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

[Wesp5]

Is there a way to send you some Shekels through Mod DB? I prefer to avoid the Nexus unless it's absolutely impossible, due to its owners being a bunch of major faggots.

I don't think the ModDB does something like this, but I will always accept Steam coins and I have a PayPal account now as well.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Yeah, I got the impression that most people in this thread haven’t actually read those books written thirty years ago. Fortunately, I’ve done a fair amount of dumpster diving in my time.

In the tabletop scene at the time in the 90s, WoD was seen as pretentious self-important garbage by gamers outside of its own cultish and fanatical mall goth fandom. The lore is pretty short (99% was developed and solidified from 1991-1995 or so and everything since was just repackaging that repeatedly because they cargo cult nostalgia) and ridiculous/terrible (the books have stuff like gay furry sex rituals, depicting Hiroshima as being a perpetually radioactive wasteland, Bangladesh being literally wiped off the map by multiple nukes and an orbital laser canon being dismissed as “saber rattling by Pakistan”, a cult of serial killers is presented as heroic, the Christian God is actually a false god named “The Patriarch” that serves a cosmic spider, Captain Planet-style pollution villains, etc) and doesn’t have anything worth buying the company for if you want to make urban fantasy video games. They’re in no position to sue you if you rip them off, like Nations of Darkness is doing right now. But Bloodlines is a cult classic so CCP and Paradox both thought they could make it work.

The text games and visual novels were supposedly written by diehard lorefags and they’re shovelware quality. I don’t think you can write anything with a mass market appeal using this IP unless you use an irreverent tone like Mitsoda did, and he wrote it that way because he wasn’t a fan of the IP before he was hired to write the game.

All this talk of “lore” is a waste of time. No matter how many lorefags tell you otherwise, lore is worth shit. We’ve seen that time and time again. Any competent writer can write a good story on its own merits, with or without lore. Any wannabe writer can come up with pages and pages of lore on a wiki, but it’s always irrelevant trivia. CRPGs live and die by their stories and gameplay, not irrelevant trivia that has nothing to do with that.

Nobody would give a flying fuck about lore if it didn’t piggyback off an engaging story. Nobody would give a fuck about Arda or Westeros if we weren’t already invested in Sean Bean and co. Failing to understand that basic fact of storytelling is why all these would-be franchises spectacularly abort.

Bloodlines is a cult classic because it had a story with characters that was good. You could strip away the lore and replace it with something original (as Troika intended before Activision told them to use the license), and Mitsoda’s skill as a writer would still show through.

This deranged obsession with “lore” by nerds and companies alike misses the forest for the leaves and contributes to the general degradation of modern media. Stop thinking in terms of “how can we exploit this list of irrelevant trivia?” and start thinking in terms of “how can I tell a good story on its own merits?”

I think an established setting does have the advantage of giving the game a wealth of ideas accumulated over years to draw from or discard. It doesn't matter if the original material isn't high literature on its own, you can cut much of it out and put your slant on what you do keep like Mitsoda did with Bloodlines.
With Bloodlines the sense of a larger, fleshed out mystery in the world was essential to the atmosphere. At every turn, with each faction, historical reference, the end times paranoia, there's the feeling that things run deep and old beyond the fledgling's story since the setting does have a big interwoven past and present mythology for the game to point to. I think in Bloodlines in particular, this and the audiovisual atmosphere were almost as important to the experience as the actual story. It might not have been the same with a surface-level original setting scratched together for the game.

Like you say though, it's the writer making good use of a setting that matters, not whatever license on its own.

I think a competent writer could pull off the illusion of a deeper original setting without actually writing several books’ worth off trivia. The WoD setting is not actually all that deep. Verbose, sure, but that’s not the same as depth. Bloodlines didn’t explore the lore in any appreciable detail, but just threw in a bunch of throwaway references.

When you get into the “zone,” it becomes easy to end up unintentionally writing pages and pages of unnecessary backstory for what starts as a throwaway concept. Quite frankly, fantasy fiction has a bigger problem with inexperienced writers wasting exposition dumps on irrelevant lore rather than writing the actual stories.

Planescape: Torment is a good example. There’s tons of throwaway references in that game to concepts that didn’t exist in the source material. Items, people, places, etc. It gives the illusion of a much larger world in the background, without actually writing about those unseen worlds.

A competent writer doesn’t actually need to write excessively detailed worldbuilding. They just need to convince their audience to believe the world has hidden depths. The easy way to do that is through throwaway references. Have weird stuff showup for one scene that never gets explained. Have characters reference topics they seem to understand without explaining the wider context to the player. But you have to write this vaguely enough that it doesn’t make the player wish the game was about that instead.

With urban fantasy this is very easy to do because you can draw on a wealth of existing folklore and fiction for inspiration. Explicit references to myths, folklore and occultism can do a lot of the heavy lifting for you.

The problem with an IP like WoD is that it’s lore is actually divorced from real life cultural myth, folklore and occultism. Their research is absolutely terrible. (Mage in particular is especially bad about this because it starts by saying all belief systems are actually fake but in the same breath expects you to take their made-up belief systems completely seriously as political ideologies. As opposed to, idk, a Platoist interpretation where all belief systems are shadows of a truth that can only be understood by achieving enlightenment through transcendance and revelation. The 2004 reboot did use a Platoist/Gnostic interpretation, but then discarded any connections to real world beliefs and offered zero explanation why because they’re trying too hard to be different. But I digress.)

 

[Tyranicon]

It’s really sad. Ttrpgs have the benefit of human imagination, but customers prefer the ease and expedience of video games.

More than ease and expedience, I think customers also expect an interesting, high-quality and fun experience from video games.

Ttrpgs are entirely dependent on the talent and enthusiasm of your DM and other players. While theoretically, games made by a group of professionals should offer a more consistent, curated experience.

A competent writer doesn’t actually need to write excessively detailed worldbuilding. They just need to convince their audience to believe the world has hidden depths. The easy way to do that is through throwaway references. Have weird stuff showup for one scene that never gets explained. Have characters reference topics they seem to understand without explaining the wider context to the player. But you have to write this vaguely enough that it doesn’t make the player wish the game was about that instead.

You have to be careful with this. Sure, not everybody has the time to go Tolkien on their setting but if you plan on being a good fiction writer, you should, and it should be interesting for you (if it's not, why are you writing in this setting?).

Instead of throwaway references, I prefer broaching topics that aren't fully fleshed out yet in my head, but will be.

The benefit of being a writer is that you can make bullshit up along the way, and if you're good enough at it, it'll work.

 

[The President]

Honestly Wesp you should get some of the money for those sales. Get a lawyer and try to sue for a Quasi-Contract.

I get some pennies for everybody downloading the patch from Nexus Mods ! Also the old HSL team around Mitsoda was quite aware of my possible impact on Bloodlines sales, so they contacted me about betatesting Bloodlines 2. Of course after the layoffs, the new studio and producers never even decided to talk with me again...

That's good at least you get something for the work you put in. I'm gonna do another playthrough with your latest patch when I get another rig up and running and I get some free time. I do hope the new studio actually contacts you when they finally reveal. Who knows you may get to know quite a bit before the rest of us do.

I do agree to an extent that lore is a bit overrated but it does give a decent scope to build on. You are however not going to get a good product without a good writer and a narrative that stays consistent. Good lore will fail with a bad writer, but a good writer will succeed even with bad lore. I do think however if you get good lore and a good writer, you can make some magic.

I'll also admit if it wasn't for Bloodlines I probably wouldn't have encountered or known about any of the WoD. I've seen the size of a few of the sourcebooks so I can imagine they are largely full of garbage and fluff and from what I've seen in V5 that's even more apparent. I do wonder if Mitsoda's story would have gone as well without the series lore though, I think he used just enough to hook you in without it getting too crazy. They didn't exposition a whole lot but you get from the subtext how dangerous and serious the sarcophagus was and how afraid they all are of elders. That one Nosferatu comes to mind where if you really exhaust his dialogue, says something along the lines of how you really don't want to run into the 4th or 5th generation caliber vampires. Of course what really ends up happening in the end with sarcophagus does make the story.

 

[deuxhero]

Yeah, I got the impression that most people in this thread haven’t actually read those books written thirty years ago. Fortunately, I’ve done a fair amount of dumpster diving in my time.

In the tabletop scene at the time in the 90s, WoD was seen as pretentious self-important garbage by gamers outside of its own cultish and fanatical mall goth fandom. The lore is pretty short (99% was developed and solidified from 1991-1995 or so and everything since was just repackaging that repeatedly because they cargo cult nostalgia) and ridiculous/terrible (the books have stuff like gay furry sex rituals, depicting Hiroshima as being a perpetually radioactive wasteland, Bangladesh being literally wiped off the map by multiple nukes and an orbital laser canon being dismissed as “saber rattling by Pakistan”, a cult of serial killers is presented as heroic, the Christian God is actually a false god named “The Patriarch” that serves a cosmic spider, Captain Planet-style pollution villains, etc) and doesn’t have anything worth buying the company for if you want to make urban fantasy video games. They’re in no position to sue you if you rip them off, like Nations of Darkness is doing right now. But Bloodlines is a cult classic so CCP and Paradox both thought they could make it work.

The text games and visual novels were supposedly written by diehard lorefags and they’re shovelware quality. I don’t think you can write anything with a mass market appeal using this IP unless you use an irreverent tone like Mitsoda did, and he wrote it that way because he wasn’t a fan of the IP before he was hired to write the game.

All this talk of “lore” is a waste of time. No matter how many lorefags tell you otherwise, lore is worth shit. We’ve seen that time and time again. Any competent writer can write a good story on its own merits, with or without lore. Any wannabe writer can come up with pages and pages of lore on a wiki, but it’s always irrelevant trivia. CRPGs live and die by their stories and gameplay, not irrelevant trivia that has nothing to do with that.

Nobody would give a flying fuck about lore if it didn’t piggyback off an engaging story. Nobody would give a fuck about Arda or Westeros if we weren’t already invested in Sean Bean and co. Failing to understand that basic fact of storytelling is why all these would-be franchises spectacularly abort.

Bloodlines is a cult classic because it had a story with characters that was good. You could strip away the lore and replace it with something original (as Troika intended before Activision told them to use the license), and Mitsoda’s skill as a writer would still show through.

This deranged obsession with “lore” by nerds and companies alike misses the forest for the leaves and contributes to the general degradation of modern media. Stop thinking in terms of “how can we exploit this list of irrelevant trivia?” and start thinking in terms of “how can I tell a good story on its own merits?”

I think an established setting does have the advantage of giving the game a wealth of ideas accumulated over years to draw from or discard. It doesn't matter if the original material isn't high literature on its own, you can cut much of it out and put your slant on what you do keep like Mitsoda did with Bloodlines.
With Bloodlines the sense of a larger, fleshed out mystery in the world was essential to the atmosphere. At every turn, with each faction, historical reference, the end times paranoia, there's the feeling that things run deep and old beyond the fledgling's story since the setting does have a big interwoven past and present mythology for the game to point to. I think in Bloodlines in particular, this and the audiovisual atmosphere were almost as important to the experience as the actual story. It might not have been the same with a surface-level original setting scratched together for the game.

Like you say though, it's the writer making good use of a setting that matters, not whatever license on its own.

When you get into the “zone,” it becomes easy to end up unintentionally writing pages and pages of unnecessary backstory for what starts as a throwaway concept. Quite frankly, fantasy fiction has a bigger problem with inexperienced writers wasting exposition dumps on irrelevant lore rather than writing the actual stories.

Larry Correia has the right idea here: Don't dump information, instead make vague allusions to events that occurred in the past that have no immediate relevancy to the story. It shows the character/world has a history, and the fans will tell you which of these events are interesting enough to expand upon.

 

[Harthwain]

Good video game adaptations give ttrpgs name recognition, not the other way around.

I disagree. Strongly. Look at Harry Potter: it gives recognition to Hogwarts Legacy. Anything with Star Wars in name will gain recognition. Same goes for DnD. Or Warhammer (both Dark Fantasy and 40,000). There is a symbiotic nature between the setting and the work. A game can gain recognition from the brand (by the virtue of familiarity, if nothing else), while the brand has its recognition strengthened if said game happens to be good.

I think a competent writer could pull off the illusion of a deeper original setting without actually writing several books’ worth off trivia. The WoD setting is not actually all that deep. Verbose, sure, but that’s not the same as depth. Bloodlines didn’t explore the lore in any appreciable detail, but just threw in a bunch of throwaway references.

You're not wrong that a competent writer doesn't need to use a pre-existing setting. That said, it is useful for a writer to have an already existing framework to draw from as it means he doens't have to make one himself. The problem ain't in the setting (as you suggest), but in the writer. That's it.

 

[Wesp5]

I do agree to an extent that lore is a bit overrated but it does give a decent scope to build on. You are however not going to get a good product without a good writer and a narrative that stays consistent. Good lore will fail with a bad writer, but a good writer will succeed even with bad lore. I do think however if you get good lore and a good writer, you can make some magic.

I completely agree! But speaking of lore, I recently saw a video of the HSL BL2 demo in which the Tremere uses some kind of blood spikes appearing from the ground to kill distant enemies. Is this part of the V5 lore? Because compared to the original Thaumaturgy disciplines, which either manipulate the blood of the victim or use a littel bit of the Tremere blood, this makes no sense at all!

 

[Lambach]

I completely agree! But speaking of lore, I recently saw a video of the HSL BL2 demo in which the Tremere uses some kind of blood spikes appearing from the ground to kill distant enemies. Is this part of the V5 lore? Because compared to the original Thaumaturgy disciplines, which either manipulate the blood of the victim or use a littel bit of the Tremere blood, this makes no sense at all!

New Thaumaturgy seems to be a mix of the old one and Quietus, but no blood spikes from what I can tell.

 

[Storyfag]

She also said that they’re trying to broaden Bloodlines 2 from the more masculine power fantasy of the original, so that it appeals to way more people this time.

Video games moving beyond the masculine power fantasy was a mistake.

And Bloodlines wasn't much of one in the first place.

 

[Lambach]

And Bloodlines wasn't much of one in the first place.

I dunno, a freshly Embraced Kindred single-handedly spanking Elders and determining the course of Vampire politics in LA does feel like a bit of a power fantasy to me.

 

[Zeriel]

And Bloodlines wasn't much of one in the first place.

I dunno, a freshly Embraced Kindred single-handedly spanking Elders and determining the course of Vampire politics in LA does feel like a bit of a power fantasy to me.

I don't recall off hand, what are the generations of NPCs involved? The big name NPCs like Beckett aren't very old at all. The only ones I can think of off the top of my head that might be elder territory is... uh... the Tzimisce and the Kuei-jin? And I'm just guessing there. Not that it is easy to "gameify", but I certainly don't remember any enemies in Bloodlines giving off elder-level discipline vibes.

Despite Cain being involved in the taxi cameo, the actual power levels in Bloodlines are pretty restrained, and the plot is not "shake the world" epic either by VTM standards.

 

[Storyfag]

Bloodlines is a cult classic because it had a story with characters that was good. You could strip away the lore and replace it with something original (as Troika intended before Activision told them to use the license), and Mitsoda’s skill as a writer would still show through.

I will continue to claim that the way Troika integrated the lore is the true masterpiece here. A microcosm of the setting within a single city. If you cannot admire that, you have no soul.

 

[Zeriel]

Bloodlines is a cult classic because it had a story with characters that was good. You could strip away the lore and replace it with something original (as Troika intended before Activision told them to use the license), and Mitsoda’s skill as a writer would still show through.

I will continue to claim that the way Troika integrated the lore is the true masterpiece here. A microcosm of the setting within a single city. If you cannot admire that, you have no soul.

I don't accept RaggleFraggle 's premise at all, personally. Classic WoD & VTM has some of the best lore & background ever devised for a tabletop game. It's truly ridiculous to me to see someone badmouthing it in generic terms. Like, seriously, I'm supposed to take it sitting down that VTM lore is bad compared to... what... Forgotten fucking Realms?

Yeah, sure, there are silly aberrations like ecoterrorist werewolves, but even the dumb parts have their fun aspects. Pentex & Technocracy are cool, and the scheming and nested mysteries of the Jyhad is far more interesting a premise and deep setting to dig into than most tabletop games manage. I'm honestly not sure what people are comparing it to to say it is bad, and certainly the notion that Mitsoda is a better writer than the sum total of classic VTM is a total fucking lie.

I've always thought of VTM as a great tapestry for telling stories, with some pretty bland game mechanics. It's far more fun to dick around thinking up ideas and plotlines for the game than it is to actually play it. Kind of the opposite of D&D's non-planescape/2e golden age era, boring d&d settings like Eberron or Greyhawk where you have great, fun game mechanics with absolutely atrociously generic story you have to overlook or toss aside.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

I don't recall off hand, what are the generations of NPCs involved? The big name NPCs aren't very old at all. The only ones I can think of off the top of my head that might be elder territory is... uh... the Tzimisce and the Kuei-jin? And I'm just guessing there. Not that it is easy to "gameify", but I certainly don't remember any enemies in Bloodlines giving off elder-level discipline vibes.

Going by the White Wolf wiki: Jeanette is 6th, Andrey is 7th or lower, Beckett is 7th, Strauss is 7th or thereabout, LaCroix is 8th or thereabout etc etc.

 

[Zeriel]

I don't recall off hand, what are the generations of NPCs involved? The big name NPCs aren't very old at all. The only ones I can think of off the top of my head that might be elder territory is... uh... the Tzimisce and the Kuei-jin? And I'm just guessing there. Not that it is easy to "gameify", but I certainly don't remember any enemies in Bloodlines giving off elder-level discipline vibes.

Going by the White Wolf wiki: Jeanette is 6th, Andrey is 7th or lower, Beckett is 7th, Strauss is 7th or thereabout, LaCroix is 8th or thereabout etc etc.

Yeah, I had to remember that the official definition of "elder" is only a few hundred years old. The distinction between elder/neonate & generations is pretty muddy and weird. I suppose when I think of elders I'm actually thinking of methuselahs.

 

[Lambach]

I don't recall off hand, what are the generations of NPCs involved? The big name NPCs like Beckett aren't very old at all. The only ones I can think of off the top of my head that might be elder territory is... uh... the Tzimisce and the Kuei-jin? And I'm just guessing there. Not that it is easy to "gameify", but I certainly don't remember any enemies in Bloodlines giving off elder-level discipline vibes.

Despite Cain being involved in the taxi cameo, the actual power levels in Bloodlines are pretty restrained, and the plot is not "shake the world" epic either by VTM standards.

Other than canon characters that exist in WoD lore outside of the game (e.g. Beckett or Jack), nobody's Generation is explicitly specified, so we can only speculate based on what they've shown in-game.


But for example, the abilities that Andrei has displayed mean he's at least 7th Generation and likely a couple of centuries old. Instant death for a Vampire Embraced a couple of weeks ago, except, you know, it's a video-game.

The Sheriff can transform into the Marauder, which a 6th Level power, meaning he too is also at least 7th Gen and probably very old, because mastering a Discipline to that level takes time. Etc.

 

[Storyfag]

I don't recall off hand, what are the generations of NPCs involved? The big name NPCs aren't very old at all. The only ones I can think of off the top of my head that might be elder territory is... uh... the Tzimisce and the Kuei-jin? And I'm just guessing there. Not that it is easy to "gameify", but I certainly don't remember any enemies in Bloodlines giving off elder-level discipline vibes.

Going by the White Wolf wiki: Jeanette is 6th, Andrey is 7th or lower, Beckett is 7th, Strauss is 7th or thereabout, LaCroix is 8th or thereabout etc etc.

All in all, junior Elders (going by the Cainite social definition of the word), with the exception of Therese, but in her case the generation advantage is offset by her relative youth. Indeed, no earth-shattering powers that are the purview of Methuselahs.

 

[Storyfag]

The distinction between elder/neonate & generations is pretty muddy and weird.

The premise is that a Cainite takes time to hone his powers. Therefore even a high generation Elder will likely mop the floor with a low generation Neonate. Yes, the Neonate has higher potential, but hasn't reached it yet.

This is routinely ignored by TTRPG scenarios and Bloodlines itself. And that's a good thing.

 

[Lambach]

The premise is that a Cainite takes time to hone his powers. Therefore even a high generation Elder will likely mop the floor with a low generation Neonate. Yes, the Neonate has higher potential, but hasn't reached it yet.

This is routinely ignored by TTRPG scenarios and Bloodlines itself. And that's a good thing.

Well, everything is ignored by Bloodlines. Your character is both higher Gen than some of the enemies he faces and younger than them by at least a century or two.

EDIT: And it's not just your character that's stupid overpowered. Nines wrestled with a Werewolf 1-on-1 and won. Without any silver weapons to boot.

 

[Herumor]

Your character is both higher Gen than some of the enemies he faces and younger than them by at least a century or two.

If you remember Andrei the Tzimisce, he speaks of your blood being more potent on the second encounter with him, which implies someone's manipulating shit from the background. Cabbie being Caine, this makes perfect sense because he has every single possible Discipline to the max and probably can invent new ones on the spot, so thickening your blood and increasing your generation / strength is a basic feat for him, though why he would get involved with such a small scale event, who knows?

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Just because it was mentioned over and over as a "candidate developer" for BL2 across this thread, it's worth pointing that Harebrained is next to reveal their next project:



I have no idea of what they are teasing, frankly. It doesn't ring any bell.

 

[Lambach]

Your character is both higher Gen than some of the enemies he faces and younger than them by at least a century or two.

If you remember Andrei the Tzimisce, he speaks of your blood being more potent on the second encounter with him, which implies someone's manipulating shit from the background. Cabbie being Caine, this makes perfect sense because he has every single possible Discipline to the max and probably can invent new ones on the spot, so thickening your blood and increasing your generation / strength is a basic feat for him, though why he would get involved with such a small scale event, who knows?

Yeah, that's my main problem with the "Cabbie is Caine" theory. Seems like the most powerful creature on planet Earth would do something else with his time other than just drive a Taxi in LA. In terms of Kindred politics, LA isn't a big deal anyway.

 

[Storyfag]

The premise is that a Cainite takes time to hone his powers. Therefore even a high generation Elder will likely mop the floor with a low generation Neonate. Yes, the Neonate has higher potential, but hasn't reached it yet.

This is routinely ignored by TTRPG scenarios and Bloodlines itself. And that's a good thing.

Well, everything is ignored by Bloodlines. Your character is both higher Gen than some of the enemies he faces and younger than them by at least a century or two.

EDIT: And it's not just your character that's stupid overpowered. Nines wrestled with a Werewolf 1-on-1 and won. Without any silver weapons to boot.

Well, the Fledgling is only *slightly* higher gen. The Lupine thing... eh, it was prolly just a pup.

 

[Wesp5]

Yeah, that's my main problem with the "Cabbie is Caine" theory. Seems like the most powerful creature on planet Earth would do something else with his time other than just drive a Taxi in LA.

My personal theory is that Caine is just playing with his Children to see how they have evolved. Like when a potential danger like the sarcophagus turns up, who will help each other and who will fight each other instead. He can then use this to decide whom to save when Gehenna comes. As for Jeanette/Therese being 6th generation, this is clearly a retcon as I don't think they even existed in the VtM lore before Bloodlines and there are other stupid things the V5 writers made up as if they haven't even played the game, like the whole story with Arthur Kilpatrick. I have the feeling somebody noticed the game is a cult classic, so they tried to include some characters into the new release in any way they could...

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Yeah, that's my main problem with the "Cabbie is Caine" theory. Seems like the most powerful creature on planet Earth would do something else with his time other than just drive a Taxi in LA. In terms of Kindred politics, LA isn't a big deal anyway.

Well, LA at that time was a hodgepodge of various factions vying for control, so I guess Caine would be interested to see how things unfold (and to mess with his descendants through proxies like Smiling Jack while awaiting Gehenna when he'll judge them for their failures). And being a cab driver seems more like a poetic allegory on the part of the devs for him being cursed to aimlessly wander the Earth, watching and listening to those in the both literal and metaphorical backseat who disregard his presence.