Mar 9, 2015, 10:40 PM
Black-hat Vampires?
The State of the Chronicles of Darkness
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Black-hat Vampires?
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@Olsson
Treat them as THE ULTIMATE EVIL THING! I suppose. -
Make them the villains of their personal morality tale, etc. All various things that translated to "pick on them because they're a relatively easy fight."
One thing I noticed -- werewolves cannot track a vampire after biting it.
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To be fair, Vampires together with Possessed are one of the few gamelines who have evil as their default.
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The others just kind of meander their way to it eventually based on player sociopathy.
I like playing vampire. If I do something unapologetically evil, for whatever reason, it stands. I do not like being singled out by people like Leka, Ernst, and Juerg because I'm there.
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I really wish I had done more to stop Juerg when I had one of the few mages who could pull influence to stop him. I still feel bad about that. Him, and King on BSG Cerb. I really need a spine...
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@silentsophia I don't know that you really could have done much to stop him when he had people on staff making excuses for him and all but encouraging his bad behavior. As you were not staff, you really shouldn't add that to your list of baggage. Let that one go.
I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.
-Poe -
@Sanguine That's true. I really didn't know a lot of the background. I did try to set Rain up as an alternative in to mage besides Juerg. Now that I look back on it, man, so many people bent over backwards for that dude. I'm glad that even if it was belated, I saw the light.
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@silentsophia Hey, you were awesome as Rain. And I just realized that what I said sounded kind of mean. Glad you got what I meant.
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@Sanguine Thanks. And it's alright. Sometimes a firm tone is tough to convey in text. I really should just let it go. I got duped, and really, beyond potential hoping my jobs and influence pulls worked... I don't know. The dude was online a lot more than I could've been. Such is life.
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Near as I could tell from my blessedly brief interactions with him, he's a harem builder. Says what he has to say to gather a bunch of sympathetic women around him, and has to run off or subordinate other men.
Edit to add: And harem builders of either gender are a pain in the ass to dislodge, because they work hard to gather as many people who'll go to bat for them as possible.
On the other hand, HM Mage had Maclemus, who single-handedly almost redeems the whole game (I mean Mage), at least in my eyes.
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Mac was awesome, I miss him.
And yeah, that's about the right of it. I felt bad seeing people get run off. But... what's done is done, at least he got banned eventually. Too bad he poisoned mage for most people.
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Make them the villains of their personal morality tale, etc. All various things that translated to "pick on them because they're a relatively easy fight."
Er...
I do not like being singled out by people like Leka, Ernst, and Juerg because I'm there.
Errrr....
I like playing vampire. If I do something unapologetically evil, for whatever reason, it stands.
So, it sounds like it's not because you're there, or that you might be easy to fight, but because your character is doing shit that's unapologetically evil and people are taking exception to it.
I hate to tel you this, because I realize it's not going to fit within your pat little view where vampires only get picked on because they're weak, but the sort of folks who are going to go after someone for doing "unapologetically evil' shit are going to go after them regardless of what they're playing. Shit, I played an evil mage who was one of the most powerful characters on a game and people still routinely tried to kill him, even people who stood very little chance of succeeding.
Vampires don't get picked on because they're easy to fight, they get picked on because 1) they have a pretty terrible reputation for being mind raping* sadists, and 2) because more often than not the people playing them seem incapable of treating any non-vampires like anything but shit, despite evidence of just how poor an idea that is.
- There are few things players hate more than losing control of their ability to make choices about their characters actions. While it's true that Mages have the Mind Arcanum, and it can do exactly the same sorts of things, it's more nebulous than Dominate, Presence (or is that called something else now?), or the blood bond Vampires can create. It's not really fair to vampire players, but the very existence of these tools tends to mark a negative on your grade sheet before things even begin. If you actually try to use them against another PC, murder is probably nigh.
But really, this idea that vampires get picked on because they're easy to fight is just really, really dumb. Werewolves have been weaksauce since nwod came out, WAY easier to take down than Vampires. Hell, Changelings are by and large pretty squishy, but there's not a lot of bullying of them that gets done. Vampires don't get singled out because they're weak, they get singled out because they start from a bad position (mind raping, blood stealing, elitest assholes) and then they do 'unapologetically evil' shit on top of it.
All of which is added to by the philosophy of MU* Assholes everywhere that if you're not doing something to a PC, why bother doing it? So the 'unapologetically evil' shit you're doing is probably to another PC, and that PC inevitably has friends, family, and loved ones who are yet other PCs, and suddenly it's got less to do with someone's personal morality play and more that you're a monster preying on the people in their circle of people to be protected. Or sometimes they're only vaguely related to those folks, or just hear about it, and want to indulge their hero complex. And since they're also MU* Assholes and if they're not doing something to a PC it's not worth doing, they target the PC doing the 'unapologetically evil' shit.
I've got very little sympathy for either set of assholes, really.
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@HelloRaptor said:
So the 'unapologetically evil' shit you're doing is probably to another PC, and that PC inevitably has friends, family, and loved ones who are yet other PCs, and suddenly it's got less to do with someone's personal morality play and more that you're a monster preying on the people in their circle of people to be protected.
Although I quite agree on most of your post, I want to make an exception here: The things Vampires do, unless on top of being unapologetically evil they are also being inexcusably stupid, is very subtle. The effects of something like Presence or the eroding long-term effects of Blood Bonds can be difficult to detect unless on top of being able you also have reason to do so.
However - and this is the exception - OOC knowledge springs like vomit from a freshman's mouth after a night out drinking when it comes to those things, and gets people to throw their dice with extreme prejudice until they detect precisely these things if PCs are involved. Things they wouldn't blink twice without that OOC information get scrutinized within an inch of their existence when it exists, and woe to the Vamp-player who succumbs to a wannabe-victim player's wishes to get into that kind of situation (and there are players who absolutely love the attention their character having been victimized brings), since shitstorms often come their way.
The lines between IC and OOC in these cases are ridiculously blurry.
TL;DR: If you're going to RP screwing with someone's mind, pick your target wisely or be ready for drama.
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The effects of something like Presence or the eroding long-term effects of Blood Bonds can be difficult to detect unless on top of being able you also have reason to do so.
The inexcusably stupid part is more prevalent than you'd think, and also less necessary. Uses of Presence frequently tend towards the ridiculous, for instance, and the descriptions of how the blood bond effects people is only really subtle to people who don't have any reason to find their behavior suspect.
When other supernaturals are involved, vampires have those strikes against them because mental influence is what they're known for. I've seen vampires get harassed even when there were no powers or bonds involved, just because others thought someone's behavior had changed enough in regards to the vampire in question that it was a reasonable suspicion.
Given that it's MU*, odds are reasonably good that at any given point the use of Presence on another PC is to get them to act in a way they would not otherwise be inclined to act, and when people are acting in a way they would not otherwise act and there are vampires involved, saying that those who are aware of vampires and know there's one involved don't have reason to be suspicious is pushing the bounds of credulity.
If their behavior hasn't actually changed in any significant way, then sure, somebody needs a ruler to the back of the hand. But I've very rarely seen that actually be the case where Presence, or especially blood bonds, are concerned.
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Majesty. Presence is an Attribute now. Just to answer a question from way up.
In general, my policy is: if you mess with PCs, all bets are off.
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Honestly? My Changeling on HM spent a lot of her time cleaning up after other idiot Changelings that were giving up blood and information to vampires like it was going out of style. No pledges, no repercussions, just 'here's my tasty tasty blood and oh yeah, feel free to look me up at this place cause its totally a place where people like me hang out'.
So at least half of the Vampire/Changeling bs was on idiot Changeling players being idiots.
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@Miss-Demeanor said:
So at least half of the Vampire/Changeling bs was on idiot Changeling players being idiots.
Although I snicker inside and can't disagree, the truth is that's not a bad thing on its own. It's a little bit cliche to 'look for trouble' by becoming a glorified blood doll, but there soon comes a point where we'd be entering wrongfun territory by condemning the practice.
What's wrong is doing it for the purpose of causing drama and/or being at the center of attention. Baiting a vampire PC to feed from your character's veins (or throw in a few levels of the vinculum for good reason) then playing the victim card and appealing to friends/protectors/kindly strangers to rescue you from that fate is one of the worse clichés about MU*, ever. Bonus point for throwing 'rape' somewhere in that.
It should be a very simple situation: IC actions, IC consequences. If it becomes a shitfest it's very often because someone likes the smell enough to manufacture it.
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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@Arkandel
Also, from an in-game perspective, someone under a vinculum IS NOT GOING TO GO PLAY THE DAMN VICTIM CARD. They are on the cocaine blood, they don't want OFF, and they have loyalty to that domitor. MAYBE if the vinculum had broken for some reason, BUT... geez. -
Its less about the blood doll thing and more about the 'here let me give you blatant information about other Changelings/where to find other Changelings'. My Spring had so many pledges within a few months of looking into rumors of other supers sharing ALL THE THINGS about Changelings. >.> She had like... Wyrd 5 and maxed out pledges just in the attempt to get people to STOP TALKING ABOUT ALL OUR HANGOUTS AND WEAKNESSES.
Edit: It never fails to amaze me how freely some people will give up info about where their particular splat hangs out/what they fear/what their weaknesses are/etc.