making monsters or automata), starting with something like that is great now and then.

>>96240258
cringetard theater kid spotted, kys

the touchstone system should never have been made, it is the worst aspect of v5 by far and the reason why v5 failed in general

>>96240081
Yes.
I mean, why wouldn't you.

>>96240382
>and the reason why v5 failed in general
Lmao no.
It's one of many

>>96241013
The Legions weren't having gay orgies among themselves.
They're mixing the up with the Sacred Band of Thebes.

>OwOd
Where is hedgefag

>>96241141
>>OwOd
What's this?

>>96241203
Old World of Old Darkness.

>>96241013
The Syndicate Manager: " Amateurs who can't find value even if it is right in front of them."

>>96241035
It's the one reference, until then they could be hole brothers. I'm tiggered by twenty men as the base and not the ten-man contubernium.

>>96241507
>It's the one reference
It shows up twice. Also it's just demonstrably wrong. Romans looked down on homosexuality. Active wasn't nearly as poorly seen as passive but it wasn't something to be doing to equals either.
>I'm tiggered by twenty men as the base and not the ten-man contubernium
Well, just calling it Legion's Life isn't that smart. Legions were huge, I don't think there was a particularly close brotherly bond beyond the centuria. Too many people.

>>96241035
You have never been in the military and it shows

>>96241665
>the military is gay af
News to me. From friends that served plus other people that also did so, it was my understanding that it involved a lot of masturbation unless there were women in your unit, in which case they got passed around by every man in the nearby vicinity no matter how fat and ugly they are.

Isn't it wild how Vampire doesn't have a Virtual Adept/Glass Walker equivalent

>>96241203
kek

>>96242039
But of course, Vampires are embodiments of stagnation.

>>96242039
>virtual adepts
>smelly ugly computer nerds
literally just the Nosferatu

>>96242039
Nah, I know what kind of vampire used to fuck Babbage and astral projects to the Internet, I wouldn't hang out with her, either.

>>96242039
>What are the Nosferatu
>What are the Hacktivists

>>96239952
V1 didn't gatekeep those hard enough, it seems. Thank God for V5 I guess.
(Seriously, though: to each their own.)

>>96240382
Skill issue.
(And I'll bite: what's your problem with those that it makes the game unbearable to you?)

>>96242544
>>96242039
Part of how we explain the Shreknet fall is how the Zelios line of the Nosferatu (who are basically the builder-cadre of the clan in our version of the setting) has incredible (among which computer) engineers, but a very hard time ugrading to new practices, making general upkeep hell for everyone involved, with all the risks that come along with it.
I remember a small subplot about having to find someone able to code/troubleshoot something in PEARL (no, not perl, PEARL... and yes, that endeed up a plot twist), only to end up realizing that it was easier to just force someone to learn the damn thing.

>>96242707
>Thank God for V5 I guess

Are there any STV books for Wraith that thread the needle of merging WtO and Orpheus the way C20 merged CtD and DA: Fae?

>>96242707
loser miseryporn gooner found

But here's why touchstones suck: They are humans. Who the fuck wants to play a vampire that gives a shit about humans? VtM is a game about playing a monster, this pathetic system that punishes you for being one is anti-fun. At least requiem where V5 stole the whole touchstone thing from lets you have places and objects as touchstones

But an ancillae that is obsessed by some rando human just cause they remind him of something? Cringe af.

No one wants to play Louis, really. Everyone wants to play Lestat, a vampire's vampire.

>>96243086
Mate, I like playing as a badass vampire and the monster part of the VTM. Hell, I agree that VTM is closer to superheroes with fangs than personal horror, more What We Do in The Shadows than say, Frankenstains Monster but come on.
All the biggest vampires in fiction love humans. Dracula? Simps after someone's wife. Alucard? Wants a human and only a human to kl him. Valvatorez? He gave up on blood and most of his powers just on a promise to a girl and eats sardines. Nosferatu? Obsessed over a pair of humans. All the Twilight bullshit? Because of a girl.
For fucks sake, even VTM has full of vampires older than dirt simping for humans. Helen? Griefed over her 3000 year ghoul dying. Christopher? Simps over humans and now an Anarch so much that he is basically the sole reason Anarch State is a thing.

>>96243180
Dracula only wants the wife to make her a vamp too.

Helen cringe, Christopher cringe.

>>96243086
>punishes
Revealing choice of word. Different profiles of players will see different win states to tabletop RPGs, so to speak, and not everyone uses PCs as a vehicle for self-projection.
That said, it'll keep being weird to me how players that ignored Humanity/Virtues (or hell, even the frenzy rules) for decades suddenly find ignoring new rules is a big deal, as if averting their gaze any other direction was too much effort.

>No one wants to play Louis, really.
>Everyone wants to play Lestat, a vampire's vampire.
I've know (and played with) people that want to play each, some that want to play both, and others interested in even more niche vampire archetypes (Necroscope? Carmilla? Nosferatu?).
Again, to each their own.
Part of the charm of VtM (and Requiem) is the variety on display. V5's cardinal sin, if there has to be one, is taking away some of the toys that once were on free access (the sabbat removal, as much as I personally hated how the sabbat was originally develloped once made playable, shouldn't have happened... at the very least not the way it did).
Touchstones are just offering alternatives for players. They're easy to ignore.

>>96243251
>Dracula only wants the wife to make her a vamp too.
Which is beside the point; his main drive to action, his main interest in the narrative, happens to be a human.

>>96239880
That game can't come soon enough. Hopefully sooner than later in october.

>>96242707
nta. touchstones suck mostly because humanity never worked as a mechanic for personal horror on account that it''s to personal to have it translated into a satisfying game mechanic.
the OG humanity mechanic didn't work because it encouraged personal horror but because it discouraged the player's impulse of solving everything with violence. (not perfectly mind you.) and thus try to solve issue with role-playing. touchstones don't do any of that unless you have an experienced GM. it's an unnecessary noob GM trap
but even from a personal horror aspect touchstones don't work because not everybody needs a reminder of the importance of their personal convictions, for those that do they don't always use a living person and on top of that the mechanics of touchstones further restricts the type of relationship you can have with your touchstones by penalizing certain actions towards your touchstones. so it's an extremely niche mechanic when it comes to personal horror
what further undermines the new humanity system at large is that it's a morality health bar rather then a morality ranking. so it's no longer about the degradation of your humanity because you don't need to get worse in your actions, just repeat the offending actions enough times and oops your a wight now.

if you give me enough time i can probably come up with more reasons but i think i've made my point

>>96243396
Can't he just like eating girls? Dude went for Lucy because she was debuting and at her absolute most dolled up, then she was slayed and he turned the next prettiest girl closest to the hunters for revenge.

>>96243396
yes, punishes.

The humanity system solely exists to punish the character/player for being a monster. There is no upside to being low humanity. You get stains for the same actions as if you had humanity 10. You only get mali to dicepools.

Here's how V5 is presented to players because of the humanity system:
"Ooooh you want to be a vampire? Being a vampire is bad! If you behave like a monstrous vampire (which we want you to do because it is a game about ~pErSoNaL hOrRoR~) then we are going to take points away from you. Oh, no points left? Oopsie, your character is an NPC now! You shouldn't have been a monster!"

It's fucking retarded. A small cringe minority plays vtm for that. Majority wants to do cool vampire shit and play the evil guy for once in contrast to most other popular rpgs.

Paradox knows this. All the video game developers know this. This is why none of the new VNs, nor Swan Song, nor Bloodlines 2 has a humanity system or a focus on "aaaah im losing my humanity I'm going insane, help me Saulot!!". It's unfun crap which is why Paths were so beloved in oWoD.

The misake Paradox made is letting emo lefty writers fuck up the system.

>>96239816 (OP)
So werewolf fairy knight here. Unfortunately the game's dead. One player wasn't a fan of werewolves and really wanted to play vampire.

On the other hand, we were allowed to start as older vampires with an extra 30 exp, so I managed to create a character I wanted to play for a while: The Banshee.

So far the situation is that we're playing in San Francisco, and currently it belongs to the anarchs and shit might be on its way to go down. The local baron is currently recruiting many powerful vampires from around the world to support his community (mine was "rescued" from England), just like a country amass nukes to calm tensions. My banshee is currently staying there as she's having a hard time adapting to the modern world after centuries of slumber... and struggling with multiple factions wanting to get their hands on her (cammies/toreador+ventrue wanting their own singing bird in a gilded cage, sabbat because she's 8th gen).

So yeah, lost the opportunity to play a character I wanted to play for a while but also gained the opportunity to play another. How's your day going /wodg/?

>>96243449
My issue with the original statement wasn't with criticism of Touchstones - rules I've myself heavily edited on a per-game basis - but with the statement
>it is the worst aspect of V5 by far and the reason why v5 failed in general
which flew way past hyperbole and into nonsense, from where I stand. At *worse*, Touchstones are a relatively toothless mechanic that can safely be ignored.

>>96243525
Again, not everyone uses PCs as a vehicle for self-projection.
Some players are looking at PCs from a third person simulation stanpoint. A PCs devolving or dying, can be its own reward and endgame. That's the direction in which the player(s) want(s) to take the story.
I've ran games in which PCs die ignominous deaths, and players thought it was a cool, fitting end for them, given the story that had emerged through play.

>>96243572
>vehicle for self-projection
You keep saying this, but don't establish why this is relevant.

>>96243572
playing a monstrous vampire is not self projection. You don't need rules that punish EVERYONE to play a tragic failure

>>96243572
Probably a clumsy way to state it (tired and struggling with English right now) but the point is that, some players see PC fail states as player fail states. Other think of such things at the narrative scale.
If, say, all your team of investigators become mad and murder one another , trapped in a tomb, ending a CoC game, the first kind of players will tend to see it as a loss, while the second will tend to see it as a win. Execution matters, obviously, but i hope you get the idea.

What do you guys think of the Street Fighter game for this franchise?

>>96243525
I have thought about this, humanity existing solely as a malus. And I kind of like it, but my group is very story-heavy. But I’ve been trying to think of ways to make the system more intricate, push and pull, narrative, while having mechanical benefits and drawbacks to both. Anyone else thought about this?

My first idea would be to have, paradoxically, high humanity vampires use MORE Blood each night. Talking 8+, where they use 2 BP to rouse, but this is because they look very human and are subconsciously doing everything a human would do. Breathing, sweating, producing saliva, crying non-bloody tears. They are forcing their body to create a facsimile of the life they lost and appear livelier than ever. Mechanically it would give them a bonus when interacting with humans, and they count as +1 appearance, potentially becoming super humanly beautiful with red rosy cheeks and perfect unblemished skin and hair that always looks lush and all that jazz. Basically they get the Blush of Life merit, but they have to pay 1BP extra for it. Vamps who already have the merit would probably get an additional merit like sanctity instead.

Conversely low humanity vampires stop doing a lot of things that are unnecessary. Thought that low (4-2) humanity vampires would enjoy the following benefits: you can spend an extra 1 Blood per turn, you only need to spend 1 Blood every 3 nights to rouse, and you get -1 difficulty to intimidate mortals and the ST may allow that benefit on other supernaturals too. You get the normal flaws of low humanity of course, effectively the Monstrous Flaw in lesser by the way it’s described. Then this gets even stronger at humanity 1 and 0. You only need to spend 1 Blood each *week* to rouse, and can spend 2 extra blood each turn as your body is effectively dominated by your Beast. The last bit would be a fact only a handful of elders and some tremere understand, naturally. I’ve only considered that for Modern though.

>>96243656
yeah, that seems actually pretty cool

>>96243180
>All the biggest vampires in fiction love humans.
Only the faggy ones though.

>>96243656
I could definitely see use for a balance hack in which young vampires have to hunt more often, and old ones more rarely, but at higher stakes (well, having to hunt other vampires for the very old was going into that direction, originally).
I've ran a very abstract system at some point in which blood allowed to buy successes rather than dice, with the caveat that abusing your supernatural vampire capacities slowly eroded your human, natural tools for dealing with the world.
Was a bit too abstract for its own good, but I do think it made for some interesting games.

>>96243626
second kind of players should stop playing and write a fucking book instead

>>96241412
primal utility is a very based sphere.

>>96239880
Bwahahaha what a shitshow

>>96243656
That looks pretty interesting. One of the things I did like in V5 was how a character couldn't fully get rid of their hunger unless they completely drained a person. I liked the idea that even a vampire that was able to comfortably sustain himself by careful feeding would always have that nagging hunger clawing at the back of his mind pushing him to just. Drink. More.

>>96243530
>How's your day going /wodg/?
Trying to find something positive to contribute, but pretty stagnant day really.
Campaing on hold till september. Prep work mostly done. Running one-shots for now. Nothing WoD today, too many players missing, so I ran some 4th ed shadowrun. Can't decide what I'm going to run next weekend.

>>96243731
First kind should go play movies-games instead of playing games defined by their collective-borne emergent narrative properties then?
Come on, bullshit statements the both of them.

>>96243572
i wouldn't say it's as hyperbolic as your implying. i stopped playing V5 specifically because touchstones made character creation unfun. it was the mechanic i had to fight against when creating my characters, which before then was the issue of badly made homebrews. and i know i'm not alone in this opinion.

>>96243530
Well that sucks anon, hope you enjoy your next game.

>>96243656
It's a nice concept.
Humanity should have more mechanical rules that allow for low and high characters, both with their advantages.
This could also be used to replace Paths, which I always found to basically defeat the entire purpose of the game.

>>96244106
the purpose of the game is to be a vampire and nothing else. everything else is wankery that got added to appear high brow and different from d&d

>>96243968
What's the breaking point for you?
I mean I often play troupe and force a big cast of characters anyway, to the point we've homebrewed Touchstones as a limiter of sort rather than an expander, so it's not a big problem with people I play with, but even discussing other people I've never heard of it being a significant issue.
I lean, it's no Hunger Dicenor Messy Critical.

>>96244195
>the purpose of the game is to be a vampire
Yes, and Louis is a vampire. The Nosferatu version of Shadow of the Vampire is a vampire.
Some people want tools to play those too.

>>96244195
>the purpose of the game is to be a vampire and nothing else
Yeah but it's a limited scope of what a vampire is.
It's not like it's conducive to a what We Do in the Shadows type of vampire story.
Humanity should serve a role in both roleplay and gameplay.

>>96243689
>>96243716
>>96243948
>>96244106
To expand on this. An idea I’m considering but haven’t committed to is that Humanity isn’t actually “humanity” but rather it’s simply a measure of how much you control your Beast versus it controlling you. Effectively meaning that every vampire is on their own Path as what it means to be “human” varies, and more importantly can shift over time. A high Humanity Elder sitting at 8-9 Humanity after 500 years might not be so nice and homely, actually. Their own moral code may have shifted dramatically into something that’s only Human at a glance, but peel it back and you find something quite strange, otherworldly, and inhuman. But they mean well. They’re only doing what’s best for you. They’re doing what’s right.

I just don’t know if I’m clever enough to expand on that.

>>96244364
Technically, V5 already tries something like that with convictions and tenets, ie making the rules by which Humanity operates defined by the group on a per-game basis.
As often with V5, interesting idea, execution needs more iterative work.

>>96244299
yes, because ultimately hunger and messy crits can be "fixed" with simple one line homebrewing. messy crits issue can be solved by an experienced GM that knows how harshly they should "punish" players for messy crits, it's another noob GM trap.
disciplines can be addressed by homebrewing some of your own powers and letting players take more then one power per level. (something that the latest book apparently introduces at the cost of a flaw.)
but touchstones? you'd require to rip out the whole system and rebuild it from scratch or replace it entirely

>>96244438
I probably wasn't clear, I just meant: Messy Crits and Hunger Dice I've heard a lot of complaints about since V5 released.
Touchstones? That's a first.

>>96244475
then you haven't been paying attention because it is one of the more common complaints. the top 3 complaints are the hunger system, the discipline system and the touchstones not in any particular order

>>96244399
yeah "technically" it does that, but then it also tries to backseat GM by adding "this may warrant stains" to several "darker" actions.

V5 has a very clear defined view of humanity that it wants to enforce, a clear good vs. evil. It is only paying lip service to morally gray characters.

>>96243950
I envy you being able to play Shadowrun.

>>96244008
Hope so too. At least I get to play another character concept I wanted to play.

Also I think it’s a relief to the ST that I stop playing my garou with Absent-Minded. Apparently I laid it out too thick being an airhead with the memory of Dory from Finding Nemo. Which is a shame, I found it fun (he asked me not to play the Lazy flaw I took for my Banshee too much, which I’m ashamed to say I picked it up for min-max reasons).

Does anyone else Mix Owod and Cod

>>96244531
I played in a LARP that did that years ago. OWod setting with Requiem rules. It worked ok for the most part. Thaumaturgy was the one thing I remember being tweaked constantly but I didn't pay too much attention since I was playing a pretty simple Brujah.

>>96243530
>one player killed it
You should kill that player.

>>96243530
>with an extra 30 exp
XP on older vampires always weird. A vampire can theoretically get 30 xp in 6 nights(If they survive the utter hell that week would be), but it could also take them Years to earn that much. There are also lots of example elders with less xp than many ancillae.

>>96245019
>A vampire can theoretically get 30 xp in 6 nights(If they survive the utter hell that week would be)

>>96245019
>A vampire can theoretically get 30 xp in 6 nights
wtf?

>>96244531
Doing it rn in my own home game. the players are hunters, but I use VtM clans and major sects with VtR covenants as another layer of bullshit politics.
>VTM/VTR jungle juice.
>MtAw mages pretty unaltered. Technocrats as a style of magic popular with some Seers and Free Council, rather than a faction.
>Forsaken, Garou and Pure all independently doing their things and hating each other. Garou are the weirdos of werewolves for having a different creation myth and worshipping Gaia instead of Luna. They also have WoD kinfolk mechanics rather than Wolf-Blooded, which freaks out both other factions and results in them being the fastest reproducing. (which is totally cancelled out by their balls to the wall approach to battle and fanatical extremism)
>PENTEX is real because I love them and they're a huge issue for everyone.
>Stargazers and some CoG are staring wistfully at the Forsaken and wondering if worshipping Luna would really be all that bad. Primarily I use CoD spirit world cosmology. Weaver/Wyld/Wyrm are just really strong overspirits of creation, order and destruction, not fundamental to reality in the same way although they very much say they are. (Their destruction would result in nasty consequences but new spirits would form to fill the gap)
>Lost Changelings because I never really read Dreaming or got into it.
>Use the Deviant rules for Fomori, but also for all sorts of "altered" people.
>Geist afterlife but I take the parts of Wraith I like anyway, like spirits being forged into items in the afterlife if the wrong asshole manages to grab you.
>OWoD mummies, Amenti thought to be a weird kind of Geist by most who're aware of their existence. Sin-Eaters can usually tell they're not, and work with them frequently.
>Hunters are Hunters, Imbued are in the same bag with Cheiron bio-freaks and Lucifuge heirs where they scare the shit out of other hunters.

>>96244364
Not a fan that direction.
Controlling the Beast IS Humanity. That's the idea of it, you can only keep the undead cursed urges of the supernatural on check by acting like humans.
And I like the idea of humanity varying by by vamp age. Not that because the kindred ages his idea of humanity should change (this should reflect in a lower humanity status, since he's literally forgetting what it is to be human) but that he it shousk reflect the values of humanity in his time and place.

>>96244364
>>96245213
I like opposing attributes approach.
Humanity dictates how good you are at social affairs, scheming and control and associated powers, or if you're able to engage in such activities at all, how much blood you need to function, how grievously you are affected by banes, and how easy you can pass for a human.
Beast dictates how good you are at combat, terrifying others, following instincts and gut hunches, physical and overtly monstrous powers, how much blood you can store and spend per turn, and how strong your Beast is in general.
Maintaining both is possible but hard, because degeneration checks are rolled against opposing attribute +5 and raising them back is pricey in terms of both xp and commitment.
Paths are delusions of grandeur that do nothing mechanically.

>>96245108
Basically what it looks like if you blow through Bloodlines in a single sitting.

>>96245019
>A vampire can theoretically get 30 xp in 6 nights
What videogame munchkinnery is this?
Nah, assuming all six nights were full of action and exceptional roleplay and they managed to wrap up some subplots, they get 12xp at best.
Considering your average player, missing sessions and rarely if ever producing an enjoyable performance and all 4-7 xp a week is more realistic, if still quite a bit more generous than it ought to be, Vampire is a "meandering" splat that easily stretches for years.

Quick poll:
Should Earth Meld be a level 1 power instead of 3? Y/N

>>96245639
Yeah, hard to justify it it being a level 3 power.

>>96245600
Vampire default progression is made for very long games with a lot of ST handwaving in terms of mechanical rewards.

>>96243637
Street Fighter is a useful as a reference for powers and style merits but when you bust it out you would be better off just playing the Videogame in most cases.

>>96245639
Nah. On-demand instant, concealed haven anywhere is too good to be 1-dot power.

>>96245668
>>96245861
1:1
I need a third vote.

Does anyone have the new Curseborne manuscript for the vampires? I heard they rewrote a load of it.

>>96245921
make it two dots, as a middle ground.

>>96245921
1 dot. It's simple, straightforward, and as another anon said it makes perfect sense for the first trick a newly-Embraced Gangrel learns in order to survive.

>>96245921
2 dots >>96246054 is fair if vampire no longer receives concealment bonus against supernaturals tracking him specifically, relying more on sinking somewhere out of the way and nobody looking for him during the day.

>>96245639
1 dot IMO. It's pretty basic in its utility and makes sense as something foundational, but I have always thought VtM's protean was kinda crap any way I it took until Req 2e to make it interesting.

>>96245668
>>96246072
>>96246188
3 votes for lvl 1

>>96246054
>>96246171
2 votes for lvl 2

>>96245861
1 vote to keep things as they are in masquerade

I suppose unlife is getting easier for non-gangrel.

>>96245861
>Nah. On-demand instant, concealed haven anywhere is too good to be 1-dot power.
Maybe it has changed between editions but Earth Meld is pretty limited. You can only use on actual earth so there is a chance your character would still die to the sun if the location isn't right. The bonus stuff is way to situational for PCs.

>>96245639
I feel like I have to say yes because I really like Requiem Protean.

>>96244531
>Does anyone else Mix Owod and Cod

Yes, that is my table's default state for WoD games, actually. Started when we said we wanted to try it, but the one friend who actually had played it before said he had such a bad experience running oWoD that he didn't want to touch the system again. So we started with HtV instead because different system. Then I started homebrewing a conversion, the rest is history. Helps I'm not much of a setting purist.

>>96246413
It is just more thought out.

>>96245031
>>96245108
>>96245600
It's possible to gain up to 5 xp every chapter and you can complete a chapter every session. That game would be absolutely Breakneck in how much shit you'd be doing each of those sessions and your character's life would be absolute hell the entire time, but it's 100% doable.

>>96246438
On paper yeah but that's like expecting someone to reach the anatomical limit in a sport.

>>96246420
There is a reason no one really talks about WoD's rules. Their core is to clunky to not be distracting even when the powers are good.

>>96246464
What core, gang?

>>96243656
Honestly? Not a fan. It gives mechanical incentives and disincentives towards playing high or low humanity based on what your build is, meaning someone who wants to play a low humanity social character or a high humanity fighter is intentionally gimping themselves, and not in a minor or engaging way. I don't like limiting my players like that. It may sound like a cool idea in the concept phase, but then you get to play and suddenly "darkly heroic vampire knight", in my experience a fairly common archetype, becomes awful compared to "fuckface Jimmy, the 2 humanity sabbat freak".

>>96244364
Especially with you wanting to make it more about self control and asserting your will over the beast (which isn't a bad idea itself mind you), I think you end up stepping on Werewolf's toes actually. Where you become a powerful blender at the cost of being a constantly wanting to tear throats out monster. That and I would argue the natural conclusion of Humanity as just leashing the beast is folding it into Willpower entirely.

In my experience the best way to handle humanity is to be light with it, rather than trying to mechanically expand it and what it does. Because the very notion of what should make a vampire human/inhuman is going to be the subject of much argument due to how hard it can be to codify what "humanity" is in the first place. My group likes to add modifiers to rolls depending on the circumstances, or sometimes waive the roll entirely. If a humanity 7 person eats a baby, auto-loss. At the same time, there are situations in which premeditated killing is not only justifiable but correct. In which case you don't even risk humanity loss.

Maybe I should try to mechanically codify it more for people other than my table which has experience with the loose houserules we run with.

>>96246452
Didn't say it was normal, just that it was possible. There are NPCs that canonically lived that kind of life, fucking neonates with more attribute, ability, and discipline dots than 500 yo princes. That one blood brother npc "Angelo" is a prime example.

>>96246464
Admittedly from what he told me it did sound like he had one of the worst possible experiences with it. He was a lorelet fresh off of playing bloodlines, one friend was a belligerent munchkin and made a City Gangrel who used Agg + Celerity to kill every encounter in 1 round flat, so he lacked system or setting experience to shut that down. Another player got the child flaw and then complained that they couldn't go into bars.

Still, from what other friends have told me from their less scuffed experiences playing oWoD, it's still a game of "I'm having fun in spite of the mechanics."

>>96246467
>What core, gang?
The stuff that, mostly, stays the same between splats. The slow combat, handwavy extended rolls, and movement.
The kind of rules that should have been corrected after 30+ years but weren't, like how diff 10 rolls basically make the actual dice pool irrelevant or how almost no one uses the raw combat flow because it takes way too long at most tables.

>>96246475
Fair.
>>96246484
Yeah I can see why he would be turned off from the system after that.

>>96240029
>>96240048
Kinda wish we could get new WoD miniatures.
Kingdom Death's artstyle could work wonders for pretty much all splats.

>>96241412
You know? A good explanation for how work is slowly draining us despite not necessarily being super taxing on mind or body would be that the Technocracy is drawing just a little more quintessence from our patterns than they should.

>>96246571
... I get using that as a plot point but it is just just companies fucking over the population for their own benefit.

>>96246565
It'd be "Rudi and friends" again, blech.

Or generic urban fantasy vamps you could grab from the local hobby shop or toy store by hundreds in 00s.

Man, do I miss those times, so many great dirt cheap miniature games, just gone, and nobody remembers them.

>>96246593
Maybe. But now we have 3D printing.
You can have your unique garou, vamp, mage and more for you to paint. You can have your really fucked up fomori, umbrood, etc.
As time goes on, I expect every LGS to have its own 3D printer service on demand in a few years.

>>96246652
True. Hate working with printer resin, though.

>Gangrel male x Black Fury
Is there a more hotter pairing?

>>96246826
>tremere x females from all the clans
Easy.

>>96246826
>implying vampfag has a chance

>>96246826
mage x bastet

>>96246565
/tg/ might stand for totally gay, but the internet would not be ready for a wargame that includes Lost Changelings as a faction

>>96246889
>mage x bastet
Good taste, unless Simba, in which case dogshit taste.

Makes me wonder though. Can Mage/Kitsune pair evade that whole parents must die curse thing with judicious application of Life, Prime or Entropy?

>>96246909
>Kitsune

>>96246909
given that it's fera related stuff you probably also need to add a equal amount of spirit to the life or have your successes halved but otherwise i don't see why not

>>96245639
It removes the need for residence, the danger of dawn and is pretty hard to detect.
Dot 3 is perfect. I once had a Combination Discipline that mixed it with Potence to affect harder material than just Earth, without needing to be Elder.

>>96246942
Spirit is granted since it can make up for deficiency of their creation outright (and combined with Life mastery probably even inheritably fix the healing factor). The question is other spheres.

>>96246967
honestly i would just throw prime at it and call it a day at those 3 spheres

but i am sure another st or a white wolf writer could make it a 6 sphere spell if they wanted

>>96246826
Fianna male ahroun x Get of Fenris male ahroun

>>96246826
garou who's players who become too sure of themselves x nexus crawler

>>96246471
Low humanity vampires are already socially gimped. What do you mean?

>>96247178
>x nexus crawler
Oh, if I had a penny for every time an ecstatic tried to fuck a nexus crawler or a marauder that's even worse off...

One of them later made moves on Voormas, of all people.

>>96247281
how tf are they going to fuck the thing that causes aggravated damage just from near it?

>>96247481
Very carefully.

>>96246475
Tbf, WW loves their overly powerful NPCs.
You can't swing an undead cat without hitting some 400 year old elder.

>>96247481
By making themselves immune to it, or simply giving themselves way more health and healing factors, if they're into pain. Sure, dumbasses eat a bunch of dox for no reason, but to them it's worth it.

>>96247587
In vampire and wraith it does make sense because the strongest people of each generation just stay in play.
In splats like werewolf it starts to get kind of funky because even the strongest pack eventually gets massacred.

>>96247587
It's a Vampire-specific problem desu. Other splats have one-three such at best, if any, only one of which would be really out there, I mean like Haight and Asswad. In Vampire there are hundreds of shitty mary sue characters that have no business being even half as good as they're presented to be.

>>96247792
>Haight
Haight wouldn't really be that bad if there wasn't crossplatting munchkinnery and his origin tribe made sense (Black Furies and others with strong abusive tendencies, or anyone not Children, really, FFS).

>>96247817
The point was to show how even the hippies treated kinfolk like shit, that got changed later on because most players knew better than pissing them off so the hostilities between them less prevalent.

>>96247788
>the strongest people of each generation just stay in play

>>96247888
Bro, forget Anarchs, Camarilla itself is basically Boy Scouts club.

>>96247788
Them staying on play is an issue by itself. Vamos are supposed to grow more inhuman and require more blood the older they get. That's why Jyhad is the way it is, older vampires creating younger vampires to act as proxies because they can't be as active. But if you're like 2000 years olds and your thoughts aren't that different from an experienced 40 year old and you don't need to drain 17 people to stay up for a single night, why the fuck wouldn't you be active?

>>96247888
God, I hate when I sound like a fucking Bruhja.

>>96247876
The point was retarded to begin with, and serves no purpose but to let the real dipshit tribe fans use Haight to point at CoG and claim they're pure evil while their man hating/human hating/chronically backstabbing/tard raging murderhoboes are good, noble and righteous.

>>96247931
>point was retarded to begin
So was the Nation.

>>96247909
>Vamos are supposed to grow more inhuman and require more blood the older they get.
Except we don't really see the blood requirements outside a supernatural flaw we don't see how it is acquired. At the end of the day it's not all that different from normal warfare and espionage but once your character grows monstrous enough they just drop.

>>96247922
You're good, you didn't advocate for a more equitable system to replace the neofeudalism.

>>96247931
>The point was retarded
Woofs are retarded.

>>96247994
It's not like the entire fucking premise of the game is that such a system is effectively impossible because God said so.

>>96247991
>Except we don't really see the blood requirements outside a supernatural flaw we don't see how it is acquired
Well, that's a failure on the game. A lot VtM is more suggestive than hard rules, which has its benefits but not always.
>At the end of the day it's not all that different from normal warfare and espionage
It's pretty different. It's very veiled warfare and significantly more paranoid espionage.

>>96247994
>"Communism could really work for vampires!"
--Dumb Redhead Slut, 2004.

>>96248023
>Well, that's a failure on the game. A lot VtM is more suggestive than hard rules, which has its benefits but not always.
That's what I am talking about, the lore states something but the rules rarely support that without the ST going out of its way to impose that. This leads to people not being on the same page on a lot of important stuff because they expect different things out of the same universe.

>>96248037
I wanna fuck the Communist idiocy right out of her.

>>96248107
You severely overestimate your game.

>>96248107
I wanna shoot her in case she knows how generation gets redistributed.

>>96243180
Doesn't this make a lot of sense, though? Vampires are ex-humans or even just humans that are changed. The whole game revolves about retaining your humanity and everyone around them is human. They listen to human music, watch human movies, play human video games (depending on where we are with SI). Why wouldn't they like humans?

>>96248105
It's not really a bug but a feature in case of VtM.
It's the theater kids RPG for a reason, the lighter rules allowed for more interpretation and encouraged the non nerds to try it out.
Personally, with how important Humanity is for the game's themes, what with the entire premise being it's inevitable loss, I'd want stricter rules.
But then again, VtM is very much a "Do as I Say" game on part of the creators and writers, who frequently talk a big game about personal horror and whatnot and fill the world with DMNPC Elders with absurd powers.

>>96248156
Because you're a wolf among sheep. Or that's the mentality you're encourage to have, the truth is that vampires are parasites in human life and society and why humans can live without vamps, vampires can't live without humans.
Your existence as singularly more powerful than any given human while at the same time depending on human society for existence, added with the necessary subterfuge and distance from the human condition is very cognitive dissonant and should provoke feelings if despair, rage, melancholy, depression and many others. To distract yourself, the only real alternative is fucking with other vampires.

>>96248133
Just threaten to publish her college nudes and she'll be on her knees in no time. College commies are all talk, they fold like a napkin under any real pressure.

>>96248107
Not really possible.
If she's nice (which Damsel isn't) she'll just ignore your political talk and not bring it up.
If she isn't, she's gonna take your different political beliefs as a personal attack and scream and rage at you, sometimes cry and beg for you stop being so abusive.
Sex is great though.

>>96248156
What you said makes sense for new vamps, hundreds years old would see lots of human die in pathetic way in comparison to Vamps, they're stronger, smarter, most likely richer and much more durable than humans. A vamp isn't going to have high opinions on humans, shouldn't logically at least
There is a reason even Camarilla, the main enemy of the vampire supremacist faction Sabbat, calls humans kine, which means cattle

>>96248246
>There is a reason even Camarilla, the main enemy of the vampire supremacist faction Sabbat, calls humans kine, which means cattle
Actually it means Jewish.

>>96248182
>But then again, VtM is very much a "Do as I Say" game on part of the creators and writers, who frequently talk a big game about personal horror and whatnot and fill the world with DMNPC Elders with absurd powers.
That is one of the reasons why V5 was recieved the way it was. It really forced a particular playstyle with actual rules rather than mostly empty lore.

>>96248219
Not sure they're strictly parasites. The relationship with ghouls is at least partially symbiotic.

>>96248246
>see lots of human die in pathetic way in comparison to Vamps, they're stronger, smarter, most likely richer and much more durable than humans
That's pretty close to my relationship with my dog. He a great boy though.

>>96248222
What could possibly go wrong?

>>96248257
Wut

>>96247258
The dice pool cap/bearing modifier depending on edition is a thing yeah. What anon is proposing is a lot more extreme and thus gives greater incentives and disincentives to certain builds. Which I'm not a fan of.

>>96248284
Hey, which other group is an elitist, secretive cabal whose members drink blood, have far-reaching influence in every sphere of society and call everyone in the outgroup "cattle"? Haha

>>96248263
V5 as always identifies a real problem and manages a retarded solution worst than the original issue.
>>96248275
They're parasites in a general sense. Maybe there's a vampire out there that pays rent for the kine he feeds but we're talking the general relationship between human and kindred.

>>96248316
>V5 as always identifies a real problem and manages a retarded solution worst than the original issue.
Mostly because the writers just expect the tables to do most of their work.

>>96248378
Just like D&D

>>96248246
>they're stronger, smarter, most likely richer and much more durable than humans.

I read this line all the time and I never understand it. The notion that being "better" than the average by a significant amount makes you view the average and below as less than human is a very specific mind set or personality trait. Not everyone is going to think that way to the point you need to start handwaving "well the beast makes you think that way" and honestly we already handwave way too much with "the beast did it". I think if anything the most common reason for elder humanity loss would be all the messed up stuff one has to do to survive that long, not because of the mortals but because of your fellow vampire. Even then, I think it should be more of a personal thing as to why the slow march of centuries erodes (or in the rare case does not erode) the humanity of a vampire.

Maybe this is a spicy take, but I think the reason VtM constantly states a rule as law but then proceeds to do the opposite with NPCs, fluff writing and premade adventures is that the rule it lays out is fucking boring. "You will inevitably have your humanity stripped away until you either go feral or become a 1 humanity super methuselah" sounds cool in the elevator pitch but then you realize how limiting that is when you try to write more than one story.

>>96248400
>Maybe this is a spicy take, but I think the reason VtM constantly states a rule as law but then proceeds to do the opposite with NPCs, fluff writing and premade adventures is that the rule it lays out is fucking boring.
It isn't an out there take, it's just that you need to get other people you are playing with on the same page.

>>96248400
>Maybe this is a spicy take, but I think the reason VtM constantly states a rule as law but then proceeds to do the opposite with NPCs, fluff writing and premade adventures is that the rule it lays out is fucking boring. "You will inevitably have your humanity stripped away until you either go feral or become a 1 humanity super methuselah" sounds cool in the elevator pitch but then you realize how limiting that is when you try to write more than one story.
It's not creatively limiting at all, it's part of the premise and setting, you're suppose to write with that in mind. Having a setting with no rules and anything goes is more creatively sterile than a few limitations imposed for thematic reasons.
VtMB managed to write a great chronicle with no thousand years NPCs and the story didn't suffer for it.
The issue is that the world building of the game both states that loss of humanity is inevitable but also filled the world with low generation elders that are integral to the history of the world. It also completely lacks any guidance for age and generation by epoch, which means if a player wanted a more detailed lineage of vampires through the ages, he'd have to do it himself.

>>96248275
>Not sure they're strictly parasites. The relationship with ghouls is at least partially symbiotic.
All parasites are symbiotic. Symbiosis is just the umbrella term for when one species that has long term biological relationships with another species. There are then lots of different types of symbiotic relationships based on which of the parties is helped, hurt, or neither, but when both parties benefit it's a mutualistic symbiosis. In regards to blood they're obligate ectoparasites meaning they have to feed on blood to live, are external to the body, and are harmful to secondary species. Although a careful kindred is basically a micropredator, a sub-type of parasite, where are things like mosquitos or vampire bats. They don't kill what they hunt but do a little damage before fucking off.

>>96248308
I don’t know is it? The dice cap makes a “dark knight” character impossible because you cannot meaningfully interact with mortals at 3-4 humanity because at that point you obviously look like a walking, talking corpse with sunken eyes and robotic movements, unless you have the blush of life merit which. You can still have that. But that’s chargen anyways.

>>96248514
If the official writers of the setting abandon the premise almost immediately, it wasn't a very good premise. I also wouldn't consider VtMB a good example of the "you will become an alien inhuman monster" position, because while it leans young, most of the old guys feel plenty human, even if they're assholes. Jack or Strauss don't come across as weird alien men who forget to breathe half the time.

>>96239816 (OP)
After being inspired by Fish-Anon and Assistant Fish-Anon i wanted to try my hand to decently develop a Dragon Splat.
My initial idea was one for WoD but that one was a bit more complicated than I ideally thought.
So I started up a bit simpler idea by having it in nWod/CoD - "Dragon: The Legend"

Here you play as a dragon and your goal is to grow your power. Grow your dragon self and become a figure worthy of having a Legend.
I have a lot of ideas and i posted it here once before and someone gave me the idea of Kobolds. Anyone have any other ideas, questions, or ways to help say something here or leave a comment on the doc.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/11sUtiIqPA-T9l8ToHyaAAk4et_Pj0J6iRgWbjGWj5ns/edit?usp=sharing

>>96248182
>what with the entire premise being it's inevitable loss
Problem is, that's NOT the entire premise. That's one interpretation a subset of writers imposed on the game after rein-hagen left. There was very much an undertone of "you can absolutely be a humane vampire and the elders are fucking lying to you" in earlier games.
Hell, they accidentally brought that back in DA20, because the DA:Inquisitor retcon of the faith rules made it so that vamps with TF become highly resistant to humanity loss from stupid shit..

The real redpill is that Generation is stupid and Blood Potency already solved all the issues you guys have brought up.

>>96248555
Anon the knight example is of a high humanity fighter, not a low humanity talker. Which is hampered significantly by needing to spend double blood to wake up every evening. He's high humanity but not much of a talker. Meanwhile if you stay on the knife edge of wightdom, you can get extra blood per turn? Yeah, not for me.

I'm not a fan of a hard dice cap either, I prefer the bearing system as a more flexible set of bonuses and penalties depending on humanity/path.

And while it's only tangentially related the "low humanity gives you sunken eyes and a snarl" thing is hilarious since there's plenty of low humanity smokeshows. In fact, they've been there since day 1.

>>96248647
Thanks for sharing your work. I will read it and give some feedback later.

>>96248655
But we're talking about humanity?

The merits and demerits of generation is a different discussion entirely.

>>96248520
>micropredator
I think we need to split it by contexts now. They basically cause no real issues for humans they feed on, but engage in a sort of mutualism with their ghouls and endosymbiotism when embracing new vampires. They're only really parasites in metaphorical sense.

>>96248655
>Generation is stupid
Anon is still seething I see.
Generation was a perfect mechanic for the type of game Masquerade's setting is for. it While it works fine for VtR's world, Blood potency has no place in VtM.

>>96247991
>we don't really see the blood requirements outside a supernatural flaw we don't see how it is acquired. At the end of the day it's not all that different from normal warfare and espionage but once your character grows monstrous enough they just drop.
I mean. For all that consumption needs are largely undefined in the lore, implementing one can be pretty easy. Just make each generation dot and each century of life need to drink an extra blood point per night (spend them however you want, but there must be that many points consumed, or you frenzy). 7- generations gets inefficient digestion flaw on top.

And swap anyone who's been a vampire for more than a millennium (awake, cumulatively, torpid periods don't count, but don't reset the counter) to mandatory diablerie of their descendants that need to be at least century-old (would explain the long naps further as well). They no longer need to feed each night, but eating their mature descendants is the only way they gain vitae, and they aren't sated until they top off.

>>96248661
Well yes that would be the point. That if you want to remain close to humanity you need to work for it. It’s not something easy, also that only occurs at 8+. Where you’re more human than a human. And would have a very hard time justifying violence anyways. Fighting off the beast and rejecting your nature, fighting the hunger, fighting the urge to give in to justifying the violence and accepting it instead of hating that it’s the only way forward. RAW humanity pretty much doesn’t allow fighting period without degeneration rolls until 5 or lower. In any edition.

>>96248655
Generation is stupid from a mechanical perspective but it serves the purpose of inciting inter vampire violence and paranoia.
Blood Potency despite working better mechanically doesn't really give vampires as good a reason to cannibalize one another.

>>96248688
Generation falls apart the moment you think about it for five minutes.

>le seething
Nice projection, can I borrow it for my home theater?

>>96248710
>Generation falls apart the moment you think about it for five minutes.
Asking because curious. Why?

>>96248686
Feeding does damage they're parasites. They also don't live in anyone. Even if you wanted to really stretch it that feeding someone else your vitae was living inside them, they'd still be an ectoparasite because the digestive tract doesn't count for living in their flesh.

>>96248702
>Generation is stupid from a mechanical perspective
"If it's stupid, and it works, then it's not stupid" -the engineer's prayer
Generation does exactly what it's meant to do. In game design that's called a good mechanic. You can hate it from the subjective angle, but calling it a bad mechanic is objectively wrong.

>>96248692
>For all that consumption needs are largely undefined in the lore, implementing one can be pretty easy.
It is easy but it's just one of those things that you keep asking why there aren't canon rules for

>>96248686
Feeding does damage they're parasites. They also don't live in anyone. Even if you wanted to really stretch it that feeding someone else your vitae was living inside them, they'd still be an ectosymbiont because the digestive tract doesn't count for living in their flesh.

>>96248710
>Generation falls apart the moment you think about it for five minutes.
If you're still this ignorant after 5 minutes of deliberation,you're pretty slow anon.

>>96248700
At no point did I ever say I liked RAW humanity either. Just that making the effects of high/low humanity more extreme is not to my liking especially as presented in that initial post. If you're the anon who came up with it, it's not a personal attack or anything, I simply don't care for it. It's just about the opposite way I've approached it. I think humanity is best when it's relatively unobtrusive, and the loss almost sneaks up on you until it hits you all at once what you've lost.

>>96248655
>>96248677
>>96248688
>Gets dubs of truth
>Immediately get ass-blasted by two anons with dubs
4chan is bipolar today

>>96248688
>Generation was a perfect mechanic for the type of game Masquerade's setting is for.
Explain?

>>96248600
>If the official writers of the setting abandon the premise almost immediately, it wasn't a very good premise
I disagree, it just means they lacked the talent to follow it though. By that logic, personal horror it's a good idea either.
>I also wouldn't consider VtMB a good example of the "you will become an alien inhuman monster" position, because while it leans young, most of the old guys feel plenty human, even if they're assholes. Jack or Strauss don't come across as weird alien men who forget to breathe half the time.
Jack, Andrei and Strauss are still all under 500 years old and with the exception of Jack (who is an interesting case) there's a clear and blatant difference with Strauss and Andrei operate vs the younger vamps.
Loss of humanity doesn't mean you forget to breathe
>>96248652
>Problem is, that's NOT the entire premise. That's one interpretation a subset of writers imposed on the game after rein-hagen left
Rein•Hagen left in like 2007.

>>96248747
>Feeding does damage they're parasites.
By that logic, all herbivores would classify as parasites. There are plenty of symbiotic relationships where one lifeform does a minor amount of damage to the other, but ultimately helps the other lifeform more than it hurts them.

>>96248655
We're talking about humanity though.
Blood Potency and Generation aren't mutually exclusive though, and Generation is a interesting part of the lore that fits the premise of older vamps lording over the younger.
I do like the mechanics involved the limits of feeding with VtR's Blood Potency though.

>>96248791
>Rein•Hagen left in like 2007.
Meh "Imposed after he left" is easier to type than "slowly ate at the game from the inside, undermining much of the original premises, to impose their own worse interpretation on everything until the hagen left and nothing was left to hold them back."

Generation, like many issues in VtM since V1, can be tied up to a problem of (brace for it) ludo narrative dissonance.
There's very little adequacy between narrative and mechanical aspects in VtM. The systems in place don't really generate the narrative they're supposed to support very well, if at all. The narrative elements often need to disregard mechanical aspects to even make sense and allow further emergence.
Trouble is, as V5 showed: we don't all agree on which aspect is good and which needs to be amended (and that's before going into the how).
To repreat my own hot take: VtM was a success *because* it was a failure in design.
Trying to amend the design is picking a side in how the game should be played, and shredding the playerbase, whichever choice you made.

>>96248816
1st Edition wasn't all that great either.

>>96248830
>ludo narrative dissonance.
Ugh. Gross. I can't believe you had the gall to type this.
>>96248830
>To repreat my own hot take: VtM was a success *because* it was a failure in design
Are you saying VtM is a success because it has a focus on lore and mood whole playing fast and loose with the rules, while VtR failed because it does the exact opposite?

>>96248798
Genuinely, go read a wiki page. It'll be enlightening for you. I'm not gonna LARP as your biology 101 professor for you.

>>96248791
>Strauss
Even ignoring the shitty, retarded V20's retcon, Strauss is likely older than 500 because he has made a custom wingless gargoyle, and that dictates that he had access to knowledge that was more or less lost with the fall of Ceoris, and forgotten long before that (both because gargoyles were endoved with the power of siring, and because newer gargoyle creation ritual that only needed blood was developed).

>>96248600
Jack straight up tells you that his opinion on humans is the same as the opinion humans have on cattle, he doesn't go slaughtering them for fun but he doesn't mind killing them if they get in the way. Also Jack killed all of Elizabeth Dane's crew, he's an inhuman monster and he's IIRC only about 300 years old
Strauss is an actual teacher in Tremere pyramid so he's much much more formal to you

>>96248791
I'm gonna level with you anon, there have been so many attempts to make "personal horror" work that the whole thing is starting to feel like a "real communism hasn't been tried" cope. The writers themselves abandoned it, tried to come back to it more than once, then abandoned it again. It's why Revised is so bipolar as an edition, saying that vampire control is limited to ghouls in middle management in one breath and then nuking an antidiluvian with a cross-splat super laser in their next. Requiem tried to do "personal horror" but most of the mechanics it added to facilitate that style of play (fog of ages and predator's taint) were hated and all but stripped from the 2nd edition entirely. V5 tried to do "personal horror" and how controversial it has been as an edition speak for itself.

You want "real personal horror"? Okay, do it at your table. Most people evidently like it when those elements are accents, not the main color.

>>96248830
This guy is right, at least in broad strokes. Nobody, not even the writers played VtM the way they said it should be played, and it probably would've languished in obscurity if they did a better job. Try to put forward a cohesive vision for the future and you'll just split the fanbase more.

>>96248847
I like 1e just because it's VtM without the metaplot and before the setting was over-explained. That's about it though.

>>96248889
>inhuman monster is not viewing a certain group as people and slaughtering a whole boat

To be frank if Jack was a pirate from the 1600-1700s he'd have done both of those things while alive. Humanity wants to be both morality and humanity at the same time but it isn't great at either.

>>96248309
Catholics?

How many dots in Mind to turn someone else gay? Imagine if you suddenly wanted to duck your bro’s cock after some mage taps you in the ass with a funny colored spell. Horrifying.

>>96248830
I accidentaly a bit (for a change): the whole set up left to its own device allows for emergence of narratives that differ from the ones advocated by the game, but can be valued in and off themselves by some of the player base.

>>96248876
I'm thinking the whole set up is a mess, but by being so it offers a playground in which different profiles of players all saw something they valued in the game. It wasn't perfect, you had to make do with those weirdoes that played for other reasons, but it more or less worked as long as everyone around the table was willing to compromise and patch things up.

For example, I often mention some players never using Humanity/virtues as a binary (you do or you don't) for argument's sake, but as an old DM, sometimes you "cheat(ed)" rules for one player because you know it's spoiling his fun (or alternatively he's not really equipped for it), while using it very much for another player in the same game/session.
And everyone disregard that cheating with the rules for the sake of collective fun.

>Ugh. Gross. I can't believe you had the gall to type this.
I'm definitely going to hell for this.

>>96248879
>Unironically uses wikipedia as a source

>>96248888
My understanding was that the knowledge wasn't lost, just forbidden because it led to the Revolt and the Camarilla obviously looks down on such things.
I mean, it's on Blood Magic: Secrets of Thaumaturgy. The fact that the Gargoyle lives in LA kinda makes me believe Strauss is actually younger than he comes off, actually.

>>96248986
>How many dots in Mind to turn someone else gay?
Mind 5 is needed to permanently rewrite someone's subconscious.

>>96248910
>It's why Revised is so bipolar as an edition, saying that vampire control is limited to ghouls in middle management in one breath and then nuking an antidiluvian with a cross-splat super laser in their next
That was more an issue of the shared universe not really working than Revised by itself I'd say.
>>96248910
>V5 tried to do "personal horror" and how controversial it has been as an edition speak for itself.
V5 is gigantic misstep in all directions, from writing to design to somehow pissing off Chechnya. You can't point at it and go 'well V5 tried that and failed so it doesn't work' because V5 failed ar everything so hard it literally killed White Wolf.
Personal horror is part of the game. You don't need to dwell on it or make it the entire point, but there should be mechanics that bring it up, otherwise you're just playing X-Men that sometimes need to feed blood.
>I like 1e just because it's VtM without the metaplot and before the setting was over-explained.
There's good things about it, but VtM is only popular because of the metaplot.

>>96248888
The nature of the Pyramid is such that an apprentice can discover just about any forbidden thing while moving master's stash of shit he doesn't want his masters to know he has. That just makes me confident Strauss has Thaumaturgy 5.

>>96248997
DM's bending the rule d for player enjoyment is kinda of a staple of tabletop games, though. I wouldn't say it's a bigger deal in VtM than in others.
DnD 3.5 was so complex, when running agame for new players you often run a very basic set of rules.

>>96248986
Mind 2 to induce subtle gay behaviour
Mind 3 to plant gay thoughts into his mind

Also I've just noticed that someone has updated the wiki's Sphere pages to include to write-ups for each of the sample effects from the books.

>>96249079
>just about any forbidden thing while moving master's stash of shit he doesn't want his masters to know he has.
What's in Aisling's secret stash?

>>96249037
>being gay is subconscious
lul

“See that fat slimy disgusting frog host? He owns the local sex shop. You now want to suck his slimy wiener.”

>>96249061
>There's good things about it, but VtM is only popular because of the metaplot.
I don't know that I agree with that. Some people liked the metaplot very much. Some people liked the narrative /set up/ but didn't give a shit about the ongoing published narrative material. Some people liked the rules that allowed super heroing. Some people were in it for the aesthetic. Some people like the game of personal horror V1 claimed it wanted to be. Some people liked the detective/melodrama game ended up taking the shape of for lack of a better defined direction from the game as written...

>>96249080
>DM's bending the rule d for player enjoyment is kinda of a staple of tabletop games, though.
Definitely, but then there's a difference between simplifying the rules for players' sake, ignoring the natural consequences of the rules when they break the narrative (something you have to deal with in, say, Shadowrun), and then having to piece-meal rules and narrative units on a per game/player basis for things to run.

>>96249147
>I don't know that I agree with that
I really think. VtR is a mechanically superior game with a very similar presence and it just didn't connect with people like VtM did. And I think all the lore VtM had, messy as it was, is the differentiating factor.
>>96249147
>Definitely, but then there's a difference between simplifying the rules for players' sake, ignoring the natural consequences of the rules when they break the narrative (something you have to deal with in, say, Shadowrun), and then having to piece-meal rules and narrative units on a per game/player basis for things to run.
Hmmm, yeah fair enough.

>>96249097
Learn proper grammer anon.

>>96249061
You're focusing on a single example. Every single time we try to "return to personal horror" nobody likes it. "X-Men that sometimes need to drink blood" is and always has been a titanic strawman and I can't take seriously anyone who uses the term unironically.

>>96249189
>grammer

>>96249224
"Personal horror always fails" is as much of a strawman and I honestly fought I was being original by avoiding the term vampion.

>>96249262
*thought

>>96249004
>>96249079
Gargoyle/monster creation being forbidden/forgotten is V20's retcon (and V20's ritual is both wrong version and inexcusably shitty, too). Any Tremere could make one just fine back in Revised.

What's important is that the modern gargoyle ritual creates a fairy standard type of it, wings, size, profile, discipline and all. Strauss made a different one, then he had enchanted it with gargoyle rituals, also fairly forgotten after gargoyle bloodline was solidified and modern, trivial creation was developed.

While it's possible that the research notes on older creation process are kept somewhere, it's massively inferior, a younger Tremere wouldn't care to look back, and wouldn't inconvenience themselves and impair the created gargoyle for no real reason even if they had, and if they were inclined to persist in making a custom creation ritual they would not repeat the biggest, most glaring flaw of original that resulted in the biggest disaster in Tremere's history.

People used to complain back in the day about grappling rules being complicated in many ttrpgs. Wonder how they'd react to M20 Ward rules. lol

>>96249224
>"X-Men that sometimes need to drink blood" is and always has been a titanic strawman
How so? I've ran games that went well into what I myself like to affectionately call "Vampire: The Big Brawl". I've definitely witnessed games go into full super hero-mode. Both very much don't care for blood beside it being a mana bar. Nothing wrong with that per see, but then you had to make room for people to whom the thing mattered.
(My view on the game is probably impacted by my experience of playing in clubs, with tables that can be more or less rolling - I guess to people that only play with the one roup of friends, the balance of things can end up pretty different).

>>96249172
>VtR is a mechanically superior game with a very similar presence and it just didn't connect with people like VtM did.
>And I think all the lore VtM had, messy as it was, is the differentiating factor.
Wrong. The cold hard truth is that VtM's quality had nothing to do with it. It got popular the first time for the novelty and the theater kids that swarmed to it, after that it became a household name on word-of-mouth alone. VtR was a lot more polished, a lot less houserule-dependent, and better overall. It failed because it wasn't VtM, pure and simple. When you get down to it, at the end of the day people really are cattle, they crave familiarity and reject anything that requires going out of that comfort zone.

>>96249262
It sounds a lot more dismissive than "vampion" as you're tying it to a specific superhero IP and one known for telling a very specific kind of story at that.

When I say it's always a failure when one tries to return to personal horror, allow me to clarify, I'm talking about editions. I'm sure there's tables that have fun with whatever it is personal horror means to them. That might sound dismissive itself, but I have never seen a coherent vision of what personal horror actually means reach a sort of supremacy.

All I can say is that every time there's a top-down mechanical attempt to return to the "personal horror" roots, it's ignored at best or actively reviled at worst. I'm gonna be honest how many more times do we have to try this before we admit it's not gonna work, and that even if it did most of the existing playerbase wouldn't even like it?

>>96249291
>M20
x20 lines are all shit, or shittier Revised.

>>96249172
>And I think all the lore VtM had, messy as it was, is the differentiating factor.

You're conflating lore and metaplot. V20 had lore, but it didn't have much of a metaplot until BJD (fuck that book). VtM, in a way, got very lucky. It hit at just the right time for it to resonate with a lot of people, even if by accident. It was in a slump when they decided to end it in favor of creating nWoD. I'd say the big things that hamstrung VtR have been
>How insulting it was for a setting to be ended in an apocalypse then immediately replaced with a half reboot half replacement game.
>The 1e vampire template being filled with anti-fun abilities like fog of eternity and predator's taint that clearly were not well thought out and in fact actively limit the things you want to do as a vampire in an urban fantasy setting
>The removal or fusion of a bunch of clans and bloodlines. Let's be honest we all have a favorite that we're way too attached to.
>The general RPG slump of the era it was in.
>The second edition which fixed a lot of the first edition's problems getting undercut like wild by V20.
>No dirt cheap old video games to create a youtube watcher to tabletop enthusiast pipeline.

VtR's issues were not the result of lacking a metaplot. I know it's anecdotal but nobody I know IRL is a metaplot enthusiast.

>>96249313
There's a reson I've been advocating for modular rules myself. Or even different sets depending on how you want to play.
At the very least an Elder game, and ancilla game and a neonate game don't scale the same. And I think having specic rules/set for each would be better than having an all encompassing one.
THough, yeh the issue of hybryd games remains.

>>96249295
It's all anecdotal I know but I've genuinely never seen anyone do that. I also feel like it unnecessarily conflates high action and/or power fantasy play with a specific genre of fiction with very codified tropes and that rubs me the wrong way.

>>96249360
>There's a reson I've been advocating for modular rules myself.

Then we agree on the one thing that really matters.

>>96249172
I think VtM was popular because of the clans, they all embody archetypes that "alternative" people can easily identify with, with some positive aspect for each clan, while Requiem archetypes are more negative. Like Toreador artist vs Daeva "degenerate", etc.
But of course even if it had the same clans, oWoD fags would have been butthurt either way.

>>96249270
I mean the gargoyle can't be that old. It's still hanging around LA
I think it's more likely that 100 years ago Strauss was young and thought it would impress some elder by recreating or attempting a new version of it. Otherwise it's kinda stupid for him to try and make a gargoyle when he's like 700 years.
Although maybe the gargoyle is following him unconsciously. Or something.

>>96249297
>It failed because it wasn't VtM, pure and simple
That's a gigantic cope and you know it.
HtV is more or at least as popular as HtR because it's good on its own.

>>96249270
Right, Strauss' object can't have been to make the most effective gargoyle servant he could get, but he didn't take the lazy way either, and if he chose his method for pure sake of experimentation and the most opportunity to watch vampire tissue transform, the really old heads would already have been there and developed the better rituals.

>>96248727
There is no way a species that has been around for thousands of years would only produce Thinbloods in the modern nights, not without their inherent instability (i.e. the Beast) and their perennial internecine strife. Bloodsuckers have always been killing each other, getting killed by other supernaturals or even mortal hunters, or falling to any other old thing. Even the most vicious predators in the animal kingdom aren't constantly at each other's throats or five seconds away from a fatal rabies attack, and even the most aggressive have better reproduction rates. Any animal species would've long gone extinct at that rate.

TL;DR Generation is dumb because it's predicated on writer fiat.

>>96249438
Nah, the real cope is pretending Masquerade was ever good on its own instead of a case of striking when the iron was hot and surviving on that popularity ouroboros.

>>96249313
>and one known for telling a very specific kind of story at that.
You'd be surprised at the variation that X-Men stories have. Shit, Krakoan Age was basically a tale about how racial supremacy and isolation is good actually.
>>96249313
>but I have never seen a coherent vision of what personal horror actually means reach a sort of supremacy.
People having their own interpretation of what it means is expected for any theme.
>>96249313
>All I can say is that every time there's a top-down mechanical attempt to return to the "personal horror" roots, it's ignored at best or actively reviled at worst
Again, you're just taking personal experiences and assuming that's universal. People don't like losing or being limited either, because someone somewhere complained about it doesn't mean you should your players do whatever they want.
The rules are there to guide towards a specific game.

Strauss should have ignored gargoyle creation and instead went full Populate the Night's Garden

>>96249478
Kinda of insane to insist that the game is still popular because it was popular 20 years ago.
But I guess copes don't have to be logical

>>96249313
>I have never seen a coherent vision of what personal horror actually means reach a sort of supremacy.
That's probably a cope born of abusing the vocabulary here, but: personal horror being, by definition, personal, makes it harder to have encompassing rules to run it.
I don't believe it, but, food for thought.

>>96249297
>(we) crave familiarity and reject anything that requires going out of that comfort zone.
Again, I don't know that I agree, but definitely worth taking into account.

>>96249438
To be completely fair, Vigil being the most popular Hunter game is in many ways a product of the time. Playing the monster was less popular, the idea of humans hunting what goes bump in the night in a modern setting was on the rise and has only gotten bigger since. It's also helped by an utter lack of internal competition within WoD.
>Hunters Hunted is a supplemental book for vampire
>Hunter: the Reckoning is very specific in scope
>H5 is the most basic shit imaginable you might as well play a generic system because you'd get better rules

So if you want WoD Hunter, it's your best choice most of the time.

>>96249413
IIRC the game states Camarilla is new to LA and I think Strauss's Chantry is new too, doesn't he say at some point he was appointed to keep an eye on LaCroix?
So it's more likely Strauss follows the gargoyle and he volunteered for the job knowing his old gargoyle is nearby to fix that problem too

>>96249551
I always assumed the Tremere survived the Free State just like the Nosferatu.

I dislike the way VTM:B glazed the Anarchs nonstop, it detracts from the experience.

>>96249413
Strauss obviously brought it with him to America, and here it got exposed to notions of freedom and decided it fed up with being a a bouncer for a stuffy wizard and left.

>>96249452
I liked the idea introduced by Kindred of the Ebony Kingdoms - I think - that the antes awakening was a cyclical thing that had already happened. But then I very much liked its idea of clan/bloodlines as strains rather actual direct products of the mythos.

>>96249480
>The rules are there to guide towards a specific game.

A game far fewer people wanted to play, we're going in circles. VtR tried personal horror, didn't work. V5 tried personal horror, didn't work. VtM kept talking a good game about personal horror and then doing the exact opposite, and it was pretty popular for a while. I'm sure you'll argue each of those was just a skill issue. However, I will restate. I don't think it's a good idea to try and force a relatively nebulous (your words, it's up to interpretation) style of play that appeals to a minority of the player base.

Let people play the kind of games they want to play. Modular rules facilitates this, strict focused rules do not. Perhaps this would be fine if the player base wasn't so scattered between different styles of play, but they are, so it isn't. Better question, what are you even advocating for?

>>96249526
Nah, Vigil is popular but it didn't topple the peak popularity of HTR. You don't see a Vigil video game do you?

>>96249573
It makes sense. The Anarchy are very attractive if you're a young vampire and they're in sympathetic position as the Free State is collapsing.
The Camarilla is definitely the more cynical option among the two and is treated as such.

>>96249619
White Wolf was trying to get into the vidya market and the HtR games were just pretty by the numbers action games. They could've been any IP.

Do you have any evidence that HtR was some sort of tabletop game favorite? Because I've never seen anything saying Reckoning was big.

This thread has taught me that the perfect version of Vampire is some sort of Masquerade Requiem hybrid with all the clans, fixed lore, and no metaplot.

>>96249573
I mean, they already rolled over, they aggro on the dumbest things, and they hang out in a piss-stained hole with loud and shitty music, they helped you a bit as a middle finger to Lacroj, but you ain't obligated to like em at all.
DESU Max and Andrei are the really compelling characters.

>>96249612
>A game far fewer people wanted to play, we're going in circles. VtR tried personal horror, didn't work. V5 tried personal horror, didn't work
Again, it didn't work for a lot more reasons than personal horror. V5 caused an international incident and even people that play it admit the book's layout is horrendous and terrible to use.
>and force a relatively nebulous (your words, it's up to interpretation
I never used the world nebulous. It appears you think any theme is nebulous because personal interpretation is a thing.
>that appeals to a minority of the player base.
Again, making assumptions based off personal experience. Where do you get the data that says that the vast majority likes to play VtM with zero horror elements?
>Let people play the kind of games they want to play.
And they can, homebrew rules if you're that passionate about, but your concept of people feeling limited means they should do whatever they want is pretty crazy. Why have progression or XP at all? If people like feeling powerful, just let them pick 5 dots at character creation.

>>96249659
>with all the clans
Fuck no, ethnic clans should stay in the septic pit where they belong.

>>96249648
I wish Demon the Descent got a video game, it'd make an excellent one

>>96249353
>You're conflating lore and metaplot. V20 had lore, but it didn't have much of a metaplot until BJD (fuck that book)
I mean the lore of V20 was metaplot in previous editions.
But yeah I was talking about the general lore rather than the world changes implemented in each edition
But some were good. Like Dementation.

>>96249659
>>96249696
This guy is right, outside of the original 7, the Clan get increasingly worse. Probably peaking at the True Brujah.

>>96249679
So are you going to explain what you're advocating for?

>>96249696
If I had a gun to my head and I had to include the ethnic special snowflakes I'd do so as bloodlines.

An important detail to note about the so called "personal horror" players (of which I am).Certainly, I do believe we're a minority but also, in my experience at least, a lot more of us are DMs. And that over-represented changes (changed?) a lot of things about the books and the business aspect.
I mean, I really don't know how things are for young/starting players these days when everything is pirate-able at the drop of a finger, but when I started, it was generally the DM that bought most of the books used by the group.

>>96249731
Trujah are far from the worst because at least they're not explicitly tied to an ethnic group.

>>96249743
I have? In all my comments?

>>96249768
I think they're the worst because they're such a stupid concept with such stupid powers.

>>96249771
Then you've done a pretty bad job. Or call me an idiot, whichever makes you happy. But please, summarize.

What is it you even want?

>>96249800
>Then you've done a pretty bad job. Or call me an idiot, whichever makes you happy.
I'm more concerned that calling you an idiot makes you happy.
>But please, summarize.
Rules good.
Rules that reinforce theme good.
Way to make rules rewarding for players.
Central point of games is limitation and victory through challenge.

>>96249782
Idk I like usurper clans conceptually, even if the gios leave much to be desired. Thus I also like usurped clans. I understand why temporis can be a stretch for some people but it doesn't bother me in the face of thaumaturgy's bullshit. And I like the idea of a usuper clan being the opposite of their progenitor.

>>96249823
>I'm more concerned that calling you an idiot makes you happy.

nta either you're rage baiting or need better reading comprehension.

>>96249731
The Trujah are so painful to look at because they were so close to working. Fluff-wise, they already had Carthage, place where ancient brujah were educated directly by their Ante, as the perfect backstory for why there'd be an advanced brujah bloodline. Literally make them descend from the survivors of carthage and have the new weakness be a side effect of watching their clan's greatest hope die in front of them.
Mechanically, temporis would work better as a blood magic built out of celerity in a vein similar to abyss mysticism. It'd make AM less of an odd duck in the blood magic world and would be a better explanation then 99% of brujah not having their signature in-clan

>>96249841
>or need better reading comprehension.
Read it again slowly anon
If you still can't understand it I'll explain it to you.

>Batini can never ever learn Entropy
>they are also the Craft that excels at Arcane the most to the point where Arcane levels above 5 are exclusive to them
Make it make sense, writers!

>>96249854
Batini also belong to the septic pit. Pointless and worthless tradition.

>>96249828
Don't you think that with the Giovanni and the Tremere and (if you wanna stretch it) the Setites, that niche has been kinda filled out?

>>96249864
>septic pit
Baali detected

>>96249696
rayciss

>>96249887
Can you stop that, none of us are Baali.

>>96249841
Ignore him

>>96249898
Kek.
I'm racist and even I'm laughing at that.
>what, complex character are you playing on this chronicle of darkness, anon?
>Uhhhh a car jacker.

Question about Requiem, what are Belial's Brood about?

>>96249898
>wewuzvampiresnsheeyit2.jpg
Least 2e books were stark and honest. Revised books are all whitewashing, pussyfooting bland shit.

>>96249823
Cool. Allow me to summarize then and I'll be on my way because I really don't care to go minute point for minute point with you for the rest of the thread. Truthfully, I don't think you really want to have a discussion about game design.

Rules exist for a reason. Rules that are too restrictive drive players away and limit your game's reach and appeal. How you view a theme and how others view a theme will never perfectly align, and so past a certain point all these rules do is prevent what your game is capable of doing. Thus, modular design is ideal. Don't force people to homebrew, construct your mechanics in such a way that it is easy to remove what a player/gm doesn't like and easy to add on to what they do like.

>>96243086
>Who the fuck wants to play a vampire that gives a shit about humans?
Humanity is the default road (and hitting 1 or less effective game over) for a reason.

>>96249935
simple stereotype played completely straigh is fine as a starting point for a character, assuming there's a potential to develop beyond that

>>96249940
>what are Belial's Brood about?

So you know how the Sabbat started off as these mysterious, deranged, utterly inhuman and probably infernalist vampire marauders? Before they slowly were turned into the hypocrite death cult?

Yeah Belial's Brood is an extrapolation of that original concept. In a setting without alternate morality paths, Belial's Brood weaponizes the beast, hates and will destroy anyone who does not join them, and may or may not be the thralls of an old and powerful evil.

>>96249949
>prevent
*limit

>>96249949
>Truthfully, I don't think you really want to have a discussion about game design.
Oh no, you're the only interested in having an actual discussion here, everyone else exists to bother you and disagree with you just for contrariness. You're that important.
The rules don't have to be limiting, they're supposed to be conducive towards a type of game, which was designed for that.
Just because people want to do whatever they want as badass vampires in a game doesn't mean you should get rid of humanity because players keep saying the murder they did was totally human behavior.

>>96249949
based. there's a reason nobody plays any of those hundreds of fixed setting narrative focused indie rpgs.

>>96249962
I'm just laughing at how one track it is. They could've gone with low level thug or gangbanger, but no, it's literally car jacker and though his story involved other crimes car jacking is such a central point of it.
>>96249942
Out of touch sensitive liberal lefty commies were way more fun before the Internet and social media made virtue signaling a lifestyle.

>>96249969
If you think about it, the Sabbat in its finished form has three successors in Requiem. The Lancea embody its religious militancy, the Ordo Dracul their detachment from humanity and cultivation of their own inhuman power (with a pinch of Tzimisce mad science shenanigans) and the Circle of the Crone their self-exalting as undead gods lording over humanity as well as the more ritualistic and profane side of their religious inclinations.

>>96249898
>tools that could open people as easily as cars
With a wire hanger and needlenose plyers? Unsure if faker or total psycho.

>>96249873
Not really, mostly because the Tremere and Giovanni happened at around the same time. That and the Giovanni are kind of lame and I forget they exist half of the time. The idea of a usurpation happening in the very earliest nights is a really cool idea.

What do you mean by Setites being a usurper clan?

>>96250048
I agree that the Giovanni are lame, but the Trujah are so much lamer.
>What do you mean by Setites being a usurper clan?
The tale of Set and Osiris is one of usurpation.

>>96249648
>When the next four-player slaughterfest comes out, it's Hunter they should be compared to, as it's truly the cream of the crop for the genre. If you have friends, get this game. If you don't have friends, buy a few and get this game.

>>96250098
That's just a review. Also of the video game I think.

>>96250014
And then the Camarilla and Anarchs only got one each. This is just probably my fondness for the Camarilla speaking, but I wish Requiem had "tiers" of Covenants. Or like, big groups similar to sects but also smaller, almost political "parties" within them. Because I like a lot of how the Invictus builds on the Camarilla's high society, elder worship, and masquerade jannie stuff. But at the same time I wish there was more you could do to cross over the "decadent vampire elite" with the esoteric weirdness. I suppose I might just want Vampire Eyes Wide Shut, or something that facilitates the IRL connection between decadent ruling classes and mystic/occult practices.

>>96250069
I see. Idk, I just don't see the Trujah as intrinsically lame. Their lameness is in their association with the True Black Hand and the fact they attract the exact last kind of player that should touch an ice-cold, ancient, almost forgotten bloodline with a weird power.

>>96245600
I wish I would get 4 XP at my game. We ge 2 XP per week and only 1 of them can be spent on skills/powers, the other must be spent on merits

I fucking hate how V5 suggested 1XP / session

>>96250048
nta, but there are two setite legends about them being a usurper clan

mummy heavily hints that typhon isn't just a title for Set but used to be a separate 3rd gen Set usurped and v20 has a gangrel legend about Set originally being a 4th gen of their clan, but doesn't explain where set got his 3rd gen for

of course there is also a legend about set being zillah's newest boytoy and him originally seperating himself and his clan from the other 3rd gens and their lines because he hates them for killing her (cairo by night) so unlike the other clans it's not as clear cut

>>96250126
>This is just probably my fondness for the Camarilla speaking, but I wish Requiem had "tiers" of Covenants.
If it's any consolation, the Dance Macabre supplement has Tier 3 vampire conspiracies that in some ways are souped-up versions of their Tier 2 Covenant counterpants.

>>96248400
Proof that you've never been better than others.

You actually DO start to think that way.

t. richfag that started hating poor people over time

>>96248791
personal horror is a bad idea too yeah.

Vampire is a game about being a vampire, simple as. It is not a game about losing humanity, no one plays it like that. Everyone wants to be the cool vampire doing cool vampire shit, simple as.

How do I make the Tzimisce Antediluvian my loving boyfriend?

>>96250195
Send me 150 dollars to prove your wealth.

>>96250218
>Vampire is a game about being a vampire
It's not though. Vampire is a game about playing a type of Vampire. You're not playing necroscope vampires for example.

>>96250140
Neat. I'll admit that I only really see Set as a massive jobber fuckboi (based on that one art) and his clan as good for only being evil snake vampire cultists straight out of conan. Just me, others do whatever you want.

>>96250181
Oh yeah, I vaguely recall that one. Some of the time parts of VtM bleed into VtR and vice versa since my games use a mix of them.

>>96250225
Anon if you want a tentacle up your butt just date a Lasombra.

>>96250239
>You're not playing necroscope vampires for example.

I don't care about this silly argument but you just chose the worst option as there is an entire clan based on them.

>>96250276
>I don't care about this silly argument but you just chose the worst option as there is an entire clan based on them
I choose them precisely because there's an entire clan based on them.
Even with such obvious and clear inspiration, the Tzimisce don't function at all like the whampyri.

>>96249313
very much this. personal horror is just code word for "we don't want you to powergame, we are a serious rpg for serious people!!" but then they chuck an assload of superhero powers into character creation because that's what people actually want. People buy books for new mechanics and powers, not more "abloo bloo"

>>96249823
>Way to make rules rewarding for players.
Humanity isn't rewarding though, not the strict focus V5 has on it

See also: sabbat being unplayable and reduced to being orks

>>96250257
No I want to be assimilated by Tzmisce’s massive penis, like John Carpenter’s The Thing except more sensual.

>>96250322
>Humanity isn't rewarding though
That failure of implementation l.
>not the strict focus V5 has on it
>See also: sabbat being unplayable and reduced to being orks
V5 is retarded and doesn't do anything right. It was created by larpers to LARP.

>>96250225
Leglock and trap him in an endless battle to corrupt you, Saulot-style.

>>96249950
an asspull reason, paths were the most played in owod for the real reason that matters (player enjoyment)

>>96250345
Paths were played because they were easier
Some paths are the laziest shit ever
>lol just be evil or something lmao
If players gravitating towards what's easier and more immediately rewarding informed the rules, celerity would be the only discipline

ITT: Autistic people incapable of understanding "different strokes for different folks" yell at each other in hyperbole and platitudes.

>>96250364
yeah because "lol just be evil" is more fun than "crawwwwwwling in my skiiiiiiin"

>>96250390
This and because being an elder is more fun, everyone should get unlimited xp

>>96250407
u mad

>>96250390
OK, but I'm going to rape you now.

>>96250467
no u

>>96250516
I was under the impression that rape was illegal.

>>96248692
It's not that's it's hard to implement, I'm just annoyed at the fact that we didn't get anything all that concrete about how that works in practice.

>>96250383
Where do you think we are!?

>>96250836
My third favorite board.

>>96250882
Ye
:-D

>>96250551
It's the only way.

>>96250134
>and only 1 of them can be spent on skills/powers
The fuck? Why is your table letting the ST dictate how you build your characters? That breaks the gentlemen's code of TTRPGs.

>>96250390
I just played it as a guy honestly trying to keep his humanity intact, so much so even the ST started feeling sorry for him

>>96251273
Sounds like his ST is based.

>>96251491
cringe

>>96250134
Now that's a huge crawl.

>>96251273
he fears we will just spend it on disciplines and become OP

Which yeah, I would do. But now I will do it anyway and it's just gonna take me twice as long. Other players don't mind cause they are fags who don't give a shit

>>96251673
He does
>>96251759
>I would do.
YOU ARE JUDGED
It'd so sad that everytime I wanna reference PA it's always from 2004 to 2012. Coming has been bad or meh longer than it has been good.

>>96250126
>Idk, I just don't see the Trujah as intrinsically lame.
They aren't but Chronomancy is just... Way to jank in vampire to be enjoyable.

>>96251802
spending 20 XP on a new power is just more fun than spending 20 XP on increasing one attribute from 3 to 4

Not my problem VTM put all the cool stuff locked behind powers and ceremonies

Guys...just talk with your ST
Depending on the type of chronicle it is normal to get way more than 3-5 XP in a single session. Fuck, I had a ST who gave 50 XP per session, for the duration of like, nearly 40 session chronicle.

I give 8-10 XP per session :)

>>96252024
I already talked with him, that's why it's 2 xp now (tho limited)

If I talk with him again, it's just gonna be me coming off as whiny.

Yeah, playing for 3 months w/o being able to level anything isn't fun, but it is what it is.

>>96252137
Look, unless you are having fun, there is no point in playing VTM, or really any game.
Sure, for one or two sessions it is ok to sacrifice your own fun for your friends, say, epic combat scene for the combat spec or RP session of the social spec but for the whole chronicle? Over 3 months?
I say you look for something else.
L

>>96252137
Understandable. Have a good time.

V5 is to be blamed with their suggested 1 XP / session. fucking faggot writers

>>96250383
It's 4chan, why do you come here if not for autistic, aggressive discussion regarding minutia?
Besides, the "different strokes for different folks" argument only lasts as long as no one is posting a take that you disagree with. As soon as someone says something that you find disagreeable, I have no doubt that you pick apart their post with the same autistic attention to detail that you're deriding right now.

So I came up with a rather devious, whimsical, stupid idea for a V5 item a few weeks ago (granted, I’ve never actually *played* V5 or any oWoD/WoD5 game before, so I might be missing something mechanically speaking, but that’s neither here nor there). I have no exact idea how it came to me (I might’ve been watching one too many lore videos and/or actual plays), but here it is for discussion, critique, and posterity:


>The Annoy-A-Tron

This device is little more than a cheap speaker, a battery, and a switch all wired together to a small piece of circuit board. It’s small enough to be portable within a pocket and—most crucially of all—can be hidden inside, beneath, and against most surfaces with ease. The speaker is loud enough to emit a beep at random intervals once everything is switched on; the timing of these intervals cannot be changed or modified.

This device has an audible range of 30 feet and multiples of this device can be hidden within the same room/area with ease. (There are no mechanical benefits to placing multiple devices; only narrative ones)

Any creature/person/Kindred who is unaware of the presence of this device must make a single Wits + Composure roll or be forced to hunt for the device. A Bestial Failure on a Hunger die results in the Kindred instead giving up and vacating the area.

To find the device, a creature/person/Kindred must pass a single Intelligence + Investigation test to do so. If there are multiple devices hidden in the area, the number of successes determines the number of devices found (minimum of one; if more than five successes are rolled, all the devices are found). If the Kindred has a Bestial Failure from the previous Wits + Composure test, they automatically fail the Intelligence + Investigation test and do not find the device(s).

Devices that are found via the Intelligence + Investigation roll are presumed to be destroyed, damaged, or otherwise rendered unusable.

~~~~~

Lemme have it.

>>96252457
Bestial Failures only happen with Hunger Dice, so the statement of
>A Bestial Failure on a Hunger die
seems superfluous. Also I think a Bestial Failure would result in the vampire destroying the area in a fit of rage, not just giving and walking away.

You also say
>There are no mechanical benefits to placing multiple devices; only narrative ones
But then say
>If there are multiple devices hidden in the area, the number of successes determines the number of devices found
So there is, in fact, a (relatively small) mechanical benefit to hiding multiple devices.

Otherwise, for a goofy and pointless item? Works like a charm. :p

>Capttcha is 4GAA4y.
Annnd I guess I'm gay now. Thanks 4chan.

>>96252348
It's almost funny how the writers think it's normal to get the minimum per-session xp players get for showing up and contributing nothing. Really goes to show exactly what kind of players they were in their own groups.

>>96252832
I really don't get why they wrote an exponential XP cost system besides that's just what D&D did and they thought that would work fine in VtM.

>>96252719

Annoy-A-Tron Anon here. Thanks for the feedback! I really do appreciate it.

Regarding the “narrative vs mechanical benefits,” I consider the “batch roll (ie multiple successes find multiple/all devices)” approach to split the difference. It’s just the best compromise that I could come up with that doesn’t really break the game. Sure, it’d be funny to force multiple rolls, but that’s incredibly tedious and not really worth much.

Hiding multiple devices shouldn’t allow players/STs to impose any sort of penalty on the roll or force multiple tests, which I consider mechanically advantageous for the hider of the devices. That isn’t really fun for anyone caught on the receiving end, nor does it fit the narrative oriented design of V5/WoD5, so I had to really think about how it would work within that framework. That’s what I mean by “there are no mechanical benefits for placing multiple devices.”

Regarding the Bestial Failure, I considered “vampires trash the room trying to search for the device,” but that just didn’t seem satisfying on from a narrative perspective; it’d be much funnier (and more gratifying) if the Beast forced the Kindred to leave because of “there is a bad noise here and I can’t find it, so I’m just gonna leave.”

Of course, there’s nothing stopping a determined ST from playing a Bestial Failure as “vampires trash trashes the room trying to find the device(s),” so if that’s your bag, that’s cool.

>>96252873
Dunno if it was the intention, but the storyteller system is great at encouraging players to engage with the story and round out their characters rather than hyper-specializing like in D&D.
The exponential costs mean the first 2 dots in any trait are equal in price to the 3rd dot, meaning you get more out of spreading XP out than trying to have 5 dots in a small handful of things.

>>96252972
What I mean by the mechanical benefit, is that you want to hide exactly 5 devices - no more, no less. Five successes find all devices, so there is no point to hiding six or more, but with five devices then if the roll less than 5 successes, then there are still devices left unfound and the vampire gets to be annoyed for the rest of the night.

>>96243086
It's appropriate you reference Interview with the Vampire, because in the first edition rulebook Rice's novel was cited as the primary inspiration for the entire game.

You may prefer Lestat, but you're supposed to be Louis. A man who became a monster, and now must hold onto his Humanity (literally a major game mechanic) to avoid losing your character to the Beast.

As others have said, have fun the way you like it. But objectively, those 'whinny misery porn players' are the people who built the game and are the target audience.

>>96253062
Yeah, I just find it kind of annoying because there is no point in not specializing at character creation and rounding off the flaws as they become clearer. Like a combat heavy character learning the basics of socializing at age 50.

>>96253062
Well, it still encourages you to hyper-specialize, just at character creation. Instead of starting with a balanced spread of attributes and abilities, you pump a few things up as high as you can at start, and then raise your mediocre stuff with xp.

>>96251491
Nice to see some people actually roleplaying here, and not just exercising their boring power fantasies.

>>96253145
You raise the abysmal stuff you need rather than the mediocre.

>>96253096

Annoy-A-Tron Anon here.

Ah, I get where you’re coming from with this. That makes perfect sense.

I chose five successes as the “find them all” threshold because that just felt right to me. Of course, one could run it as “multiple successes finds multiple devices” and not have that threshold, forcing multiple tests, but then you’re kinda stuck in the loop of “burn Willpower to reroll dice to find more,” which in turn leads to that tediousness I mentioned earlier. Any other number felt either too low, rendering the test moot, or too high, making it impossible. Five seemed like the happiest medium I could come up with.

But yeah, there is a bit of a mechanical benefit to hiding multiple devices in the way I worded the rules. I’m seeing that now. Keep in mind, I’ve never actually played V5/WoD5, so you catching that is actually super helpful.

>>96253200
To be fair, 5 successes locating all hidden devices makes perfect sense. Five successes is the "exceptional success" threshold in Storyteller - the maximum possible result on a non-combat test.

>>96253123
>>96253123
the whiny misery porn players forgot to read the rest of the vampire chronicles then, which are all about Lestat

they are also the minority
also Death of the Author

>>96253353
If you prefer one thing over another that's fine.
Everything after that is just cope.

Out of curiosity, is curseborn already out?

>>96253401
Yeah, we even have some people playing it. From what little I have seen it's fine but kind of aimless.

>>96249619
>You don't see a Vigil video game do you?
Probably because CCP owned the IP package when it came out and wasn't about to license anything out while they were trying to make games with it internally.

And then when Paradox bought it from them they did so because of VtM: Bloodlines, and basically treated OPP's work as "OK, fine, you kids can keep making your thing for now" until they realized it was competing with their 5E stuff.

>>96253401
>>96253413
It's not out. Likely this year, at least as an unindexed backer PDF.

>>96252036
Cool, now I can buy a brand new discipline every session.

>>96248647
Any ideas anyone wants to share

Discussion of XP resulted in me making this This is without Freebies being involved. If you bring Freebie allocation into this it gets a lot crazier.

Raising a 4 to a 5 in attributes is like 20 experience at the cost of 5 Freebies.
>4-1 ratio.
For Abilities, getting that 4th dot for 2 Freebies in an ability is only 6 experience saved, but if you also get the 5th, then that's 14 total experience at the cost of 4 Freebies.
>3-1 ratio for 4th dot, 3.5-1 ratio for 5th dot also
Going from 4 to 5 for a Virtue for instance is just 8 experience saved.
>Same value as raising an Attribute at 4-1.
Humanity and Willpower vary wildly. Effectively the lowest Humanity you can start with is 5, and the highest is 9. Willpower starts at 1 to 5. Starting with 5 Courage means that 6th dot is 1 freebie saving you 5xp, you get better value from there, if you sink 5 Freebies in to start with 10 Willpower, that's a value of 35 experience, so a 7-1 ratio. It gets worse if you start with lower Courage. Starting with 1 Courage for instance means that's starting at a 1-1 ratio. Going from 1-10 WP using 9 Freebie points is 45 experience, or 5-1, so actually STILL technically more optimal xp ratio wise than getting a 4-5 dot (20 experience) for 5 freebies.
>has anyone ever started with 1 Willpower before lmao
Disciplines are the odd man out. At 7 Freebies a pop, they're pretty terrible to sink freebies into as even if you want to start with a 1-1-1-1 spread with the extra Discipline merit, that's 7 freebies for only 10 experience saved.
>1.4-1 ratio
If you start 3-0-0 and grab the 4th Discipline dot that's still only 15 experience for 7 Freebies
>2.1-1 ratio
If you're a fucking madman and start with rank 5 for 14 freebies, that's 35 experience for 14
>2.5-1 ratio

>I didn't calculate Humanity because starting at 9 humanity is very niche, anyone wanting to do so is probably going to not care about experience costs and high humanity can also be a a downside if you even keep it high

>>96254425
And I just realized that I forgot to calculate Virtues for Crackhead. So actually the total EXP values are worse.

>perfectly unoptimized balanced character
252 exp, 206 discounting humanity and willpower

>super combat munchkin crackhead
305 exp, 275 discounting humanity and WP

To go deeper into this. Balanced guy has a maximum dice pool of 6, while Crackhead has several dicepools of 8. The biggest difference here however is the experience needed to start *raising* the dicepools. Balanced guy can sorta just buy more ability dots for relatively cheap, 4 exp, but crackhead has several dicepools he can start raising for cheap, attributes from 1 to 2 are only 4 exp, getting that 3rd attribute dot is 12 total experience. Which sounds bad, but compared to balanced guy, getting his 3rd dot costs 8 experience, so only 4 exp difference between the two. Crackhead is getting 2 extra dice for 6xp each, while Balanced is only getting one die for 8xp. And again, Freebie value for Crackhead is just way fucking better.

>>96254425
>>96254456
Can you share the table file, anon?

>>96251750
Nah it was funny. The other vamps were just waiting for the other shoe to drop, and he'd just give what he promised. It legitimately scared them.

>>96254425
>not throwing 1s into Craft, Academics, Science and taking free specialties
You're not even trying to be shitty.

>>96255035
Academics is very meh. I once started with high Academics and Research, and didn't get to roll them once, FFS, not even to substitute for Investigation.

>>96255035
I have never seen science be useful and academics I think I’ve used one time to find out a fun fact that a substance was mercury. This information was mostly irrelevant.

>>96255145
>science be useful
Science is the primary ability and the source of power for many characters like Technocrats, conjurer or experimenter Tremere, aside from being occasionally useful to justify wacky stuff and understand what you're looking at. Even soft-science specialities like Psychology can be pretty useful.

>>96255190
Academics(psychology) and Science(chemistry). Get a bonus die to getting into the heads of killers and cooking meth.

>>96255203
Applied Psychology is Science or Medicine speciality, not Academics. Academics is strictly for non non-applicable liberal sciences.

Academic specialities, verbatim, are shit like Poststructuralism, Impressionist Painting, Imperial Rome, American Realism.

>>96255203
>>96255236
>Academic specialities, verbatim, are shit like Poststructuralism, Impressionist Painting, Imperial Rome, American Realism.
Where Vampire's concerned. Mage is a bit more decent with allowing you to take a broad category between History, Arts, Music, Literature and Architecture, which is less asinine, but comes up basically never, and when you to need to get the relevant stuff done it turns out you need a separate skill or speciality in Arts, Crafts or Performance. Even archaeology is gate-kept by Lores and archaic languages taken with Linguistics. You'd think it could be used for appraisal, but Appraisal is Crafts and Finance speciality. Why? Fuck you, that's why!

I dip, now and then, for character's sake, but it had never, ever been useful in decades.

>>96255319
>Even archaeology is gate-kept by Lores and archaic languages taken with Linguistics.
Investigation too. So you want to examine an ancient ruin, roll Investigation. Don't have Investigation? Fuck off and sulk. No, your Academics (Archaeology) 4, Research 3, Enigmas 2 can't be used!

>>96243086
>VtM is a game about playing a monster
it's a game about *not* being a monster through your struggle against the beast, failing and becoming a true monster (humanity 0) is literally game over

>>96248888
Strauss is old enough to have been at the convention of thorns

>>96249350
What about C20?

>>96255740
Worse than old editions, worse than DAF, worse than LEMD, worse than Lost at respective roles.
V20 crossover compatible and apes and enables its capeshit wank, though, so it has its fans.

>>96255555
nah, it's not

it's a game about playing vampires, it's right there in the title

>>96255555
VtM at inception was (saying it wanted to be) a game about playing monsters desperately trying not to act like ones.
Then the Sabbat stuff was released and part of the playerbase gleefully played transhumanist vampire supremacists that abused their powers anyway they could.
It's complicated.

>>96253413
>fine but kind of aimless.
Core attribute (some would say issue) of most (not all, but most) WoD games since inception.
From a design standpoint, a game like VtM strongly differs from more classic games in that it defines what you are, not what you do (whether alone or as part of the player group).
You play CoC, you're playing investigators, whose purpose is to try and pierce mysteries. You play D&D, you're here to kill monsters and plunder buildings, and your class dictates what it is you're doing. Shadowrun, you play mercenaries with clear achetypal roles.
Vampire? You're a vampire. Clans dictate /a social construct/ from which you sprung and within which you exist. They give you stereotypical inclinations your blood drives you toward.
Sects give you the structures among which PCs exist, but there's no default role defined for them here, it has to be worked in on a per game basis.
The core play mode is the sandbox. The game thrives on weaving simple but numerous social contexts loose enough that every group can invest them however they want.
By experience, most people trying to write something more constructed for the game will piggyback the tropes of others games.
And I suspect Requiem kinda proves that too well defined social structures prevent player investment. But I lack campaign experience to really tackle that point.

>>96255792
>Worse than old editions
Dunno about the other two (and it's a given that CtD in general is inherently inferior than CtL), but I have to disagree only on the basis that C20 actually defines Chimerical reality.

>>96255904
based sabbat

>>96255382
Honestly? Storyteller issue.

>>96255904
>Then the Sabbat stuff was released and part of the playerbase gleefully played transhumanist vampire supremacists that abused their powers anyway they could.

Pretty much nothing the Sabbat does tops things humans have done though. Pathfagging comes off as a cope to me because they're just engaging in thirdie behavior or pseudointellectual justifications for savagery.

>>96255904
>VtM at inception was (saying it wanted to be) a game about playing monsters desperately trying not to act like ones.
That can work but the effort and mindset necessary often isn't all that fun. Like writing a reason to give a shit without growing stale.

>>96255963
>old changeling: has a chimerical reality subsection
>C20: doesn't and few times that it mentions it doesn't explain what it is cause it can't even keep terminology consistent so that newbies can look things up
>hurr C20 ackchooally defines chimerical reality

>>96255203
Anon, cooking meth is a critical skill for multiple factions in the setting, like the BSD and Cult of Ecstasy

>>96256260
It's a crucial skill for human parties in general cause it's the only plausible way for them to argue getting extra action and higher initiative so they aren't shat on by every vampire and woof they encounter.

Pretty good starting base for sorcerous alchemists and brewers or all kinds as well, they'd need that equipment anyway.

Can someone explain to me how exactly Willpower works in Hunter the Vigil?
It's confusing everyone is our noob party. Is willpower a healthbar? Does it give you extra dice to your dice pool? Does it allow you to brute-force a success on a roll? How does risking willpower factor into all of this?

>>96256833
Willpower works the same as core rules, your character's cap is equal to their Resolve + Composure.
Expending willpower adds 3 dice to a normal roll or +2 to defense against a single attack.
Hunters can, once per scene, Risk willpower in a roll directly tied to a monster and that lets them affect the roll in different ways on top of keeping the willpower if they succeed.
Honestly just re read the Willpower rules on the 2e core book, the blue one with the baseline rules for everyone and then how Hunters get to change that.

>Crafts and Academics represents a specific knowledge and anything associated to it. “Egyptian Archeology” or “Amazonian Botany” for Academics or “Carpentry” or “Toyotas” for Craft. Unlike most other skills it’s not generalized, Academic and Craft dice can only go towards their specific area of expertise. You count as Specialized even at only 1 dot, so 10s are always doubled when using your Expertise.
>Extra fields of specialization are bought similar to Paths at current rating (x1) and cannot be higher than your primary Academic or Crafting expertise. A new expertise costs 1 experience. You can use your specific knowledge if relevant in place of other abilities such as Investigation or Science or Technology or Survival, and may benefit from reduced difficulty at Storyteller discretion, or even be allowed to automatically succeed on such artisan tasks you are specialized in
>you may buy “Formal/Informal Education” as a Merit at character generation (2pts) which grants additional Academics/Craft dots in secondary fields equal to your dots in Academics/Crafts or Intelligence, whichever is higher, these extra dots follow the same rules and cannot be higher than your main field of expertise. For example, a 3 dot Carpenter with 4 Intelligence can get 3 dots in Plumbing and 1 in “Car Engines” while a professor with 5 dots in academics benefits from 5 bonus dots for fields of study even if he’s a 1 int gibbering buffoon, though you better have a good reason for how he knows all this while being stupid, such as brain damage or majoring in Women’s Studies

Thoughts?

>>96256924
Eh. Unnecessary mess. Just let your players take extra specs at 4th dot cost apiece.

What would you do had a true fae randomly stole your nipples or belly button? Or any other superficial body part? Would this trigger you? They didn’t do anything else but that. Now you’re nippleless. Nothing else has changed.

>>96257780
Don't care. I mean, I lost more important things, am fine so far, a fairy can have something insignificant and sod off.

>>96257780
Are,you kidding? I'm trolling the scientific community until it gives an acceptable explaination.

(That set up can really work as a minor side point, in a childish "I took your nose" joke, only it really happens)

Chronicles of Fagness

Was the Yang World the equivalent of High Umbra or Middle Umbra?

Although on the other hand it seems to have afterlives, even though that reminds me more of the Far Shores of the Underworld despite the Underworld mostly seeming to line up with the Yin World otherwise...

>>96257780
I'd feel honored that I made contact with a fae and they thought me fun enough to fuck with.

Would hope they interact with me more. At the very least it's a cool story to tell others

>>96258063
Middle Umbra.

I am the Lhiannan
I speak for the trees
I'm so useless man
Homebrew me please

>>96258150
just use the dav20 rules that turn ogham into another word for koldunic sorcery

Did Mikaboshi have an association with broken glass, broken mirrors or something like that?

I vaguely remember something like that but I'm not finding it anywhere. Did I dream it, am I mixing it up with something else...?

>>96257780
I think if you ignored it, didn't play along with an adventure where they were your dad and you never had nipples, you'd forget they were ever gone and they'd just be back.

>>96258167
You're still grounded to your little forest.

>>96258063
High umbra is "Heaven" in middle-kingdom cosmology.

>>96258183
>broken mirrors
Broken mirrors are areas that are so corrupt that the thousand hells are closer there than other places. They're essentially infernal reality zones. Any yama king can have a broken mirror zone attuned with them.

>>96258183
>>96258440
>broken mirrors
Wait a second, didn't the Malkavian PC in Bloodlines call Ming Xiao a shattered mirror or something like that? Does this mean she was secretly akuma the whole time?

>>96258466
she does become very creeped out at the malkavian for saying that

by the time of vtmb the great leap outward should also be dead and done and the kuei jin in her area have defected from the courts in asia and are on their own and the elder kuei jin home are becoming aware of the fact that they are spreading the yama king's ability to influence the world (because kuei jin spread their cosmology) and are desperate to cover that up before someone gets the idea that perhaps kuei jin should all kill themselves or be otherwise killed to try to lock the yama kings out of reality

so it's very possible

>>96258466
She does this more obviously and overtly when the the Malk PC say "Hail the coming of the Demon Emperor" and she responds "the sixth age has not yet come! Let us talk of something else".
So yes, she is an Akuma. That's also probably why she was chosen to lead the "great leap outward", a literal suicide mission designed to kill a bunch of particularly annoying running-monkeys disguised as a conquest.

>>96258466
She even tells us what yama king she serves during the boss fight: Rangda
She love exclaiming throoughout the fight how she'll personally drag us into the hell of burrowing maggots, which is rangda's domain.
She's also sitting on a broken mirror, her base of operation is in spitting distance of the brotherhood of the 9th.

>>96257780
i'd be so very confused over where my belly went and demand to be re-blended in the science lab.

Speaking of Bloodlines and kuei-jin, is Mr Ox a devil-tiger or something else? Or do we not know?

How feasible is pretending to be Malkavian? The biggest issue I see is other Malks knowing you are not part of the cobweb, is there any way to deal with that?

>>96258956
>do we not know?
No one knows for sure, butr given hoe terrified the malkavian pc is, he's probably an avatar of a yama king.

>>96259017
>How feasible is pretending to be Malkavian?
Very
>The biggest issue I see is other Malks knowing you are not part of the cobweb
And many would be more than happy to play along for the lulz.

>>96256924
>>96257070
Honestly crafts are a bit of a mess, odds are you could just make a dice or difficulty penalty for unrelated specialties and be better off.
Something along the lines of
> +1 Difficulty or -1 Dice
Crafts within the same broad category such as Textiles, Ceramics or Metallurgy or similar applications such as Baker applying plaster to a wall or sculpting something soft.
> +2 Difficulty or -2 Dice
Crafts with enough parallels that it would be reasonable roll, for example a mechanic trying to repair an electrical system or a clock.
+3 difficulty or -3 Dice
Barely related stuff like a baker trying to replicate a chemical procedure.

Odds are these would need to be tweaked after play testing but they seem reasonable to me.

>>96259017
>How feasible is pretending to be Malkavian?
Depends if the person who is being deceived is a Malkavian and if the person has actual derangements.

>>96259017
Malkavians should get a Malkavian Time roll to realize you aren't in the gestalt any time they notice you, and Malkavians are filthy common everywhere that doesn't chase them out.

>>96259017
>How feasible is pretending to be Malkavian?
DM fiat issue. Depends on how prevalent the MMM happens to be in/for the campaign, and on how believale the malkavians are for the other vampires.
At worse, buy the advantage at character creation, with understanding of its limits, if any.
The malks being the malks any and all odd combination can happen: a real malkavian decried as a fraud by every other clan member in the city, a member of another clan claimed to actually be malkavian by all other malks in city, the Primogen being the newest neonate in the clan, with member refusing to defer to anyone else.

>>96258956
Having replayed Bloodlines recently, I really enjoyed "fumbling" Mr. Ox's quest by doing them to the letter while preventing their desired effect to actually enfold. Having him disapointingly paying you with a "well, you did do what I asked" was pretty satisfying.

>>96259515
>I really enjoyed "fumbling" Mr. Ox's quest by doing them to the letter while preventing their desired effect to actually enfold.
>them
You can do that with both, not just the "bad luck farmer" one but also the eye theft? I didn't know that

>>96259515
>Having him disapointingly paying you with a "well, you did do what I asked" was pretty satisfying.
It's double satisfying with the yama-king theory. The YKs are canonically able to be sold up the river by laywers. It's an actual game mechanics that they refuse to make deals with anyone that has Knowledge: Law 5, because they don't read their own legal code.

What would you say is the "horror" of clan Toreador? The ways in which they are predators that harm humanity?

They might be the clan "closest to Humanity", but they are still kindred. How does that reflect on most of the clan, outside of the anti-tribu elders so fed up with everything that their choices of "art" would make a Tzimisce flinch?

>>96259651
Ennui and pursuit of extremes. Easy Vampire Chronicles stuff.

>>96259651
Read clanbook Toreador. They constantly engage in mean girls bullshit with each other and like to toy with mortals far more than they'll admit. Many Toreador constantly engage in emotional abuse to their childer and ghouls, the likes of which can utterly ruin them. They produce as many low humanity freaks as they produce poetry writing humanityfags.

>>96259651
>What would you say is the "horror" of clan Toreador?
The horror of realizing that you are autistic.

>>96259572
Yup, can do that with both.

>>96259651
There's your answer right there, I guess: >>96256211
>Pretty much nothing the Sabbat does tops things humans have done
The Toreador are probably the clan closest to Humanity. That should be its own brand of terrifying in and off itself. Cause that's the thing with the Toreador, they play the part so well, they're /so close/ to everything that makes holding on humanity worth it... and to the fragile things that will be destroyed every time the fail.
There's that vampire movie, Kiss of the Damned. As a movie, found it pretty mediocre, but as inspiration, part of my brain keeps coming back to it. There's that strong, rather crude underlying metaphor of vampires as the bourgeoisie, and I think it does a decent job a making them unbearable with their pretense of being nice while also contemptusouly civilized ("This is our world, not theirs... after all, humans are just passing through").
There's that scene where one of the leader loses control and feed on a girl. I very much loved the hagard expression she has after the killing, that moment when she can't sell herself the lie... she's not nice, she's just a monster pretending to be, which gives her access to her victims.
One scene to keep in mind when writing some of the Toreadors.

All ghouls get Potence regardless of the domitor's clan, right? Does that mean that a vampire that doesn't know the discipline could turn someone into a ghoul for the purpose of having a "safe" teacher of Potence that isn't part of vampire intrigue?

>>96259810
>Yup, can do that with both.
How? Is it just not killing the guards of the freezer?

>>96259833
You don't need a teacher for physical disciplines. Celerity, Fortitude, and Potence are learnable without a teacher as long as it's in-clan or you drink the blood of someone who knows the discipline.

>>96259894
Huh, good to know.

>or you drink the blood of someone who knows the discipline
Although does this mean that getting your own vitae back from your ghoul would help in learning Potence if it's not in-clan?

>>96259876
Used obfuscate on that run, won't say if it works without, but you can perfect stealth the theft, and then no fight happens.

>>96259905
Personally wouldn't allow it most of the times, but then I run a very diminished version of ghouls. The way I explain it is ghouls don't get potence, it's just a shorthand we use to describe/enforce in game terms the effect vitae has on them.
That said, if running, for example, a one shot: just learn potence, no reason to bother with such subsystems.

>>96259651
the thing at the heart of the toreador clan is ennui, the boredom that comes with immortality, and the obsession with anything that will break said boredom for even a minute. they are closest to their humanity, not out of virtue, but because humanity is one of their last source of entertainment.
they distract themselves with petty mean girl drama, elevate those that entertain them to great heights just to drop them when they inevitably grow bored once again and lash out in frustration at anybody that fails to entertain.
they will force you to love them, force you to fight for their attention, only to abandon you with unrequited feelings that aren't even yours in the first place. a heartbreak worse then anything before simply because they were bored.

>>96259017
The only question is, why the fuck would anyone pretend to be a Malkavian. Malks pretend to be something else all the time bc everyone despises the clan, and rightfully.

>>96260060
Decent cover for Sabbat, easier to deal with lapses when they happen.

>>96260060
Because Malkavians just "know" things sometimes, maybe? Like if you were trying to leverage some information that you shouldn't have gotten your hands into? Malkavians did use to be oracles...

How would you rank the clans in terms of difficulty to impersonate/infiltrate? If you were a Caitiff pretending otherwise who would you claim to be?

>>96260151
Gangrel and Brujah are the easiest to larp as.

Lasombra, Ventrue, Malk, Nossie be the hardest

>>96259905
>does this mean that getting your own vitae back from your ghoul would help in learning Potence if it's not in-clan?
...Technically yes, but most STs would throw the book at you.

>>96260215
If we want to be fussy about rules, no need to throw the book. The ghoul cannot teach you. The lack of need of a teacher for physycal (or otherwise) discipline, though often houseruled that way, is purely left to the whim of the DM. RAW does say you need a teacher before you get any dot, and blood for the first dot.
Now go convince that guy to teach you without drinking his blood because your ghoul's is good enough