World Of Darkness General (VtM, WtO, MtA, etc.) -

[Protistology]

A more covert, espionage-oriented sect waging asymmetric war against the Ivory Tower, whose bombings and shootings get covered up as domestic terrorist plots, mass shootings, etc. They could still go that route in the full book, but I doubt it.

They already tried to do that with Chechnya in the first edition of the V5 Camarilla book and Twitter cancelled the whole company.

What you're talking about would be a plot from Revised (i.e. when the lore was good).

 

[Corn Flakes]

If they're that committed to changing the global Kindred power dynamics, they could've done a lot better reframing the Sabbat as fewer in number but more powerful on average. They've mentioned Sabbat returning from the Middle East "bloated like ticks" from diablerie, so I'd have gone with Packs as domestic terrorist cells attempting to take back their holdings from the Cammies. A more covert, espionage-oriented sect waging asymmetric war against the Ivory Tower, whose bombings and shootings get covered up as domestic terrorist plots, mass shootings, etc. They could still go that route in the full book, but I doubt it.

Lukewarm on it at best, but I'm a gameless newfag so my opinion doesn't count for much. I'm interested to hear veteran's tear it apart voice their opinions.

See, if they wanted a different dynamic with the Sabbat, they really should have focused on fewer, more powerful and more subtle vampires. Like, outright give the Sabbat more powerful characters by default. They're powerful and they're capable of great plots, but they also have everybody going after them. That could be fun, instead of just having vampires going around in "packs", like dogs.

 

[Protistology]

I really like the idea of a few cells of fourth and fifth (by Diablerie) vampires making up the Sabbat. Why not if the Sabbat aren't going to be playable anyway?

 

[SiccDicc]

Someone remind me... weren't the Sabbat swapping blood every now and then between each other to boost their power and enrich their blood?

 

[Corn Flakes]

Someone remind me... weren't the Sabbat swapping blood every now and then between each other to boost their power and enrich their blood?

You mean contracting vinculums (mini-blood bonds) so they can't betray one another? Because if that's the case, then yes.

Mutually chugging each other's blood doesn't confer any benefit, it just generates blood bonds. In the Sabbat's case they just avoid it by mixing everybody's blood together and then all drinking from the same cup.

 

[Techpriest]

Someone remind me... weren't the Sabbat swapping blood every now and then between each other to boost their power and enrich their blood?

The vaulderie ritual also kept the Sabbat unified, sort of. If you’re blood bound to your group, you’re not tearing each other apart over minor things.

 

[SiccDicc]

You mean contracting vinculums (mini-blood bonds) so they can't betray one another? Because if that's the case, then yes.

Mutually chugging each other's blood doesn't confer any benefit, it just generates blood bonds. In the Sabbat's case they just avoid it by mixing everybody's blood together and then all drinking from the same cup.

The vaulderie ritual also kept the Sabbat unified, sort of. If you’re blood bound to your group, you’re not tearing each other apart over minor things.

Huh, I thought they were drinking just enough of each other's blood to make sure they weren't thinblood or whatever. What you said makes more sense.

 

[Techpriest]

Huh, I thought they were drinking just enough of each other's blood to make sure they weren't thinblood or whatever. What you said makes more sense.

It’s what made or makes the Sabbat function as a group. Might makes right, but if you fuck with a member of a pack you’re fucking with the whole pack. The Sabbat work on a mix of mutually assured destruction and the desire to win the jyhad for Caine.

 

[Moral Decay]

They already tried to do that with Chechnya in the first edition of the V5 Camarilla book and Twitter cancelled the whole company.

What you're talking about would be a plot from Revised (i.e. when the lore was good).

Yeah I figured it'd be too spicy a direction for them, though if they had a few more functioning brains over there, they could spin it in a more woke way. Sabbat as the enemy: mostly white, male soldiers and private military contractors who profited off forever wars and American imperialism. Sabbat as the player sect: virtuous rebels who were victims of the war and are lashing out the Cammie oil execs and government officials who started it, and any "innocent victims" are other Kindred or killed by their enemies to set public opinion against them.

As long as they make it explicit not all terrorists (especially white ones) are secretly vampires, and that Islamophobia and LGBT related stuff are real and unrelated to the Sabbat, and the woke would be fine. Most of the drama with Chechnya was because they stupid enough to frame it as "the gays aren't REALLY being oppressed," from what I can tell.

See, if they wanted a different dynamic with the Sabbat, they really should have focused on fewer, more powerful and more subtle vampires. Like, outright give the Sabbat more powerful characters by default. They're powerful and they're capable of great plots, but they also have everybody going after them. That could be fun, instead of just having vampires going around in "packs", like dogs.

I really like the idea of a few cells of fourth and fifth (by Diablerie) vampires making up the Sabbat. Why not if the Sabbat aren't going to be playable anyway?

Exactly. Make it primarily up-jumped shovelheads who were lucky enough leech onto some ancient Kindred in droves, a dangerous combination of power and ignorance of the greater kindred society. Throw in some Ancillae Bishops to pass on Sabbat philosophy, the few victorious elders to steer the sect as a whole, and a few mysterious methuselahs who possessed their would-be Diablerists and you've got an interesting Sect. Have fun dealing with the handful of neonates as they slowly eat every titled Kindred in the domain!

 

[Emperor Julian]

an GM whose ran for me a couple of times had a neat trick were he'd run shovelhead from night one and pick your clan based on your guys temperment. The fun part is when he throws a fair curve ball such as player who was playing a body mod freak but got a toreador anti instead, working towards viscitude turned into a 'sub-quest' for her as she wooed the fiends with her american mary style antics. One of the other players described her antics as body horror avant interspaced with boughts of hyper altriuism.

 

[Adamska]

Had a beaut of a Mortals game where we had to deal with the Court. Team was an interesting mix; we had a Conspiracy theorist podcaster, a used car dealer, a housewife out for spending money, and a wannabe lawyer. We played this oneshot the DM made and ran before, and we were pretty cautious, especially when the wind kept trying to keep the basement door open. The basement with no ventilation.

We manage to somehow avoid getting sucked into two different conspiracies and we full on fell for the vampire who "helped" us deal with the problem. The fae spirit did not go down without a fight, and we all learned some interesting facts about our characters. The Car Dealer was out of town at the point, since he gave up when he heard there was a shooter on the loose. But the wife found out her hubby was a Society of Thule member, The theorist found out his friend is a mage, and I found out I had a kid and he was abducted by the Court.

TBH I was a bit disappointed with the ending since the Vamp ending does feel like the default, but it was our damn fault for going that direction. In our defense we played ultra-cautious. It would not make sense for any of us but the conspiracy guy to go down that basement after finding black mold and having weird ghost shit happen.

Since at least two of the players (conspiracy guy's player really doesn't like vampires in general, he thinks they're lame) wouldn't want it, we're just going to say we got one of the Hunter Results. Probably the Network 0 one. It's cool with the ST, since he did rule that we can take or leave endings or experiences with the characters if we used them, we just are given 12 EXP for dealing with that.

10/10 game.

 

[Pentex]

Vtubers are live with more Hunter-tism:

 

[Corn Flakes]

Vtubers are live with more Hunter-tism:

What the fuck. This is actually not half bad. Does Ina (I'm not using her full name) have any experience playing RPGs? She's really getting into it.

(Also, what is that accent? Is it a contractual thing for everybody in Hololive to have a funny accent or something?)

 

[Techpriest]

What the fuck. This is actually not half bad. Does Ina (I'm not using her full name) have any experience playing RPGs? She's really getting into it.

As far as I know, only Calli has played this sort of game before.

 

[Corn Flakes]

Ho-ly shit. Full lethal and 2 aggravated damage on the tutorial session. That's some brutally bad luck.

Again, I'm actually surprised. This went a lot better than I expected. For a complete newbie and... a very anxious GM, it seems, they've done well. I might actually have to watch this thing play out. Is it all going to be on one channel or are they going to spread it around the players' channels?

 

[Techpriest]

Ho-ly shit. Full lethal and 2 aggravated damage on the tutorial session. That's some brutally bad luck.

Again, I'm actually surprised. This went a lot better than I expected. For a complete newbie and... a very anxious GM, it seems, they've done well. I might actually have to watch this thing play out. Is it all going to be on one channel or are they going to spread it around the players' channels?

The intro streams, yes, after that I think it'll be everyone streaming at the same time so everyone gets their own chats, or it'll be on Cali's channel.

 

[Emperor Julian]

Does anyone know why they fused obtenerbration with necromancy? some of the discipline fusions are logical if not particulary productive, the fusion of the two disciplines (well one discipline, the other is blood magic) is completly articficial to the point were it subtly messes up lore (specifically the cultures of clans lasombra, Cappadocian and giovanni.) but the fusion is so articfial you can re-seperate them with ease even in 5ths wonkey mechanics? Has anyone elaborated what they wanted to achieve with this move and how it explicitally improves the game?

 

[Corn Flakes]

Does anyone know why they fused obtenerbration with necromancy? some of the discipline fusions are logical if not particulary productive, the fusion of the two disciplines (well one discipline, the other is blood magic) is completly articficial to the point were it subtly messes up lore (specifically the cultures of clans lasombra, Cappadocian and giovanni.) but the fusion is so articfial you can re-seperate them with ease even in 5ths wonkey mechanics? Has anyone elaborated what they wanted to achieve with this move and how it explicitally improves the game?

"The game is too hard to understand for people permanently high on hair dye fumes, we need to dumb it down!"

I don't like using the term "dumbing down", but I legit can't find a better reason for most of V5's design decisions.

 

[Protistology]

"The game is too hard to understand for people permanently high on hair dye fumes, we need to dumb it down!"

I don't like using the term "dumbing down", but I legit can't find a better reason for most of V5's design decisions.

In other words, normies get out. REEEEEE!

 

[Corn Flakes]

To quote a post from @Emperor Julian that I agree with,

the big issue with 5th ed is the reduction in play style. You've effectively got a game which is very good at one thing which is playing a twitchy monster on the edge of frenzy who needs to stay human, it can't really replicate anything else as well as previous editions because it's hyper focussed on one thing. The anarch/young vs Carmilla/old doesnt work because ultimatly you're all twitchy monsters on the edge of killing everyone after a rough hour.
Most of the issues with the game are extensions of this main issue. The badly written fluff, the fact half the clans are missing in the core book, the fusion of multiple disciplines all which indicate a desire to narrow the focus of the game without consideration if they actually should. Each one of these present issues which can be managed but overall they effectively decimate game style and player agency making the game a massive waste of money for anyone who wants to run anything but twitchy monster on the edge of frenzy who needs to stay human.

My question is: were there really enough people who wanted to play twitchy-monster-at-the-edge-of-frenzy to justify narrowing down the game to that extent?

Because I don't think the woke crowd wants to do it, and in my experience most STs didn't bother with frenzy checks either. I had lots of fun with a frenzy-happy vamp (he was even a Brujah), but unless you go in with that character concept in mind most people really don't like losing control of their characters. I admit I only read through the book once, but V5 makes it difficult to even do the "sophisticated predator" trope Clans like Ventrue and Toreador like to use without the mask slipping off so often it might as well not be a mask. Not to mention issues with the masquerade being breached by people randomly sprouting huge fangs at the nightclub.

There are ways to emphasize the "Beast" aspect of the vampiric curse, they didn't need to throw out half the setting for it. So I just assume they narrowed it down in a misguided attempt at "accessibility". It reminds me of Powered by the Apocalypse games: they tout themselves as being very open-ended, but each character gets a surprisingly limited set of "actions" they can do because "too much freedom" is apparently also bad.