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

[J1M]

I've said this before but I think vampire works best as a period piece set in the 90s. The level of technology is too high now to plausibly maintain the masquerade. Current year also means that all of the gehenna plots play out as nothingburgers, which makes any conspiracies that come after inherently less spicy.

The word of darkness is so vast that fixating on the minute details of some anarchs in LA would be a huge waste of a sequel. I would much rather see a focus on the inner workings of the upper levels of the pyramid or camarilla. Or points of intersection between the world of vampire and other non-werewolf books.

Would be nice to see a Bloodlines game set in an older European province with hundreds of years of mystery and intrigue.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

What if Caine has no personal interest in sarcophagus affair whatsoever but has an interest in the protagonist? He may be directly involved in his siring, watching him attune his powers and making decisions - a test, a kind of a boot camp?

In my opinion Caine is not only testing the player, but all other vampire factions too. Like will they help each other or will they fight each other? Which are worth saving if he decides to trigger Gehenna? Are any of them worth saving at all?

Spoiler

And that's why one should go with Strauss in order to redeem the kindred in Caine's eyes.

 

[J1M]

In case anyone from Paradox is reading this, you could make everyone re-buy their Vampire books by releasing "Vampire: The 90s" as a setting. Not unlike how Dark Ages was handled. It would also be a face-saving way to roll-back a number of the misguided mechanical and plot changes in v5.

Spoiler

Looking forward to the v5 vs. v90 debates.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

In the grim darkness of the 3rd millennium, there is only v5 and Age of Sigmar.

 

[Bad Sector]

The level of technology is too high now to plausibly maintain the masquerade.

I haven't followed the lore much but isn't exactly this what happened in modern times?

 

[Caim]

In case anyone from Paradox is reading this, you could make everyone re-buy their Vampire books by releasing "Vampire: The 90s" as a setting. Not unlike how Dark Ages was handled. It would also be a face-saving way to roll-back a number of the misguided mechanical and plot changes in v5.

Spoiler

Looking forward to the v5 vs. v90 debates.

Vampire: the Requiem did the New Wave Requiem book, which is the Requiem in the 80s with everything that comes with that time.

 

[Storyfag]

In the grim darkness of the 3rd millennium, there is only v5 and Age of Sigmar.

*Mechanically* Age of Sigmar is most intriguing.

Lorewise... not so much.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Lorewise... not so much.

A travesty is what it is. Shame on GW.

 

[Nano]

The level of technology is too high now to plausibly maintain the masquerade.

It depresses me how we've lost so much of our privacy.

 

[Ravielsk]

I've said this before but I think vampire works best as a period piece set in the 90s. The level of technology is too high now to plausibly maintain the masquerade.

Well, you would have to move the setting from the big cities to small villages and rural environments to keep the masquerade. It could work then but somehow I doubt that is something people want from the setting.

 

[good fucking shit happen]

Hey hey, fellow vampire enjoyers. Did you know that Bobby Kotick has put the two good vampire games on sale over on GOG? That is GOG.com, ever heard of it? That's right, the first game is a whopping 50% off and that makes it cheap as fuck.

https://af.gog.com/game/vampire_the_masquerade_redemption?as=1649904300

If you ask me it is the better of the two since it was less buggy than Bloodlines. If you want to try to fit in with the cool kids here then Bloodlines is 20% off and the price is not too high for a buy.

https://af.gog.com/game/vampire_the_masquerade_bloodlines?as=1649904300

For a meager sum you too could jump into this discussion about the sharp toothed edgy bois.

 

[Caim]

Look who beat Paradox to the punch.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

The level of technology is too high now to plausibly maintain the masquerade.

I haven't followed the lore much but isn't exactly this what happened in modern times?

IIRC, the US government (at least, possibly others) knows about vampires, but they maintain the masquerade just to keep people from panicking or something.

 

[Delterius]

The level of technology is too high now to plausibly maintain the masquerade.

I haven't followed the lore much but isn't exactly this what happened in modern times?

IIRC, the US government (at least, possibly others) knows about vampires, but they maintain the masquerade just to keep people from panicking or something.

Yes. The World of Darkness mostly just got wider, with more factions of mortals being aware of monsters and playing into vampire politics. I do think that the Secret World did it better though. Many of the things it does sort of help me accept WoD as it is. To quote your Illuminati handler: 'Cover-ups are last century, nowadays what matters is overwhelming the human capacity to retain useless information. The truth always gets out. We make sure it does. But it is buried all the way down to page 2 of google search.' Of course hardcore cover ups still exist in that universe, and so does a certain human need not to think too deeply about the weirder or more terrifying aspects of their reality. One of my favorite parts of the game was piecing together how the United States government works in the Secret World, not as a monolithic entity but fractured and influenced most of all by the Illuminati and other secret societies as well. Point is, what Secret World did or implied didn't feel as claustrophobic as the 'Second Inquisition' plotline of WoD.

Too bad Secret World was murdered by its developer though. Had real promise as a setting.

 

[Can't handle the bacon]

I've said this before but I think vampire works best as a period piece set in the 90s. The level of technology is too high now to plausibly maintain the masquerade.

It's perfectly plausible once you realize that the Masquerade is maintained mostly by the Technocracy, unbeknownst to the vampires themselves.

 

[Storyfag]

I've said this before but I think vampire works best as a period piece set in the 90s. The level of technology is too high now to plausibly maintain the masquerade.

It's perfectly plausible once you realize that the Masquerade is maintained mostly by the Technocracy, unbeknownst to the vampires themselves.

This is not exactly the case. As far as I recall, the Technocracy considers vampires a "non-issue" and doesn't meddle with them precisely because they largely maintain their masquerade themselves.

 

[Caim]

I've said this before but I think vampire works best as a period piece set in the 90s. The level of technology is too high now to plausibly maintain the masquerade.

It's perfectly plausible once you realize that the Masquerade is maintained mostly by the Technocracy, unbeknownst to the vampires themselves.

This is not exactly the case. As far as I recall, the Technocracy considers vampires a "non-issue" and doesn't meddle with them precisely because they largely maintain their masquerade themselves.

Mages don't bother with vampires because the last time they tried it it took the Reemerge successfully his in the ranks of the Hermetics for two centuries, then won the ensuing conflict and became one if the founding clans of the Camarilla. If they tried again they'd get their teeth kicked in again.

 

[Can't handle the bacon]

I've said this before but I think vampire works best as a period piece set in the 90s. The level of technology is too high now to plausibly maintain the masquerade.

It's perfectly plausible once you realize that the Masquerade is maintained mostly by the Technocracy, unbeknownst to the vampires themselves.

This is not exactly the case. As far as I recall, the Technocracy considers vampires a "non-issue" and doesn't meddle with them precisely because they largely maintain their masquerade themselves.

That may be stated somewhere in the rulebooks, but logically, the only reason any large group of supernaturals can still maintain the masquerade in current_year is because the secret world government uses advanced technology to maintain it for them. Depriving the masses of the knowledge of the existence of "reality deviants" is their modus operandi. AFAIR, the Technocratic Union has a subdivision called literally called "New World Order", which in turn has a program called Total Panopticism, whose job is to maintain overwatch, surveillance, and control over all of the world's media.

In the world of darkness of course, not in real life. No, that would be crazy to suggest. Nope.

 

[conan_edw]

 

[Wesp5]

I don't think the modern days would be much of a problem. Just have some influencers post that vampires are fake and made up by Bill Gates to get you chipped and enough people will believe it !

 

[index.php]

edit: fuck infinitron

 

[copebot]

Nah the argument to make it retro is that no one likes the contemporary aesthetic because it is unlikeable, given that it is intentionally ugly. The existence of technology does make many plot hooks unworkable, but it's not insurmountable. Another issue with setting things in the current day is that you have to include text and email speak, which tends to be inherently dull and sloppy.

 

[Zombra]

logically

Yeah. Because in fantasy settings, it's always best to boil away any sense of joy and wonder in favor of "muh 'realistic' explanation". And those dull, pedantic justifications are always canon. Mm hm.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Because in fantasy settings

Nigger fantasy does not mean internally inconsistent.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Chris sure loves scorching earth.