New Vampire Release
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MOAR INFO! From an interview with Dawkins and Karim, two of the devs/writers.
Karim told a bit about their goal for the corebook, where they want to bring being a vampire back into focus.
Political and Personal Horror are brought into the spotlight, as they seem especially relevant today.An explanation about Generation came up and it's pretty darn smart.
Besides being a measurement of your steps from the progenitor of all vampires, Generation is seemingly going to be the capstone of Blood Potency of the individual vampire.
(With 11th Gen for instance capping it out on 3.)
And there apparently also is a BP mechanic apparently also have a mechanic to interact with the Rouse system, granting re-rolls when invoking Disciplines.
Bane Severity is tied to Blood Potency, and Bane Severity also judges how bad sunlight hurts you.Karim also spoke to great lengths about Humanity, and how each Troupe needs to tailor their own version Sins. (This is sure to piss off the people who wants a unified mechanic to simulate the world.) and how you can play a Vampire without Touchstones. So, Elders are clearly working on a very different scale of Humanity.
In regards to Paths of Enlightenment, they spoke of making Touchstones out of different things, maybe even making your Pack Priest a Touchstone. But, there's quite the way until that happens.There was also talked about the Conflict system, and how the system can be varied in detail, with certain conflicts just being able to be settled by simple difficulty, which was also the reason for the new dice system, where you can just half the dice pool to make a difficulty, and always decide not to roll under certain conditions, avoiding the use of the Hunger Dice.
Willpower was re-iterated as being extremely important, and the Compulsion lists were cited as being an optional rule, and more suggestions than actual rules.They also spoke a great deal about Loresheets, and how they are used to tie the player to the setting and the meta-plot.
The Dream of Byzantium is supposed to be a Loresheet. I'm unsure if I like it being scaled as a Background instead of Merits, as I really don't want every Toreador to have a few dots in Loresheet: Helena, because they wanted one of the things, and don't care for the lower stuff. (I'll probably houserule that if it is the case.)At this point, the only thing they haven't talked about at great lengths is the Memoratium mechanic, which I'm really looking forward to hearing more about... (Sigh. It's only a week or so... be cool)
In the fluff department, Matthew also shared a few tidbits.
It also appears that:
Not all of the Sabbat have left for the middle-east, but most of them did. So, we can still have roaming Sabbat in the night, just not as many.
The Church of Caine is apparantly the Canite Heresy, and is thriving in these nights.
The Ravnos still blew up. (
I hope they just got sidelined until the surviving big guys can embrace a new Clan.)
The 2nd Inquisition were the ones that fucked up the Tremere and assaulted Vienna. Maybe they even managed to blow the fuck out of Saulot the Worm? In any case, the division in the Tremere is now very outspoken, and I'm guessing that the Tremere vs Carna vs Goratrix is the new normal.
Assamites are now always referred to as the Banu Haqim, and the term Assamite is going to be a derogatory.
The Followers of Set are now more normally known as the Ministry, and will be a lot more inclusive to the rest of the Clan's various faiths. I'm guessing the Clan of Faith is still a moniker that works?
The Ashirra is now struggling with the arrival of the Sabbat Crusaders and will be far more visible in the coming material. And a free for all between the Ashirra, the Sabbat and the elders who have joined with the rising progenitors? Maybe Enoch is trying to awake his childer?
London has fallen and there is not a single vampire left in the city after the inquisitors rolled through.
Apparently, Mithras/Monty saw them coming. And because he had apparantly been waiting for this exact time, he decided not to warn the rest of the city, except his own cult, allowing them to escape before proceeding to get destroyed in a epic battle royale against the Inquisition, but as Matthew said, there's a chance Mithras is not that easy to put down. -
@thenomain said in New Vampire Release:
(edit a few days later: Trigger? The horse? Get it? No? Oh well. Back to the code mines.)
I got it. From the World of Lightness canon...
Roy Rogers and Dale Evans: Vampire Hunters. -
The embargo is lifted. I'm going to try to gather as much information into a single post as I can.
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I ran across this. I thought you guys might find some humor in it:
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Yeah, Dawkins is going to be doing one of those each week for the next few weeks. The content in there is V5-related, for metaplot and setting and such.
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I will hand it to the writers. They took all the negativity I had for nWoD vampire and gave me a new respect for it because this crap is just... No. Touchstones and feelyweelies and a system based around how hangry you are does not do it for me. I appreciate the theme stuff. Fuck yeah. Give us a theme again. But the gameplay itself is the problem. The exact opposite of nwod which had garbage theme and enjoyable gameplay.
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@admiral
Have you actually played any of it yet? I have, at least in the alpha. Assuming I'm reading your complaints right:
Re: Feelyweelys/Touchstones.There wasn't a complete Humanity rule in the alpha, so there's not really much I can comment on in actual play, but reading the 27 page preview and how you use Tenets (Chronicle-level Humanity things tailored to the game) and Convictions (personal-level Humanity things tailored to your PC) seems like it'll work out nicely, and help reinforce core themes for your game. Touchstones then tie into this being a person (but easily enough to rule into things/objects or organizations; one of the devs implied that for things like the Sabbat, your Pack Priest could be a Touchstone) that help you keep on that track by reminding you of it and reinforcing it for you.
Re: Hangry. Hunger System wasn't really that intrusive. You replace a die in a die pool with a hunger die for each Hunger level you have, which can cause a 'messy critical' where the Beast 'helps out' in its hunger. Plays well with the risk management system (and honestly, the level of bitching MU* players have about blood resource management, but then don't actually worry about it is hilarious). IMO it adds some dynamism to the Beast other than 'I'm low on blood/hungry but its not actually going to effect me unless I have actual bleeding people around me/am confronted with fire or sunlight'.
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@bobotron my reaction is knee jerk. That said... Touchstones are just awful. The idea of needing external forces to maintain sanity or morality does not mesh well with me. A hermit with no human contact would become a monster. That is almost as dumb as 'humanity' which implied that soldiers were heartless monsters for killing. There is no one size fits all for sanity or morality. Why do we need a game system for it? Let me play my character and my mental state how I choose. I will play Cthulu if I want to deal with sanity.
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@admiral
Because Vampires actually have an alien intelligence making them do bad, awful, monstrous things and the struggle against the Beast has been in there since Day 1, written if not mechanically backed? It's not an issue of 'lack of human contact makes you a monster' it's 'you have ideals, and these humans keep you in touch with/remind you why you have those ideals, in opposition of the Beast, which tells you to feed and kill and debase yourself with its urges'.
I'm personally not super a fan of touchstones having to be a 'a dude,' since concepts are timeless and there are great examples of having 'things' that remind you of your convictions. Again, an easy house rule.
However, my ur-example of Touchstones is Maharet's Great Family from the Vampire Chronicles (which is even really explained in much the same way), so my view on it is very much in line with what WW is putting forth here in V5.
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@bobotron People are alien as well. No two people think alike or view the world the same way. Abortion. Is it murder? Is murder even wrong? What about stealing? Not only does every human have their own views but so does every group. Every culture. Every society. Applying a one size fits all view to morality in a game system like WoD is ham handed at best, offensive at worst.
And what about people with social issues? What about Autism? Or more seriously, what about people who literally can't connect with other humans due to how they were born? Are they monsters?
That's what bothers me about morality systems.
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@admiral
Right, which is what Convictions represent. You seem to have missed part of it, or not fully understood what I attempted to articulate. V5's Humanity isn't 'one size fits all' like OWoD or NWoD morality attempted to do. It's made up up 2 parts: Chronicle Tenets and Convictions.Chronicle Tenets are societal 'concepts' that are built by the troupe, both players and STs, based on anything from genre emulation, dramatic irony, to personal taste or real-life player concerns. There's some writing there about avoiding things that may come into contact with a player's real-life trauma.
And then players, individually, build the Convictions for their characters, typically 1 to 3 separate Convictions, which define their own personal code of ethics.
From the 27 page preview:
Some example Convictions might include:
■ Thou shalt not kill
■ Kill only the unworthy/unbelievers/in fair combat/in self-defense
■ Never expose children to violence
■ Love thy neighbor as thyself
■ Disobedience is dishonor
■ Protect the innocent from harm
■ Courage is the highest virtue
■ Always keep your sworn word
■ The truth is sacred; thou shalt not lie
■ Slavery is evil
■ Obey authority
■ My country, right or wrong
■ None may control me
■ Never do drugs (or drink alcohol)
■ Thou shalt not torture
■ The guilty must be punished
■ From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs
■ Rob from the rich, give to the poor
■ Reject wealth, for it corrupts
■ Never act against another (insert own group/faith/sect)
■ Always aid women in need
■ Stand up for the disenfranchised
■ Respect (insert religion here) as sacred and obey its moral lawsIt's not built as a 'one size fits all'. That's the POINT of Tenets and Convictions: you build it to fit your chronicle and characters, unlike standard OWoD Humanity or NWoD Humanity.
The 'connecting to humanity' angle is, as stated before, less about 'connecting to humanity' in general and 'I have a Conviction of Upholding The Faith of Christianity'. Super simple, so the Vampire has a Touchstone that is the Priest they go to for a sort-of confession. And this keeps the Beast at bay, and reminds the vampire of what he used to be, the things he finds/found important in life that follow into unlife.
So yes, a hermit VAMPIRE will inevitably go crazy because the Beast is eroding at their ability to not be a Slavering Hungering Eating Monster without those personal morals, in this version of the system. That's the point. I get that it's not your cup of tea, but that doesn't make it a bad mechanic. It fits OWoD Vampire and the lore and the way things have been written about the struggle against the Beast since First Edition.
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So it's basically The Sims' social meter.
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@admiral
It's just a sanity system.
Vampire 1e had a Morality System (Humanity). Seeing one in 5e shouldn't be that shocking.
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@thenomain It's not shocking. And my reaction is probably unreasonable. I just wish we didn't have a damn sanity meter based on something as arbitrary as 'Joe Bob Mortal keeps me sane! He's my bae!'
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@admiral
Eh, I don't see it as unreasonable; I see it serving two purposes.
- For RP, it forces you to consider your character and gives you weak points for the GM.
- For theme, it gives you boosts to resist the harrowing that was always meant to be Vampire's personal horror: Losing yourself to the Beast.
I don't think minding it is unreasonable, either; when D&D 3e hit I absolutely hated it because it was such a departure from AD&D (except killing Thac0, which was good), but it was a re-imagining of everything that was D&D while keeping enough of the system skeleton to make it possible.
It's just...well...Vampire.
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@thenomain said in New Vampire Release:
(except killing Thac0, which was good), but it was a re-imagining of everything that was D&D while keeping enough of the system skeleton to make it possible.Totally off topic but I have to do this, Except 3rd ed didn't kill ThacO they just reversed the math and called it base attack bonus. If you look at the base attack progression it matches identically with the ThacO progression for each class that existed at both, they just present it as a bonus to your role rather than a change in the target you were trying to roll. Better presentation I will agree but the underlying structure.
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So they kept the core math but changed three things about it and abandoned the concept.
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You people and your geriatric game systems ...
Get off my battlemat!
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PDFs drop tomorrow. I am planning to devour this over the weekend (god, it's my gaming weekend AND a new game drops? I may have to skip BESM to read Vampire!) and will post a more meaty review and rundown.
Some of the things that have been spoiled, though, really make it seem like a large chunk of it may be more easily automated (like, healing; you just rouse, and your Gen/Blood Potency determines how much you heal, rather than 'I spend 3 to heal 3').
