Vampire 5E Games?
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I am pretty sure Rosa is thin-blood Ravnos. Her demeanor suggests it more, but at that point it could go either way.
Velvet Velour is almost the worst kind of Toreador, but she's so bland that I guess nobody remembers her to comment. I'd rather a wide variety of Malkavians to include "bouncy goth" than to try and make them as flat as Ventrue. Ngh.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
Yeah, those are good.
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@thenomain The TV talking to you was kind of neat, but arguing with a stop sign was pretty blah.
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I'm glad I'm not the only one who reads her as a Ravnos (just by her speech and dress), but I tend to get yelled at that she's Malk when I mention it because MUH PROPHECY!
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@bobotron She read as Ravnos to me too. Just with mannerisms and the accent. Either ravnos or gypsy with the sight before embraced.
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@livia said in Vampire 5E Games?:
@thenomain The TV talking to you was kind of neat, but arguing with a stop sign was pretty blah.
NO, YOU STOP!
(I would never say that V:tM-B is great writing, but sometimes it's okay to be twelve years old again.)
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@Lithium: Yeah, but the Malkavian Madness Network is an absolute deus ex machina. I go for Ravnos because she never indicated any form of insanity or quirkiness, just getting overwhelmed with The Sight.
Mind you, I just used "overwhelmed" as explaining the PC Malk's behavior. Both Jeanette and Grout's madnesses were extensions of their lives, which is a lot of what made them great. PC Malk had no life before embrace, so anything I can use to justify their behavior is going to be subjective. Because of this I think any behavior portrayed by the writers were going to either be not-Malkavian or Fishmalk.
I'm glad the writers err'd on the side of Perkygoth. I thought the PC Malk was great for the game because all the rest of the characters were pretty much the same.
Except perhaps the PC Nosferatu. I heard that described as "Hard Mode" and have never seen a play-through with it.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
@thenomain Nosferatu is super hard. Can't get any of the blood dolls in the clubs, can't even get into most of the clubs without obfuscate, etc.
I am thinking about trying it next. Tremere is both easy and hard at the same time, dominate is pretty strong. I keep trying to make a melee tremere instead of a gunbunny though so there is that.
Malkavian was by far my easiest play through because obfuscate and dementation together was horribly powerful.
I am considering an animalism based gangrel too, that looks like it could be fun.
Hello! Long time listener, first time caller...
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@lithium I found Tremere super easy with the ranged blood stealing disc and good stealth it's just all you ever need.
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@thenomain said in Vampire 5E Games?:
@livia said in Vampire 5E Games?:
@thenomain The TV talking to you was kind of neat, but arguing with a stop sign was pretty blah.
NO, YOU STOP!
(I would never say that V:tM-B is great writing, but sometimes it's okay to be twelve years old again.)
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Yeah, okay, you're not wrong, and I can't say I didn't at least smile a little the first time it happened. I did enjoy the subtle bits from the TV; not when the newscaster was having a conversation with you but when he was reporting one of the murders or whatever. 'Police are investigating several leads and suspects and say they know, it was you.'
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@livia I did say I was not playing to the clan's best strengths and making it more challenging for myself. It'd be a lot easier if I went the disc route but atm all I am using is Auspex 1 for occasional hacking boosts, Dominate 2 for Command, and Thaumaturgy 2 for the AoE blood purge to open people up to sword swings
It's fun, but challenging, and I am sure if I went deeper in thaum for blood shield and such or deeper into dominate for the kill powers it'd be super easier, but, not as much fun.
I actually enjoy the melee combat on that game. Reminds me of an early version of the Arkham Batman Games in a lot of ways.
Hello! Long time listener, first time caller...
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I remember Antagonist spheres in general being a shitshow - Sabbat, Wyrm, whichever flavor of crazypants Mage they wanted to make playable. Even Ratkin <which I otherwise love> sometimes degenerated into one-tricks focusing only on the 'we hate everything and reserve the right to be assholes on principle' aspect.
By and large, it was the players more than the spheres - people tended to have this teenage angst view of evil as simply being 'not good', rather than having its own agenda and goals. The best played ones either thought they were doing good, or simply didn't care one way or another - but most of what I remember seeing was people blatantly breaking laws, being jerkoffs to other players then trying to avoid the consequences IC and claiming that they were justified OOC because they're 'eeevul'. -
@lithium That sure would make it harder!
I'm not sure I was too fond of melee combat in that game, but my first run was brawler Gangrel so it must have been okay. It's been a long time since I've played it.
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Credible villains are the best antagonists. While the villains in the newest iteration of CoD Mage are still a bit crazypants, they are credible and relatable. (Imagine if the Koch brothers were manipulating the world for real godlike masters instead of themselves.)
Even the Technocracy in oMage was understandable, and come from a noble origin: Help the Sleepers. If it weren't for the cartoonish stereotyping of oWoD, a Mage game where sometimes Technocracy members and Tradition members worked together in a "enemy of my enemy" sense would be great.
The Anarchs are an antagonist group by oVampire standards, and yet Bloodlines has them as equals in a more political war than violent one.
It's probably easier to find players to properly play this level of almost-brotherly antagonists than the wackadoo-antagonists of Nephandi, Black Spiral Dancers or, yes, Sabbat.
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@sunnyj said in Vampire 5E Games?:
Sabbat can be super neat. I will give you this, though: I have only played one oWoD MUX ever, and most Sabbat characters there were a god damn shit show. I totally understand the worries of a lot of game runners about the Sabbat. I just like to think we can do better.
I never really understood a lot of Sabbat players. And I've played a lot of Sabbat PCs.
One of my favorite PCs of all time was Sabbat. He was ex-military. He looked at everything as a matter of military planning and strategy. He looked down on shovel-heads as snot-nosed newbs. He looked at the Tzimisce as fleshy blood-sluts. For him, the war was everything, and he intended to win it. If that meant the death of every other vampire and human, so be it.
It's easy to see why I like the New World of Darkness so much, especially the Sons of Cade. It was like the developer reached into my head and used my old concept, and that made me happy.
Not that I don't mind writing flowery gore-porn from time to time, but my time is much more limited these days.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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@ganymede A lot of players seem to want to behave like shovelheads only when it suits them, screaming 'theme' when it comes to being cartoony monsters but running away from it when the book states that these hordes of imbeciles almost entirely the ones being manipulated and taken advantage by the more cerebral top of the food chain.
They want the cake and eat it too!
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This is why the leaders stand behind them, with barrels aimed at brain stems and enough weapons for only half.
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Probably the wrong place to make a note of this, buuuuuuut... our blanket-ban on discussing politics stuff outside of the politics sub-forum has kind of allowed us to overlook what has been described as 'a bunch of Sweedish edgelords made V5 suuuuper fascy and filled it with neo nazi dog-whistling', and I am disappoint.
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As for possible 5E games, I was fully invested in coding and hosting one but the HW just... vanished one day after I squinted and expressed an opinion on a policy plan, so. Dunno otherwise.
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I had pretty decent experiences playing Sabbat on Darkmetal, of all places. While I knew or sometimes associated with some of the well-known Problem Children, I didn't interact with them on those binges of insanity.
At one point I had a ghoul to a Tzimisce, and frankly, it was the most amazing ghoul-regnant mashup I ever played. He messed with her head something fierce, would appear in various guises to convince her that he had eyes everywhere, etc. Same player did some pretty dumb stuff as well, but I lucked out personally and still miss that dude's writing like whoa. (And no, before anyone assumes... zero TS or anything romantic there, he just loved scaring the shit out of her and convincing her that God was real and sent her an angel to give her divine orders, then would appear in various guises as 'other servants of the angel, checking up on her' whenever she'd veer off course.)
I forget if the Tzimisce I actually played was before or after the ghoul, but that one also tended to sit around philosophizing and being a complete basket case more than anything else.
Weird. Darkmetal... had depth. In the Sabbat, even. I told you bastards I'm a weirdness magnet, 'cause that shit certainly ain't normal.
@Jennkryst That's pretty game-relevant, so I doubt there would be much objection to discussing it as it pertains to the game, but I could be wrong.
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@thenomain Very true; but that's actually something I liked about the nWoD theme in general - the 'enemies' were basically the same as the player characters; they just had a different world view/politics/religious stance. In oWoD, Nephandi or Marauders had tweaked - if not completely different - mechanics; while in nWoD even Scelesti or Banishers follow the same general rules set. The Pure have some slightly different rules based on their lack of the Oath, but otherwise are just werewolves with a different world view and alliances; etc. Bale Hounds are nuts, but they don't have entirely different and unique sets of powers and abilities like Black Spiral Dancers did. nWoD has it's faults in terms of theme, but they do make the baked in antagonists easy to understand and, in some cases, relate to.
