World of Darkness Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 from Hardsuit Labs

[0wca]

Going forward, all the new meta-plot content are for V5 and unless otherwise stated in new content, old meta-plot is still valid. V5 scales the game back to young vampires and, in my opinion, has done away with most of the bloat in favour of elegant simplicity but not without some serious blunders. You can still use all the new V5 meta-plot for V20 or previous editions (and vice versa) and even mix and match the rules as the V5 core book encourages bending or Homebrewing the rules as you see fit, which I like very much.

Well no, you can't just use 5E as the base ruleset and then tack on the v20 lore because the developers of 5E are gonna be shilling for the 5E lore to come along with the ruleset since it resonates with their new ideology. Btw the meta-plot of 5E has some seriously retarded changes like: the Sabbat are just...gone. Gone where? Well they just fucked off somewhere and aren't mentioned at all. The new Sabbat book only allows for Sabbat NPCs. Not to mention how they used the various clans to fit their new woke agenda: the Brujah are now hipster BLM/antifa characters, the Ventrue are basically Trump-supporters, the Malkavians are pussified versions of their old Clan with many of their "controversial" disciplines gone, etc.

I played 5E fairly recently with my friends and we used v20 lore for it. It still sucks in many other regards and we shifted back to v20 entirely. The developers however wouldn't be up for using 5E rules with v20 lore. Of course they're going to promote the lore that's tacked on the system they're using, it's a promotion for the tabletop itself. It's like saying BG3 should use 5E rules but 2E lore.

 

[Bad Sector]

True, but the endings are mutually-exclusive, you'd have to pick one "correct" ending and declare all others "wrong" to make the sequel work

I might not have seen all the endings (or not remember all details) but i can't think of any significant differences that can't be explained. But AFAIK the game is canon in the universe anyway, so this might be already a solved issue - even if you ignore everything else that followed after the game.

Finally, there is the "we'll just never reveal exactly what happened, and refer to it as The Incident". However, it would be pretty silly to make a direct sequel to Bloodlines without ever revealing what exactly happened at the tower, whether or not it blew up, how LaCroix was deposed, who if anyone replaced him as prince, how and why, what happened to Ming Xiao, and where the PC fucked off to.

But why would it be silly? You already start to play a sequel of a game that you know had multiple endings that the sequel wants to keep plausible instead of picking one as proper, so where is the issue with accepting that in service to not invalidating your previous game some things are simply going to remain vague?

If Strauss takes over from LaCroix, not only would there be no power vacuum - there would be a power consolidation, because he is way more intelligent and competent than the French boy, not to mention has the backing of the entire Tremere pyramid behind him.

Maybe but Strauss didn't took over from LaCroix previously despite being more intelligent, competent and having said backing - meaning that there is a reason he didn't do that which can also prevent him from doing it so in a sequel - Strauss being around doesn't necessarily mean that he will become the prince, it could also mean that he will assist the prince.

(though it is clearly implied in the game that he wants to become the prince so that is by far the most likely case)

With Rodriguez and the anarchs still in play, perhaps the situation would get more tense, but nothing terribly apocalyptic would happen because of this alone.

Yes, there is also Isaac whom i forgot to mention but he's also a powerful player (honestly, he seems more powerful than any other anarch in the game, aside from Jack) - he doesn't seem to care much about what happens outside of Hollywood but that could easily change - e.g. he may be fine with the non-aggression pact while LaCroix was in charge, but may not want Strauss to become the prince (exactly because he is more competent) and take more direct measures.

Yeah, that's the kind of dodgy crap that makes for bad sequels.

It all depends on how it is done, but yeah if you go into an idea with the preconceived notion that it will suck, you are limiting your imagination in how it can be done to not suck and wont see any other possible outcome aside from it sucking.

Honestly the more i think about it, the more i think a sequel could work perfectly fine. You just need a decent writer with the imagination to get it right.

 

[Can't handle the bacon]

Btw the meta-plot of 5E has some seriously retarded changes like: the Sabbat are just...gone. Gone where? Well they just fucked off somewhere and aren't mentioned at all.

Excuse me?

Brujah are now hipster BLM/antifa characters, the Ventrue are basically Trump-supporters, the Malkavians are pussified versions of their old Clan with many of their "controversial" disciplines gone

It's [CURRENT_YEAR] forever!!!

It all depends on how it is done, but yeah if you go into an idea with the preconceived notion that it will suck, you are limiting your imagination in how it can be done to not suck and wont see any other possible outcome aside from it sucking.

Honestly the more i think about it, the more i think a sequel could work perfectly fine. You just need a decent writer with the imagination to get it right.

The sheer scale of contrivances upon contrivances you have to construct to make a sequel even possible is proof of the opposite. VTM:B is a classic RPG which has a perfectly self-contained story with multiple endings (either 5 or 7, depending on how you count the branching anarch/solo endings) that are entirely up to the player's choices. If you're a fan of VTM:B, you shouldn't want some wannabe-devs after 20 years telling you by decree which of these endings are WRONG and never happened, or that they all magically happened at the same time in some trippy timeline convergence scenario, or that nobody knows what actually happened.

 

[Bad Sector]

The sheer scale of contrivances upon contrivances you have to construct to make a sequel even possible is proof of the opposite.

What proof? As i and others mentioned, you do not really need any contrivances, the entire universe is made to allow for multiple parallel stories and the game's own story has several threads you could use to make a sequel. I mean if you see any thread use as a contrivance, then sure, but i think that is a bit of an extreme view.

If you're a fan of VTM:B, you shouldn't want

I am a fan of VtMB but i am not a fan of others telling me what i should or should not want.

some wannabe-devs after 20 years

I do not really care who would make the game - it could be old veterans or new blood - as long as it is good. It sucks that it took so long for a developer to even want to make a sequel (i blame CCP for keeping the IP hostage for so long) and sucks that it looks like Bloodlines 2 wont come out any time soon with the development (and developer) issues they are facing, but i hope there will eventually be a good developer to work on it.

telling you by decree which of these endings are WRONG and never happened, or that they all magically happened at the same time in some trippy timeline convergence scenario

Sure, i wouldn't like it if that happens. If the rest of the game is good, i could live with it, but certainly i wouldn't like it if the game invalidated my choices. But FWIW it really wont be the end of the world if that happened, a lot of games have done that at the past. But as i mentioned previously there are ways to avoid this.

If nothing else it could be something like "half-hidden" dialogs that build the universe like "Did you hear about the missing Voerman sister from some time ago? 1. Therese? Why would she disappear anyway? 2. Jeanette? I heard she was wild, might it be some joke of hers? 3. I heard about it but people talked to both recently 4. Who is Voerman?" (or something like that, judge the idea, not my writing :-P)

or that nobody knows what actually happened.

I'd have less of an issue with that, but just to be clear what i mentioned before isn't "nobody knows what actually happened" but "we don't know what actually happened" ("we" here being whoever tells you that in-game - someone can and most likely will know, but that doesn't mean the player will get to learn that too: there is not requirement that says the player has to know everything and in detail; the player can be kept in dark or only have vague information, which is something already the first game does for other things anyway in several occasions).

 

[0wca]

Btw the meta-plot of 5E has some seriously retarded changes like: the Sabbat are just...gone. Gone where? Well they just fucked off somewhere and aren't mentioned at all.

Excuse me?

They're actually mentioned sparsely throughout the book but there's no Sabbat segment to speak of and that faction's pretty much a thing of the past in 5E. It mentions them a couple of times and how their havens got all burnt out or some shit.

 

[True Ukrainian]

Combat in Bloodlines 2 is actually worse because there's no permanent inventory. All your weapons are use and discard.

No matter how much you fear the unknown, this was and remains a good idea for the franchise.

How is that an improvement? Equipment selection is part of a character build.

 

[Harthwain]

Combat in Bloodlines 2 is actually worse because there's no permanent inventory. All your weapons are use and discard.

No matter how much you fear the unknown, this was and remains a good idea for the franchise.

How is that an improvement? Equipment selection is part of a character build.

If equipment is limited in use, then it becomes more valuable as a result and when and how you decide to use it matters a lot more. In contrast, when you have a pistol you buy a cheap ammo for, it doesn't really matter to you how many bullets you will fire. That said, I wouldn't limit pistols to have just a bunch of bullets and then make you discard a weapon - just make ammo VERY expensive, so you have to invest heavily into it and make weapons into actually powerful substitute that doesn't require blood (which should be even more valuable). That would require thinking through blood/weapon/income economy very carefully, but I think the result could be more interesting than the usual fare.

 

[True Ukrainian]

Combat in Bloodlines 2 is actually worse because there's no permanent inventory. All your weapons are use and discard.

No matter how much you fear the unknown, this was and remains a good idea for the franchise.

How is that an improvement? Equipment selection is part of a character build.

If equipment is limited in use, then it becomes more valuable as a result and when and how you decide to use it matters a lot more. In contrast, when you have a pistol you buy a cheap ammo for, it doesn't really matter to you how many bullets you will fire. That said, I wouldn't limit pistols to have just a bunch of bullets and then make you discard a weapon - just make ammo VERY expensive, so you have to invest heavily into it and make weapons into actually powerful substitute that doesn't require blood (which should be even more valuable). That would require thinking through blood/weapon/income economy very carefully, but I think the result could be more interesting than the usual fare.

The other way would be to make regular cheap ammo useless against other vampires, which is consistent with lore, and provide upgraded ammo through either the Tremere or Sabbat sources which is highly expensive and also dependent on faction alignment.

 

[Child of Malkav]

Combat in Bloodlines 2 is actually worse because there's no permanent inventory. All your weapons are use and discard.

No matter how much you fear the unknown, this was and remains a good idea for the franchise.

How is that an improvement? Equipment selection is part of a character build.

If equipment is limited in use, then it becomes more valuable as a result and when and how you decide to use it matters a lot more. In contrast, when you have a pistol you buy a cheap ammo for, it doesn't really matter to you how many bullets you will fire. That said, I wouldn't limit pistols to have just a bunch of bullets and then make you discard a weapon - just make ammo VERY expensive, so you have to invest heavily into it and make weapons into actually powerful substitute that doesn't require blood (which should be even more valuable). That would require thinking through blood/weapon/income economy very carefully, but I think the result could be more interesting than the usual fare.

So the Botw design, where every weapon breaks in 2 hits and when you find a really good, damaging weapon you hold on to it for boss fights and I'm the meantime you use what you find or can get. I see the advantages of this system but I don't like it. I much prefer your example with the firearms and bullets being very expensive or in general consumables being very powerful but also very expensive.

 

[Bad Sector]

In contrast, when you have a pistol you buy a cheap ammo for, it doesn't really matter to you how many bullets you will fire. That said, I wouldn't limit pistols to have just a bunch of bullets and then make you discard a weapon - just make ammo VERY expensive, so you have to invest heavily into it and make weapons into actually powerful substitute that doesn't require blood (which should be even more valuable).

That is more or less what VtMB 1 does. VtMB is one of the very few RPGs where i feel money have actual value and isn't trivial to come by.

EDIT: though i do not like the limitation it has where you can't carry more than a single weapon of the same type - sure, it helps with making it harder to gain money since you can't sell all the loot lying around (...though in many cases you can just keep going back and forth between store and an area with dropped items since they often do not despawn... :-P), but this can be solved by selling items at a very low price or not having stores with infinite money.

 

[santino27]

Combat in Bloodlines 2 is actually worse because there's no permanent inventory. All your weapons are use and discard.

No matter how much you fear the unknown, this was and remains a good idea for the franchise.

How is that an improvement? Equipment selection is part of a character build.

If equipment is limited in use, then it becomes more valuable as a result and when and how you decide to use it matters a lot more. In contrast, when you have a pistol you buy a cheap ammo for, it doesn't really matter to you how many bullets you will fire. That said, I wouldn't limit pistols to have just a bunch of bullets and then make you discard a weapon - just make ammo VERY expensive, so you have to invest heavily into it and make weapons into actually powerful substitute that doesn't require blood (which should be even more valuable). That would require thinking through blood/weapon/income economy very carefully, but I think the result could be more interesting than the usual fare.

Ammo as a resource is fine. Throwing away your weapons because 'whee, vampire' is just dumb and felt very much like a design decision to solve some other problem and then packaged and sold to players as a 'good thing.'

 

[Child of Malkav]

That is more or less what VtMB 1 does. VtMB is one of the very few RPGs where i feel money have actual value and isn't trivial to come by.

It was the opposite for me. If you did everything, explored, sold what you didn't use etc. you had plenty of money. Not to mention the chick that gives you money every night from that club after you rid her of the Mafia boss. I don't remember a single time where I had issues with money. And besides, I only use firearms at the end of the game when you fight Andrei in the hotel, Ming Xiao and the Sheriff. Until then, melee, stealth and disciplines. Or just ghost through. Or talk my way through.
Edit 1: forgot to mention the various bonuses you can get for sidequests given by LaCroix and when you talk to him to give you extra cash.

 

[Bad Sector]

And besides, I only use firearms at the end of the game when you fight Andrei in the hotel, Ming Xiao and the Sheriff. Until then, melee, stealth and disciplines. Or just ghost through. Or talk my way through.

Yeah if you do a melee playthrough it is easier to have money (not just in VtMB - in general i often do melee oriented characters because other builds in games tend to require various resources for attacks -bullets, mana, whatever- and i'm a hoarder :-P). In the playthrough i just finished however i focused on ranged weapons, so i needed bullets and new weapons. There were a few cases where i couldn't buy some stuff (including at the end where i couldn't buy blood bags...).

 

[Harthwain]

Ammo as a resource is fine. Throwing away your weapons because 'whee, vampire' is just dumb and felt very much like a design decision to solve some other problem and then packaged and sold to players as a 'good thing.'

True. That's why I said I wouldn't make the player throw away the weapon, just make it inert once the ammo is spent (unless you really want to throw it, although I can't imagine that doing much considering the setting). But I am a big fan of the idea of making actions more valuable by introducing a limited resource of some kind (or a few of them). Not enough games do that, and there are a plenty of settings where this would make a great deal of sense too. Bloodlines being the perfect example here.

 

[Storyfag]

Instant gratification without planning for long term. Suits the current generation.

More like the dev didn't want to set up the in game economy, since a permanent inventory means players shopping for weapons and anmo. And that also means balancing the game around when those weapons can be accessed.

The devs should be thrown into a szlachta pit, then.

 

[Storyfag]

The new Sabbat book only allows for Sabbat NPCs.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Instant gratification without planning for long term. Suits the current generation.

More like the dev didn't want to set up the in game economy, since a permanent inventory means players shopping for weapons and anmo. And that also means balancing the game around when those weapons can be accessed.

The devs should be thrown into a szlachta pit, then.

What did the szlachta do to you anyway?

 

[Storyfag]

Instant gratification without planning for long term. Suits the current generation.

More like the dev didn't want to set up the in game economy, since a permanent inventory means players shopping for weapons and anmo. And that also means balancing the game around when those weapons can be accessed.

The devs should be thrown into a szlachta pit, then.

What did the szlachta do to you anyway?

They are minions! Their purpose is to suffer for their master!

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Okay Sandro

 

[Rahdulan]

The new Sabbat book only allows for Sabbat NPCs.

Sabbat book for V5 was always going to be interesting because it would have to answer a particular conundrum: how would SJW writers handle playable evil characters without overtly humanizing them for sympathy points as it would invalidate the core concept? Surprisingly enough the answer based on the "preview" was not some variety of mental gymnastics you may have expected, but rather to include new Disciplines and new fluff while leaving out what makes Sabbat vampires different from Cammy and Anarch ones totally up to the players to figure out. Which is comical if they want to target a new audience that doesn't know anything beyond V5 books.

 

[Harthwain]

Sabbat book for V5 was always going to be interesting because it would have to answer a particular conundrum: how would SJW writers handle playable evil characters without overtly humanizing them for sympathy points as it would invalidate the core concept?

Why would you want or need to "humanize" Sabbat? A plenty of people like to play as "evil guys", because it's a good excuse to do whatever you want/sounds cool. The bare minimum you need is to not become the Beast, besides that anything could go. Unless you want to go for a twist where Sabbat isn't nearly as bad as the Camarilla would like you to believe it is (which would make sense).

 

[True Ukrainian]

Sabbat book for V5 was always going to be interesting because it would have to answer a particular conundrum: how would SJW writers handle playable evil characters without overtly humanizing them for sympathy points as it would invalidate the core concept?

Why would you want or need to "humanize" Sabbat? A plenty of people like to play as "evil guys", because it's a good excuse to do whatever you want/sounds cool. The bare minimum you need is to not become the Beast, besides that anything could go. Unless you want to go for a twist where Sabbat isn't nearly as bad as the Camarilla would like you to believe it is (which would make sense).

Because humainzing the Sabbat is the only way they could remain a viable organization living in human society. If they were rabid killers the Second Inquisition would have wiped them out completely. The Sabbat needs to be able to function at a minimal human level to be a believable group.

 

[Zombra]

Combat in Bloodlines 2 is actually worse because there's no permanent inventory. All your weapons are use and discard.

No matter how much you fear the unknown, this was and remains a good idea for the franchise.

How is that an improvement? Equipment selection is part of a character build.

When you can fly, turn invisible, and make people's hearts explode by pointing your finger at them, your life is not about keeping track of how much ammunition you have for your .38. The game shouldn't be about that either.

 

[Harthwain]

Because humainzing the Sabbat is the only way they could remain a viable organization living in human society. If they were rabid killers the Second Inquisition would have wiped them out completely. The Sabbat needs to be able to function at a minimal human level to be a believable group.

True enough, but wouldn't it make phasing out the Sabbat a sensible decision then? It would also lend some credibilty as to why some humans do know about vampires (I forgot which edition made that change), while the general public still remains oblivious to them (meaning there is no all-out war in the open between humans and vampires). I say that, because I don't feel like having the Sabbat in play is valuable enough on its own. If you really need "monsters", then having renegade vampires out there (acting in Sabbat-like style) would suit this purpose as well.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

your life is not about keeping track of how much ammunition you have for your .38

Counting bullets is basic arithmetic dude.

When you can fly, turn invisible, and make people's hearts explode by pointing your finger at them

Correct me if I am wrong, but there's still a Masquerade to uphold, yes? Just because you can doesn't mean you should.