Vampire the Masquerade 5th Edition

[Bobotron]

We all knew something of this was coming from Grand Masquerade. Some confirmations of stuff from a panel with Dracula and WW on VtM 5th edition. Mostly stuff we'd already heard, but a confirmation that I, personally, find really awful.

1. Release date is expected to be Winter 2018.
2. All licensees will get the "same bible." Will help with the shared universe.
3. Art and graphics were shown for Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Changeling, Wraith, Hunter the Reckoning, and Mummy.
4. "You are what you eat." Disciplines in Vampire will be learned through how you play. Feed from the homeless, or shunned from society? You will learn obfuscate.
5. Will take place right before Gehenna.
6. The Camarilla, the Beast, and more may have changed or shifted in meaning or operation.
7. Metaplot going forward will focus on real life players being the main characters. Transmedia will be huge focus.
8. Humans not as blood bags but as individuals - not all the same, but important for the vampires. Making core concepts playable.
   9.Global stories written by global voices.
9. Interactive audio fiction coming for Mage.
10. They want 5th edition to be found everywhere.
11. Anounced World of Darkness Berlin - your fan festival on May 11-14th 2017.
12. White Wolf will open brand gradually for fan creativity.

#4 is... one that I'm super iffy on. It's a mechanic they put into their weird End of the Line LARP, and I just cant' see it working in tabletop at all. It adds even MORE minutiae to feeding bullshit.

[Misadventure]

I assume you mean real life Player Characters being the focus of #7. Otherwise it sounds like you are supposed to play yourself.

[Bobotron]

@Misadventure
The running assumptions are of two minds:

• First is, what with Dracula's love of LARPs, that official White Wolf LARP events will affect the metaplot
• Second, the other camp is of a mind that it'll be in the vein of Shadowrun where the 'you' will be the PCs that play in each individual game, when the plots come out and say 'based on your actions' and such.

So who knows.

[Wizz]

@Misadventure said in Vampire the Masquerade 5th Edition:

I assume you mean real life Player Characters being the focus of #7. Otherwise it sounds like you are supposed to play yourself.

...a strain of vampirism that only affects or is somehow limited to your stereotypical LARPer/tabletop gamer/MU*er would be a recipe for nonstop hilarity. Like a society of immortal creatures built around the kind of hissy-fit drama that Vamp Spheres are known for? There are no words, they should have sent a poet

[Jaded]

For some reason the plot points make me think of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXpxnxAL62A

[lordbelh]

@Bobotron said in Vampire the Masquerade 5th Edition:

"You are what you eat." Disciplines in Vampire will be learned through how you play. Feed from the homeless, or shunned from society? You will learn obfuscate.
The Camarilla, the Beast, and more may have changed or shifted in meaning or operation.

So people keep playing VtM because they weren't a fan of how the themes had been reworked in Requiem. So you're going back to VtM to redefine.. the themes again.

I'm fully on board with updating VtM, especially cleaning up all of the oWoD mechanics and systems which are frankly a bitch to play with compared to CoD. There's ton of things in the themes that could use a clean up as well, because when you have a sprawling universe coherency will go out the window. This is a great opportunity to streamline things.

But for fucks sake, don't touch the core ideas that keep people playing the fucking game.

[Misadventure]

It should be relatively simple to adapt OWoD content to the latest game engine, especially if you don't try to hold onto 1% or less variance from probabilities as far as dice pools go.

Clans exist, Generations exist, keep the old goal of the Disciplines for the most part I assume.

[Coin]

Ew, Generation.

[Arkandel]

@Coin said in Vampire the Masquerade 5th Edition:

Ew, Generation.

I love Generation. It's one of my favorite things about V:tR thematically, that age begets power. It sets up the entire chessboard for what's to come.

[Coin]

@Arkandel said in Vampire the Masquerade 5th Edition:

@Coin said in Vampire the Masquerade 5th Edition:

Ew, Generation.

I love Generation. It's one of my favorite things about V:tR thematically, that age begets power. It sets up the entire chessboard for what's to come.

First of all: V:tM, V:tR has Blood Potency.

second of all, Blood Potency technically works under the same principle (in that it takes a lot of time to raise it); just games don't work that way.

In fact, Blood Potency should technically be slower to rise after a certain level (5-ish) since for generation you just have to find lower and lower generation vampires who may be in Torpor or whatever to diablerize (and, of course, not get usurped by them).

[Arkandel]

@Coin Yeah, I meant V:tM.

But the setup I enjoy requires the whole nine yards of Generation as well as the rest of the toys Masquarade comes with; the eventual weakening of the Blood, the crime of diablerie as a shortcut to power and the metaplot that came along with Gehenna, ancient secrets and the paranoia induced by the concept there are these things more powerful than you can imagine who've been pulling the strings for so long you can't even tell if you're not still dancing to them.

[Misadventure]

Blood potency is its own thing. You want to reduce its value sometimes, Generation you never want to (and can't) give up value you have. You DO get the stupidity of creating a bunch of vampires 2 generations lower than whatever victim you can diablerize if you so desire.

[Coin]

@Arkandel said in Vampire the Masquerade 5th Edition:

@Coin Yeah, I meant V:tM.

But the setup I enjoy requires the whole nine yards of Generation as well as the rest of the toys Masquarade comes with; the eventual weakening of the Blood, the crime of diablerie as a shortcut to power and the metaplot that came along with Gehenna, ancient secrets and the paranoia induced by the concept there are these things more powerful than you can imagine who've been pulling the strings for so long you can't even tell if you're not still dancing to them.

@Misadventure said in Vampire the Masquerade 5th Edition:

Blood potency is its own thing. You want to reduce its value sometimes, Generation you never want to (and can't) give up value you have. You DO get the stupidity of creating a bunch of vampires 2 generations lower than whatever victim you can diablerize if you so desire.

i think you can adapt BP to function as Generations for most of these things while keeping the concept behind BP in tact. I just prefer it.

Ew, generations.

[Misadventure]

I agree. But for those going for that OWoD feel, I suspect they'd want Generations and all it entails.

Did you know that if you are known to be secretive, paranoid, and very busy, you can stay out of sight for an entire year and let the Diablerie aura fade?

[Ganymede]

@Misadventure said in Vampire the Masquerade 5th Edition:

I agree. But for those going for that OWoD feel, I suspect they'd want Generations and all it entails.

I like the feel, but I prefer Blood Potency.

[Misadventure]

How about if we used Blood Potency without the need to LOSE it every now and then?

[Arkandel]

@Misadventure said in Vampire the Masquerade 5th Edition:

How about if we used Blood Potency without the need to LOSE it every now and then?

And the memories. And the incentive of others to diablerize you (but at a high risk since you're stronger than them) to steal your strength.

[Ganymede]

@Misadventure said in Vampire the Masquerade 5th Edition:

How about if we used Blood Potency without the need to LOSE it every now and then?

How about we not go back to Generation at all, where we had games where you had to apply to have Generation over a certain level, and all those slots went to Staff sluts?

That's really all I care about.

Oh, and fuck the Assamites.

[Misadventure]

That would fail to be OWoD then.

Note how encompassing that statement might be.

[Ganymede]

@Misadventure said in Vampire the Masquerade 5th Edition:

That would fail to be OWoD then.

And now we know why I haven't really had much of an urge to go back to playing oWoD.