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

[True Ukrainian]

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.

Sabbat could probably viably operate in places with poor law enforcement like South America or Iraq, where the general atmosphere of brutality could help hide the group's antics. If you really want to go woke, you could even write that brutality in the slums of kwa is both encouraged by the Sabbat and Sabbat sympathizers in the police and government. So the Sabbat would still be unknown to the general population, but people in the know would be fully aware of them. This way you have a ready made, fairly believable enemy that has the excuse to operate in plain sight.

 

[Larianshill]

I once played on a Vampire FRPG, where Sabbath players carried out a massive, public attack on an international airport in a first world country. They've killed more than a hundred people, flashing their disciplines left and right, and got caught on film using their magic powers. Somehow, the NPCs of the town's Camarilla "covered it all up" in a single night, and the Masquerade remained without a crack in it.

 

[True Ukrainian]

I once played on a Vampire FRPG, where Sabbath players carried out a massive, public attack on an international airport in a first world country. They've killed more than a hundred people, flashing their disciplines left and right, and got caught on film using their magic powers. Somehow, the NPCs of the town's Camarilla "covered it all up" in a single night, and the Masquerade remained without a crack in it.

That's just silly. The whole point of the masquerade is to prevent players from becoming too OP. You can't flash disciplines left and right and without the hammer falling hard on you. If I was the GM I would have set up a human paramilitary response hunting your party down throughout the rest of the campaign.

 

[Storyfag]

I once played on a Vampire FRPG, where Sabbath players carried out a massive, public attack on an international airport in a first world country. They've killed more than a hundred people, flashing their disciplines left and right, and got caught on film using their magic powers. Somehow, the NPCs of the town's Camarilla "covered it all up" in a single night, and the Masquerade remained without a crack in it.

That's just silly. The whole point of the masquerade is to prevent players from becoming too OP. You can't flash disciplines left and right and without the hammer falling hard on you. If I was the GM I would have set up a human paramilitary response hunting your party down throughout the rest of the campaign.

Yeah, a breach like that is inviting an angry Archon to the city in question.

 

[Wesp5]

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).

I agree and this was basically the first thing I discussed with Florian when I still had contact to the BL2 team. Interesting enough right now Paradox has Bloodhunt in early alpha, which is a battle royale game with player most of the time using firearms! As for Bloodlines, I played a gun man myself so ammo and money was sparse as it should be. Compared to that e. g. in Cyberpunk I have half a million credits with lots of expensive implants and weapons bought and I basically always have all ammo types maxed out in a gun man run. It's fun, but no management needed at all!

 

[Wunderbar]

Was this posted here before? Rik Schaffer released 21 unused VTMB tracks.

 

[Demo.Graph]

Having limited ammo in modern-day US setting is unintuitive and lazy. Should modern vampire lack money for ammo, he'd just break in a weapon store and take everything he needs.
If devs really wanted to gimp sharpshooters and force monsters of the night count bullet pennies, they could've introduced unobtanium ammunition ("silver bullets"). That could've dealt damage to bosses and special enemies and could only be bought via limited golden shekels from some super secret vendor. This way everyday dollars and ammo would've been plentiful but niche resource and resource hoarders as well as resource managers would've been equally satisfied.

 

[Archibald]

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

Who cares about equipment selection, its all about vampire powers.

 

[Harthwain]

Having limited ammo in modern-day US setting is unintuitive and lazy. Should modern vampire lack money for ammo, he'd just break in a weapon store and take everything he needs.

Games that aren't simulations are not supposed to be realistic though. It is all about what you aim for with the mechanics you put into place. You say having limited ammo for weapons is "lazy", but how would you do it? How would you make guns interesting in this setting? Or go even more wild and instead of talking just about guns, how would you design the whole game?

 

[Wesp5]

Having limited ammo in modern-day US setting is unintuitive and lazy. Should modern vampire lack money for ammo, he'd just break in a weapon store and take everything he needs.

Maybe, but would he carry several hundreds of rounds around with him all the time? Otherwise I agree, ammo should be bought or gotten from reasonable places. Not lying around all over the place like in TOW or Cyberpunk or other modern games.

 

[Demo.Graph]

Having limited ammo in modern-day US setting is unintuitive and lazy. Should modern vampire lack money for ammo, he'd just break in a weapon store and take everything he needs.

Games that aren't simulations are not supposed to be realistic though. It is all about what you aim for with the mechanics you put into place. You say having limited ammo for weapons is "lazy", but how would you do it? How would you make guns interesting in this setting? Or go even more wild and instead of talking just about guns, how would you design the whole game?

I believe, I've already described the way I think it should be done. "Steel for humans, silver for whatevers". Steel can be farmed indefinitely, silver should be limited by one-time quests or something.
If you want a specific example...
Let's say, that trash mobs could be killed with common ammo. Nothing bad about that.
Bosses can have stages made in a way that having unlimited common ammo won't help. First you shoot a werewolf in the head with common ammo. Then he switches into astral mode and loses his hitbox. He can jump out of it to bite you and then jump back into astal. You can bait him with your ass or throw some super special magical grenade created from unborn babies to kick him out of it. So you pay for a chance to shoot the werewolf either with those grenades or your ass. And you obviously can't buy that grenade in a gun shop. So you can farm all the dollars you want and carry with you all the ammo you want, it won't help you killing the boss.
Here, problem solved. I spent like 5 minutes making that up.

 

[Harthwain]

Here, problem solved. I spent like 5 minutes making that up.

To be honest I expected something a bit more creative than that from someone who called limited ammo "unintuitive and lazy" approach.

Also, you made it sound a lot like an MMO:

[...] Steel can be farmed indefinitely [...] Let's say, that trash mobs [...] Bosses [...]

Fuck farming and fuck trash mobs.

 

[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?

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.

Was the Sabbat judged to be racist or something? What the actual fuck? The tension between the Camarilla and the Sabbat is one of the defining features of the VTM world.

 

[Zombra]

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.

Maybe I'm crazy. I think of vampires as stealthy and smart creatures of the night, who use their powers when no one's watching. That is the kind of vampire game I want to play. Carrying around a machine gun wherever you go, and blowing away enemies in front of a dozen witnesses, although technically not revealing, does not strike me as a great way to uphold the Masquerade.

 

[True Ukrainian]

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.

Maybe I'm crazy. I think of vampires as stealthy and smart creatures of the night, who use their powers when no one's watching. That is the kind of vampire game I want to play. Carrying around a machine gun wherever you go, and blowing away enemies in front of a dozen witnesses, although technically not revealing, does not strike me as a great way to uphold the Masquerade.

Its hiding your nature as a vampire. A mundane killing rather than something supernatural.

 

[Child of Malkav]

Maybe I'm crazy. I think of vampires as stealthy and smart creatures of the night, who use their powers when no one's watching. That is the kind of vampire game I want to play. Carrying around a machine gun wherever you go, and blowing away enemies in front of a dozen witnesses, although technically not revealing, does not strike me as a great way to uphold the Masquerade.

That's basically my idea of vampires as well. Very powerful when they do things discreetly and from the shadows. With tha magic they have to, especially the Tremere, it's surprising they don't rule everything on Earth.

 

[Rahdulan]

Sabbat could probably viably operate in places with poor law enforcement like South America or Iraq, where the general atmosphere of brutality could help hide the group's antics. If you really want to go woke, you could even write that brutality in the slums of kwa is both encouraged by the Sabbat and Sabbat sympathizers in the police and government. So the Sabbat would still be unknown to the general population, but people in the know would be fully aware of them. This way you have a ready made, fairly believable enemy that has the excuse to operate in plain sight.

Which is how Sabbat have operated so far. I think one big upset people tend to gloss over in V5, probably because it's amusing considering the inclinations of authors behind it, is the following: Camarilla has stopped being all-inclusive the way it used to be. In essence Sabbat could get away with leaving fuckups that don't directly endanger some plans of theirs, and hence some elder would have vested interest in clearing up for their own reasons, because they knew Camarilla would inadvertently have to step in for the greater good of ALL vampires they supposedly championed. Things don't really roll that way anymore with Camarilla becoming an ivory tower on full blackout, trusting only established contacts and using physical couriers for maximum discretion. And there's Anarchs and SE to consider as well.

There's almost an inkling of engaging ideas and setups in V5, but developer interest lies elsewhere.

 

[Zombra]

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.

Maybe I'm crazy. I think of vampires as stealthy and smart creatures of the night, who use their powers when no one's watching. That is the kind of vampire game I want to play. Carrying around a machine gun wherever you go, and blowing away enemies in front of a dozen witnesses, although technically not revealing, does not strike me as a great way to uphold the Masquerade.

Its hiding your nature as a vampire. A mundane killing rather than something supernatural.

So absolutely anything goes as long as you don't use your powers in public? I get that's how the Masquerade technically works, but to me that is a very dumb campaign and, again, not what I am looking for in a vampire story. As someone wise recently said, just because you can doesn't mean you should.

 

[Can't handle the bacon]

it's surprising they don't rule everything on Earth.

They would be, if the Technocratic Union wasn't already ruling everything on Earth.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

but would he carry several hundreds of rounds around with him all the time?

welcome to america, is this your first time?

 

[True Ukrainian]

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.

Maybe I'm crazy. I think of vampires as stealthy and smart creatures of the night, who use their powers when no one's watching. That is the kind of vampire game I want to play. Carrying around a machine gun wherever you go, and blowing away enemies in front of a dozen witnesses, although technically not revealing, does not strike me as a great way to uphold the Masquerade.

Its hiding your nature as a vampire. A mundane killing rather than something supernatural.

So absolutely anything goes as long as you don't use your powers in public? I get that's how the Masquerade works, but to me that is a very dumb campaign and, again, not what I am looking for in a vampire story. As someone wise recently said, just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Mechanically the GM would still be able to punish the machine gun player. You engage in a shootout in the streets with choice use of fortitude so no one realizes you are a vampire. Fine. But the GM decrees that there are witnesses and the police have begun a mundane investigation against you. Police keep showing up harassing you and if you choose to kill them, the harassment just gets worse because they know something is up. So its a downward spiral if the player doesn't choose to wise up.

 

[Wesp5]

Maybe I'm crazy. I think of vampires as stealthy and smart creatures of the night, who use their powers when no one's watching. That is the kind of vampire game I want to play. Carrying around a machine gun wherever you go, and blowing away enemies in front of a dozen witnesses, although technically not revealing, does not strike me as a great way to uphold the Masquerade.

That's basically my idea of vampires as well. Very powerful when they do things discreetly and from the shadows. With tha magic they have to, especially the Tremere, it's surprising they don't rule everything on Earth.

I agree. So now take a look at the Bloodhunt gameplay trailers !

 

[Zombra]

Mechanically the GM would still be able to punish the machine gun player. You engage in a shootout in the streets with choice use of fortitude so no one realizes you are a vampire. Fine. But the GM decrees that there are witnesses and the police have begun a mundane investigation against you. Police keep showing up harassing you and if you choose to kill them, the harassment just gets worse because they know something is up. So its a downward spiral if the player doesn't choose to wise up.

So you agree that the gun-toting vampire is basically a dumb idea, since vampires should operate from stealth and committing violence with witnesses ruins the campaign. Cheers, I'm glad we had this conversation.

 

[True Ukrainian]

Mechanically the GM would still be able to punish the machine gun player. You engage in a shootout in the streets with choice use of fortitude so no one realizes you are a vampire. Fine. But the GM decrees that there are witnesses and the police have begun a mundane investigation against you. Police keep showing up harassing you and if you choose to kill them, the harassment just gets worse because they know something is up. So its a downward spiral if the player doesn't choose to wise up.

So you agree that the gun-toting vampire is basically a dumb idea, since vampires should operate from stealth and committing violence with witnesses ruins the campaign. Cheers, I'm glad we had this conversation.

The player should have the freedom to try making the idea work if he wants to. And the GM should punish retardation. But abolishing guns in the campaign would merely reduce player choice.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

are we posting ideas for what we want to see in a vampire game?
vampire is a decoy protagonist that gets burned alive by a vampire hunter after you already did a bunch of sadistic shit and met a lot of the important vamps and you play as a vampire hunter for the rest of the game getting rid of the vampire filth