Troika's love for no explanations and no payoffs

[hakuroshi]

I suck with search button and cannot find the relevant thread (it seems to be years ago), but I think Brian said that PC sire was provoked to embrace the protagonist in worst possible time, framed basically.

I agree though that it's strange that he/she is meekly submitted to LaCroix, but the 7th gen does not mean millenia of actual expirience (same as 8th) and we can push our pet conspiracy theories back some decades

 

[Angthoron]

Yeah, it could've been a proxied recent fledgeling, but then that means that there was someone of at least a 6th generation to deliver the initial bite.

 

[LoPan]

Actually, nice explanation. Not nessessary that Troika meant it this way, of course, but nice nevertheless.

Is there any other way to take the game? It's a pretty clear-eyed story. Whether the taxi driver was Caine or wasn't doesn't really matter because he has nothing to do with the story, even at the end, when you might think his part comes to play he does what he has always done which is act as a convenience device. Making him drive you to the end is just using the established rules of the game, a perfectly congruous thing to do. I recall thinking he was Caine, but I cannot for the life of me remember how that was implied non-malkavian; anyone?

Always did fancy the two original Troika storylines of Arcanum and VtM. The story of VtM is a lovely piece of work that does a good job of steering clear of all that rubbish ostentatiousness so common in video games (for atypical example see The New Shit) that confuses a good story with what is considered cool by male teenage standards. The end of both Arcanum and VtM shows a great sense of a story knowing what it is about, reminds me of Deus Ex in the way of how clear its intent was. To find any game, to find anything at all, that when experienced you find was made for an actual reason is rare.

 

[sser]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQQdSwFgSec

Great topic, btw.

 

[Excidium]

Yeah, it could've been a proxied recent fledgeling, but then that means that there was someone of at least a 6th generation to deliver the initial bite.

Yeah. To be honest, it sounds dumber the more people explain it. Better to just ignore that part of the story.

Lacroix is probably 10th~11th in a stretch since he got embraced mere 200 years ago.
.

Doesn't matter when he was embraced, only the generation of the sire matters.

I know, but the age of a vampire is usually a good hint of his generation. Exceptions like the player character in VTMB are pretty rare, and I doubt Lacroix is anything special...

 

[sgc_meltdown]

the conclusion of this thread is that sometimes no explanations is the payoff

 

[Surf Solar]

Agreed. TNO's story would only be half as good if we as the players get to know his true name, what he did to make him feel regret for things he's done etc.

As for the WoD stuff, I just removed from inventory the Gehennabook, the Masquerade Lore is always nice to read for me. A shame I never found anyone wanting to play the game with me.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Yea, I wouldn't trade anything for the way MCA wrote TNO learning his name. It's a good thing we never knew what the name was, just the feeling of knowing what your name is.

 

[Coyote]

Yeah, it could've been a proxied recent fledgeling, but then that means that there was someone of at least a 6th generation to deliver the initial bite.

Also, doesn't Lacroix say something about having seen the sire as an upstanding member of the community up to that night? That would suggest that s/he's been around for a while.

 

[Angthoron]

Yeah, it could've been a proxied recent fledgeling, but then that means that there was someone of at least a 6th generation to deliver the initial bite.

Also, doesn't Lacroix say something about having seen the sire as an upstanding member of the community up to that night? That would suggest that s/he's been around for a while.

Yep, that's what I recall as well. I think that the point pool was really more of a creative liberty than anything, because otherwise it pretty much is messed up.

Of course, if we consider Caine being in town, then he could've simply dominated that 7th gen vamp and the rest makes sense through the power of a plot convenience. A Caine did it!

I mean, it's more or less a given, with the "upstanding citizen" line, that the biter would've actually sought Camarilla's permission to sire. Since he doesn't do that, I guess it means that if he's REALLY a 7th gen, someone more powerful must've been around to make him change his mind. That, or those blood packs.

 

[roll-a-die]

Who was the dude that got nuked in India or something?

Zarathustra, one of about 4 described Ravnos antedeluvians, the common conception is that he's a 2nd Gen, the last of the second gen to be precise. Simply because Ravnos have had 4 Antedeluvians described, in Ravnos, Ravanna, Zarathustra, and one other. And are known to have 3 bloodlines under them. The hunters(those who hunt the 10,000 demons released into the world by a mistake of the father(In essence, the book implies the quei jin.)), the seers(Those who watch the future and perceive what they can. They've fallen to Ravanna who was their mother, and is now one of the Devil Kings, essentially the creatures the Quei Jin fight.), and the Tricksters(The common Ravnos, who you typically play in VtM if you're allowed to play a stupid bullshit OP bloodline like the ravnos, whose answer for every situation is, "Yeah, I summon an illusory Werewolf. If that doesn't work, I give birth to illusory fire, that still does ag like normal fire, to my opponent, because horrid reality is a bitch. If that doesn't work, fuck it, I've seen the sun, and know it's pain, I'll just summon that watch as he fox frenzies away.")

Yes he was one of the first heralds of Gehenna(Along with the Clanless Caitiff, and Thin Bloods), no one really knows that a city got nuked and a super powered elder got killed, because the Technocracy rofl stomps everyone in media control and organized that strike, where they hit him twice with nukes, and then essentially lasered him to death after he was still standing after 2 nukes. Finally they engineered reconstruction of the city afterwords, in under a day, wih clones of all the old residents, because magic, bitches.

 

[Phelot]

So what about THerese and Jeanette? I don't understand that whole thing. Jeanette says that Therese caught their father banging Jeanette and shot him, that he died with a smile on his face. How could the father be banging her AND be shot by her with a shotgun all at the same time? Were they somehow merged? I believe Therese says she embraced Jeanette as well.

Or did one of them invent the other because their father kept them captive?

It is a mystery, etc.

 

[Angthoron]

She's a Malkavian.

Mystery solved.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

^The wording made me assume Therese was raped by her father on a regular basis, and one day she couldn't take it anymore and decided to leave a gun nearby to kill him while he was distracted. Shooting her dad while he was funking her made her snap and Jeanette was born.

(fake edit: "funking"? That's either the worst or the best typo ever)

Alternatively, Therese accidentally "emerged" while dad was banging slutty Jeanette in consensual, tasteful incest, "caught them" and ragekilled him with a weapon that was laying around.

I either case, Dad wasn't even aware of what was going on, and so died with a smile.

edit:

Also, doesn't Lacroix say something about having seen the sire as an upstanding member of the community up to that night? That would suggest that s/he's been around for a while.

Tbh that just sounded like a way to make it sound more "solemn" and "official", like when a boss wants to fire someone ("As you know, with this economy, we have to make some cuts in the department...").

Lacroix was trying to reaffirm his authority there, and so wanted to make a "It's sad, but leaders have to make tough decisions" performance, even though he (and most of the audience) doesn't really give a shit about killing a vampire that goes around embracing people s/he just met in the goddamn nightclub, and the guy / girl that got vampirized a couple of hours ago.

 

[Phelot]

Pretty sure Therese was the one getting banged by their dad. It's almost as though she killed him in a fit of jealousy at seeing Jeanette with him. I don't know, I'd say they did a good job at the split personality thing, but some of it seems like it'd be impossible. I guess the two of them being delusional isn't out of the question.

BUT WAIT! THEY HAVE TWO DIFFERENT EYE COLORS!!!

 

[Xor]

Malkavians develop their derangements during the embrace. Therese/Jeanette's was obviously multiple personalities, taken right from the core book; she doesn't really display signs of having another derangement. My guess is Therese wasn't the original personality, but whatever she used to be was split into two and her memories were altered when she was embraced.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

The Embrace can also heighten pre-existing derangements. I would also say the split personality was always there, as a result of sexual abuse by Therese's father, and that the Embrace simply heightened the traits of the split personalities and their degree of separation (since both are clearly awake at the same time and aware of each other, but only one is in charge of the body most of the time).

 

[SCO]

Thread has descended into WoD pedantry, please return to how purposeful anticlimax helplessness is a good narrative trick.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

well it can be seen as a good narrative tool for demonstrating the scope and magnitude of the events unfolding and how your character is the boat that tries to weather the storm instead of telling the waves to time out with vigorous oar to water slapping

an evocative example can be seen in: descent freespace capital ship battles with you as a mere fighter

contrary to what many think this heightens the drama far more than if you were the heroic space ninja fighter ace who flies into the enemy capital ship and destroys it with his hot blooded sense of justice and also the hot enemy lieutenant chick escapes from the bridge in time and they have sex in the cockpit

or the heroic dragonborn hero who walks into the enemy dragon's flames and destroys it with his roleplaying and also the nearby nord chick with 100 personality agrees to marry him

so it goes

 

[LoPan]

Thread has descended into WoD pedantry, please return to how purposeful anticlimax helplessness is a good narrative trick.

Having an antediluvian pop out of the coffin and cause gehenna would have served the story very poorly. The shaggy dog story is an anti-climax, it detracts everything previously told in the story. VtM is not an anti-climax because the story is not about gehenna, it is not an end of the world story. The story of VtM is about the war for L.A. and how it comes to circulate around the fear or delight of the apocalypse, but more than anything the story is about the people in it, their motivations and the nature of their character and how these things are affected by the belief or disbelief in what the sarcophagus is. The sarcophagus is just a device to create the story, its a conflict that enters into the secret lives of a strange society which the player is flung into to attempt to understand and conflict is a right solid way to bring forward the true character and motivations of people.

The climax of the first star wars (episode 4) is not great because they blow up the death star, its great because the entire movie builds to that one point where everything you have come to know, and everyone you have come to know, converge to the final deciding point.

This all sounds fairly basic but I cannot seem to fathom how anyone could consider VtM's ending and anti-climax unless they thought the game was about how cool vampires are man.

Also, what sgc said.

 

[Sergiu64]

I always thought that the Sheriff was the real reason why anyone even listened to LaCroix. Would explain why a 7th gen sire would submit to some like LaCroix if LaCroix had some ancient Gangrel or whatever that guy was at his back.

 

[Excidium]

Big fucking deal that sheriff, got killed by a tremere with a rifle on my first playthrough.

But I guess my gun was Caine too.

 

[Interesting]

In World of Darkness, it doesnt matter the particular setting, up untill the official end for each setting given by White Wofl, it was part of the DESIGN, to publish different books, from different points of views, with fragments of information that would be contradicted by other books. So the % of actual cannon was very low, everything else was left in the "Darkness", for the storytellers and players to imagine.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

is that the same in nWoD?

say what you what about oWoD, it knew how to do lore

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I always thought that the Sheriff was the real reason why anyone even listened to LaCroix. Would explain why a 7th gen sire would submit to some like LaCroix if LaCroix had some ancient Gangrel or whatever that guy was at his back.

I don't think he was a Gangrel, and because the rumour is that LaCroix found him in Africa it just adds to the list of potential origins for him.