Ranting about the decline of Vampirism/Vampires in RPG's.

[Cryomancer]

Vampires are probably the most iconic monters type among undeads. Blood sucking aristocrats ruling mere humans with an iron first. There are lots and lots of interesting tales and stories about vampires, all of them could make a huge RPG. Only the Scholomance background of Dracula can be a entire extremely long RPG campaign yet modern game devs only makes SHIT characters and SHIT mechanics.

Hexxat(bg2""ee""), Astarion(dos3) and Rudi(vtmb) are the most iconic examples of shit modern vampires. Vampires are creatures from Slavic folklore, very aristocratic and selective on who they will embrace. The idea that a vampire would see Hexxat, Astarion or Rudi as candidates to join their peerage is completely retarded. At best, they will be low quality meal. A 500+ yo undead aristocrat should not have the same worldview and moral values as a modern tiktoker liberal!!! He would be disgusted to see someone of his bloodline becoming like Rudi and would not only painfully kill Rudi but also Rudi's "maker". Any elder of any respected bloodline would do something similar.

And is not the characters which declined a lot. Vampirism as a "game mechanic" declined a lot too.

Vampires in Daggerfall :

• +20 to every attribute except Intelligence
• +30 to Climbing, Critical Strike, Hand-to-Hand, Jumping, Running, and Stealth
• Levitation, Calm Humanoid, and Charm Mortal spells
• Immunities to paralysis and disease.
• Immunity to certain grade of weapons(silver+ weapons works)
• Sunlight will damage you
• Holy places like Churches will damage you
• The game threats you as dead, so all reputations obtained with many guilds will be lost
• Multiple clans, each one with its own peculiarities

Now look to vampirism in ESO. Is purely aesthetic. ZERO impact in gameplay. Vampires can go to the beach of summerset isles consequence free. In Skyrim, there are some cool stuff while transformed into vampire lord but everything else is trash.

Iconic vampires from RPG's also suffered with the decline. Strahd is the most iconic example. In 2E, he was a astonishing 16th level Necromancer with powerful contingency spells + magical items and immune to weapons bellow +3 which are exceptionally hard to find in Barovia. Despite very nerfed was a quite formidable enemy in Strahd possession CRPG. D&D 4e nerfed him and made him a skirmisher, he has a ridiculous hp poll to be akin to a mmo raid boss. And in 5E, he is a very low level character for such ancient vampire. Vampires in 5e lacks everything that made them great from previous editions. In 2E, they could inflict negative levels, stat penalties, negate non magical weapons damage, heal from negative energy among other things.

There are very few modern games with good vampirism IMO. One of them is BloodLust 2 : Nemesis. I can't judge V Rising since din't played yet.

 

[Volourn]

Agreed. Vamps need more respect. Bodhi and her cohorts to me were also good examples of a solid use of vampires.

What they did with Strahd is disgusting. They know it, too, so they have a cop out gor the DM when/if players best him because due to 5e rules, his game stats are not impressive.

 

[Miner 2049er]

Since the Twilight movies, vampires ward me off like garlic vampires.

 

[notpl]

You lost all possible credibility on this subject with "vampires are creatures from slavic folklore." The english WORD "vampire" may have come to English from Hungarian - the concept has existed in nearly every culture on earth from the dawn of the written word.

 

[Fedora Master]

The decline of vampires in rpgs can easily be explained by the decline of the rule systems and the people who make them.

Warhammer Fantasy still has proper vampires of all archetypes.

 

[notpl]

My favorite vampire is probably the Manananggal - a winged Filipino vampire capable of splitting its body in half and flying around as a disembodied torso. It uses its long proboscis-tongue to suck the blood of unborn babies straight through their mothers' uteruses in the night. You can slay them with crushed garlic - it doesn't kill them, but it paralyzes them long enough for the sun to finish the job.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

ZERO impact in gameplay.

ESO Vampires take extra fire damage and have a whole skill tree devoted to them.

Anyways vampires are gay if guys, hot if girls. D&D made vampires unsalvageable bitches when they changed level drain. Best undead are still liches and wraiths/shadows.

 

[Cryomancer]

the concept has existed in nearly every culture on earth from the dawn of the written word.

I know, but I'm talking about Draculaesque vampires.

Anyways vampires are gay if guys, hot if girls. Best undead are still liches and wraiths/shadows.

How a lich lives : Do nothing except be paranoiac in the crypt till your bone decay and you become a demilich or your phylactery is stolen by IDK Orcus and you become his bitch.
How a ancient vampire lives : He wakes up, a harem of loyal gorgeous big breasted vampire brides who love him unconditionally and will be forever young satisfy him, but the sun still out, so he can enjoy a bit more of his brides. After the sun is down, he goes to hunt, kill some lowlives and then, move back to his castle, practice a bit of spellcasting and melee fighting and if you are defeated in combat, you become mist and return to your coffin.

 

[notpl]

Turning into mist is a seriously underrated power.

 

[CanadianCorndog]

Who knew Dracula would turn into this whole thing?

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

How a lich lives : Do nothing except be paranoiac in the crypt till your bone decay and you become a demilich or your phylactery is stolen by IDK Orcus and you become his bitch.
How a ancient vampire lives : He wakes up, a harem of loyal gorgeous big breasted vampire brides who love him unconditionally and will be forever young satisfy him, but the sun still out, so he can enjoy a bit more of his brides. After the sun is down, he goes to hunt, kill some lowlives and then, move back to his castle, practice a bit of spellcasting and melee fighting and if you are defeated in combat, you become mist and return to your coffin.

Heh, n00bz...

Virgin Vampire:

-Has to suck blood to live like a mosquito.
-Dress like foppish fags.
-Fears sunlight.
-Fears garlic.
-Fears the Jesus.
-Wonders how they will keep surviving nightly.
-Gets killed by putting hard wood in them lolgay.
-Most vamps just sulk and talk about how being a vampire sucks.
-Larps they have a whole hot goth girl harem, in reality they end up seducing men.
-Most likely to wear fishnet shirts.

CHAD Lich:

-Immortal, will hide phylactery behind dangerous deathtrap dungeons due to a former lifetime of autism conditioning them.
-Serious swag and drip with ornate robes and complimentary decorative rods and scepters.
-Fears nothing.
-Wonders how long it'll take to conquer the world.
-Eventually becomes a demilich to really make you pay.
-Becomes a lich out of choice.
-Doesn't care to seduce. Will just kill your bitch ass then raise you as a mindless zombie to clean the crypt.
-Most likely to be a satisfying end campaign boss or serious roadblock.

They can't be compared. Vamps are mid.

 

[Strig]

Vampires are creatures from Slavic folklore, very aristocratic and selective on who they will embrace.

The second part of the sentence is a bit of a non sequitur. Original Slavic wąpierz/vampir/upir had no connection to anything even remotely aristocratic and the manner in which one could join the ranks of the undead varied wildly. From something more ambitious like witchery and curses to more pedestrian like suicide, corpse profanation or — and I'm dead serious — a sodding critter jumping over a corpse.

You lost all possible credibility on this subject with "vampires are creatures from slavic folklore." The english WORD "vampire" may have come to English from Hungarian - the concept has existed in nearly every culture on earth from the dawn of the written word.

Vampires as a theme literally arrived in the West as descriptions of Slavic folklore. That is not to say there weren't similar notions in England or France but they were not as popular. Hungarians are not a Slavic people and the word "vampire" didn't come from Hungary. Talk about credibility, eh?

 

[Cryomancer]

(...)

They can't be compared. Vamps are mid.

Strahd(2e not the nerfed newer versions) vs any lich, including vecna.

Round 1 :
Strahd :"I cast antimagic field"
Strahd won the battle as despite the 16 levels of necromancer, he is quite "decent" melee fighter with AC=1 and THAC0=10 + +7 damage with his bare hands.

Book >> https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17525/Ravenloft-Domains-of-Dread-2e

A curiosity. The unique canonically defeat of Meredoth(another dark lord) was thanks to an antimagical field.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

very aristocratic and selective on who they will embrace.

You mean “turn”? (or convert, initiate, baptize, infect, damn, create, recruit, make, whatever, but “turn” seems to be the most commonly used in fiction) The only time I’ve seen that synonym for “hug” used is in those crappy Paradox games and youtube reviews of vampire games by RagnarRox and GrimBeard. Sorry if I come across as pedantic.

One of them is BloodLust 2 : Nemesis.

The Bloodlust series is great. I only wish they were story-driven crpgs and not… dungeon crawlers.

Whether it’s urban (modern) fantasy or medieval fantasy, there just aren’t very many vampire-themed crpgs, much less good ones. Elder Scrolls has some vampire stuff but it’s a side thing.

 

[notpl]

Vampires are creatures from Slavic folklore, very aristocratic and selective on who they will embrace.

The second part of the sentence is a bit of a non sequitur. Original Slavic wąpierz/vampir/upir had no connection to anything even remotely aristocratic and the manner in which one could join the ranks of the undead varied wildly. From something more ambitious like witchery and curses to more pedestrian like suicide, corpse profanation or — and I'm dead serious — a sodding critter jumping over a corpse.

You lost all possible credibility on this subject with "vampires are creatures from slavic folklore." The english WORD "vampire" may have come to English from Hungarian - the concept has existed in nearly every culture on earth from the dawn of the written word.

Vampires as a theme literally arrived in the West as descriptions of Slavic folklore. That is not to say there weren't similar notions in England or France but they were not as popular. Hungarians are not a Slavic people and the word "vampire" didn't come from Hungary. Talk about credibility, eh?

The word vampire may have come TO english (prepositions are important!) from hungarian - via german, then french. The old church slavonic version of the word is so unrecognizable as to be irrelevant to the English, which was my entire point. Etymology is a field of dubious guesswork at the best of times, but I doubt you can substantiate a better claim on the word from a slavic language - the hungarian pipeline is the most realistic. Claiming slavic peoples somehow own a concept to which they contributed nothing linguistically and exists everywhere in the world was what I took issue with in the first place!

Sorry, I read a book on world vampire myth literally two weeks ago. It's on my mind.

 

[Strig]

The word vampire may have come TO english (prepositions are important!) from hungarian - via german, then french. The old church slavonic version of the word is so unrecognizable as to be irrelevant to the English, which was my entire point. Claiming slavic peoples somehow own a concept to which they contributed nothing linguistically and exists everywhere in the world was what I took issue with in the first place!

Serbia would be a closer fit and the word "vampir" is not Hungarian in any shape or form. Serbia was often mistakenly described as an integral part of Hungary due to historical quirks. I mean one of the cases which popularised the concept of a vampire was that of one Petar Blagojević from Kisiljevo. Does this sound Hungarian to you? And the name didn't come to the West from Old Church Slavonic but, like I said, probably from Serbian and there it's just vampir/вампир. What's so unrecognisable? And even IF it came from OCS the reconstructed term is "vopiru" or "opyr", in other Slavic languages words "vampir" and "upir" or "upyr" are in fact very similar with a common root. If you claim they're oh so very different from vamypre/vampire then I don't know what you tell you.

And who the fuck claims Slavs own that concept? Why do you even need to beat on that strawman? Even in the post you're quoting I'm pointing out that the Slavic concept of a vampire differs significantly from the literary vampire in the Western fiction. And the jab that "they contributed nothing linguistically" is idiotic. Slavic languages literally gave the West the name for the creature and Slavic folklore has laid the foundations for its modern depictions. I take issue with you talking out of your ass while having only the faintest idea about the topic.

 

[notpl]

Alright, you completely got me on historians ascribing Serbian territories to Hungary, that's almost certainly how the Germans got the word.

 

[Lim-Dûl]

Vampires themselves are inherently decline. "Oh no I'm exactly the same as a normal human but allergic to vitamin D and when I get stabbed with a sharp object I turn into powder instead of dying normally"
At least the original vampires were parasitic in ways other than the way they get nutrients that made them more coherent as inhuman creatures

 

[Sykar]

Bloodlust Nemesis has the ominous Wesp clan. I am sure Wesp5 is honored by that.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Vampires are creatures from Slavic folklore, very aristocratic and selective on who they will embrace.

The first stories of vampires were born in villages where following someone's death, the relatives would often complain that their dead relative came back at night to sit on them which made it impossible to breath, and suck their blood - because they were pale due to illness. They then died as well. Which reinforced the idea.
Then the villagers excavated the corpse of this dead relative and found that he hadn't decomposed. And had blood on his mouth.
This created the idea of vampires. They have nothing to do with nobility.

 

[wishbonetail]

At least the original vampires were parasitic in ways other than the way they get nutrients that made them more coherent as inhuman creatures

Original vampires weren't much different from zombies.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

At least the original vampires were parasitic in ways other than the way they get nutrients that made them more coherent as inhuman creatures

Original vampires weren't much different from zombies.

Or ghosts, werewolves, or witches. And that’s just in Eastern Europe. Folklorists have listed a lot of creatures as vampires that don’t fit our popular notions. I have a book list of like nine or so different non-fiction books on the subject, but I recommend Theresa Bane’s Encyclopedia of Vampire Mythology because it’s easy to buy at reasonable prices.

 

[Humbaba]

The platonic ideal of a vampire to me is Vlad von Carstein and the Vampire Count faction in general. Not only immensely powerful individually but also holding great influence over mortal men and ruling over their own counties and such. Also completely hideous and arrogant monsters, that part is important, otherwise they're mary sues.

Agreed. Vamps need more respect. Bodhi and her cohorts to me were also good examples of a solid use of vampires.

Idk, I don't like it when vampires are reduced to grunts, they have too much potential as main villains.

Vampires are creatures from Slavic folklore, very aristocratic and selective on who they will embrace.

The first stories of vampires were born in villages where following someone's death, the relatives would often complain that their dead relative came back at night to sit on them which made it impossible to breath, and suck their blood - because they were pale due to illness. They then died as well. Which reinforced the idea.
Then the villagers excavated the corpse of this dead relative and found that he hadn't decomposed. And had blood on his mouth.
This created the idea of vampires. They have nothing to do with nobility.

He's correct you know, the original vampire myth has no relation to nobility at all, that's a later development as part of western gothic horror literature. HOWEVER I think it's much cooler for vampires to be nobles and preferably German.

 

[Volourn]

Bodhi was no grunt. She had a major role throughout the fame. Even many of her 'lessers' were more than simple grunts. They were her lackies/generals. The named ones weren't sneezable, and even the minions could be deadly if unprepared thanks to vamp level drain and charmed. BG2 version, of course could manage it. Bodhi is one of my favorite vamps whether it be game, movie or tv.

 

[Humbaba]

Bodhi was no grunt. She had a major role throughout the fame. Even many of her 'lessers' were more than simple grunts. They were her lackies/generals. The named ones weren't sneezable, and even the minions could be deadly if unprepared thanks to vamp level drain and charmed. BG2 version, of course could manage it. Bodhi is one of my favorite vamps whether it be game, movie or tv.

As I've said, vampires should be nothing short of main villains. Too much potential there. Also vampires become real easy once you get protection from negative energy.

sneezable

What does that mean?????