Sell me on Vampires: The Masquerade V5

[Satinavian]

For me Dark Age Vampire is the best Vampire so far. The setting makes so much more sense than standard Masquerade. Mostly because Masquerade was there first and they had time for some refinement. But mechanically Dark Age and Masquerade are nearly identical.

V5 ... I don't have it, but what i read about it does not want me to actually play it. Mostly the Hunger mechanic both for 10s and for 1s seems utterly horrible.

[Silva]

I get that personal horror is not a thing everyone enjoys.

And this right here is the crux of the matter, no?

I mean, the group who likes V5 does so because it's the best edition for delivering the Personal Horror that old editions always promised but struggled with. While the group who hates it does so because V5 trumps all the other aspects (less combat paraphernalia, less "simulation" mechanics, simpler politics/local focus, etc) to promote that same Personal Horror.

Makes sense?

[Ignimortis]

And this right here is the crux of the matter, no?

I mean, the group who likes V5 does so because it's the best edition for delivering the Personal Horror that old editions always promised but struggled with. While the group who hates it does so because V5 trumps all the other aspects (less combat paraphernalia, less "simulation" mechanics, simpler politics/local focus, etc) to promote that same Personal Horror.

Makes sense?

Precisely. Which is why I would recommend V20 for a more generic vampire game, and I guess V5 is fine if you want to focus on the vampiric condition itself instead.

[Silva]

Precisely. Which is why I would recommend V20 for a more generic vampire game, and I guess V5 is fine if you want to focus on the vampiric condition itself instead.

The way you put it previously seems spot on: V20 lets you explore a more wide "urban fantasy"; V5 lets gives more teeth to "personal horror".

[Anonymouswizard]

Yeah, V5 has terrible Humanity mechanics. They really need to be tied more to reminders you're not human, with the moral element being more tied to the character rather than the chronicle (maybe violating your character's beliefs? I'll need to think on this).

Also, the problem with Camarilla games is that it fairly quickly devolves into personnel horror.

[The Jack]

See, I play characters mostly for the ladder. Often I'll deviate from that and play an idealist or something exotic, but half or more of my characters are there to carve out a comfortable existence for themselves. I'll lean into the parasitic nature of vampires because I think it makes fascinating story, even if it's against my IRL values. Sometimes I'll go for something modest, but other times I'll play something get-rich or get-powerful. I'm here for economic and political savagery; it's an art.

V5 isn't good for that. The absence of elders and ascension of thin bloods lowers the bar. Because of idealist writers separating anarchs and the camarilla further it's more difficult for a pragmatist to flirt with and take advantage of both, and because the anarchs are more successful the struggle is too easy.

Vampire's about the struggle, the Jyhad, but it seems like, apart from humanity, they've really weakened that sense of struggle.


RE: camarilla the good guys
Of course they're not the good guys, but relative to vampire society they're the nicest option.

Dominate vs presence/Rouse checks.
Dominate's metaphysically all about authority and it costs no blood because people are sheepish things which obey perceived authority without compensation and often at their expense. It's why you can't dominate someone with better generation than you; you can only go down or across. Obfuscate was similarly free because us humans can get wilfully ignorant.
Presence uses blood because it's emotional bribery which can go up/down or sideways.

[Anonymouswizard]

Relative to vampire society the morally good option is to walk out into an empty field, break both your legs, and wait for sunrise.

The Camarilla might be the mature option. Might. It focuses on hiding the existence of Kindred from mortals and sustainability. At the same time it indulges in heavy institutionalised abuse of mortals, of fledglings, and really anybody who isn't old enough to have snagged a high level position when it was being founded ~500 years ago (awww, it's so young).

What the Camarilla does have is a relatively reasonable goal, the resources to achieve it, and a philosophy that'll help stave off the beast, at least for a time. The problem is that if you join you'll be stuck trading favours and running errands for Elders all in the hope that you'll get a position that doesn't exist, won't exist, and is wanted by twenty kindred a hundred years older than you.

The Sabbat can in no way claim to be the morally good, mature, or reasonable option. At the highest levels they're exactly as bad as the Camarilla. At the lower levels they're significantly worse.

Now the Anarchs might appear morally good on the surface, but in essence the only way they really differ from the Camarilla by being a lot less centralised. When you remove 'overthrow the elders' from the equation they have the exact same goal as the Camarilla, they've just never had as many resources.

And we all know where the Anarch Revolution is heading. We've seen it before. Does anybody actually think that most Barons are going to step aside and let somebody else take over? Do we think that without the Camarilla to fight against that there aren't going to be anarchs trying to centralise as much power in themselves as possible? Say hello to the new Camarilla, same as the old Camarilla (that's assuming that they don't go the way of the Sabbat, which is more than reasonable with the state in V5). Plus without regulations on the Embrace you're really up Thin-blood Creek without a paddle.

So yeah, no option is relatively morally good. The Camarilla being in power is just more pragmatic if you're not looking to meet the sun any time in the next few hundred years.

[The Jack]

The cam is small goverment; they leave you alone if you're playing by the rules. Issue is, most games aren't set in a well-oiled city where things are going as planned, because that'd be boring. Problems of the Camarilla are typically problems of the municipality.

The Camarilla institutionally abuses mortals, sure, but it's the only sect that actually regulates interaction with mortals. The Anarchs have no such regulation; sure a few neonates will want to be kinder to people (at the expense of how easy it'd be to feed) but all the psychos and weird paths that the camarilla would repress if not stomp out are present with the anarchs. A few flag-waving idealists and the vocal minority do not represent the movement at large. What V5 fails to understand is that an anarch presence is nice when the prince is abusive, but a camarilla city is nicer for everyone to live in.

[Kish]

The Camarilla has explicitly been supposed to be utterly evil way, way back to 1ed. 3ed, even while it explicitly said even louder that the Camarilla was not supposed to be the good guys, introduced a lot of unfortunate stuff about the Sabbat not merely disregarding humans but being obsessively focused on torturing and raping humans, and went out of its way to eliminate most of 1ed and 2ed's stuff that showed anarchs in a more positive light.

And as for "See, I play characters mostly for the ladder. Often I'll deviate from that and play an idealist or something exotic, but half or more of my characters are there to carve out a comfortable existence for themselves," well:

"Your characters are expected to be heroes--they must care about what they are and what they become." --the 2ed Vampire: the Masquerade core book (may be a slight misquote as I'm going from memory)*

You're not complaining that V5 messed with age-old themes and introduced bizarre unprecedented ideas--you're complaining that it went back to the game's roots after Justin Achilli turned the game into "Vampire: the Pointless Cynicism" in 3ed.

* Edited to add a link: 1ed, too. I was just going to make sure I had the quote right, but it occurred to me, reading that, that I had the answer to that person's question; it's in the previous paragraph.

[Anonymouswizard]

The cam is small goverment; they leave you alone if you're playing by the rules. Issue is, most games aren't set in a well-oiled city where things are going as planned, because that'd be boring. Problems of the Camarilla are typically problems of the municipality.

We have rather different ideas of the Camarilla.

I mean, a 'well oiled' Camarilla city is simply one that puts down every Anarch revolt before they do anything stupid and spend the rest of the time competing to control the mortals

The Camarilla institutionally abuses mortals, sure, but it's the only sect that actually regulates interaction with mortals. The Anarchs have no such regulation; sure a few neonates will want to be kinder to people (at the expense of how easy it'd be to feed) but all the psychos and weird paths that the camarilla would repress if not stomp out are present with the anarchs. A few flag-waving idealists and the vocal minority do not represent the movement at large. What V5 fails to understand is that an anarch presence is nice when the prince is abusive, but a camarilla city is nicer for everyone to live in.

I think I didn't make myself clear. I don't find the Anarchs any better than the Camarilla. At best an Anarch-held city centralises is power in a couple of Barons and becomes like the Camarilla. At worst it descends to the level of the Sabbat. It also possibly becomes locked into a cold war between different gangs of kindred, with no written rules but more than enough unspoken ones.

The Anarchs talk the talk, but the only ones with a sustainable plan are basically looking to be "the Camarilla, but with fewer elders'. Of course you can't say that when the loudmouths are waving their flags, but even before the Camarilla are fine somebody has got to be making sure that feedings go unnoticed and nobody questions why somebody hasn't agreed in fifty years. The kindred who believe they're doing it out of the goodness of their heart have nobody else to blame when the boot is pursuing their face into the pavement.

You join the Camarilla because they at least have contingency plans in case of a worldwide Masquerade breach (even if that plan is 'throw the Anarchs under a bus'). You join the Anarchs either because they're the fast route to power, or because you believe getting rid of the Elders will magically since everything.

[The Jack]

The Camarilla has explicitly been supposed to be utterly evil way, way back to 1ed. 3ed, even while it explicitly said even louder that the Camarilla was not supposed to be the good guys, introduced a lot of unfortunate stuff about the Sabbat not merely disregarding humans but being obsessively focused on torturing and raping humans, and went out of its way to eliminate most of 1ed and 2ed's stuff that showed anarchs in a more positive light.

"Your characters are expected to be heroes--they must care about what they are and what they become." --the 2ed Vampire: the Masquerade core book (may be a slight misquote as I'm going from memory)*

I read the main book of 1ed not a long while ago to understand where the roots were.

Firstly, I can't recall it explicitly stating the camarilla as evil. Elders? Sure. Evil from the anarch perspective? sure. But the entity on the whole was not evil beyond standard vampire bull****.

Second, revised was obviously more reasonable if that's the case.


This is my favourite quote from the first two editions:
"...Morality is chosen, not ordained"

My favourite book by far's been Midnight Seige. I can't remember what edition it's for, but screwing a city up is just completely reasonable vampire practice that everyone engages in. If Anarchs want to be wholesome people who clean the cities up, they're just making it hard on themselves. Vampires need huge wealth divides, corruption and ignorance for an easy and safe feeding environment; it doesn't matter what sect they're from.

[Kish]

*shrug* I'd say I'm sorry the game moved away from the one edition you liked, but considering how much I utterly hated that edition, I'm not.

It remains: You're not complaining that V5 messed with age-old themes and introduced bizarre unprecedented ideas--you're complaining that it went back to the game's roots after Justin Achilli turned the game into "Vampire: the Pointless Cynicism" in 3ed. You'll likely find a lot more traction with "I want to play a selfish, amoral vampire in an edition designed for that, so I want to play 3ed" than you're ever going to with ranting about how everyone should recognize that 5ed messed everything up.

[The Jack]

V5 is a poorly written requiem with the name recognition of Masquerade. I'd hardly call it a return to form.

[Kish]

Yes, but that's because you're clinging to the notion that the crap Justin Achilli introduced in 3ed, because it appealed to your personal playstyle, was somehow the way the game always really was.

[The Jack]

I don't think your assertions are very accurate, nor do I think you read the 1ed I did.

[Aergentum]

I didn't mean to start an epic-scale debate on V5 vs other editions, but all these comments made me want to try first the other editions just to understand how the setting (over mechanics) and focus changed.

One of my D&D players has the 1st edition of VtM and offered to run a game since he palyed it before. Then I'll go to the store and ask when they'll do a demonstration game of V5 and then decide which is the best choice for me and my players (sadly I get to be the DM in most games T.T)

[Kish]

I don't think your assertions are very accurate, nor do I think you read the 1ed I did.

And I think exactly the same of you, but of the two of us, you're the one who brushed off a direct quote (from the blog I linked, that is) with "revised was obviously more reasonable if that's the case." (Because apparently the only way to be reasonable is to be focused entirely on short-term self-interest.)

"The characters in Vampire are expected to be heroes—they must care about what they have become and about what they may soon be. … [F]or the Vampire character to find some way to "win," they must somehow become heroic. They must defeat the monster within by exerting self-restraint, nurturing the impulses of human virtue, and displaying genuine courage. Sometimes the tragedy of Final Death is the Vampire's only hope of heroic escape."

L.A. By Night, a 1ed sourcebook which was created to detail the Anarch Free States of southern California, was unambiguous that the anarchs, while they had a lot of vampiric selfishness, also had...something that neither the Sabbat nor the Camarilla understood, with Jeremy MacNeil being overtly heroic and the general mood in the Anarch Free States being to revere him, even while a few of the barons schemed to increase their own power; the worst thing ever said about any of the barons was that she wanted to run her domain like a Camarilla prince (not a particularly brutal prince, not any qualifiers at all; this was unambiguously a massive, horrifying moral step down from an anarch baron). The book paid lip service to letting the players play Camarilla or Sabbat infiltrators, but the introductory adventure was unambiguously aimed at full-blown Anarch Free State patriots.

(And yes, I'm aware Justin took pains to dismantle all of that later. If you want me to be surprised by anything you can cite, or for it to shake "You're not complaining that V5 messed with age-old themes and introduced bizarre unprecedented ideas--you're complaining that it went back to the game's roots after Justin Achilli turned the game into 'Vampire: the Pointless Cynicism' in 3ed," you'll need to make sure that citation is actually from 1ed or 2ed.)

[The Jack]

"The characters in Vampire are expected to be heroes—they must care about what they have become and about what they may soon be. … [F]or the Vampire character to find some way to "win," they must somehow become heroic. They must defeat the monster within by exerting self-restraint, nurturing the impulses of human virtue, and displaying genuine courage. Sometimes the tragedy of Final Death is the Vampire's only hope of heroic escape."

But there's a lot of room for interpretation right there. Set/Caine/Haqim/mithras are all admiral fellows with heroic qualities, not to go into all those complex historical figures of legendary stature. Classic heroes were all deeply flawed.

In no edition was VTM to play like DnD with ethical characters and a lack of violence.

"revised was obviously more reasonable if that's the case." (Because apparently the only way to be reasonable is to be focused entirely on short-term self-interest.)

-Let me rephrase that; Revised pessimism was more realistic.
-Long term, obviously. Vampire's about the long game. Keeping mortals disenfranchised blood bags is the long game.

[Satinavian]

So V5 talks up Anarchs again and the Camarilla is evil ?

Another reason to skip it.

[Morty]

I really do prefer Requiem's default five Covenants and however many regional ones, that can all be arranged into different relationships, than the three-way tug-o-war between Camarilla, Anarchs and the Sabbat.

[Anonymouswizard]

I really do prefer Requiem's default five Covenants and however many regional ones, that can all be arranged into different relationships, than the three-way tug-o-war between Camarilla, Anarchs and the Sabbat.

Sabbat? They're still a thing?

[Satinavian]

I really do prefer Requiem's default five Covenants and however many regional ones, that can all be arranged into different relationships, than the three-way tug-o-war between Camarilla, Anarchs and the Sabbat.

As i said, i prefer Dark Ages with its many many factions and complex relationships more than the modern age lore.

But if it has to be Masquerade, i don't need that spupid "Authority = the Man = evil / Anarchy and Punk are Freedom and good" mindset. It is not the 80s anymore.

[Lady Tialait]

I ran a short V5 chronicle with my group who mostly play V20. The group were Camarilla, and appointed by the, now gone, primogen council to take over for them. The Prince was missing, and the only one who knew was his seneschal, and the party. They were forced to run the city during this crisis while trying to keep the secret that there was no Prince. A story I could not easily run in V20. They had to overcome several things.

- A crumbling Ivory Tower
- Anarchs riding into town disrupting the Masquarade
- Vampiric backbiting and machinations
- There own individual natures.

The putting of all the elders on a bus to the middle east was a great way to throw a wrench into the machine. The end times are upon us! The time of thin bloods has arrived! If you wish to hold onto the old ways you'll find it difficult.

Oh, and on the topic of the sects, I always saw it this way:

Sabbat: Right and Stupid
Camarilla: Wrong and Smart
Anarch: Wrong and Stupid

A lot of how the End Times should play out is due to the Camarilla not preparing for it, instead playing pretend like it wasn't coming. The Sabbat tried to prepare for the End Times, but upset far too many people. The Anarchs miss the point completely. It is too late in V5 for any of that, the End Times are upon us. We are living in Gehenna, the sands that cover Enoch are stained red with the blood of Ancients. Caine will rise, and the young are not prepared, they don't even know to be prepared.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Isn't V:TM as a whole kind of...tainted, since one of the head writers for White Wolf was a creepazoid, and even wrote Beast: The Primordial as a justification for his creepazoidness? After learning about that and seeing that guys name in so many writing credits for White Wolf's stuff it's hard for me to find it fun or safe to enjoy.

[Anonymouswizard]

Isn't V:TM as a whole kind of...tainted, since one of the head writers for White Wolf was a creepazoid, and even wrote Beast: The Primordial as a justification for his creepazoidness? After learning about that and seeing that guys name in so many writing credits for White Wolf's stuff it's hard for me to find it fun or safe to enjoy.

Wait, what? Can somebody point me towards this so I can read up on it?

But that would explain a lot about Beast (...you know I prefered it when the core idea was 'you're a monster, try to be the best monster you can be'). Actually, hold up on that, I want to go on a minor tangent.

Now some parts of the Worlds of Darkness, especially the three iterations of Vampire, feature the idea of 'player as villain'. That is to say that the games are specifically set up in such a way that being a good person is hard, with the idea that the struggle to either remain a good person or become a pragmatic and sustainable bloodsucking parasite would create drama. It works quite well, but only if the group is on board with it.

Beast could have been an opportunity to delve further into that idea. No need to worry about losing your humanity, you were never human to begin with, just worry about dealing with your goals that are at inherent odds to human society without being a complete jerk. Instead it got retooled into being a complete jerk so that 'Beasts have something to do' (like they didn't have things to do originally? No possible Chronicles about delving into the origins and connections of things that go bump in the night? No Beasts trying to determine why Demons aren't family?). I don't own Beast entirely because it's no longer 'you're the villain of the story, how do you deal with this' to 'humans aren't scared of you, go abuse them'. Plus, as people have already pointed out, other splats have included better takes on this whole idea. The Lancea et Sanctum, just to pick the example I know best, include the idea that vampires are supposed to 'scare mortals straight', but it's just one aspect of them.

[Morty]

The guy was fired and Onyx Path spent some time removing his influence from their material; I know Changeling 2E was pretty much rewritten on this account. Hunter 2E was set back considerably as well.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

I think that Zousha is also combining two different people: Matt McFarland was the writer at Onyx Path who Morty linked to, and who had all of his pending projects redone.

Zak S was the guy who was fired from working on V5 for White Wolf. Or, at least I'm pretty certain he was fired, I can't remember when though.

Moral of the story, I guess when you're making RPGs about terrible people and abuse, you need to be doubly sure about the people who you hire, because there's sure to be terrible abusers attracted to that kind of game. Same thing with a lot of historical games: war games about Nazis or crusades tend to attract fascists, or at least people parroting racist memes without thinking about their origins. In my historical strategy game circles, we have to be very careful about who we vet, and the same has to happen with these kinda games.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

The guy was fired and Onyx Path spent some time removing his influence from their material; I know Changeling 2E was pretty much rewritten on this account. Hunter 2E was set back considerably as well.

I think that Zousha is also combining two different people: Matt McFarland was the writer at Onyx Path who Morty linked to, and who had all of his pending projects redone.

Zak S was the guy who was fired from working on V5 for White Wolf. Or, at least I'm pretty certain he was fired, I can't remember when though.

Moral of the story, I guess when you're making RPGs about terrible people and abuse, you need to be doubly sure about the people who you hire, because there's sure to be terrible abusers attracted to that kind of game. Same thing with a lot of historical games: war games about Nazis or crusades tend to attract fascists, or at least people parroting racist memes without thinking about their origins. In my historical strategy game circles, we have to be very careful about who we vet, and the same has to happen with these kinda games.

Does that mean these games are safe to buy now? I thought that they were inescapably tainted, that buying them would be stabbing those creeps' victims in the back, metaphorically.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

I mean, a lot of McFarlands work still has his name on it, the stuff published before he was fired. Not sure how the money gets divvied up.

[Anymage]

Does that mean these games are safe to buy now? I thought that they were inescapably tainted, that buying them would be stabbing those creeps' victims in the back, metaphorically.

This gets philosophical and edges up close to the political, but you have to ask yourself how much the artist can be separated from the art. Would reading Sauron's autobiography cause some form of harm to everyone ground beneath his wars of conquest, despite the physical act of reading a book being widely considered non-harmful?