Anatomy of Failed Design: Vampire

[angelfromanotherpin]

I don't deal in funny British measurements or know much about male workings, how many cocks would you have to suck to get a tenth of a pint and thus enough for one Blood Trait?

Amateur internet research says that the average volume of emission is about 3/4 of a teaspoon, which adds up to about 13 orgasms for one blood point. We're talking serious blowbang territory.

[OgreBattle]

I don't deal in funny British measurements or know much about male workings, how many cocks would you have to suck to get a tenth of a pint and thus enough for one Blood Trait?

Amateur internet research says that the average volume of emission is about 3/4 of a teaspoon, which adds up to about 13 orgasms for one blood point. We're talking serious blowbang territory.

"The ritual of bukkake then become known to non-Kindred in Japan"

[koz]

Semen-drinking Communist vampires now have to be a thing. Probably a Chinese bloodline?

[Username17]

Anatomy of Failed Design
Vampire: the Masquerade

Someone explain to me what stops a vampire from just eating a non-cooperative animal.

That's a good time to lead in to the Humanity discussion. Short answer is that you aren't going to be feeding from resisting anything. Animal blood is worth less than human blood by some inconsistent amount, so you really can't get ahead in feeding if you have to spend any blood on your powers. Further, drinking from resisting anything basically makes you unplayable...

Humanity

Vampire: the Masquerade had a major theme of moral degeneration. The beast within you struggled to make you lose control, and with every loss of control you risked becoming less human in a permanent fashion. Also a visible fashion if you were a Gangrel, which was yet another reason that clan was essentially unplayable. Now it's importantly true that moping about how being a vampire is slowly turning you into an inhuman monster and you have to do whatever you can to hold on to what humanity you have left is certainly in genre, but the way Masquerade handled it was a dumpster fire. Pretty much everyone just went out and ignored most or all of it because it was unplayable.

First of all, what Humanity did was go down. And when it went down, it penalized you in a couple of ways. There was a vague admonition that you were just generally less life like in appearance and attitude, which goes back to the issue that the writers couldn't decide whether they were writing about sexy vampires or scary vampires. And you got saddled with “more crazy” which was bad because the game handled crazy poorly (more on that later). And your Humanity was an absolute cap on all your dicepools during the day (wether you were in the sun or not), which didn't work even a little bit for much the same reason that SR5 Limits are horseshit. But the big issues were that with a lower Humanity you spent longer in torpor and woke later each evening. That's right, having a lower Humanity took you out of the game for various amounts of time.

In Chicago in June, the night between civil twilights of evening and morning is 8 and a half hours long. That's not a lot of time to wake up, dress up, meet up with the other characters, go do some adventuring, and then go home to a light tight secure facility. If you take extra time off that for having a Humanity less than 10 (all characters have a Humanity less than 10), there's basically no game. Having a low Humanity costs you an hour or two every night! And the torpor time is basically the amount of time you are out of the game whenever you get dropped in combat. At Humanity 5, that is a fucking year. A character being out of action for a year in an RPG is basically the end of the campaign. What. The. Fuck?

Meanwhile, what you actually lose Humanity for is... pretty much anything? The lower your Humanity gets, the less things there are for the Storyteller to force degeneration checks on you. But while the higher ends of Humanity might ding you for esoterica like “selfish thoughts,” you can still lose Humanity when your Humanity is 5 (which we'll recall is already below the playability cutoff) for “intentional property damage.” And you can lose Humanity at 4 or above for doing bad things while frenzied. Yes, the game can penalize you for the “moral failure” of having the Storyteller take control of your character and do something bad. Wrap your mind around that. In any case, it's very difficult to feed using these rules. Humanity for normals is generally 7, but you can degenerate at Humanity 7 if you take something that belongs to someone else (like, say, feeding at all). It's unclear if there is any Humanity you can have where feeding from an unwilling target won't cause degeneration. Better hope you got that mind control ready (and hope that your Storyteller agrees with the interpretation that mind controlling a victim into wanting you to feed from them doesn't count as violating them).


It makes me weirdly happy that if you image search “low humanity” you get page after page of women in jeans and belly shirts.

But the bottom line is that Humanity is something that the players are encouraged to downplay as much as possible. There is no advantage to playing up your humanity or interacting with it in any way. It's a negative incentive. Bringing up your humanity in any way is just an opportunity for the Storyteller to decide that something you did counts as an “accidental violation” (whatever the fuck that means to your storyteller). Quite aside from the fact that the entire hierarchy of sins is crazy bullshit and the mechanical effects of losing Humanity are incompatible with playing the game, the underlying concept of how the subsystem works is the opposite of a roleplaying prompt. It's a periodic penalty for roleplaying your character. The exact opposite of what you'd want in a cooperative storytelling game. All incentives should be to encourage players to interact with the story. Passivity incentives are the bane of roleplaying, and in Vampire: the Masquerade, they got one front and center.

Madness!



Sigh. Vampire: the Masquerade has a very 1980s set of madness mechanics. You have specific named insanities and you got bonus points to spend on other stuff for writing them down. As you can probably imagine, the treatment of mental illness is neither particularly playable nor particularly politically correct. Crazy people in Masquerade are played up for comedy quite a bit, and then various authors throw temper tantrums because funny crazy people are ruining the mood.

It's bad in pretty much every way it's possible to be bad. Kinda like Call of Cthulhu, and my complaints are very similar. You acquire new dementations during play because you degenerate, so like maybe you kill a dude while frenzied and now you're... afraid of fish? I don't know.

But the real bottom line here is that insanity is supposed to be mostly a roleplaying prompt, but there's not a lot of reason to interact with it. Especially for Malkavians, whose insanity isn't even worth any points or anything. They write claustrophobia or some damn thing on their character sheet, and then there's not really any incentive for the player to bring that up ever again.

What it ends up being used for is as mental domination insurance. Because mind control gets thrown around heavy and often, players end up having to follow orders against their will kind of a lot. So character insanity serves as a source of excuses to willfully misinterpret orders. Which just makes the insane more frustrating to deal with. Because not only are they being Fishmalks and just generally disruptive, they are also performing mental gymnastics to explain how their character's masochism lets them attack people who have mind controlled them or some damn thing. So it's not just that the characters are performing actions that are disruptive of the mood, the players are getting into arguments about the meaning of the word “is” in light of non-standard epistemology that hold up the game itself.



I actually think there's room for crazy in stories about vampires. Fuck, Renfield is the prototypical Ghoul character, and he was nuts. But I can't really think of a way that Masquerade interacted with mental illness that wasn't bad for the game and also kind of offensive.

Five Dots!


There are five dots!

Disciplines in Vampire: the Masquerade were all divided into five sequential abilities. Now, you can divide anything into five distinct stages. I could list five waypoints on my way to the grocery store and I could list five waypoints on my way to San Francisco. One of them would be waypoints measured in meters and the other measured in thousands of miles, but divided into fifths both journeys would be. And that's basically where we stand with the progressions of Masquerade disciplines.

The concept was to divide up all the Draculesque stuff into a category, and with five dots in that category you get to be Dracula. At least, in that category. However, as should be fucking obvious to absolutely everyone, Dracula's different powers are not equally important. Different depictions of Dracula leave out a whole lot of that stuff. Basically, he clouds people's minds and that's awesome, and then also in various other depictions he also does other stuff. So a lot of the disciplines are weak powers or powers that are less crucial to the vampire concept, and those are divided into five parts too.


Dracula will hypnotize your bitches!

And things got... weirder with the grab bag disciplines. Protean is the discipline of transforming yourself, and it's just five transformations in a completely arbitrary order. You get glowing red eyes (a reference to a line in Dracula), you get claws, you get to morph into the dirt (an Anne Rice thing IIRC), you get to turn into a bat (a movieverse thing), and you get to turn into mist. Obviously, some of those don't belong for most vampire depictions. While many specific vampires did several of those things, I can't think of any vampires who did all of those things. But because of the dot system, if you want to turn into mist like Dracula in Buffy, you have to do all four of the other things even though he pretty blatantly doesn't do several of them.

The five dot system failed coming and going. It failed to create balanced characters or powers in the sense that there's absolutely no editorial concept of what a 3rd dot worth of power means. And it failed to create the kind of customized vampires that “our vampires are different” thinking demands. Every vampire was on rails for the powers they were getting, which really doesn't fit the “multiple vampire lore sources” feel of the rest of the game.

It also left relatively little room for expansion. What if you had a transformation that you wanted to add based on a vampire movie you saw or comic book you read? Well, tough fucking shit. Because the five dots of Protean were already “full.” This meant that people had to come up with extremely clumsy shit like Devotions and Variant Disciplines and shit to fit in stuff that should be very easy – vampires with slightly different powers.

What this comes down to is that disciplines shouldn't be linear, the powers you get at different levels should be roughly balanced against one another at those levels, and you should be able to buy different powers at different levels. Two or three levels seems basically fine because there has never been a coherent idea of what it would mean for a power to be level 4 instead of level 5 or level level 2 instead of level 3. The granularity simply isn't there.

I don't deal in funny British measurements or know much about male workings, how many cocks would you have to suck to get a tenth of a pint and thus enough for one Blood Trait?

A pint is 454 ml. A man's ejaculate is generally 5 ml or less. So you'd have to suck about ten to twenty cocks to get one deci-pint of semen. Less if you find people who produce copious porn star quantities of semen.

But in the modern world, millions of people go missing every year.

This is off by three orders of magnitude. In the modern world there are millions of missing persons cases filed, but the vast majority are resolved within 48 hours. In the United States there are more than half a million missing persons cases filed, but only about 2000 missing persons cases per year that aren't quickly resolved. At any given time there are about 90,000 missing people in the US, which includes a rolling count of about 5000 people who are missing today but are going to be found within the next day or two. There's room for a few successful serial killers or Cleveland slavers or whatever, but at one person a week, it would take less than 40 of them to account for every unsolved missing person case in the United States for the last fifty years. That's totally unworkable.

[hyzmarca]

But in the modern world, millions of people go missing every year.

This is off by three orders of magnitude. In the modern world there are millions of missing persons cases filed, but the vast majority are resolved within 48 hours. In the United States there are more than half a million missing persons cases filed, but only about 2000 missing persons cases per year that aren't quickly resolved. At any given time there are about 90,000 missing people in the US, which includes a rolling count of about 5000 people who are missing today but are going to be found within the next day or two. There's room for a few successful serial killers or Cleveland slavers or whatever, but at one person a week, it would take less than 40 of them to account for every unsolved missing person case in the United States for the last fifty years. That's totally unworkable.

Well, the World of Darkness is a world of darkness. One of the central conceits of the setting is that its a horror movie everywhere all the time. One of the things about horror movies, is that missing people generally stay missing. So we can probably flip those numbers, 2000 missing persons cases are resolved every year, and half a million who are never found.
This is one of the places where realism runs smack into horror movie conciets. We can probably assume a murder rate thats about a hundred times higher than it is in the real world, before we get into vampire-related deaths.

[Ferret]

I'd love to hear a special Disciplines tangent related to Thaumaturgy - Playing VtM off and on since we were all wearing black and ankhs and banging girls in black lipstick, I -still- don't really understand how the various Thaumaturgy powers, rituals, and variants all hang together.

[spongeknight]

But in the modern world, millions of people go missing every year.

This is off by three orders of magnitude. In the modern world there are millions of missing persons cases filed, but the vast majority are resolved within 48 hours. In the United States there are more than half a million missing persons cases filed, but only about 2000 missing persons cases per year that aren't quickly resolved. At any given time there are about 90,000 missing people in the US, which includes a rolling count of about 5000 people who are missing today but are going to be found within the next day or two. There's room for a few successful serial killers or Cleveland slavers or whatever, but at one person a week, it would take less than 40 of them to account for every unsolved missing person case in the United States for the last fifty years. That's totally unworkable.

Well, the World of Darkness is a world of darkness. One of the central conceits of the setting is that its a horror movie everywhere all the time. One of the things about horror movies, is that missing people generally stay missing. So we can probably flip those numbers, 2000 missing persons cases are resolved every year, and half a million who are never found.
This is one of the places where realism runs smack into horror movie conciets. We can probably assume a murder rate thats about a hundred times higher than it is in the real world, before we get into vampire-related deaths.

...Except that the World of Darkness is supposed to take place in the real world with a masquerade of supernatural creatures beneath the surface. You're thinking of After Sundown, a game that actually posits that setting as the explanation for why things work the way they do.

[hyzmarca]

This is off by three orders of magnitude. In the modern world there are millions of missing persons cases filed, but the vast majority are resolved within 48 hours. In the United States there are more than half a million missing persons cases filed, but only about 2000 missing persons cases per year that aren't quickly resolved. At any given time there are about 90,000 missing people in the US, which includes a rolling count of about 5000 people who are missing today but are going to be found within the next day or two. There's room for a few successful serial killers or Cleveland slavers or whatever, but at one person a week, it would take less than 40 of them to account for every unsolved missing person case in the United States for the last fifty years. That's totally unworkable.

Well, the World of Darkness is a world of darkness. One of the central conceits of the setting is that its a horror movie everywhere all the time. One of the things about horror movies, is that missing people generally stay missing. So we can probably flip those numbers, 2000 missing persons cases are resolved every year, and half a million who are never found.
This is one of the places where realism runs smack into horror movie conciets. We can probably assume a murder rate thats about a hundred times higher than it is in the real world, before we get into vampire-related deaths.

...Except that the World of Darkness is supposed to take place in the real world with a masquerade of supernatural creatures beneath the surface. You're thinking of After Sundown, a game that actually posits that setting as the explanation for why things work the way they do.

World of Darkness actually posits that explanation, too. It's explicit in the New World of Darkness core book, but it's implicit in the Old World of Darkness.

Vampires are the seedy underbelly of the seedy underbelly of society. And the seedy underbelly of society is huge. Cops are on the take. Hillbillies do think that your mouth is pretty. Everyone is apathetic, no one really cares.

[Mask_De_H]

Well, the World of Darkness is a world of darkness. One of the central conceits of the setting is that its a horror movie everywhere all the time. One of the things about horror movies, is that missing people generally stay missing. So we can probably flip those numbers, 2000 missing persons cases are resolved every year, and half a million who are never found.
This is one of the places where realism runs smack into horror movie conciets. We can probably assume a murder rate thats about a hundred times higher than it is in the real world, before we get into vampire-related deaths.

...Except that the World of Darkness is supposed to take place in the real world with a masquerade of supernatural creatures beneath the surface. You're thinking of After Sundown, a game that actually posits that setting as the explanation for why things work the way they do.

World of Darkness actually posits that explanation, too. It's explicit in the New World of Darkness core book, but it's implicit in the Old World of Darkness.

Vampires are the seedy underbelly of the seedy underbelly of society. And the seedy underbelly of society is huge. Cops are on the take. Hillbillies do think that your mouth is pretty. Everyone is apathetic, no one really cares.

"The world is a vampire set to drain and despite all my rage I am still just in LOLTNA a rat in a cage," is not really the same as living in a world where all the horror movies are happening all the time. Gothic punk and horror cop the same set design and costuming, but not necessarily the same plot axioms. You kind of have to assume the former works like the latter, but that's mind caulking the game to make any kind of sense like everything else.

[Stahlseele]

Yeah, vampires bleeding is stupid.
If you are dead, your brain does not produce any more blood.
So you run out at some point anyway. And even if you do not:
Blood that's sitting still tends to do what? coaugulate(sp?).
So you end up with a vampire filled with scabs in their veins.
And at some point, if it gets dry enough, you end up with Dust.

One of the best modern vampire depictions i know and fondly remember is still https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_in_Brooklyn

[Username17]

Anatomy of Failed Design
Vampire: the Masquerade


An excellent question.

Character Motivations

What exactly are you supposed to do in Vampire?

That's an excellent question, and one which Vampire: the Masquerade has struggled with terribly. You have to survive night to night of course, but without a character driven goal, it's relatively difficult to involve a character in whatever story you have on the table. And Masquerade was delightfully sparse on goals your character could plausibly have.

In the original book they talked about the driving goal of recovering your humanity. Either by achieving Golconda through acting saintly and refusing to hurt creatures and even forsake the thinking of selfish thoughts or killing your sire and straight up transforming back into a human. These are terrible goals. Golconda presented a saintliness of quiet personal contemplation, which pretty much involves not interacting with the other characters and not being involved in a cooperative storytelling game at all. Transforming back to a human involves straight up no longer playing the game Vampire, which I remind you is about playing a fucking vampire. So what was left?

Not a whole lot actually. You could have the goal of achieving some sort of political power, but the book pretty much told you outright that that was never going to happen. Vampire society was a gerontocracy of immortals. The Prince was never going to retire or be term limited out. There was simply no promotion ever for anyone. There was a number of centuries you had to be around to be taken seriously for leadership duties, and that number was never going to be reached within the timeframe of the game.

It didn't have to be like that. They had a war of ages thing going on, and with rising populations of humans there could have been similarly rising populations of vampires. The population of San Jose, California is five times what it was in 1960, so there could plausibly be four extra domains just in the last fifty years. Without holding out for Klingon Promotions it could have been portrayed as a fucking gold rush of Vampire power. Get your shit together because the Camarilla is looking to recognize the domain of Fremont-Union City-Milpitas as distinct from the domain of Oakland in the next five years and whoever can red nose the Malkavian Justicar well enough goes straight from the mail room to the throne room!



A culture of vampire homesteading would be valuable even if the player characters intended to stay in the big city. Because if ancient vampires were looking to set off for up and coming cities where they could be the big noise (like Dracula did in Dracula), that would create power vacuums for the players to aspire to fill. When it came time to make nWoD, they mysteriously decided that vampires moved around too much, which was so wrong as to be literally backward.

Vampire: the Masquerade spent a lot of time talking about shit that you didn't care about (money, food, and sex, for example), but failed to give a good run down of what you did care about. It's few suggestions were so poorly received that later editions downplayed them entirely and left players to just figure it out their own damn selves. Which in turn made it really hard to get a group going. Which brings us to...

Group Goals

Vampire: the Masquerade is a cooperative storytelling game. And because of that it is existentially necessary for all the player characters to work towards and contribute to the same goals. If the characters aren't participating in the same adventure, the players aren't telling the same story and then there's no reason for them to physically be sitting at the same table. So having a group goal is not something you can just do without. Vampire: the Masquerade does not really present group goals as a thing. The first edition just sort of passively assumes that the players are going to do adventures together as part of a coterie, but it doesn't really lay down a framework for how a coterie would be a thing. The different characters come from different clans that aren't supposed to like them working with each other, so um... what the fuck?

In fact, the game repeatedly shits on the characters working together at all. Each character is supposed to have filial piety and clan feudal obligations and shit that do nothing but get in the way of coming up with in-character reasons for why the characters participate in the same stories for every single story.

In D&D the default assumption is that you're all adventurers, you meet in a bar, and you go on adventurers together. And the past is prologue. And that's fine. Because the player characters are all assumed to be one thing: adventurers. In Shadowrun, all the characters are shadowrunners. In Paranoia, all the characters are troubleshooters. These games do not have a problem getting the group together, because the player characters are all assumed to be a thing that will automatically work together with all the other player characters. In Vampire, that's not true. You're all vampires, but vampires in the setting are presented as territorial, clannish, and generally a bitch to work with.


Like The Breakfast Club, but you're on your own coming up with a reason to get them all on the same team.

Now a lot of games have managed to solve this particular hurdle, and thus it is not in abstract terribly difficult. The Camarilla could stuff new vampires into multi-clan working groups. Or you could do the vampire homesteading thing where the player characters are expected to become their own primogen council. Or whatever. But the game didn't actually deliver on any of those.

Now a few years later, the Sabbat book actually did deliver. The Sabbat shoves groups of new vampires into “packs” and ties them all together with blood magic. Group cohesion established, it's time to play the fucking game! These things don't have to be complicated, it's just that Vampire: the Masquerade eschewed producing any working system at all for Camarilla vampires, and the entire game is very difficult to start playing because of it.

Group Contribution



In Dungeons & Dragons you have some jobs that need doing on your adventures and when a player comes to the table you say things like “We need a Cleric” or “We need a Rogue.” And while I would say the real mechanical support for needing the different classes in D&D has never been all that iron clad, it's a concept you can easily get across to new players. Similarly how Shadowrun has deckers and street samurai and even Arkham Horror has street sweepers and gate closers. A cooperative game needs some sort of framework for the players to cooperate in, and it really helps for the characters in a cooperative storytelling game to have different and complementary skill sets. Vampire doesn't really have that.

Sure, every character is liable to have different skills and different magic powers (although not nearly enough of either to really do much without a therapeutic dose of storyteller pity), but there's no established framework for what they would do to work those skills into a story. Let's look at an actual character someone wrote up:



So, this guy is a bit min/maxxed, but not outrageously so. Everything in Dexterity and Stamina and nothing in Strength because hitting and not being hit are 100% of combat and strength don't mean shit. But really, what does he bring to the table? He's pretty, he can spot an ambush, he can swing a sword, and he can investigate paperwork. That's not nothing, but what would you say that would imply to another player that such a character is needed?What challenges might you be faced with such that this character is the missing puzzle piece that lets your team triumph? I don't have an answer for that, and neither does the game.

Vampire: the Masquerade does not have a theory of what roles a team might want to have. There are way more abilities than people have dots to fill them in, and a halfway decently built character is going to have lots of dots in one thing and few or no dots in a bunch of others. Does the team need a scientist? A character with streetwise? I don't know. No one else does either. You can have a mixed team, but since there are no positions it is not at all clear what the different characters are bringing to the table.

This is some Czech game. Characters are identified by nation, clan, and covenant; but I have no idea what skill set any of them bring to the table. All this tells me is a series of reasons why it would be difficult for these characters to get along. It tells me nothing about what they help each other with when they do.

Vampire: the Masquerade badly needed some hokey ass theory of 3-5 different character types. It didn't even have to be good, it just had to exist. As is, there is very little to hang your hat on when making the coterie. I understand that clans aren't character classes and the game went to great pains to assure you that you could play a character from a clan against type. Nothing was stopping you from playing a Ventrue biker or a Tremere trucker or... a Nosferatu luchador.

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[/img]
Sure. Why not?

That sort of open endedness is a good thing about skill based systems, and while V:tM didn't give you enough dots to play with it did provide that. But when you say “you can play any clan in whatever role you want!” that still presupposes that there are roles to fill. When I play a Ventrue against type, what role am I supposed to be filling? If I play a more “generic” Ventrue, what role am I filling then? V:tM lacked any assumed goals, it lacked any assumed challenges to overcome to reach those goals, and because of this I really couldn't describe what a character did to another player.

This is again, not a terribly difficult problem to tackle, you just arbitrarily assign some roles like “Bruiser, Detective, Face” with maybe 1-3 others that could be anything from overtly supernatural roles like “magician” to human society centric roles like “financier.” Once you have the roles you intend to support, then you can work on having skill lists and backgrounds that actually provide said support.

The Sect

In Vampire: the Masquerade, you are part of a sect. Why are you part of a sect? I'm really not sure. As previously noted there basically doesn't seem to be any advancement possible in the Camarilla or Sabbat. Which as already mentioned is really weird considering how much bigger mortal society is tonight than it was a hundred years ago. But what you have is a sect that is keeping you down and doesn't really seem to offer a lot to get to want to join.

The sects badly needed to be more than just lists of ways older vampires were going to shit on you. For fuck's sake, you're joining a global vampire conspiracy that has been in operation for hundreds of years. Why doesn't this come with awesome perks?

The Camarilla is the biggest thing in Vampire: the Masquerade. And really the only reason presented to join it is “usually other Camarilla vampires won't try to cut you up with a chainsaw.” But that's a pretty weak endorsement considering that you can seemingly just up and move your base of operations to a city that doesn't have a major vampire presence of any kind in it.

V:tM badly needed a couple of pages of pitch for why you'd want to be a member of the Camarilla instead of an independent. Vampires are mostly solo hunters, so the vampires themselves would be naturally skeptical of joining a multinational multilevel marketing scheme where they are on the bottom. The characters need to get the pitch to join the Camarilla and so did the players. It simply wasn't forthcoming, but it should have been.

[Longes]

Each character is supposed to have filial piety and clan feudal obligations and shit

I never really understood that. I mean, for any given clan in any given city the number of vampires of any given clan is going to be between 0 and 10. Mostly around 4. Taking Bloodlines as an example, the number of Tremere in the city is either 1 (Strauss) or 3 (Strauss, you, your dead sire). There are four Nosferatu, and only one of them is in Camarilla.
The books love to talk about clans as if they were unified entities with agendas and shit, but how does that work? If your surname is not "Tremere", then until the invention of the phone you probably never even talked with members of your clan from different cities. There is no central Ventrue governing body that would set the Ventrue agenda and guide its execution. Hell, it's not even possible for a non-Tremere vampires to check which clan you belong to! If you show up in the city and say that you are a 5th generation 400 years old Lasombra, then there is fuck all anyone can do to test your claim.

[Lokey]

Auspex can see generation, there's probably a million other ways. Nos npcs just hear things, and the npc malks too. In theory fine, in practice if you're playing vamp, the ST is encouraged to call that and kill your character.


33rd picture is something maybe relevant?

Too soon for new content, we didn't all rage-quit yet with the disagreements on feeding!

[Longes]

Auspex can see generation, there's probably a million other ways.

Uh, no. It can't.

[hyzmarca]

Hell, it's not even possible for a non-Tremere vampires to check which clan you belong to! If you show up in the city and say that you are a 5th generation 400 years old Lasombra, then there is fuck all anyone can do to test your claim.

The 6th Generation 2000 year old elders will know that you're bullshitting when they fail to gain any benefits from eating you.

I think that Kindred: The Embraced did it best. Each clan is basically a crime family with a couple dozen members, and all of the clans collectively are ruled over by Don Corleone. Clan members in the city will know each other, and its highly likely that they were all sired by the local Primogen. But they won't necessarily know people outside of the local group.

[talozin]

Vampire: the Masquerade posits vampires who have to drink a tenth of a human's blood every night just to stay alive. And then drink even more to use a lot of their powers, heal, or have sex. A tenth of a human's blood is about a pint of blood. Now, Vampire: the Masquerade never really thought through what that means, and is stupid and contradictory about how much you can drink from an individual. But in the real world, a healthy modern human is able to give a pint of blood about once every 56 days. This means that every vampire who isn't leaving a giant pile of corpses in their wake needs to have a herd of 56 people times their burn rate.

Humans in Vampire explicitly regain 1 blood point per day, rather than one blood point even 8 weeks, so something odd is going on. Either blood points aren't supposed to represent exact percentages of the blood in someone's body; or no one involved in the writing of the game had a medical degree or access to someone who did; or they just plain didn't give even a single fuck about the feasibility of their numbers in the real world. I'm guessing it's a combination of all three.

Anyway. If we accept that the almost-humans in the World of Darkness do in fact regenerate more quickly than actual humans, and hence can be tapped for one blood point per night, then the problems are somewhat less severe. You could plausibly just have your one mortal friend who knows your terrible secret, and survive by repeatedly tapping that (ahem) so you only have to worry about more when you need to use your vampire powers. Which is not to say that there aren't still problems, because holy shit there are plenty.

[Lokey]

Longes, as said, there's a couple ways to check on lying in general (which is part of Auspex), although if something trumps it Obtenebration is a good bet. Maybe it was the Ventrue clanbook of silly lies I read it in...I know I saw something recently that told you generation which is weird enough to remember (unless it's one of the horrible sorta like X disciplines with weird names).

[virgil]

Either blood points aren't supposed to represent exact percentages of the blood in someone's body; or no one involved in the writing of the game had a medical degree or access to someone who did; or they just plain didn't give even a single fuck about the feasibility of their numbers in the real world. I'm guessing it's a combination of all three.

My vote is that the last one takes up the lion's share of the reason, with the first one being the go-to response for people who try to defend the system and will undoubtedly call all of us gamist poopy-pants.

It would be amusing if you changed the blood point ratio such that a single guy has like 560 blood points potentially in him.

[talozin]

Considering how few fucks seem to have been given to real-world feasibility in many other areas of the game, I would be pretty damn foolish to try and convince anyone otherwise.

[hyzmarca]

You know, one of the things that strikes me as odd is how they explicitly say that vampires don't have sex and then they have like hardcore BDSM porn and face-vaginas.

[Daniel]

You know, one of the things that strikes me as odd is how they explicitly say that vampires don't have sex and then they have like hardcore BDSM porn and face-vaginas.

Vagina-face actually.

I own the original Tzimisce clanbook and I think the art direction department was trying to imply that the teethed vagina thing with the eyes on the back cover is what is between the legs of the normal looking pretty girl on the front cover.

[hyzmarca]

You know, one of the things that strikes me as odd is how they explicitly say that vampires don't have sex and then they have like hardcore BDSM porn and face-vaginas.

Vagina-face actually.

I own the original Tzimisce clanbook and I think the art direction department was trying to imply that the teethed vagina thing with the eyes on the back cover is what is between the legs of the normal looking pretty girl on the front cover.

Well, I guess that having eyes in your crotch is sort of useful in some situations.

[Mechalich]

The demographics really do inhibit clan function though. VtM postulates 1 vampire in 100,000 humans to avoid putting strain on things through feeding (Frank has shown this is actually a way higher density than probably sustainable given the mechanics). That creates vast weirdness.

Vampire has a huge problem in that, depending on where you are, the Vampiric society is vastly different. Let's take three cities just in New York State. The New York City metro area has 23 million people in it, so it has over 200 vampires in residence. It probably has a powerful prince, a robust primogen, and clan might have two dozen members and real internal politics. All the crap about vampiric society that VtM talks about works in New York City.

Now take Rochester, New York. It's metro has 1.2 million people, so it has 12 vampires. Assuming it only has members of the core 7 Cam clans, each one has basically 2 members: your sire and you. The Prince can run the city pretty much by himself with some ghoul flunkies to carry messages, there's no primogen, and most of the supposed offices are meaningless. There's still a vampire conspiracy and you could tell interesting stories about it - for one person - but if you drop a coterie of 4 into the city suddenly they're 33% of the vampire populace.

Going further, the metro area of Utica, New York, has 300,000 residents. It's got 3 vampires in total. What the fuck are you going to do with that?

VtM's setup really only 'works' in a very small number of super-sized cities with say, 5 million of more residents. There's only ~50 of those globally (list) in 2016, and 10 of them are in East Asia where kindred can't go. Many of the others are places most English-speaking GMs are completely unfamiliar with (ex. Karachi, Pakistan or Lagos, Nigeria) and are poor sites to actually runa game.

Basically you're looking at ~30 places in the US, Europe, and Australia that you can actually set a legitimate vampire game where the facts on the ground will match the books in any way at all. The number goes up some if you're cool with South America, but it's still really fucking limited.

[Longes]

Longes, as said, there's a couple ways to check on lying in general (which is part of Auspex), although if something trumps it Obtenebration is a good bet. Maybe it was the Ventrue clanbook of silly lies I read it in...I know I saw something recently that told you generation which is weird enough to remember (unless it's one of the horrible sorta like X disciplines with weird names).

[quote="Auspex 2]System: After the character stares at the subject for at least a few seconds, the player rolls Perception + Empathy (difficulty 8); each success indicates how much of the subject's aura the character sees and understands (see the table below). A failure indicates that the play of colors and patterns yields no prevailing impression. A botch indicates a false or erroneous interpretation. The Storyteller may wish to make this roll, thus keeping the player in the dark as to the veracity of the character's interpretation. The Aura Colors chart offers some example ideas of common colors and the emotions they reflect that Storytellers can use. Note that it is nearly impossible to determine with certainty if a particular character is lying or not with this power -- vampires are inherently deceitful by nature, but even mortals might react with anxiety to questions while still being truthful. It is, however, helpful in determine the target's emotional state, which might lead the vampire to decide that a particular target is suspicious.[/quote]

Auspex 2 doesn't see lies - it sees emotions. Auspex 4 (telepathy) straigth up doesn't work on vampires. To my knowledge the only way to learn clan and generation is the Thaumaturgy (Path of Blood) 1.

[hyzmarca]

Longes, as said, there's a couple ways to check on lying in general (which is part of Auspex), although if something trumps it Obtenebration is a good bet. Maybe it was the Ventrue clanbook of silly lies I read it in...I know I saw something recently that told you generation which is weird enough to remember (unless it's one of the horrible sorta like X disciplines with weird names).

[quote="Auspex 2]System: After the character stares at the subject for at least a few seconds, the player rolls Perception + Empathy (difficulty 8); each success indicates how much of the subject's aura the character sees and understands (see the table below). A failure indicates that the play of colors and patterns yields no prevailing impression. A botch indicates a false or erroneous interpretation. The Storyteller may wish to make this roll, thus keeping the player in the dark as to the veracity of the character's interpretation. The Aura Colors chart offers some example ideas of common colors and the emotions they reflect that Storytellers can use. Note that it is nearly impossible to determine with certainty if a particular character is lying or not with this power -- vampires are inherently deceitful by nature, but even mortals might react with anxiety to questions while still being truthful. It is, however, helpful in determine the target's emotional state, which might lead the vampire to decide that a particular target is suspicious.

Auspex 2 doesn't see lies - it sees emotions. Auspex 4 (telepathy) straigth up doesn't work on vampires. To my knowledge the only way to learn clan and generation is the Thaumaturgy (Path of Blood) 1.[/quote]

Wrong power.

An Ear for Lies (Auspex 2)

Scions place great stock in the truth, and successful rulers and leaders learn to discern truth from falsehood, even when spoken by the most convincing liars, This power allows the user to know when someone is lying to him. To the Cainite, lies stand out, harsh and discordant from all other speech.
System

The player must make a Perception + Empathy roll (difficulty equal to the subject's Manipulation + Subterfuge). If successful, the character automatically knows if the subject lies to him for the duration of the social encounter. This ability does not detect lies of omission or half-truths, only direct and deliberate lies. If the subject believe what he is saying is true (even if it is not), then the character will not detect any falsehood. This technique does not give the character the ability to discern what the truth is, only to know when someone is lying.

This is a combo discipline for Dark Ages, but anyone with Auspex 2 can get it.