Vampire: the Masquerade [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

HMS Invincible

2010-09-24, 12:43 AM

Scarey Nerd

2010-09-24, 02:05 AM

I play this currently. I am not at all keen on the game mechanics, I find it more clunky compared to d20 system. The characters are far more powerful at the beginning of the campaign to level 1 D&D characters.

HOWEVER...

The power level doesn't matter as much, as you're generally going up against creatures with similar strength. As to disciplines, yes, Celerity and Potence are fantastic (Extra actions and auto-succeed strength checks, respectively). However, depending on your Clan you get different disciplines, and your Clan and backstory is more important than your abilities in this.

The GM is called a Storyteller for a reason: The entire game is plot based, and the combat etc will generally be far less important than the RP.

I played a Sabbat (Bad guys) spy in a Camarilla (Good guys) coterie. I played a Lasombra who's sire had destroyed his life before siring him. Lasombra have the unique Discipline of Obtenebrate, or "Shadowmancing". I was being interrogated by a priest and dominated him into staying still, then turned myself into a half-shadow half-Cainite demon, and rip his neck apart when I fed.

My point is, I initiated combat, but it was mainly RP during it.

I hope my rambling can help you slightly :smallsmile:

Edit: Oh, and I love this game :smalltongue:

cupkeyk

2010-09-24, 02:10 AM

I love V:tM. What you are experiencing is the bad design that gears towards min-maxing. With the distribution of dots, you can expect to have your character succeed in a few things but have absolutely no contribution in other tasks. One would think that this is a storyteller issue but I have played White Wolf modules and if you don't have a designated investigator, a designated face and several brawlers, you will have a very hard time.

Shooting guns is a funny way of wasting time in Vampire, yes.

Potence is one of the best combat disciplines. Notice the melee maneuver "clinch." It is STRENGTH+Brawl difficulty 8. That means vampires with potence never miss. Split your dice and follow-up with a bite(aggravated damage) and you kill anything. Really.

But this is intentional because vampire is a game of modern horror and intrigue. You are supposed to be paranoid that someone will maul you, so you stick to your coterie. Your brute is paranoid that harpies will publicly humiliate him out of the city, so they stick to the face. They are all afraid the nossies will blackmail them out of the shirts off their backs so they stick to the investigator.

Combat should be fast and bloody because the game does not (or should not) focus on combat. Its about the politics and slow slide down to hell and the desperate grab on humanity.

Kurald Galain

2010-09-24, 04:56 AM

My thoughts: The vampires main characters are way stronger at lvl 1 than 3.5 characters. The fluff is incredibly detailed, yet the game is very old. Melee owns everything, explosives solves the rest.
Ah, don't underestimate the power of Dominate, Presence, or Obfuscate.

Vampire isn't about combat (well, at least, not usually). It tends to be about social trickery and political manipulation. Well, of course you can beat up some mortals whenever you feel like :smalltongue:

And yes, this is one of the most detailed games ever in terms of fluff. I rather like reading the splatbooks just for the stories in there.

Malbordeus

2010-09-24, 05:04 AM

one sentance for VtM shooting

Doubled Barreled Shotgun, Tracer Rounds.

what you you get if you shoot a vampire with both barrels at close range? 16+dice of agravated damage...

Emperor Tippy

2010-09-24, 05:09 AM

It's great fun but I much prefer actually avoiding combat if at all possible.

You are a vampire with, potentially, thousands of years of life ahead of you. Why exactly are you risking your existence on anything less than a majorly important endeavor?

The best fun was when another character and I got together and bought a 787 and put a vault in the cargo area along with a few regular humans kept in comas or otherwise brain dead. Nothing much can get you when you sleep at 40,000 feet. :smallbiggrin:

FelixG

2010-09-24, 05:30 AM

I loved V:tm

So much better than this latest edition they shoved out... wish i still had my books :(

Tippy makes a good point, coming up with fun and unique places to sleep is half the fun.

I once knew a nosferatu player whos favorite hiding place was in a septic tank built into the deepest part of the cities sewers.

When i asked him why he responded "Would you wade through [Exponent deleted] to try to kill a critter while he sleeps or would you wait till he is awake?"

...I had to give him that one... :smallbiggrin:

Terraoblivion

2010-09-24, 05:32 AM

Like others have said, the combat is not the focus and you will not want it to be anyway, it is terribly. Specifically it is the slowest, least dynamic system i have ever played a combat in, even in groups with experienced players who knew exactly what they were doing and what they wanted to do.

Instead it is about the plots and political intrigue you can make based on the society. However, i have some fairly severe problems with that, at least once you move beyond the core book. Back in the nineties White Wolf hadn't quite figured out what was a good way to make large amounts of fluff, no one had really, and so they spent more time making the metaplot and crafting powerful NPCs than on answering questions that would help get in character. Little information was written about how the daily life in a vampiric court really was or about the psychology of the vampiric condition or the mundane interactions between members of the same clan. Instead they spent a lot of time writing a long, confusing and often contradictory background to the setting, as well focusing on what went on behind the scenes on the macro-level with characters the players couldn't meaningfully interact with. I also think that tying the capabilities of a character so closely to political entities, often ones with a very specific culture and policy, did a lot to make the game predictable and reduce variety between characters.

Instead i would recommend looking into Vampire: The Requiem which has three benefits over VtM in my opinion. One of them is that the system isn't so hairpullingly slow and clumsy and is even a bit more balanced. The other is that it is currently in print so finding books for it is much easier. The most important in my opinion, though, is that it addresses most of my complaints about the setting. They have shattered the monolithic nature of vampiric society and killed off the big, elaborate schemes manipulating the entire world, setting the GM much more free to create his own story. At the same time they have decoupled capabilities and political allegiance to a rather large degree, while also making the political groups hold greater internal diversity in culture and ideology. Finally their supplementary books are generally inclined to giving information on the microlevel and restricting themselves to giving suggestions, rather than making grandiose, interlocking stories.

Emperor Tippy

2010-09-24, 05:36 AM

BobVosh

2010-09-24, 06:15 AM

I don't like the fluff for V:TR as much, but I would definitely vote that you use NWoD mechanics. Much quicker.

Psyx

2010-09-24, 06:27 AM

Has anyone played this before? What did you guys think of it? The combat, the fluff, etc

It's a good concept, written by people who had no idea about balance or maths.
If you can play with a group and avoid min-maxxing, it's a fantastic game. It's too easily spoiled by idiot powergaming, though.

The background and story arcs (or 'fluff') are good.

Characters are reasonably competent to start with, but XP comes slowly. And there are lots of bigger fish out there: Elder vampires, werewolves and all that kind of stuff means that the Storyteller has a lot of big sticks if he needs them.

It's also a great game for leveraging contacts, thinking and problem solving. Combat is generally a last resort.

Some people play it almost as a superhero game. that blows.

Celerity owns all in combat. It's annoying and slows the game down.

Well... of course guns are rubbish. When you have a foe that can't really be 'critted', then blowing lots of very small holes in him is pointless: You need to cause major tissue damage. Melee is better. Mind effecting disciplines is even better than that. Getting someone else to kill him for you is even better!

evisiron

2010-09-24, 06:35 AM

I love the background and versatility in V:tM, but damn the combat can be slow.

"Roll to hit, roll for damage, roll to dodge, roll to soak, no damage done."
-Mantra of our group after the Gangrel incident.

Some of the abilities are brilliantly lethal though and the knowledge that one roll can ruin your character really adds an edge to the RP. :smallbiggrin:

Project_Mayhem

2010-09-24, 06:56 AM

Yeah, that game we were abusing the rules to take over the vampire world. Specifically those involving Siring and bonding an individual to yourself. Also the ones for advancing your generation.

Step 1: Create an army of former special forces soldiers who are now vamps perfectly loyal to us.
Step 2: Have them capture a vamp 1 generation lower.
Step 3: Eat them to go down a generation.
Step 4: Sire a bunch of new vamps for our soldiers to eat, lowering their generation by one.

Repeat until we were generation 4 and had an army of a thousand or so perfectly loyal, very highly trained, generation 5 vamps.

Unfortunately that game ended before we got to do any of the really fun stuff.

Which has flaws, step by step:
1: your childer are not automatically loyal to you. Blood bonds can be overthrown
2: This will get progressively harder. How did you get to gen 4 without eating antediluvians? You need one lower remember
3:Yeah, this isn't foolproof, especially with low gen vampires. Better hope to god you didn't eat any Malkavians, Gangrel, Tzimitze, Tremere or anyone with a strong enough will to do what happens a llot in canon fluff - grand theft me.
4: even if you ignore all the other stuff, Brilliant. You just caused gehenna. What you tried was what the Ravnos tried. And their antediluvian ate most of India.

@ OP - don't underestimate presence and dominate. You are Ventrue. Have the combat characters dancing on your puppet strings. Who cares if they can outfight you when they love you and will do anything to protect you? Fortitude, also, is awesome. I played a gangrel with 5 fort, and 5 stamina. I was immune to small arms. Seriously. A shotgun blast to the mouth wasn't going to do anything.

Caliphbubba

2010-09-24, 07:07 AM

I've played, and ran lots and lots and lots of VT:M.

It's easily one of my most favorite game systems, even with all it's flaws.

Its really very difficult to compare vampire games to a D&D game.

I'm currently playing in a table top game with a lot of heavy combat characters, and I am pretty pathetic as far as combat goes. The thing is that I am very strong in other ways, and am considered to be one of the more valueable members of the coterie I run with. Obfuscate/Auspex/Animalism>another idiot with potence.

Play to your strengths, and leave the rest of the them crying that they didn't get to use all their many dots of potence/celerity, because combat never happened.

From your description of the disciplines you have given I'm going to guess you are a Ventrue. Entrance, Entrance, Entrance and make a mad dash for Majesty.

See if you can learn 3 dots of Animalism from somewhere and get Quell the Beast...

Psyx

2010-09-24, 07:23 AM

Majesty is amazing. Presence is one of the best disciplines out there. Why fight when they're your friends now?

Emperor Tippy

2010-09-24, 07:38 AM

Which has flaws, step by step:
1: your childer are not automatically loyal to you. Blood bonds can be overthrown
You feed them your blood 3 times and continue to feed it to them regularly.

2: This will get progressively harder. How did you get to gen 4 without eating antediluvians? You need one lower remember
I said we never reached the end, we actually only got down to being gen 6.

3:Yeah, this isn't foolproof, especially with low gen vampires. Better hope to god you didn't eat any Malkavians, Gangrel, Tzimitze, Tremere or anyone with a strong enough will to do what happens a llot in canon fluff - grand theft me.
We didn't run into the problem by the time the game ended, we probably would have on the next few people.

4: even if you ignore all the other stuff, Brilliant. You just caused gehenna. What you tried was what the Ravnos tried. And their antediluvian ate most of India.
So?

Chen

2010-09-24, 07:44 AM

Mechanically the game is very unpolished. Disciplines are not balanced at all compared to each other. Things like chimistry are powerful but the costs are completely out of whack (willpower vs blood in almost all other disciplines). Animalism is fairly weak in modern nights (though 1-2 can be useful). Celerity is completely broken in combat. Thaumaturgy is very unbalanced even with just the base stuff. Rituals like Vitae infusion or Ethereal passage are very problematic to reign in without DM fiat. Not to mention the ability to lower you gen (blood path 3) is ridiculously overpowered, especially with no limits and combined with the Vitae infusion ritual to make a ton of blood coins.

Firearms can be useful if you have rounds that deal lethal or aggravated damage to vampires (though the latter is quite rare). A bunch of combat maneuvers are also pretty unbalanced though I can't recall which since we never played with them after the first time we realized they weren't terribly well balanced.

The flavor of the game is very well done though. The clan histories and interactions presented in the book are well done and allow for good storytelling. The world itself is also well done though cross-overs between other white wolf products don't work so well if you use the rules from the other systems. However introducing werewolves as big bags of potence and celerity that keep the kindred out of the woods does work fine for example.

Project_Mayhem

2010-09-24, 09:08 AM

You feed them your blood 3 times and continue to feed it to them regularly.

I said we never reached the end, we actually only got down to being gen 6.

We didn't run into the problem by the time the game ended, we probably would have on the next few people.

So?

OK. I can see 6th Gen maybe working if you got lucky. And the blood bond point was that even if your 3rd level bound, at the cost of some willpower, you can act against your domitor. Say, by telling more powerful vamps.

Edit: Oh - also the first diablerie stains your soul and highlights to every elder that your a threat.

Caliphbubba

2010-09-24, 09:32 AM

OK. I can see 6th Gen maybe working if you got lucky. And the blood bond point was that even if your 3rd level bound, at the cost of some willpower, you can act against your domitor. Say, by telling more powerful vamps.

Edit: Oh - also the first diablerie stains your soul and highlights to every elder that your a threat.

this whole plan is way easier if you're a Tremere.

couple of rituals namely:
nectar of the bitter rose(group diablrie), and innocence of the child's heart(pure white aura, no "soul stains").

but all in all I agree this isn't going to work in practice, unless ya know, it does. Like with the Tremere, who already did this once....if you replace special forces with mages.

comicshorse

2010-09-24, 09:35 AM

t
and innocence of the child's heart(pure white aura, no "soul stains").

Given the nature of Kindred an aura like that seems to me the equivalent of carrying a placard declaring : " I'm disguising my aura ":smallsmile:

Caliphbubba

2010-09-24, 09:42 AM

Given the nature of Kindred an aura like that seems to me the equivalent of carrying a placard declaring : " I'm disguising my aura ":smallsmile:

yep, sure is. which to my knowledge isn't against any of the traditions :-)

There are a couple other ways around it too if I remember right, a combo discipline that involves Vissicitude... and I think there is an elder obfuscate power that makes you have no aura.

and to mention the fact that seeing diablirere lines with an Aura Perception is no sure thing. It's a difficulty 8 roll that you need at least 3 successes on, maybe more.

But back on topic:

There is a reason why most Princes of the Camarilla are of your Clan, OP.
Presence and Dominate are incredibly powerful. If you want to be a combat monster you're going to have to work at it more, but if you want to be a monster in all the ways that really matter in a Vampire game (political, social, influence-wise) You have some of the best tools to accomplish this.

El Dorado

2010-09-24, 09:42 AM

:smallwink:I have some fond memories of playing Vampire. I rolled up a "stuntman"---gangrel with three dots in Fortitude; found out quickly that celerity and potence were the way to go. During his Embrace, I rolled a triple botch, double botch, followed by a triple botch. Storyteller said that I wiped out during a car chase and that I took out a school bus full of nuns and children. My group joked that I wasn't really a stuntman; camera crews just followed me around due to my rep for quality carnage.

Psyx

2010-09-24, 10:08 AM

this whole plan is way easier if you're a Tremere.

couple of rituals namely:
nectar of the bitter rose(group diablrie), and innocence of the child's heart(pure white aura, no "soul stains").

But then there's a ritual to get around EVERYTHING.
The people who wrote the game all played Tremere it seemed.

Obfuscate 6 can disguise or modify auras. It doesn't remove them. Unless you maybe want it to...

Caliphbubba

2010-09-24, 10:18 AM

But then there's a ritual to get around EVERYTHING.
The people who wrote the game all played Tremere it seemed.

Obfuscate 6 can disguise or modify auras. It doesn't remove them. Unless you maybe want it to...

I think that Obfuscate 6 power says if you don't have Aura Perception you can make yourself have no Aura as one of the options.

and yes Tremere were/are very broken. I actually like the Dark Ages rules for Thaumaturgy better. Every use of Thaum required a willpower point.

I really think that Tremere were intended to be an NPC clan as well...but somewhere along the line that concept went by the wayside.

as a side note I liked Dark Ages Celerity rules better too. 1 blood for each dot of Celerity you want to activate instead of 1 blood to activate all dots.

El Dorado

2010-09-24, 10:19 AM

Caliphbubba

2010-09-24, 10:25 AM

Yeah, the Storyteller's really crucial for a good Vampire game. Ours ran a Dark Ages storyline. We (the players) had the bright idea that we'd all blood bond each other so we wouldn't be vulnerable to outside forces. I don't remember if it actually worked; I do remember that we ended up killing most of our retainers in an insane blood orgy. Best laid plans. . . .

Sounds a lot like Vinculum, that the Sabat uses.

I played in and ran a Dark Ages game every tuesday for like 3 years, good times. good times.

The Ventrue (to try and stay on topic), in that game were our greatest enemies. Interwoven bloodbonds/and sleeper agents introduced into our cities power base, and out right domination were pretty fearful.

So just to say it again OP....you have the potential to be the most powerful member of your group, just not in a straight up fight. Be sneaky. Work smarter, not harder

Thrawn4

2010-09-24, 10:27 AM

comicshorse

2010-09-24, 10:29 AM

each[/I] dot of Celerity you want to activate instead of 1 blood to activate all dots.

Be grateful you never experienced the original rules for Celerity. One blood to activate all the dots AND the level of Celerity added to your Dex when you used it

Caliphbubba

2010-09-24, 10:31 AM

Be grateful you never experienced the original rules for Celerity. One blood to activate all the dots AND the level of Celerity added to your Dex when you used it

I played since 1st edition in both table top and LARP. I don't remember that, but it's been a number of years so I could be just forgetful.

comicshorse

2010-09-24, 10:37 AM

A fight with a Toreador with lots of Celerity and a switchblade ( Diff 3 to hit) is burned into my brain as an example of truely dire rules.

El Dorado

2010-09-24, 10:40 AM

I played since 1st edition in both table top and LARP. I don't remember that, but it's been a number of years so I could be just forgetful.

Couldn't you also specialize in the weapon, drop the diff down by 1 or 2 ranks? My memory's hazy.

Caliphbubba

2010-09-24, 10:44 AM

Couldn't you also specialize in the weapon, drop the diff down by 1 or 2 ranks? My memory's hazy.

I don't think so. the way I remember the specializing rules is that it allows you to re-roll any "10" you got on roll. so if you have a specialization in Melee with Swords, any 10 you roll on your Dex+Melee roll you got to roll again for extra successes.

Oracle_Hunter

2010-09-24, 10:46 AM

one sentance for VtM shooting

Doubled Barreled Shotgun, Tracer Rounds.

what you you get if you shoot a vampire with both barrels at close range? 16+dice of agravated damage...
Tracer rounds for a shotgun :smallconfused:

Anyhoo, the point of oWoD Vampire isn't the mechanics. No oWoD game is about the mechanics; it's about the fluff. Personally, I found the Humanity system too confining (and the alternate paths confusing) and high-power play just plain silly; I much prefer to use it as the basis for a one-shot, or no-advancement campaign.

Heck, the best campaign I ran was set in a Miami Vice -esque Florida. In the end two PCs were kicked off the force for shooting it out with some Setites but were reinstated when they stopped a rogue Camarilla Noble from supplying the Sabbat with high-powered weapons in a bid to unseat the Prince. A boat exploded and everyone high-fived :smallbiggrin:

EDIT: Also, the OP should note that the only way to "balance" an oWoD game is through aggressive ST fiating. Keep that in mind while playing; if you're STing, be ready to drop the hammer on the PCs - and if you're playing, try to stay on the good side of your ST.

El Dorado

2010-09-24, 10:56 AM

Tracer rounds for a shotgun :smallconfused:

Anyhoo, the point of oWoD Vampire isn't the mechanics. No oWoD game is about the mechanics; it's about the fluff. Personally, I found the Humanity system too confining (and the alternate paths confusing) and high-power play just plain silly; I much prefer to use it as the basis for a one-shot, or no-advancement campaign.

Heck, the best campaign I ran was set in a Miami Vice -esque Florida. In the end two PCs were kicked off the force for shooting it out with some Setites but were reinstated when they stopped a rogue Camarilla Noble from supplying the Sabbat with high-powered weapons in a bid to unseat the Prince. A boat exploded and everyone high-fived :smallbiggrin:

EDIT: Also, the OP should note that the only way to "balance" an oWoD game is through aggressive ST fiating. Keep that in mind while playing; if you're STing, be ready to drop the hammer on the PCs - and if you're playing, try to stay on the good side of your ST.

We had a running joke about some flaws the players automatically received. Storyteller's Resentment. Insane Storyteller. Storyteller's Enmity. You didn't get merits for them but they were always in play. :smallwink:

Psyx

2010-09-24, 11:06 AM

A fight with a Toreador with lots of Celerity and a switchblade ( Diff 3 to hit) is burned into my brain as an example of truely dire rules.

Yeah: Switchblades did more damage than greatswords, because...it's easier to hit with them *facepalm*

washmcrack

2010-09-24, 11:27 AM

I have been playing VtM for about 10 years now and I like the game. I fing the system is very easy for new RPers to get into as most of it is actual role playing, also there arent all these new dice to learn (do i throw a d8 or a d12?) you just count the dots and roll. As for combat you are completely correct that melee is the king of the mountain and that explosives come up as a close second. With fire being a very powerful weapon as well, however with fire you need to worry about what your character will do if he gets scared of it. lets face it vampires are flammable. Overall though VtM is probably my favorite RPG because it was my first with DnD coming us close behind in second.

Chen

2010-09-24, 11:29 AM

Yeah, that game we were abusing the rules to take over the vampire world. Specifically those involving Siring and bonding an individual to yourself. Also the ones for advancing your generation.

Step 1: Create an army of former special forces soldiers who are now vamps perfectly loyal to us.
Step 2: Have them capture a vamp 1 generation lower.
Step 3: Eat them to go down a generation.
Step 4: Sire a bunch of new vamps for our soldiers to eat, lowering their generation by one.

Repeat until we were generation 4 and had an army of a thousand or so perfectly loyal, very highly trained, generation 5 vamps.

Unfortunately that game ended before we got to do any of the really fun stuff.

You'd give in to the beast fairly early doing this. Not to mention the frenzying after the diablerie and such. And really once you start hitting 8th gen or lower people are going to start noticing these things. 7th gen vamps have been around a VERY long time for the most part and it just gets worse as you get lower. There's the other issue of fully blood bonding that many vampires is almost certainly going to result in massive infighting between them for your "love". That or some of them will eventually use their willpower, suppress the bond and eat YOU in your sleep at some point.

Oracle_Hunter

2010-09-24, 11:32 AM

With fire being a very powerful weapon as well, however with fire you need to worry about what your character will do if he gets scared of it. lets face it vampires are flammable.
Feh, just wear asbestos clothing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos#Historic_usage); it's much harder to set on fire and you don't have to worry about asbestosis :smalltongue:

Caliphbubba

2010-09-24, 11:38 AM

You'd give in to the beast fairly early doing this. Not to mention the frenzying after the diablerie and such. And really once you start hitting 8th gen or lower people are going to start noticing these things. 7th gen vamps have been around a VERY long time for the most part and it just gets worse as you get lower. There's the other issue of fully blood bonding that many vampires is almost certainly going to result in massive infighting between them for your "love". That or some of them will eventually use their willpower, suppress the bond and eat YOU in your sleep at some point.

you'd give into the beast if you were on Humanity. Be on Path of Caine or Path of Blood, and you might actually increase your Path rating.

and be Sabat. pretty much solves the rest of this. added cheese if you have the Unbondable Merit and/or decide to Condition your strike force.

it certainly pretty difficult to do, but its not that different than what the Tremere and Giovanni accomplished.

MickJay

2010-09-24, 12:41 PM

There's a specific caveat about Unbondable and Iron Will in Sabbat games - the Storytellers are encouraged to disallow them.

The system isn't terribly good for combat, but then again, it's not supposed to be the main focus of the game. As for uselessness of firearms, remember that headshots are always lethal (no halving damage), and that the Storyteller might well introduce (or allow) various types of ammunition that would deal lethal (or even aggravated) damage, explosive bullets, incendiary shells, properly blessed ammunition and so forth.

The Big Dice

2010-09-24, 01:04 PM

There's a lot of talk about the mechanics of V:tM, with good reason. They do suck.

In fact, I pretty much despise the whole World of Darkness line. Bad mechanics, silly (to my mind at least) ideas underpinning everything and this general feel of everything being stuck in the mid 90s. Not to mention the elitist attitude that some players bring from the game. I pretty much dislike the whole thing.

That said, and putting all matters of personal taste aside, it is without a doubt one of the most important RPGs ever published.

It's up there with D&D (the first), RuneQuest (introducing skill based rather than level based mechanics), Traveller (hard sci-fi gaming) Warhammer (the first game to outsell AD&D) and GURPS (the first system that wasn't tied to a particular genre). And that's because it was the game that codified the concept of storytelling rather than hack and slash gaming.

RPGs had arguably been moving in that direction for some time, but Vampire was the one that put the idea of the story as the most important aspect of the game right there, front and center.

And for that, it's well worth checking out. Warts and all.

(I much preferred the GURPS rendition of the game, myself. It had better mechanics holding it all together imo.)

Caliphbubba

2010-09-24, 01:14 PM

Vampire was the one that put the idea of the story as the most important aspect of the game right there, front and center.

And for that, it's well worth checking out. Warts and all.

Very well said. Despite all the rules wank and the possibilty for imbalance, this is why the oWoD will always be one of my most favorite games.

darkpuppy

2010-09-24, 01:14 PM

I'm very fond of WoD, both 2.0 and oWoD, but I don't actually find the flaws in the combat (which, as other posters have noted, is generally discouraged), I find it in the sheer amount of pre-game work you have to do to make a really good Chronicle.

It's interesting how people have their preferences, but the Disciplines are very situational. If you're the combat monkey, then celerity, potence, vigor (or resilience) are the best. If you're the face, dominate, majesty, all that jazz (even Nightmare, if you want a laugh). If you're sneaky, auspex, obfuscate... the list goes on, but the thing is it's very situational, and is more concerned with story than balance or combat. Also agreeing that the fluff rocks... :)

Satyr

2010-09-24, 03:08 PM

The rules aren't that bad. They are supposed to be rather soft rules which should be bent on a whim and not as a set or rules set in stone; with a certain laissez faire attitude they work just fine. Sure, there are a few hickups here and there, especially in the combat rules (it helps however to use the official patch in form of the aptly named Combat book), and yes, the mind control /mind screw disciplines can easily become gamebreakers, but within the angle of the game the rules are only a crutch anyway.
Yes, that's not really good game design, but within the context of the storyteller games, it works.

Sarquion

2010-09-24, 03:18 PM

I just want to put it out there, that I have thoroughly enjoyed the sessions of V:TM i've been having and true melee classes are definitely good but if you are a tremere (Blood mage clan) you can make one frenzy in amidst his allies effectively using their combat users against them. A to confirm what Scarey Nerd said at the start, this game is heavily RP based ... or at least that's how we played it and it was if I dare say more enjoyable then D&D. And finally in my opinion I also prefer the D10 system over the D20 system.

HMS Invincible

2010-09-25, 03:52 AM

comicshorse

2010-09-25, 08:54 AM

Has anyone tried maxing out their humanity? I hear you get some benefits for maxing it out.

I get xp so slowly, so anything I did "wrong" I'm stuck with. So what can I really do with presence 2 and dominate 2? It seems pointless to use on anything that not a human. And I'm filthy rich so humans will do what I say anyway.

For the Humanity the higher it is the nicer you are. At ten you have to be a saint and if you don't live up to your saintliness your humanity is going to plummet.
Ruleswise there are disadvantages to having low Humanity, at 3 or 4 you start looking positively monstrous and the Beast starts to take-over your character. At higher levels high humanity can make you undetectable by certain Werewolf Gifts ( Sense Wyrm for example) but unless you feel you can roleplay a living saint Humanity in the 6-8 region is best.

As for : ' And I'm filthy rich so humans will do what I say anyway ' try flashing your cheque-book at the cop who just found you dumping the mortal you accidentally killed and see how far that gets you :smallsmile:

Kurald Galain

2010-09-25, 09:49 AM

Warhammer (the first game to outsell AD&D)
What.

Has anyone tried maxing out their humanity? I hear you get some benefits for maxing it out.
As I recall, how well you can stay awake during the day (or wake up when someone disturbs your haven) depends on your humanity, as does how long you stay unconscious when knocked into torpor (which can range up to centuries for low-hum kindred).

Also, not being detectable by Sense Wyrm (which is pretty much the most common Werewolf gift out there) is a big plus. Iirc that requires hum 8, where 7 is the human average; this is not nearly as impossible as attaining hum 10.

The Big Dice

2010-09-25, 10:15 AM

What.
The first edition of Warhammer Fantasy RPG was the first RPG ever to out sell AD&D. It was also the first RPG to add grit and grime to the fantasy genre, and to move away from the psedo middle ages most fantasy RPGs are mired in.

It even won awards for the Enemy Within campaign, beating out Call of Cthulhu for the big awards of the time.

But it didn't sell minis, so it got dropped by GW.

Kurald Galain

2010-09-25, 10:27 AM

The first edition of Warhammer Fantasy RPG was the first RPG ever to out sell AD&D.
Got a source for that? What do you mean by "outsell", anyway? Sold more books in one year than the other system? Sold more books total than the other system? Made a bigger profit margin? Something else?

It was also the first RPG to add grit and grime to the fantasy genre, and to move away from the psedo middle ages most fantasy RPGs are mired in.
I'll take your word for it, but since it was released twelve years after the first edition of D&D, I find it somewhat surprising that it's the first ever to have a "gritty" setting.

It even won awards for the Enemy Within campaign, beating out Call of Cthulhu for the big awards of the time.
Since COC was released in 1981, five years earlier, I'm not sure how this would work; those awards go by year, don't they?

HMS Invincible

2010-09-26, 04:36 AM

Alright, I figured out that Ventrue are utterly worthless for combat. I just saw 50 members of my clan from generation 11-14 get killed by a Scourge and some generation 12 with celerity/potence cheese.

The reason they did that was because the Ventrue(my clan) has been taken over by an antediluvian Ventrue. He told me he wants to start world war IV. There was a time jump for my group which put us 6 years into the future. In those 6 years, my 4 dots in resource went to 5. Apparently, mid-sized retail company grew at 50% a year, for 6 years straight. And the psychotic antediluvian seized control of my company and spent 2 billion dollars out of my $3 billion income every year, for SIX years. I've spent the last 8 hours reading through my notes, and interrogating people. The psycho spent 12 billion dollars of my company money on tanks, guns, warplanes, 150 battlecruisers, carriers, a harbor in the arctic, Somali Pirates with said battle cruisers...

I don't think I can take him out, but if I can live for one more week, I'll be able to do something. In 1 week, the first mecha- iron man suit comes out of development. The week after that, I can start mass producing those suits, and sending them out to my allies. However, I think it's all a part of the storyteller/GM plan to end the god damn world. Should I try to stop him? I've never been with a GM who's end game is to kill everything, and start the world anew.

Jornophelanthas

2010-09-26, 07:19 AM

That doesn't sound like Vampire: the Masquerade, even if it uses some of the rules and game concepts.

Vampire is about the story, not about combat. While some situations are resolved through combat, there are many other possible ways to deal with problems, such as guile, social domination, blood magic, and calling in favours from the right people at the right time to do any of the above.

Players should realize that their characters are no longer social creatures (i.e. humans), but solitary predators who view humans as food, even if they try not to. They are forced to work together and pretend to be human by the way the world works, especially in the Camarilla.

Emotionally, Vampires are on autopilot. They no longer experience true lust, passion, creativity or bliss. They can never enjoy the taste of human food again, other than blood. Deep down, they are bloodthirsty monsters, and they know it. The more civilized types pretend to be human and to emulate a human life, but in the end it's all an act with which they try to hide their monstrosity from themselves.

The less civilized types, well, they gradually devolve into undead beasts with every horrendous act they perform. At medium levels of Humanity (6 and lower), you already start to look unhealthily pale, like a fresh corpse, and have to remind yourself to breathe whenever you're not speaking, so people don't notice that something is wrong with you. You can spend blood points to temporarily appear more alive to present yourself to the human public, but the price gets steep as you slide further downwards. At Humanity 3 and lower, it's safe to say that you can no longer deal with humans in a social way, because the effort to do so has become unmanageable and your interest to do is also rapidly disappearing. The less human you become, the more you become a mindless predator. At Humanity 0, you lose your last remnants of human intelligence.

Storytellers are encouraged to continuously evaluate players' actions at all times against their current Humanity levels. Whenever a player sins against his own moral standards (i.e. current Humanity level), the Storyteller should call for a Conscience check in order to not lose a Humanity point. These rolls are difficult, and a success should be roleplayed by showing appropriate remorse. Vampire characters who are action "heroes" tend to gravitate towards Humanity 4.

If you think Humanity is for wusses, and you turn to a different Path, bear in mind that there are two restrictions on this:
1. It is extremely hard to find someone willing to initiate you, and even if you do find someone who does, expect many, many sacrifices. Turning to a non-human philosophy is a story in itself, and requires roleplaying.
2. The tenets of your new philosophy can be restrictive. For one, in many Paths you lose the ability to appear as anything but an undead monster to humans. In others, you can no longer resist Frenzy, but can only steer it. And there are many alien rules to abide by, similar to the moral rules of Humanity, and many of these tend to limit your actions just like Humanity. Bear in mind that the designers deliberately did not create a "Path Of Kicking *** And Getting Away With It".

In conclusion, Vampire: the Masquerade is primarily not about action and tossing about many, many dice to blow stuff up. No, it is a Storytelling game of personal horror (which is also the subtitle of the game), where players and their characters need to wrestle with the inhuman, monstrous Beast that is the essence of being a Vampire.

---

And by the way, there is no such thing as "a" Ventrue Antediluvian, but rather "the" Ventrue Antediluvian. Antediluvians are the founders of clans, so each clan only has one.

Selrahc

2010-09-26, 07:31 AM

The reason they did that was because the Ventrue(my clan) has been taken over by an antediluvian Ventrue.

An antedeluvian is a founder of a clan. If this is a ventrue antedeluvian then you should abandon all hope, especially if you're a ventrue. At least under official rules.

More likely to be a methuselah. Still insanely powerful, but a little bit less so.

The psycho spent 12 billion dollars of my company money on tanks, guns, warplanes, 150 battlecruisers, carriers, a harbor in the arctic, Somali Pirates with said battle cruisers...

Yeah.. uh he has a navy around about the size of the British navy, with ships that cost a billion dollars each. And a giant military force backing it up.

The twelve billion he got from your company is going to be less than a tenth of a percent of the costs to set that up. He has got to have a network of support for that thing stretching around the world. The upkeep on these things alone is going to be hundreds of billions every year. The ability to produce them on those numbers in that timescale is staggering. If he doesn't have backing from major world governments then it is basically impossible.

If he is attempting to keep this world shattering army a secret then it should be pretty easy to expose him. Once the world governments know about this secret private army comparable in stature to the US's they will be forced to take action. And since he has had the good grace to station his army in the arctic rather than a densely populated area that action could well be nuclear.

Of course that might be just what he is trying to cause. And with his ability for mind control you are going to be looking with paranoia at anyone you meet

Should I try to stop him?

Yeah! Definitely at least try. Not because it's the most logical thing to do when confronted by a being of almost incalculable power, but because your other option is to go hide out in a nuclear bunker awaiting the apocalypse. And that doesn't make for a fun session.

The Big Dice

2010-09-26, 07:49 AM

Got a source for that? What do you mean by "outsell", anyway? Sold more books in one year than the other system? Sold more books total than the other system? Made a bigger profit margin? Something else?
Dragon Magazine in the mid 80s. Also Imagine magazine, which was the UK published TSR mag. Neither of which were anything like the glossy in house publications that Dragon (and White Dwarf even more so) later became.

And by "out sold" I mean "sold more books in a given year." Which is kind of an obvious meaning for somehting selling more.

I'll take your word for it, but since it was released twelve years after the first edition of D&D, I find it somewhat surprising that it's the first ever to have a "gritty" setting.
You'd be surprised how first and second generation RPGs were very much not about the grimdark nasty style of setting or gaming.

The mid 80s was a time of huge expansion and change in the RPG market, in many ways it was the Golden Age of gaming. WHFRPG was very much a chhild of that period of experimenting and change. It as only later that Games Workshop became the inwards looking company they are today.

Since COC was released in 1981, five years earlier, I'm not sure how this would work; those awards go by year, don't they?
Awards for campaigns go year by year, yes. But things like Masks of Nyarlathotep and Shadows of Yog Sothoth used to win two and three years in a row.

Project_Mayhem

2010-09-26, 07:58 AM

... But Shadows of Yogsothoth is absolute crap

cupkeyk

2010-09-26, 10:09 AM

Ventrue would stay within crowds and near Elysium. If those celerity/potence cheese bots started doing **** like that, a ventrue would politely, inadvertantly mention it to a harpy and the harpy will have those guys stripped of any status, possibly killed for breaching the masquerade.

And by the way, there is no such thing as "a" Ventrue Antediluvian, but rather "the" Ventrue Antediluvian. Antediluvians are the founders of clans, so each clan only has one.

And several(two?) clans have a single antedeluvian. Baali and Salubri.

comicshorse

2010-09-26, 10:12 AM

The Rose Dragon

2010-09-26, 10:17 AM

An antedeluvian is a founder of a clan. If this is a ventrue antedeluvian then you should abandon all hope, especially if you're a ventrue. At least under official rules.

Antediluvian vampires are basically world-ending events. You may need the entire Camarilla to actually have hope at opposing him in any field. They are only two steps beneath Caine, whose game stats are "You Lose.". Basically, the ST threw you a plot device that is generally reserved for end-game scenarios. Personally, I would stop playing Vampire with him.

Tiki Snakes

2010-09-26, 10:21 AM

I think a couple of the above posters have hit the nail on the head. You are doing it wrong. Stop having fun. You can't beat Asmodeus/The Lady of Pain that way.

Sorry to break it to you, but the game has to end now. :smallwink:

On a more serious note, I think that in the case of such a powerful (militarily and personaly) individual, you really do need to go the multilateral route. You mentioned equipping allies, that's a good start, but my instinct is that if possible you should have both military allies and supernatural ones. The fact that the guy is apparently pushing for a world-ending-war should be all it takes to mobilise at least some extra factions against him.

I understand oWoD werewolves are pretty 'handy'. If you could afford to tip some of them off as to his whereabouts and general plan, that could make a pretty serious dent, I'd imagine?

An above poster did mention about the whole private-army-will-attract-a-response angle, and I think it's got a lot of merit. You need to find out who he's got backing him, and get everyone else to back you and your guys. Then preferably convince some of his backers that this whole thing will end in tears.

At the end of the day, I think the challenge of trying to stop him or thwart him at least is a lot more attractive than doing nothing, even if it does result in the End of the World. Armageddon would make a nice enough way to end the campaign, I'd say. :smallsmile:

tcrudisi

2010-09-26, 10:43 AM

Has anyone played this before? What did you guys think of it? The combat, the fluff, etc

My thoughts: The vampires main characters are way stronger at lvl 1 than 3.5 characters. The fluff is incredibly detailed, yet the game is very old. Melee owns everything, explosives solves the rest.
I'm exaggerating, but I do think melee oriented people get all the glory. I shot someone and my bullets did nothing, and I got shot back. The other guy whaled on the bad guy with his sword and fist, and Melee guy won. =\

Lastly, I'm not sure how to model a d10 system in my head. With critting meaning you get to roll another d10. If the difficulty is 5, I have 4 skill points, and I need 3 successes, what are the chances that I can succeed?

Yep, I used to be a Storyteller for the "independent vampires" on White Wolf's official online chat game - New Bremen. Obviously I really enjoyed it or I wouldn't have done that (also, free White Wolf product helped, but it wasn't nearly enough to warrant doing it on my own). I really liked the combat system and the fluff - especially how there are no "good" vampires, only political institutions that are both inherently evil.

Agreed - vampires at level 1 are stronger than D&D level 1 characters. Note, however, that a beginning vampire is the weakest out of all the old WoD type characters (except possibly Hunters which I know nothing about). However, they scale decently. A "level 1" werewolf will beat the crap out of a "level 1" vampire without a sweat. However, an "epic level vampire" will make short-work of a pack of "epic level werewolves". Epic-level mages, changelings, and mummies still rock the socks off of an epic-level vampire.

Melee does tend to be better than guns, but a gun can be further twinked out than melee ever could. I remember how it's done (that doesn't mean I'm sharing...), but the exact numbers slip my mind without cracking open the books. Regardless, it is almost trivially easy, using a gun, to roll ~25 dice of aggravated damage in a single shot (so only one soak roll for those with Fortitude). "But what if you miss?" Oh, you won't. Something like 20-25 dice to hit at difficulty 2. If you miss on that shot... well, it won't happen. The odds of it happening are so small... and a melee character can never match that. But yeah, without twinking, melee wins.

And - I'm sure by now someone pointed this out, but you don't automatically get to reroll your 10's; you only reroll your 10's if you have a specialization that applies. If you don't, then modeling is easy: take the amount of dice multiplied by ([11-difficulty level]/10) minus (.1*amount of dice). So at difficulty 6 with 4 dice you have a (4*[11-6]/10)-.4 = 1.6 successes, on an average roll. Confused? Good. :smalltongue:

Now, specializations make it a bit more complicated, but it would involve adding in .1 / [10-difficulty level] to the above.

Why did I do 11-diff. level in the first one? Because if the dc is 6 and you subtract that from 10, you get 4. But really, a 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 works, which is 5 chances of success. Why did I do 10-diff. level in the second one? Because once again with dc 6 you get 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 but -1, so 4 chances to succeed.

tcrudisi

2010-09-26, 11:09 AM

Which has flaws, step by step:
2: This will get progressively harder. How did you get to gen 4 without eating antediluvians? You need one lower remember

Play an Assamite. They have ways around this restriction.

Couldn't you also specialize in the weapon, drop the diff down by 1 or 2 ranks? My memory's hazy.

I don't think so. the way I remember the specializing rules is that it allows you to re-roll any "10" you got on roll. so if you have a specialization in Melee with Swords, any 10 you roll on your Dex+Melee roll you got to roll again for extra successes.

Yes, there was an optional rule to do this. Caliphbubba is thinking of specializations, which yes, do not lower the DC but allow for exploding dice. However, the optional rule was called... /thinks ... secondary skills. Instead of taking Melee and taking Swords as a specialization, you just take a skill called Katanas. The upside? It gives you -2 to the difficulty when using that skill (in this case, standard dc is 4 when attacking with a katana). The downside? You can't use the "Katanas" skill when attacking with a knife, or a crowbar, or a broadsword, or anything else.

Also - just announced Friday night in New Orleans by the guy I used to work for when I was a ST for their online chat:

we are making the World of Darkness MMO

I'm genuinely curious but I don't play MMO's any more. I'll try it out just to see what it's like, though.

Selrahc

2010-09-26, 11:14 AM

That doesn't sound like Vampire: the Masquerade, even if it uses some of the rules and game concepts.

It sounds completely like the lunacy that was the end game run up to gehenna. It's a little more technology and conventional military focussed, but alongside stuff like Ravnos eating half of India? Or the dozen end the world doomsday scenarios in the final supplement? Seems pretty much on par.

It sounds like the guy is running a high power elder game, set in the final nights. And this is a perfectly understandable way to go for that.

It is definitely a long way away from a normal vampire game though. The events of the metaplot are normally meant to be world shaking events that reinforce how low down the food chain the players are. To step up onto the stage and start participating in them is a very unusual direction to take the game.

Jornophelanthas

2010-09-26, 02:11 PM

It sounds completely like the lunacy that was the end game run up to gehenna. It's a little more technology and conventional military focussed, but alongside stuff like Ravnos eating half of India? Or the dozen end the world doomsday scenarios in the final supplement? Seems pretty much on par.

It sounds like the guy is running a high power elder game, set in the final nights. And this is a perfectly understandable way to go for that.

It is definitely a long way away from a normal vampire game though. The events of the metaplot are normally meant to be world shaking events that reinforce how low down the food chain the players are. To step up onto the stage and start participating in them is a very unusual direction to take the game.

I disagree.

While it is feasible for an Antediluvian (or Methuselah) to wake up and seize control of a clan or bloodline in order to bring about some big war, there are a number of flaws in the story we've been given.

1. An Antediluvian, or even a Methuselah, is a millennia-old creature that (perhaps) was once human, and for the last 500+ years, this creature has been asleep. It cannot be expected that an ancient vampire would understand the value of money (including the concept of banking), the importance of modern technology, the existence of geopolitics, and the way in general that the world works these days. Effectively, an ancient vampire lives in the past, and will have a lot of difficulty dealing with the present-day world, except with brute force. Even the smart ones. A plan like the one described requires at least a decade of slow adjusting to the present world, starting from the very basics.

2. Antediluvians (and Methuselahs) are so far removed from humanity, that they do not care one way or the other about any single person, people or nation. They might have an opinion on the human race as a whole, and this might be that it should be exterminated for some cosmic reason. A war could accomplish this. But an ancient vampire would rather use its own supernatural talents as a driving force behind such a war, than an army, tanks, gunships, Somali pirates and artic naval ports.
While technological warfare could play a role, it will likely not be organised by the Antediluvian itself, but rather by (younger) clan elders who have actually witnessed the last 200 years, but these will not pool their influence, as they plot among themselves for power.

In short, this war is not supernatural enough, and is way to rationally organised.

HMS Invincible

2010-09-26, 02:23 PM

Tiki Snakes

2010-09-26, 06:39 PM

Well, I think the reason we are participating on the world stage is because of how strong the celerity/potence is. One player is an immune to dominate Status 5 Scourge. We were suppose to be forced to meet up with super vampire by his minion when they just went supersayan and laid waste to all the opposing vampires. I definitely feel small compared to them, but they are at least my sorta allies. My clan is going insane though. Is the power to be gained and lost worth breaking the masquerade? The storyteller says yes. I intend to make him say no.

However, I am NOT one of those ubervampire PCs. My super power is my money. I just achieved status 2, haven 5, and armed forces 2 through my sheer wealth. The Storyteller made me the rank 2 ventrue in North America behind the antediluvian guy. I am not going to survive against anyone who wants to stop me. Lastly, I technically work for said antediluvian, and each of the players have their own goals. How do I warn them in a way doesn't end up with my head on a stick? They are dragging me to the Brujah Prince in Cairo Egypt and they are concerned that I am breaking the masquerade. By concerned, I mean they are gonna kill me.

Edit: In addition to antediluvian, there are time mages too. I don't know why, I just know we "killed" a bunch of them. We are all physics/engineering majors so everyone has a good idea how to make dangerous things. This campaign is going to end by January, and by what the story teller hints at, I'll be lucky to be the last to get eaten.

Buy some publishing companies. Get a little Rupert Murdoch. Put together enough information to destroy the masquerade altogether and stash copies away in several secure off-shore locations, with instructions that it be handed over to your publishing companies (with instructions to print) should you die.

Then tell the people who are accusing you of 'breaking the masquerade' what will happen if they do kill you.

If you don't have time to do anything about it though, just spit in their face and tell them to do as they like. You are one of the few who can stop the BBEG from destroying the world, if they want to waste their time killing their own allies, you're better off out of it.
And if they fail to fall for the defiant stance there, then you either get to roll a new character and take a different route, or snipe ooc from the sidelines as the world burns. :smallsmile:

HMS Invincible

2010-09-26, 08:38 PM

I disagree.

While it is feasible for an Antediluvian (or Methuselah) to wake up and seize control of a clan or bloodline in order to bring about some big war, there are a number of flaws in the story we've been given.

1. An Antediluvian, or even a Methuselah, is a millennia-old creature that (perhaps) was once human, and for the last 500+ years, this creature has been asleep. It cannot be expected that an ancient vampire would understand the value of money (including the concept of banking), the importance of modern technology, the existence of geopolitics, and the way in general that the world works these days. Effectively, an ancient vampire lives in the past, and will have a lot of difficulty dealing with the present-day world, except with brute force. Even the smart ones. A plan like the one described requires at least a decade of slow adjusting to the present world, starting from the very basics.

2. Antediluvians (and Methuselahs) are so far removed from humanity, that they do not care one way or the other about any single person, people or nation. They might have an opinion on the human race as a whole, and this might be that it should be exterminated for some cosmic reason. A war could accomplish this. But an ancient vampire would rather use its own supernatural talents as a driving force behind such a war, than an army, tanks, gunships, Somali pirates and artic naval ports.
While technological warfare could play a role, it will likely not be organised by the Antediluvian itself, but rather by (younger) clan elders who have actually witnessed the last 200 years, but these will not pool their influence, as they plot among themselves for power.

In short, this war is not supernatural enough, and is way to rationally organised.
Sup, so here's how the storyteller tells me how I lost control of my company. Antediluvian shows up at my princess's headquarters. He says, "I need Censored." He's dressed in fine italian suits, fur coat, and cane. Then he dominates the princess and then she goes to my company and says, "where has this PC been? He's been missing for months now. I'm taking over his company and install a puppet 14th gen vampire with 5 int+5 finance."
Puppet vampire receives orders, "I need Censored." Man starts spending all my money on said Censored. Censored include soldiers, tanks, ships, planes. I show up six years later. I walk into my corporate HQ and I get beat down and arrested. They drag me into my own office, and say, "You're my Censored today." It'd be funny as hell if he wasn't in my Office telling me I had to do w/e he says.
Edit: There,u happy now?

comicshorse

2010-09-26, 09:11 PM

You know I think if you tried really hard you could have got the word 'bitch' in there another time or two

Jornophelanthas

2010-09-27, 05:53 AM

I don't think I would ever play a World of Darkness game with this Storyteller. This Antediluvian is far too world-savvy for something that was last awake in the Middle Ages.

Chen

2010-09-27, 08:31 AM

If its an actual antideluvian yeah its a bit out of character. However a very low gen vampire (4 or 5th I think are still considered Methusulahs) could be posing as one. Hell the MO here sounds exactly like what Marcus Vitel (5th Gen Lasombra prince of DC, posing as a Ventrue) wants according to the white wolf cannon story. Vitel woke back up in the 50s I think so has had plenty of time to acclimate himself to modern technology. I think he wanted to try and get some nukes to start a war so he could rebuild the world as he saw fit.

Psyx

2010-09-27, 11:12 AM

Alright, I figured out that Ventrue are utterly worthless for combat.

You're incorrect! Having played multiple Ventrue I can attest for the fact that they must be doing it wrong.

Majesty stops stuff attacking you in the first place.
Dominate nicely pacifies people pre-combat.
Dread Gaze gets rid of all those combat monsters because they are poor at resisting it.
Fortitude is the very definition of survivability
More dominate and dread-gaze in-combat swings fights.

You're also rich, so have a bunch of bodyguards and all the toys you need.
Ventrue can be a formidable combat force.

But Celerity...is still broken...

As regards the end of the world: That's kind of pretty much the plot arc for the last few years of release. Gehenna was always coming: It's not just your GM!

The problem with V:tM is that it can easily be played or run as a superheroes-at-night kind of game.

***

I'd also argue that Pendragon was just as gritty as WFRP, and out before it, too...

Selrahc

2010-09-27, 12:13 PM

I'd also argue that Pendragon was just as gritty as WFRP, and out before it, too...

If we're talking about that then surely Call of Cthulhu is a lot grittier than Warhammer?

HMS Invincible

2010-09-27, 01:24 PM

Unfortunately, I merely threw together some disciplines that were related to Ventrue, because I picked everything at random. I only have Presence 2, Dominate 2, and Fortitude 2. Dominate is more for unsuspecting precombatants, and fort 2 isn't going to cut it versus these monsters. Combat is not where I'm going to shine, even with augmenting my weapons/armor with massive infusions of money.

Question: What is a Scourge, and who does he answer to? If it's his prince in Cairo, then who do they answer to that I could call so I may influence their decision. I don't want to ask my antediluvian(fake?) boss for help since I want to stop my boss.

tcrudisi

2010-09-27, 01:48 PM

Uh - if memory serves me correct, they are the personal executioners for the prince of a city. Good luck getting to someone above the prince. The Justicars are above the Prince, but there is only one for each clan. The Justicars do have Archons who go around and sort of spread the will of the Justicar ... and if you managed to get an Archon to come talk to the Prince of Cairo and get you off the hook, then congrats! You've just signed your death warrant as you've embarrassed the Prince to such a degree that he must have you killed.

Yeah, the irony in that if you save your life you still kill it. Gotta love it. Good luck maneuvering out of this one. :smallbiggrin:

/edit Okay, okay - here is the option that I see: make yourself indispensable to the prince somehow. Become so important to him that he hurts himself too much if you die. Or, flee the city. I doubt the Scourge will follow you, but your reputation might.

mostlyharmful

2010-09-27, 02:00 PM

If its an actual antideluvian yeah its a bit out of character.

Unless he's got the Auspex 9 power that keeps him concious and lucid during torpor, essentially a disembodied mind drifting in the astral with no need to eat or sleep it's the state to be in if you're a big jihad player otherwise it just goes over your head.

Trinoya

2010-09-27, 02:14 PM

I've played this game (both in table top and sadly LARP). Long story short, this game depends heavily on you having an educated and decent ST. I ran into numerous situations where my vampire (a tremere) essentially would carry around near insta death poisons on him and STs would casually dismiss them as never being effective... Heck, I even know STs who, after allowing players to obtain some real power, went over the top and out of their way to destroy those characters on the grounds of, "oops, I made them too powerful."

Long story short.. if you're looking for balance, stay away. If you have a smart ST? Well.. give it a shot... just make sure they remember your vampire doesn't have to breathe and that your warewolf can cross into other planes effortlessly...

Caliphbubba

2010-09-27, 02:25 PM

Usually in my experiance the Scourge is the guy that kills unacknowledged kindred with-in the Domain. If you go an create a neonate with out permission, you're likely going to have a run in with the Scourge.

I've also seen them act as sort of 'border patrol' in that they go around investigating activity that is out of the normal in the domain and determine if it's a breach of any of the traditions.

Often he ends up being the Prince's strongarm.

Being kidnapped from one Domain and brought to another, if that what is happening here, is generally not an offical duty of a Scourge. and really as an Acknowledged and Status holding memeber of the Camarilla you should be able to tell the Scourge to take a hike without any repercusions.

Now if the Sherrif came to you and insisted you come with him for "questioning" that's another story.

It really seems that the gehenna plot you're going through throws all the conventional wisdom to the way-side though.

In my opinion your best bet for beating an Antideluvian is to narc them out o to the Technocracy or something and hope they drop a magickal hyrdogen bomb on his butt, while magnifying the sun 4 fold, and somehow get him into dire combat with 3-4 Methuselah strength vampire and the Silver Pack of Gauru at the same time. That's what it took to take down Ravano- another Antideluvian with Fortitude In-Clan.

HMS Invincible

2010-09-27, 03:07 PM

How big of a indiscretion is it to make a bunch of neonates? Cuz the antediluvian made me create 20, and then told those guys to go make another 20. Those neonates were then mindraped so they are now bodyguards/cannonfodder/servants to the antediluvian.

From what I'm getting, the making unauthorized neonates is more pressing to the scourge then the crazy antediluvian.

Btw, I don't think the antediluvian knows anything about the modern world, only that he likes to start World wars. His hirelings ARE from the modern world though, and they are the ones who bought all the military hardware and built up a small empire. With my company and assets. My fear is that my party will decide that the best way to set back the antediluvian is to bomb my corporate headquarters and destroy my company. Which would leave me a sad panda, not to mention bankrupt.

Note: I'm pretty new at this game. The fact that I have so much power yet it doesn't hold a candle to the things I'm facing is quite a shock to me.

Fax Celestis

2010-09-27, 03:22 PM

this whole plan is way easier if you're a Tremere.

couple of rituals namely:
nectar of the bitter rose(group diablrie), and innocence of the child's heart(pure white aura, no "soul stains").

but all in all I agree this isn't going to work in practice, unless ya know, it does. Like with the Tremere, who already did this once....if you replace special forces with mages.
Poor Saulot. :smallfrown:

tcrudisi

2010-09-27, 03:23 PM

How big of a indiscretion is it to make a bunch of neonates?

Which would leave me a sad panda, not to mention bankrupt.

First - a very big one. Creating one without the permission of a prince is enough to warrant the Scourge being sent after you to kill you. Being directly responsible for 400? Well ... heh.

Second - why would it leave you bankrupt? There's insurance for those sorts of things. And, is your company incorporated? If so, it can't bankrupt you since the company is its own entity.

Poor Saulot. :smallfrown:

Yeah, he was my favorite antideluvian, without a doubt.

Jornophelanthas

2010-09-27, 03:31 PM

The fact that I have so much power yet it doesn't hold a candle to the things I'm facing is quite a shock to me.

I stand corrected. This is an authentic V:tM vibe. Hold on to that every time you play, and enjoy it.

Since the job description of a Scourge is to kill off unauthorized neonates, as well as any other vampires not officially recognized by the Prince, this one clearly has his priorities straight. Also, if the 40-50 Ventrue you mentioned being slaughtered by a Scourge are the neonates you mentioned, then it was to be expected it was a slaughter, because neonate vampires haven't yet settled into the vampire un-lifestyle and don't have a lot of Discipline dots, while the job of Scourge actually requires applicants to be killing machines.

I can also give you some advice to deal with your "situation".

If indeed the Antediluvian is not fully aware how the world works, but relies for such knowledge on his underlings, make sure you are his primary underling. If he is the captain on the bridge who doesn't know how the ship works, be the first mate who actually gives all the orders. The position of second-in-command is one of great power if your only superior is oblivious to the ways of lowly mortals. All you have to do is to keep him convinced that things are going as planned, and that you are the one best suited to deal with all this complicated mortal-world business. Give him advice on how best to deploy all the brainwashed minions, and slowly gain access to his other resources. Meanwhile, your actual actions are your own. This way, you are effectively turning an ancient vampire with godly powers into a figurehead.

Oh, and make sure that nobody else even gets close to whispering advice to your "master". Kick down the social ladder, and kick hard.

I assume you also read the comic on this website. Basically, be what Redcloak is to Xykon. And learn from Redcloak's mistakes.

And when you have all this power, betray him. And hope that he can't ever retaliate.

HMS Invincible

2010-09-27, 04:02 PM

If it's that serious, then I'm gonna have to work out a deal between a Brujah prince and me. Btw, the Scourge knows because he's in my party. He hasn't killed me yet because he's a PC and I've helped him. We haven't left yet because nobody has any money except me to pay for a ticket to Cairo. I'm not too keen on paying for said tickets, but there's a pilot in our party who has a retainer in the air force. He's rich too so I don't have long before they can scrape together a way to get to Egypt.

If I can't work out a deal, then I'm either dead or I have to screw over the Scourge and embarrass the prince in Cairo. The two cards I can play is to call every single prince in every district, and tell them the Scourge has the artifact that everyone wants, and he hasn't delivered it yet. The other card is to call the antediluvian and have him rescue me.
Both options screw the Scourge and his friends over, and then it makes me more enemies. I'm very conflicted between party unity, saving my own skin, or maintaining my power. I'll find out what's going to happen this Saturday.
I'm worried because this group is pretty callous lot, and they play pretty rough.

I stand corrected. This is an authentic V:tM vibe. Hold on to that every time you play, and enjoy it.

Since the job description of a Scourge is to kill off unauthorized neonates, as well as any other vampires not officially recognized by the Prince, this one clearly has his priorities straight. Also, if the 40-50 Ventrue you mentioned being slaughtered by a Scourge are the neonates you mentioned, then it was to be expected it was a slaughter, because neonate vampires haven't yet settled into the vampire un-lifestyle and don't have a lot of Discipline dots, while the job of Scourge actually requires applicants to be killing machines.

I can also give you some advice to deal with your "situation".

If indeed the Antediluvian is not fully aware how the world works, but relies for such knowledge on his underlings, make sure you are his primary underling. If he is the captain on the bridge who doesn't know how the ship works, be the first mate who actually gives all the orders. The position of second-in-command is one of great power if your only superior is oblivious to the ways of lowly mortals. All you have to do is to keep him convinced that things are going as planned, and that you are the one best suited to deal with all this complicated mortal-world business. Give him advice on how best to deploy all the brainwashed minions, and slowly gain access to his other resources. Meanwhile, your actual actions are your own. This way, you are effectively turning an ancient vampire with godly powers into a figurehead.

Oh, and make sure that nobody else even gets close to whispering advice to your "master". Kick down the social ladder, and kick hard.

I assume you also read the comic on this website. Basically, be what Redcloak is to Xykon. And learn from Redcloak's mistakes.

And when you have all this power, betray him. And hope that he can't ever retaliate.
The funny thing is, I'm his number 2 underling because said Scourge killed his other underlings. I'm at a severe disadvantage because the other players know how to play the rules, and I don't. And they have more information about how the world works, while I can only react to whoever threatens/orders me around.
Question: Why doesn't the antediluvian saying "go make some vampires" count as authorized neonates?
If I can make it out of this scrape alive with my powers intact, then I can help the party stop this insane bastard. If I can't, well then I'll be as useful as a toy teddybear.

tcrudisi

2010-09-27, 04:24 PM

I'm very conflicted between party unity, saving my own skin, or maintaining my power. I'll find out what's going to happen this Saturday.
I'm worried because this group is pretty callous lot, and they play pretty rough.

Question: Why doesn't the antediluvian saying "go make some vampires" count as authorized neonates?

Ugh - as much as I hate to say this as, personally, I strongly enforce party unity - unless you guys are blood bound to each other (which ain't happening since you are Camarilla), you come first. Period. Saving your own skin and increasing (maintaining? bah) your own power are always priorities one and two. Yeah, having "friends" might be a way to increase your own personal power, but I would only trust other vampires to betray me at the worst possible moment.

Because the antideluvian does not have that authority. Okay, I've already forgotten which clan you are and which clan the antideluvian is and I doubt you ever said which clan the prince was. But, if the antideluvian is of a different clan than the prince, the prince doesn't give one flying whit about the antideluvian (other than the antideluvian can eat him without blinking). As far as the prince is concerned, he has ultimate power in his city and he will not be questioned on this, certainly not by the antideluvian of another clan... who's not directly there to threaten him. He must maintain order in his city. That is his responsibility, his duty, his job, and (most importantly) his power base. Unless a justicar (or archon on behalf of a justicar) comes to him and gives an order (which is about as likely to happen as me winning the lottery today when I haven't ever bought a ticket), his power is absolute.

Having said that, I do sometimes win a lottery based in Africa. So.... since an antideluvian has already woken up, anything can happen. But under normal circumstances, the justicar is not going to tell a prince how to run a city, so the princes power is absolute.

Tiki Snakes

2010-09-27, 04:26 PM

If he ordered you to do it, then I'd say your best bet is to throw yourself on the princes mercy, and spill all the beans you have to spill.

The goal is to pass the buck on to the guy who you need taken down, possibly forcing the Prince to take action. You should expect to be forced by the prince to aid them in doing something about it, I'd expect, if it works. Take the punishment like a man, and be repentant where necessary.
If it fails, they kill you. Have your character go wailing into oblivion and try to enjoy his horrible, minion-of-BBEG fate. If you make it clear that there are no-hard feelings, it should keep the atmosphere good. Try not to take it personally if it comes to that, you know?

As for the company, perhaps you could paralyse it as a resource for the BBEG via less destructive means. Launch legal proceedings, get the companies assets frozen and sieze control of it from him and his lackeys. If you find good enough lawyers, it should work just as well as nuking it, with the added bonus of you guys retaining the advantages of it. Admittedly, it may take a while, but if you can get it all locked down and paralysed by the furore, it's at least a start? Perhaps accuse the new regime of unethical business practices and start a media-storm as you try to 'rescue the company'?

tcrudisi

2010-09-27, 04:37 PM

If he ordered you to do it, then I'd say your best bet is to throw yourself on the princes mercy, and spill all the beans you have to spill.

If I am a prince and some shmo comes to me and says "The antideluvian made me responsible for siring 400 neonates" then I'm going to either believe him, think he's a liar, or think he's a Malkavian.

If I believe him, I kill him to keep the order of my city. Yes, the antideluvian is responsible, but I'm not an idiot. I'm not an antideluvian myself, so the dude is untouchable but someone has to be the fall guy.

If I think he's a liar, I kill him while laughing at the horrible story he just made up to try to save his own hide.

If I think he's Malkavian, well, things might get more interesting depending on how close he is with the Malkavian clan. If the Malkavians are his closest allies, he might not want to kill one and risk alienating them. Chances are, though, that the prince kills the pc anyway for such a horrible breach of the law.

Project_Mayhem

2010-09-27, 04:46 PM

If he ordered you to do it, then I'd say your best bet is to throw yourself on the princes mercy, and spill all the beans you have to spill.

Worst advice in a Vampire game ever :smalltongue:

The prince did not get where he is by showing *mercy*

Tiki Snakes

2010-09-27, 04:47 PM

If I am a prince and some shmo comes to me and says "The antideluvian made me responsible for siring 400 neonates" then I'm going to either believe him, think he's a liar, or think he's a Malkavian.

If I believe him, I kill him to keep the order of my city. Yes, the antideluvian is responsible, but I'm not an idiot. I'm not an antideluvian myself, so the dude is untouchable but someone has to be the fall guy.

If I think he's a liar, I kill him while laughing at the horrible story he just made up to try to save his own hide.

If I think he's Malkavian, well, things might get more interesting depending on how close he is with the Malkavian clan. If the Malkavians are his closest allies, he might not want to kill one and risk alienating them. Chances are, though, that the prince kills the pc anyway for such a horrible breach of the law.

Sure, I'd pretty much agree there.
Still, if he says "The antideluvian made me responsible for siring 400 neonates, also he's building a vast and powerful army (see the dossier here), and is intending to start a world war that will destroy the world. I know because I am already on the inside and willing to do something about it if I am allowed to serve."
Then I might still kill him if he's lying, but if I don't think he's lying then I'm going to have to seriously look into this stuff.

Because my city currently exists in the world.

It's no guarenteed get-out-clause, but I'd say it's the best bet going that isn't incredibly likely to either write-off your chances of dealing with the Antideluvian, and/or causing tension at the gaming table.

It also has the benefit of, if you are intended to die here, allowing you to do so with dignity, so you can get on with making the new character with a sense of closure and less bad feeling. Perhaps?

Worst advice in a Vampire game ever :smalltongue:

The prince did not get where he is by showing *mercy*

Note - You are not actually aiming for mercy. You are aiming for enlightened self-interest. I would expect Prince's to be good at this, no? :smallsmile:

Jornophelanthas

2010-09-28, 05:16 AM

So you feel you have to choose between serving the Antediluvian or the Prince of Cairo? Why not do both?

1. Strengthen your position as first-advisor-who-actually-manages-the-war-effort-for-the-figurehead-master, as I've outlined in my previous post. It helps that the Scourge eliminated all the competition. Still, you have to make yourself indispensable to the Antediluvian, and make him dependent on you.

2. Offer the Prince a deal. Explain your situation and promise all kinds of aid in undermining the Antediluvian's operations from within. Offer all the knowledge you have about the current state of operations in exchange for him forgetting about the 40 neonates, and offer to sabotage these operations according to the needs of the Camarilla, in exchange for appreciation of these war efforts by the Camarilla.
To arrange all this, you will have to meet the Prince in person, because you don't want to trust anyone with a written message, and telephones connections can be hacked by anyone. HOWEVER, DO NOT MEET THE PRINCE ON HIS CONDITIONS! Not only does this weaken your bargaining position, but he could also have you killed on the spot if he doesn't like what you say. Instead, use your fellow player the Scourge as a messenger to arrange a meeting on neutral ground. As an argument, you could claim that you are being watched by the Antediluvian, and it would be dangerous for the Prince if he were seen to meet with you.

3. With the above two positions in place, you are walking a tightrope, but you're still golden, because you can choose the winning side.
If the Camarilla comes up with a good plan to oust the Antediluvian, you can contribute majorly and be recognized as someone who will likely be promoted to Prince (or even Justicar), because you are now so mistrusted that you need to be watched very carefully.
If the Antediluvian crushes the Camarilla easily, you can pretend to have always been loyal, and end up as second-in-command of the new order after the all-destroying war. Provided the Antediluvian does not decide to eat you once you're no longer useful to him.

(By the way, an Antediluvian will not acknowledge a Prince's authority, in the same way that an unimaginative parent does not acknowledge little Johnny's claim to be king of the playground. At the same time, the Prince will not acknowledge the Antediluvian's authority in the same way that a dictator does not appreciate foreigners stirring up trouble in his realm. Unless they're of the same clan; then, it's very unpredictable.)

Quincunx

2010-09-28, 05:56 AM

Now this is more like it--throwing massive quantities of paranoia-driven social kahooey at the ST/wall and seeing what sticks. :smalltongue: Here's another few scoops of kahooey.

Inform the Scourge that your "superior" ordered the creation of the neonates (true), that he didn't wish to expend his own blood on making them (plausible), that he had a need for vampires not ghouls or mortals (plausible), that your "superior" is a Ventrue (true), and that these neonates have been guaranteed to have a short life (plausible). Season with other plausibilities according to the game and construct the delicate assumption that your patron's refinement requires that he drink vampire blood, without ever saying anything which can be construed as you knowing that a vampire can drink another vampire's blood.

Chen

2010-09-28, 07:31 AM

(By the way, an Antediluvian will not acknowledge a Prince's authority, in the same way that an unimaginative parent does not acknowledge little Johnny's claim to be king of the playground. At the same time, the Prince will not acknowledge the Antediluvian's authority in the same way that a dictator does not appreciate foreigners stirring up trouble in his realm. Unless they're of the same clan; then, it's very unpredictable.)

If the Prince of the city is not acknowledging the Antideluvian's authority either the Antideluvian has not demonstrated his practically limitless power or he's a fake. There aren't even real stats for Antideluvians except the 9th level disciplines. Comparatively a real Antideluvian compared to the prince of a city would be something like a great wyrm gold dragon compared to a level 5 fighter (if that).

I'm also a tad confused as to the situation. The Scourge who is killing things is the Scourge of Cairo? But you're not in Cairo? Almost all the positions within a city have no real bearing outside said city, aside from the status they give. A scourge from another city will be afforded some grace but certainly not the right to rampantly continue his scourge duties in the new city (especially if there is already a scourge there). Funny note too, the Prince of Cairo (according to white wolf) is actually a Caitiff...that probably won't go over too well with an Antideluvian if he were to arrive in said city.

Jornophelanthas

2010-09-28, 08:53 AM

If the Prince of the city is not acknowledging the Antideluvian's authority either the Antideluvian has not demonstrated his practically limitless power or he's a fake.

I'm guessing the former, because the way HMS Invincible has described the situation implies that nobody knows who is behind the war preparations, or even that someone is preparing for global war. Apparently, all the Prince knows is that some Ventrue (i.e. HMS) has been mass Embracing in insane numbers without his permission. But HMS, correct me if I'm wrong.

Besides, what self-respecting Antediluvian would willingly make his presence known before he's ready to carry out his master plan? (And Ravnos doesn't count.)

And even if an Antediluvian did make his presence known to a Prince, the Prince would not relinquish his own authority, unless he's of the same clan (in which case he would use his political power to serve the Antediluvian), or just plain incompetent (in which case he would not be Prince for long, anyway). The Camarilla does not just dissolve at the mere sighting of an Antediluvian; the Antediluvian has to actually take some interest in the Camarilla to disrupt it.

Caliphbubba

2010-09-28, 09:09 AM

And even if an Antediluvian did make his presence known to a Prince, the Prince would not relinquish his own authority, unless he's of the same clan (in which case he would use his political power to serve the Antediluvian), or just plain incompetent (in which case he would not be Prince for long, anyway). The Camarilla does not just dissolve at the mere sighting of an Antediluvian; the Antediluvian has to actually take some interest in the Camarilla to disrupt it.

If he valued his unlife he wouldn't oppose him either though. Given we're talking about the Ventrue Antediluvian, he'd probably be doing WHATEVER he was told because he'd been so throughly dominated and/or epically entranced.

And really the Antediluvian doesn't have to do squat within the Camarilla to garner it's attention. It's likely the Inner Circle REMEMBER what douche-nozzles their Sire/Grandsires are. And while it won't dissolve at the mere sighting, it will forever change. One does not simply say "No" to Ventrue.

Jornophelanthas

2010-09-28, 10:06 AM

True, but because Antediluvians consider things like the Camarilla to be petty squabbles that are far beneath them, they are unlikely to direct their attention towards deliberately destroying/usurping it. After all, the children need their little game.

More likely, an Antediluvian will go about his own business, taking what he needs without regard for any Prince's interests. This will disrupt the Camarilla, of course, and the Princes and Justicars may even consider countermeasures as a result.

Those countermeasures had better be decisive on the first try, though, because you don't want an angered Antediluvian to actually fight back.

Which is why I advised the Ventrue player to play both sides.

comicshorse

2010-09-28, 04:46 PM

3. With the above two positions in place, you are walking a tightrope, but you're still golden, because you can choose the winning side.
If the Camarilla comes up with a good plan to oust the Antediluvian, you can contribute majorly and be recognized as someone who will likely be promoted to Prince (or even Justicar), because you are now so mistrusted that you need to be watched very carefully.

This may be the best description of how promotion works in the Camarilla I've ever read :smallsmile:

Psyx

2010-09-29, 08:40 AM

What is a Scourge, and who does he answer to? If it's his prince in Cairo, then who do they answer to that I could call so I may influence their decision. I don't want to ask my antediluvian(fake?) boss for help since I want to stop my boss.

Scourges murder who their Prince tells them to. They have no actual authority outside the Domain of their Prince... asides from probably being killing machines and the threat that brings.

How big of a indiscretion is it to make a bunch of neonates?

Without permission of the Prince? Enough to see you painfully murdered.
It's breach of Tradition.

Additionally: The Cam don't even really acknowledge the power or real existence to the Antediluvians. The Ventrue claim that theirs is long dead, and would -as a clan- very much proclaim anyone claiming the role to be an imposter. The Ventrue would do their best to discredit or remove such a figure. Most of them would also be certain that it was an imposter as well.

Why doesn't the antediluvian saying "go make some vampires" count as authorized neonates?

Because the Prince didn't grant permission. It breaks one of the six traditions.

If I am a prince and some shmo comes to me and says "The antideluvian made me responsible for siring 400 neonates" then

... I Dominate and torture every SHRED of information from his brain on the matter, deploy scourges to start rounding them all up and killing them, maybe call in an Archon who owes me a favour, make sure this 'antediluvian' gets found and killed, and then make a very painful example of the person responsible for unleashing 400 new Kindred on the city.

And then I go for a holiday somewhere before the inevitable waves of Hunters turn up.

comicshorse

2010-09-29, 09:20 AM

Additionally: The Cam don't even really acknowledge the power or real existence to the Antediluvians. The Ventrue claim that theirs is long dead, and would -as a clan- very much proclaim anyone claiming the role to be an imposter.

But the difference between what the Camarilla say and what they actually believe is vast.

Dingle

2010-09-30, 04:27 AM

if it's revised ed, you could use an unusual(because noone's seen an antedeluvian in a long time) interpretation of the third tradition
(p.39).
Who is going to argue with your antedeluvian that he's not "thine elder"

Set

2010-09-30, 05:13 AM

But the difference between what the Camarilla say and what they actually believe is vast.

Very true.

The Ventrue say that there Antediluvian is dead. (How can you kill what never existed?)

The Nosferatu very much believe in their Antediluvian. They wish he didn't exist, but they know better.

The Brujah very much believe in their current Antediluvian, since it's a *bragging point* among them how she ganked their former Antediluvian.

The Tremere very much believe in their Founder, since some of them have, yanno, *met him.* (Few return to speak of it...)

The Toreador may or may not believe in their Antediluvian, but they have some pretty stories about her.

The Gangrel not only believe in their Antediluvian, they're pretty sure she's in Antarctica.

The Malkavians, as a Clan, don't consistently believe (or disbelieve) much of anything, but many of them not only believe in their Antediluvian, but believe that they are telepathically plugged into him, or perhaps even share a splinter of his own madness, beamed straight into their heads on radio station KRZY out of Malkavia (or perhaps Jerusalem, depending on who you ask).

The whole 'the Camarilla doesn't believe in the Antediluvians' schtick introduced in the 11th hour to paint the Sabbat as the great saviors of vampire-kind from the profoundly dumb Camarilla, is just stupid, since every Camarilla Clan has reason to know otherwise, and the Clanbooks are full of stuff about how the Nosferatu are flat-out terrified of their Antediluvian (and the Tremere, despite knowing where he lives, and dreading being 'called to Vienna,' not having it much better...).

Sabbat propoganda. Only they know the amazing truth, that the Antediluvians really exist, 'cause *obviously* the Giovanni, Assamites and Setites don't believe in their Clan Founders, despite worshipping them (or, in the case of the Giovanni, interacting with him regularly).

Not even *clever* propoganda, since it makes about as much sense as the Chewbacca Defense.

Meanwhile, there is a Clan that doesn't believe in their Antediluvian, and, per canon, is flat-out wrong. Clan Tzimisce. Which brings the absurdity full circle, as the only Clan that *actually* doesn't believe in the (continued) existence of their Antediluvian is one of the founding Sabbat Clans. (The Lasombra also believe that their Antediluvian is dead, but they appear to actually be right about that. Not that the guy who killed him isn't believed to still be lurking around, making the death of the original Founder kinda moot...)

The guys telling us that the Camarilla doesn't believe in their Founders, and the danger they pose? Are blithely unaware of the existence of their own Founders, or the danger they pose... It's a joke, on the Sabbat. The Camarilla, per their Clanbooks, are, in some cases, not only aware of the existence of their Antediluvians, but *actively preparing defenses against them.* (Or actively serving them, in the case of the Tremere.)

Meanwhile the Sabbat, the great warriors who will save us from the Antediluvian uprising with their vigilance, are painting their faces with blood and playing hopscotch, blissfully unaware that their predictions of a Sect that is willfully and dangerous ignorant of the threat their own Founders pose, apply to themselves, not to the Camarilla.

comicshorse

2010-09-30, 08:20 AM

Meanwhile, there is a Clan that doesn't believe in their Antediluvian, and, per canon, is flat-out wrong. Clan Tzimisce. Which brings the absurdity full circle, as the only Clan that *actually* doesn't believe in the (continued) existence of their Antediluvian is one of the founding Sabbat Clans.

" We the mighty Tszimisce know our Antedeluvian is dead because Lugash Blood-Breaker stormed alone into his lair and then returned to tell us how he slew our Founder.
What ? Yes, flesh crafting ourselves to look like others is our Primary Discipline what does that have to do with it ? "

Kingweasel

2010-10-01, 06:09 PM

When I was told the V:tM game I was going into was more investigate-y than combat-y, I concentrated on mind control features. Suddenly, as the DMs (yes, two) grew tired of us not catching their clues, we were in combat and I was running for my (un)life.

Went on Craigslist, travelled to an unsavory part of the county, and purchased a flamethrower and mortar (with a case of HE rounds).

The lesson here?
It's much easier to Dominate an elder vamp with fire than your mind.

comicshorse

2010-10-01, 07:26 PM

For investigation you really need Auspex

HMS Invincible

2010-10-03, 04:33 AM

Alright, I just finished our session. Here's what happened:
We arrive in Dubai, because Cairo Egypt got "compromised" and was no longer safe to travel to. There, I get informed that my corporate headquarters in Vancouver just got burned down to the bedrock. I have my back up headquarters in the Indian Ocean ready to go with battlecruisers armed with railguns and tactical nukes. As that is happening, I go warn the Camerilla/face my trial against the Brujah elders. They ignore my warnings and proceed to torture and kill me.
The scourge who dragged me there intervenes when he realizes that someone has converted all the Brujah into Sabbat? Upon learning this, he frees me, kills his way out. We call in the antediluvian and those 2 kill the entire council of elders. The scourge walks away in the rain because he realizes that everything and everyone he knows and trusts is either turned traitor or died at his hands. Brujah no longer exist as a clan to him, and now he ended up BSOD. The world will end when my satellite cannons and fleets are ready.

The Camerilla is broken; I haven't seen another Ventrue who hasn't been mindraped into slavery in ages, and the Brujah have all turned traitor. We ended the session there. We're deciding what we want to do before World War III starts.

Some notes that we discussed afterwords:
1. Sabbat is evil, and Camerilla is good right?
2. Why are we fighting such high end stuff from the beginning? We started off fighting Time mages, Fae Magic, and then we turned to antediluvian.
3. Antediluvians shouldn't be in this game, statted or otherwise.
4. Vampires cannot be turned human and back. The Storyteller must be pulling a fast one on us.
5. I'm quickly losing control of my armed forces, and I'll only be able to research one or two more things before the world ends.
6. We want to stop the world from ending, but the Camerilla has been gutted by the loss of the Ventrue and Brujah clans.

We're debating a few options. Some of us want to overthrow the Storyteller and beat some sense into him. The other is to get a time machine, and travel back in time so we can stop this crap before it goes insane. Or we watch the world burn and enjoy the ride.

MickJay

2010-10-03, 05:43 AM

1. Sabbat is more blatant about being evil (or doesn't hide it as much), and, on average, is more prone to doing overtly "evil" things. In general, both sects are just as bad.

2. This looks like a Final Nights scenario, so high-end stuff is not unfeasible.

3. If you don't want games featuring antediluvians, it's best just to tell your ST about it.

4. Fluff-wise, no-one's officially heard of a vampire turning back into a human, and majority of STs probably will never use such a transition as part of their plot - this does not mean, however, that it's outright impossible. WoD fluff mentions that a lot of things are considered impossible, but very few are outright stated to be impossible.

6. If sense and reason fail, turn for help to Malkavians. :smalltongue:

Jornophelanthas

2010-10-03, 06:40 AM

Vampires are pragmatic. Camarilla and Sabbat are just political organisations that are being used by pragmatic elders. In the end, it's all about power.

You say the Camarilla is crippled. Well then, you turn to the Sabbat. After all, the Sabbat's ideology is to actively work against Antediluvians, including destroying them. If you want your ancestor stopped, they're your natural allies. Except that they probably won't mind a nuclear war, either.

The Sabbat just tried to kill you? Well, either you try to contact someone higher up in the hierarchy than the one who decided to get rid of you, or you're on your own.

Being on your own does not mean that you can't use the Sabbat (or the remnants of the Camarilla, for that matter). You can point them towards the targets you want them to attack. So instead of your corporate headquarters, you could slip them information about the location where the Antediluvian sleeps during the day. Anonymously, of course.

You could also try to rally the remains of the Camarilla. Especially clan Tremere will be desperate for any allies they can get, because of all the enemies they already have. And blood magic can be quite useful against Antediluvian vampires. Malkavians could be surprising allies too, especially in discovering mystical information. Maybe they have some kind of magical blood virus available, ready for injection into your enemies?

Alternatively, the independent clans may have a stake as well. Assamites spring to mind because of their reputation as diablorizing assassins, although they could remain neutral and resurface like cockroaches after the war. Try to hire them for a hit on the Antediluvian. You could tell them straight up who they're after, in which case they could be tempted by the opportunity for diablorizing an Antediluvian. Or pretend the target is merely old (4th or 5th generation), in order to downplay the risk somewhat.

Clan Giovanni might be a better bet, because they have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Their necromancy could prove to be very useful.

Meanwhile, try to stay close to the Antediluvian and continue working your way into his favor. That will make it easier to betray him.

A final tip, on what to research, try for some kind of lethal injection to vampires. The Ventrue Antediluvian is bound to have Fortitude 9, but blood is any vampire's weakness. Get something malignant into his bloodstream, and he is bound to be at least hindered by it. (I once played in a chronicle where players got infect with bubonic plague. It took great pains to get that out of one's system, because the disease slowly contaminates a vampire's entire blood pool.)

tcrudisi

2010-10-03, 09:37 AM

1. Sabbat is evil, and Camerilla is good right?
2. Why are we fighting such high end stuff from the beginning? We started off fighting Time mages, Fae Magic, and then we turned to antediluvian.
3. Antediluvians shouldn't be in this game, statted or otherwise.
4. Vampires cannot be turned human and back. The Storyteller must be pulling a fast one on us.
5. I'm quickly losing control of my armed forces, and I'll only be able to research one or two more things before the world ends.
6. We want to stop the world from ending, but the Camerilla has been gutted by the loss of the Ventrue and Brujah clans.

1. The Sabbat is evil and the Camarilla is evil, too. One is a black dragon and the other is a blue dragon. I can't stress this enough: they are both very, very evil. One just prefers to do it without the world knowing about them.
2. I don't know? That's the type of game your ST likes to run, obviously. But, look at the bright side: Time mages and Fae Magic are greater than wimpy antideluvians.
3. I can't say whether one SHOULD be in the game. Probably not... but if you are having fun, why complain?
4. Yes, they can. I used to know the rote that was required for it: Life, Matter, Entropy... maybe another sphere or two? But yeah, a good enough mage could turn a vampire human. From there's it's just a matter of either reversing the rote or getting bitten again.
5. Then research where to find yourselves a really powerful mage or really powerful changeling. I'm not sure a changeling could hold up to the banality of an antideluvian... but, the magic a changeling has is far greater than the magic of an antideluvian, even. And a neonate mage has about the same magic power as an antideluvian... find yourselves a master or archmaster and you are set.
6. Two clans are lost and you think it's the end? Ventrue aren't much of fighters anyway. Brujah is a loss in this case, but there are still several other clans. Rally them if you can. ... or cheat and go for the mages.

Selrahc

2010-10-03, 12:46 PM

4. Yes, they can. I used to know the rote that was required for it: Life, Matter, Entropy... maybe another sphere or two? But yeah, a good enough mage could turn a vampire human. From there's it's just a matter of either reversing the rote or getting bitten again.

Only if you think that mage fluff is superior to vampire fluff. In a vampire game, it is more than just some affliction that can be easily cured magically. It's a god enforced curse, and there is only one way to regain your soul. The magical epiphany that comes from golconda.

The only mages who should be able to undo the curse are the ones who are basically gods, near ascended individuals.

I think you're massively underestimating Antedeluvians by the way, if you think most mages or changelings have powers equal to them.

comicshorse

2010-10-03, 06:10 PM

Only if you think that mage fluff is superior to vampire fluff. In a vampire game, it is more than just some affliction that can be easily cured magically. It's a god enforced curse, and there is only one way to regain your soul. The magical epiphany that comes from golconda.

The only mages who should be able to undo the curse are the ones who are basically gods, near ascended individuals.

I think you're massively underestimating Antedeluvians by the way, if you think most mages or changelings have powers equal to them.

Yep, it took everything the Technocracy had PLUS several Enlightened Kue-Jin PLUS an elite Werewolf pack to bring down one Antedulivian and nothing I've seen ( which is granted a little) indicates Changelings had anywhere near that power

Incidentally it is suggested in some of the books if a Vampire achieves Golconda (basically Enlightenment) he can become human again.

Project_Mayhem

2010-10-03, 06:57 PM

Roll with 'watch the world burn'. You won't be able to stop [Ventrue] anyway. Find Beckett and Caine and just hang out.

tcrudisi

2010-10-03, 07:50 PM

Yep, it took everything the Technocracy had PLUS several Enlightened Kue-Jin PLUS an elite Werewolf pack to bring down one Antedulivian and nothing I've seen ( which is granted a little) indicates Changelings had anywhere near that power

Incidentally it is suggested in some of the books if a Vampire achieves Golconda (basically Enlightenment) he can become human again.

Elite Werewolf pack = nothing. Several eastern vamps = okay.
Everything the Technocracy had? The real force.

And, thanks for reminding me, Spirit was another of the spheres. I do remember that rote was ridiculously difficult to pull off.

I'm not saying you could do it on an Antideluvian, but I would certainly allow a player to use the right spheres and do it on something weaker than an Antideluvian. Since the statement was "Vampires cannot be turned human and then back", I addressed that statement, not "Antideluvians cannot be turned human and then back", to which I would completely agree. They are god-esque in power.

Having said that, they are only "god-like" to other Vampires. One good Archmage can completely destroy the world and fairly easily. An Antideluvian? He can destroy the things on the world, but not the world itself. There's a huge power discrepancy. I'm not sure the Technocracy had any Archmages, or if they did, they certainly used him/her incorrectly in the battle against... Ravnos? Heck, I would argue that a Mage with two or three spheres at rank 3 is more powerful than an antideluvian, given a few minutes to work their magic. Vampire disciplines, even at level 10, are not exactly earth-shattering. Yes, they are amazing, but they are so, so limited in scope.

As for Changelings: if you look at their ... uh... crud, what are they called? ... arts? (wow, it's been a long time)... anyway, if you look at their magic, it's more versatile and more powerful than what the Vampires have as well. It's not as powerful as Mages, to be sure, but it's certainly not second-fiddle to Vampires. What advantages would an antideluvian have against an experienced changeling? Well, banality and canon (antideluvians are gods and should be treated as such). Yet, if you put King David against an antideluvian, I'd bet the gold dragon on King David in the funhouse with the singing sword.

comicshorse

2010-10-03, 08:35 PM

Elite Werewolf pack = nothing. Several eastern vamps = okay.

Having said that, they are only "god-like" to other Vampires. One good Archmage can completely destroy the world and fairly easily. An Antideluvian? He can destroy the things on the world, but not the world itself. There's a huge power discrepancy. I'm not sure the Technocracy had any Archmages, or if they did, they certainly used him/her incorrectly in the battle against... Ravnos? Heck, I would argue that a Mage with two or three spheres at rank 3 is more powerful than an antideluvian, given a few minutes to work their magic. Vampire disciplines, even at level 10, are not exactly earth-shattering. Yes, they are amazing, but they are so, so limited in scope.

Yeah it was Ravnos I was refering to.
That always seemed to me to be the problem with Mage no-one could agree if three Spheres meant you could control the world or barely light a match :smallsmile: ( Though of course Antedeluvians don't get turned into a hatrack by Paradox for wielding god-like power)

And poor Werewolves, they get no respect

tcrudisi

2010-10-03, 08:45 PM

Yeah it was Ravnos I was refering to.
That always seemed to me to be the problem with Mage no-one could agree if three Spheres meant you could control the world or barely light a match :smallsmile: ( Though of course Antedeluvians don't get turned into a hatrack by Paradox for wielding god-like power)

And poor Werewolves, they get no respect

Oh, I have great respect for Werewolves within the Werewolf system. The problem occurs when you have cross-over. They quickly drop to the weakest of the supernaturals, imo. The problem lies in their magic, which is somehow even more limited than Vampire disciplines.

I've never heard anyone say that a Mage with 3 spheres could barely light a match. Why would people say that? And as for Paradox, there is a way around it -- a personal space that you can take as a background. I can't think of what it's called (since it has been years for me), but I'm sure you or someone else will know pretty quickly. Sanctum, perhaps?

comicshorse

2010-10-03, 08:50 PM

I've never heard anyone say that a Mage with 3 spheres could barely light a match. Why would people say that? And as for Paradox, there is a way around it -- a personal space that you can take as a background. I can't think of what it's called (since it has been years for me), but I'm sure you or someone else will know pretty quickly. Sanctum, perhaps?

I exagerate for effect but I've heard of ( and played in one) Mage games where Spheres were of limited effect. Certainly no PC could ever dream of getting anything remotely resembling a high level discipline in power.

Lhurgyof

2010-10-03, 08:56 PM

tcrudisi

2010-10-03, 08:56 PM

I exagerate for effect but I've heard of ( and played in one) Mage games where Spheres were of limited effect. Certainly no PC could ever dream of getting anything remotely resembling a high level discipline in power.

Ah - every Mage game I've ran or played in, the spheres were limited by only the player's creativity who wielded them. Find a way to make it work within the stated limitations of the power and you could do it.

Psyx

2010-10-04, 06:02 AM

Some notes that we discussed afterwords:
1. Sabbat is evil, and Camerilla is good right?
2. Why are we fighting such high end stuff from the beginning? We started off fighting Time mages, Fae Magic, and then we turned to antediluvian.
3. Antediluvians shouldn't be in this game, statted or otherwise.
4. Vampires cannot be turned human and back. The Storyteller must be pulling a fast one on us.
5. I'm quickly losing control of my armed forces, and I'll only be able to research one or two more things before the world ends.
6. We want to stop the world from ending, but the Camerilla has been gutted by the loss of the Ventrue and Brujah clans.

We're debating a few options. Some of us want to overthrow the Storyteller and beat some sense into him. The other is to get a time machine, and travel back in time so we can stop this crap before it goes insane. Or we watch the world burn and enjoy the ride.

It sounds like your V:tM game has indeed devolved into 'super heroes and villains who only come out at night'.

1. No: They are both evil. Vampires are evil. Both lie and pretend that they are the 'good guys', but both are as bad as each other.

2. Because you have a bad GM.

3. Correct. Saying that we've just finished a huge 2-year Sabbat arc that culminated in us killing a 4th Gen who was effectively a demi-god. It was ridiculous. But, no. No Methuselah -let alone an antediluvian should be in a game. In the same way that Jesus should not turn up in In Nominae games.

4. There are an awful lot of various myths amongst Kindred regarding ways of becoming mortal again. Indeed, the 1st Ed rulebook featured an illustration line which featured this happening. There are also some high-level blags that may make you seem mortal, or allow you to possess mortals, but generally it's not a common thing.

5. The very fact that you HAVE vast armed fleets speaks volumes on your ST.

6. I'd possibly hit the ST with a stick for a while. It sounds like he already has the story planned out in his head, and there isn't too much that you can do that will put power back in your own hands, especially considering the absurdity that you are facing. The Cam can't really survive without the Ventrue, and the Anarchs might not survive without the Brujah. Throw your lot in with the Sabbat. The whole POINT of the Sabbat is to kill the Eldars ['Freeeeddddoooommmm!']. They probably want all the help that they can get right now.

HMS Invincible

2010-10-04, 02:03 PM

Ok, here's my game plan: Start buying up orphanages and eradicating poverty. Then I find cures for the STDs, I'll start with AIDS. The ST told me I can raise my humanity that way. This should attract the attention of any vampires who still care about the Masquerade. I dunno whether to kill them, or ask them for some help.

The other option is we find the Technocracy or the Time Mages, and go back in time. If we go back far enough, we can nip this in the bud. However, that sounds complicated, and I'm uncomfortable with the repercussions time travel.

There's an unknown faction going around nuking my military bases with Beams of Light that rain from the sky. Is this Valkyrie from America? Or the Technocracy?

Chen

2010-10-04, 02:13 PM

Ok, here's my game plan: Start buying up orphanages and eradicating poverty. Then I find cures for the STDs, I'll start with AIDS. The ST told me I can raise my humanity that way. This should attract the attention of any vampires who still care about the Masquerade. I dunno whether to kill them, or ask them for some help.

Uh I don't know how you can talk about raising humanity in one sentence and then have in the next "I dunno whether to kill them, or ask them for some help".

I also don't see why raising humanity would actually attract other vampires. If the **** you're mentioning is going down and I was a vampire I could care less if someone was buying orphanages or getting rid of diseases. They kinda wouldn't be on the radar very much.

Jornophelanthas

2010-10-04, 02:36 PM

I change my mind yet again. Apparently, your Storyteller does not have a feeling for the World of Darkness after all.

Ok, here's my game plan: Start buying up orphanages and eradicating poverty. Then I find cures for the STDs, I'll start with AIDS. The ST told me I can raise my humanity that way. This should attract the attention of any vampires who still care about the Masquerade.
This is wrong on so many levels.

1. Doing good deeds is not enough to raise your Humanity. Your character has to actually be altruistic, and have a reason for this sudden change of heart. A far better angle would be to say that your realization that the end is nigh has awoken a need for atonement within your once-living heart, and you feel you must make amends for your part in the coming destruction.

2. The Masquerade is a Tradition of the Camarilla, which is (pragmatically) adopted by the Anarchs as well. These vampires don't care about someone's Humanity; they only care about their own skins, and how you could serve their interests (or how they could enter into mutually beneficial cooperation with you, if you're lucky).

3. The only vampires who could conceivable be interested in those with unusually high Humanity levels are part of a mysterious secret society that may or may not know the secret of Golconda (the secret of overcoming vampirism and becoming human again). If they exist at all.

4. And even then, building orphanages to atone for your part in the imminent slaughter of many soon-to-be-orphans' parents probably doesn't cut it.

The other option is we find the Technocracy or the Time Mages, and go back in time. If we go back far enough, we can nip this in the bud. However, that sounds complicated, and I'm uncomfortable with the repercussions time travel.
It's probably your best bet.

There's an unknown faction going around nuking my military bases with Beams of Light that rain from the sky. Is this Valkyrie from America? Or the Technocracy?
This seems like the ST's deus ex machina. Consider finding them and defecting to them. It could be the Powers That Be, it could be Demons, it could be another Antediluvian, it could be Kuei-Jin, it could be Tradition mages, or it could be the aforementioned Golconda-cult. Whatever it is, they're extremely powerful and probably on such a high horse as not to care much about what you have to say to them. If they accept your (inconsequential, but still somehow essential) help, you have just allied with the only force in your ST's world that he has given a chance of defeating the Antediluvian, and all players will end up with them if they're smart. Oh, and you have also been completely railroaded.
If they won't listen to reason, they'll just kill you and likely none of the player characters ever had a chance of surviving the entire chronicle anyway. Or they'll want to kill you, but the ST suddenly has somebody rescue you (again) in the nick of time. Because nobody can die in his game before watching the final "Showdown Between Godlike Beings"(tm) he may or may not have written beforehand, and he may or may not spend the entire last session reading this out loud to his assembled players audience.

Semidi

2010-10-04, 02:58 PM

The whole 'the Camarilla doesn't believe in the Antediluvians' schtick introduced in the 11th hour to paint the Sabbat as the great saviors of vampire-kind from the profoundly dumb Camarilla, is just stupid, since every Camarilla Clan has reason to know otherwise, and the Clanbooks are full of stuff about how the Nosferatu are flat-out terrified of their Antediluvian (and the Tremere, despite knowing where he lives, and dreading being 'called to Vienna,' not having it much better...).

Here's the thing--not every neonate and ancilla and even most of the elders are going to know some of the stuff you mentioned. It's in the clanbooks sure, but most of this stuff is legend and mythology--Trojan War type of nonsense (even if it did actually, happen, hardly anyone believes our popular mythology). Even the Camarilla Elders who do have a reason to believe in antediluvians aren't going to go around talking about it as they'll quickly get black bagged and killed. 95%+ Camarilla vampires aren't going to know most of the stuff you mentioned outside maybe vague mythologized stories about their clan.

The big difference is Tremere, but even your rank and file Apprentice isn't going to know anything beyond their clan founder is kind of a scary badass and that they should be loyal to the council of seven. And the Tremere, if they know about the whole Saulot thing, aren't going to go blabbing about it to anyone, ever.

The Giovanni--again--a lot like the Tremere. Most are going to nothing of the Cappodochians (s.p.). Again, they're not going to go around talking about Augustus as anything more than the leader of their Family.

Setites don't think they have an antediluvian. They have a Dark God.

With the Camarilla, it's an open secret, that which very few know about but don't dare talk about except in quiet studies and only in whispers. The anti-antediluvian propaganda is all about about control of for the Camarilla.

The Sabbat is still mostly composed of nuts who are reading handed down stories about Caine and how he's the dark father and all that. Even if they're right about a few things, they're wrong about so much more.

comicshorse

2010-10-04, 05:38 PM

There's an unknown faction going around nuking my military bases with Beams of Light that rain from the sky. Is this Valkyrie from America? Or the Technocracy?
It's a little obvious for them but the situation seems fairly desperate so yes orbital death satellites sounds like the Technocracy to me

Psyx

2010-10-05, 06:01 AM

Ok, here's my game plan: Start buying up orphanages and eradicating poverty. Then I find cures for the STDs, I'll start with AIDS. The ST told me I can raise my humanity that way.

You don't gain any humanity, unless you are doing it because your character genuinely cares about those things.

This should attract the attention of any vampires who still care about the Masquerade.

Errr... why?

HMS Invincible

2010-10-05, 09:33 AM

We're pretty desperate at this point, and money does me no good if everyone is dead. I might as well spend it on w/e to get some kudos.

As for attracting attention, well if they care enough about the masquerade, they might bring in some leads/allies we can talk to about the antediluvian. Or at the least, provide some targets for my missiles.

My character and the Scourge are pretty depressed at this point. My corporation is being used to end the world, and the Scourge's clan is gone.

comicshorse

2010-10-05, 10:15 AM

My character and the Scourge are pretty depressed at this point. My corporation is being used to end the world, and the Scourge's clan is gone.

He should look on the bright side, he's now Head of his Clan and the Clan Founder :smallsmile:

Thrawn4

2010-10-05, 03:14 PM

He should look on the bright side, he's now Head of his Clan and the Clan Founder :smallsmile:

Priceless :smallbiggrin:

HMS Invincible

2010-10-10, 06:29 AM

Hey, we just finished a session, it does not look good. The ventrue antediluvian asks to me to fire my satellite cannons at some rebel ventrue, and I refuse since it would make me lose humanity. I demand that we fight said elders as a group, in melee combat. We compromise because my research comes to fruition and I got into a metal gear mech, and killed 4 ventrue elders during the day. Apparently during the daytime, a railgun to the face can kills elders. I find a 12 year old girl locked in a coffin. Antediluvian orders me to kill the little girl, and I refuse. I get out and retrieve her and then I get ambushed by my own men. I dominate one into killing the other, and then I drained the blood of the one I dominated. It taste of antediluvian blood and I love it. Next thing I know, I wake up blazed out of my mind with LSD and I'm lying next to said girl from the coffin. Apparently our lovable antediluvian requires that the blood he drinks is spiked with 20% LSD. I drained 10 blood points of said blood, and I am now out of control for the next two weeks or until I feed 10 more blood points to purge LSD out of my system. Great, just great. I'm not sure yet, but if a little girl has black veins with purple tinges around it, I think the ST is implying she is one of the many daughters of Caine and Lilith. Or a demonic succubus.

The antediluvian goes insane from my "betrayal" and he seizes my company. My Resources went from 6 dots to 5, and my armed forces and status go to 0. =( In exchange, I now owe a favor to a demonic succubus. Talk about out of the fire and into the frying pan. It's just as insane as the Antediluvian, but I have to deal with it and it has "dark legacy" point system. Whatever that is.

He's not trying to kill us all, he's trying to end the world through a series of world wars. It just so happens that for some reason, our characters tend to die during said world war. We're down to half our original group. The campaign ends when the last one dies and we all beat down the ST with books for said campaign.
We had a porn director- killed off by standing too close to a thermite reaction on a crystallized time mage.
Conjuring vampire- also has soul ripped out and planted into an immortal teddy bear.
Non-camerilla, path of blood vampire- died by sexual assault from antediluvian for refusing orders.

There's only 3 others left now, and they ran back to Cairo Egypt. Apparently, nobody believes anyone was actually compromised and they don't think anything is wrong with the world.

Tiki Snakes

2010-10-10, 11:21 AM

On the plus side, you told an Antediluvian to go pleasure himself and unlived to talk about. :smallsmile:
Also, surely given that you refused (at cost) to destroy her, the possible succubus would owe you?

Oh, and never get out of your Metal Gear.

Jornophelanthas

2010-10-11, 07:43 AM

I thought you were a Ventrue who wanted to work against the Ventrue Antediluvian? Then why are you obeying him when he orders you to kill 4 rebel Ventrue elders who could have been your allies?

And why do you stop obeying him when he orders you to kill something that may be more dangerous and possibly more intent on destroying the world than the Ventrue Antediluvian himself?

Whatever this thing is (I refuse to call it a girl), point it towards your Antediluvian, explaining (repeatedly, if necessary) that he was the one who tried to kill it. If there's something dark, ancient vampire-types will be interested in, it's revenge. Cash in the favor by having it destroy the Antediluvian. It's a life boon, so anything goes.

Oh, and forget about those fools in Cairo. If they don't want to believe it's the final nights, it's their loss.

A final tip for getting rid of the LSD: go to a hospital, Dominate a doctor to give you either a hefty blood transfusion (O Negative), or to hook you up to a dialysis machine. Burn some blood to appear human for the scene, which should get ride of some of the tainted vitae, and which will also cause your heart to work for the scene, so that the transfusion/dialysis equipment will actually work properly for you. You'll be clean in a few hours time, without committing a crime worse than theft.

HMS Invincible

2010-10-11, 11:23 AM

Well the antediluvian guy is kinda of a big prick. I refused to kill them with satellite cannons, but he wanted me to kill them anyway. The only way to negotiate with someone that crazy is to propose even crazier ideas. I proposed to take on 5 ventrue elders in glorious 5 on 3 combat. He sent me in a mech, 2 tanks with 6 ventrue mooks instead of my 2 PC allies. =\

I wanted to have a chitchat with those elders, but I got sent out during the daylight in shade gel. Everybody was sleeping except the guard, and the guard refused to answer any of my communications. If they refused to talk to me, then they aren't going to be my allies. They start killing the mooks that I sent in to talk to them. I showed some force in the hopes of forcing them to talk to me, but nobody came out and I ended up killing 4 of the elders. The last one I saw was in a coffin that was sealed, so I got out and tried to talk with the person inside. I planned to take it with me, but the mooks I came with disagreed and tried to destroy it. They didn't follow my orders, so I dominated one to kill the others. Lastly, I was hurt so I fed on one to heal myself, and to send him into torpor. That mook was filled with antediluvian blood, which is 20% LSD. =\ God damn ventrue and their clan weakness. At this point, the real elder comes out, and starts hammering on the coffin.
Nobody tells me that the blood is laced, so the rest of the scene is me going insane vs a ventrue elder who has to soak sunlight with her fort and fight me in the daytime. Next thing I know, I'm in a cave with a strange girl. On the plus side, I didn't have to make any humanity rolls.

BTW, this is my first actual combat with rolling dice and maneuvers since the semester/campaign started. My first combat, is me tripping on LSD and fighting an elder. After this campaign is over, I'm never letting this guy GM a campaign ever again.

Oracle_Hunter

2010-10-11, 11:33 AM

BTW, this is my first actual combat with rolling dice and maneuvers since the semester/campaign started. My first combat, is me tripping on LSD and fighting an elder. After this campaign is over, I'm never letting this guy GM a campaign ever again.
From the sounds of it, your character wasn't the only one on LSD during this campaign.

This is the screwiest oWoD Vampire campaign I've ever heard of - and I ran one set in the world of Miami Vice :smalleek:

Jornophelanthas

2010-10-11, 12:12 PM

The campaign ends when the last one dies and we all beat down the ST with books for said campaign.

Why wait with beating down the ST with books until the end of the campaign?

HMS Invincible

2010-10-11, 05:14 PM

To be fair, most of the combat I was not present for, were simply puzzles, or was so easy, that no rolls were necessary. The other PCs have seen a lot of combat, and know what they are doing.

It's pretty screwy since the antediluvian acts like a modern day pimp. Well everyone here is an engineering or computer science major, so it's really technology based, especially for me. My entire specialty is money, and money mainly buys me status and technology. Magic, vampiric powers, and time mages are everybody else's forte.

Initially, we thought the campaign is still salvageable. Some of us maintain illusions that we can still save the world. Btw, we got one last mcguffan, we have an amulet that holds the finger of Caine. It's crystalized in the blood of caine and lilith. If we wanted to, we can send the amulet into the sun and force Caine to take infinite aggravated damage for 5 billion years. That, I think negates his infinite fort. So in theory, we could piss off caine if we wanted to.

Jornophelanthas

2010-10-11, 08:13 PM

It's pretty screwy since the antediluvian acts like a modern day pimp.

This is exactly my problem with the setting as you describe it. Every character that is introduced into a story, including the most powerful vampires, should have some kind of limitation or weakness. Characters such as Antediluvians, Methuselahs and Elders should be limited by their inability to understand modern technology, industrialized economy, and modern society. After the Embrace, vampire lose much of their creativity and ability to learn. Therefore, the older the vampire, the more out of tune they are with the human world, even if they have actively witnessed most of modern history.

While it's possible that your Storyteller has given your Antediluvian a hidden weakness that may be uncovered through story progression, I am becoming firmer and firmer in my belief that this character is a Mary Sue villain, i.e. one that is invulnerable, undefeatable, all-powerful, and awesomely cool, all at the same time, and the Storyteller is personally invested in the character. As a result, the story is no longer about the players and what they do, but about the antagonist and what it does to the players. Basically, the players have become minor characters instead of protagonists.

As long as you and your fellow players are still having fun, this is no problem. But in my opinion, it is poor storytelling.

HMS Invincible

2010-10-12, 01:13 AM

Yes, I sense the railroad tracks, but this is my first vampire game so I'm pretty cautious. If this was 3.5, I'd be tearing it up with the combined might and fury of the internets. I might as well learn as much from the system as I can, then never play it outside of a trusted group of friends. This game goes pretty deep into the perversions. =.=

When I made this character, I thought we be in a d20 modern with more sexual innuendo. So I randomly picked traits that be close to what a soldier has, but with money because I didn't know what was good. I ended up with broad shoulders and steady, which was worthless. Part of this is my fault for not realizing that having 5 points in firearms is the biggest waste of time

I'm not sure where to put xp into. Other vampires can override my dominate due to my default 13 generation. How good is Presence? I heard that presence 5 allows me to stop even the oldest vampires. I found Fortitude is decent, and applies almost everywhere. I don't see how I can get any better at combat outside of eating lower generation vampires. Eating them or getting some plot device/elder vampire to give you dots in generations is the best option. Compare that to my dominate, or presence 2-3.

Where does path of Humanity lead? Say I burn 14 xp then 16 xp to get humanity 9? What do I get in return? I can use more dice during the day in shadegel? The only thing humanity is useful for is not losing more humanity. I should start pumping my piddly willpower instead, three points isn't enough.

Deadmeat.GW

2010-10-12, 01:53 AM

Oh, I have great respect for Werewolves within the Werewolf system. The problem occurs when you have cross-over. They quickly drop to the weakest of the supernaturals, imo. The problem lies in their magic, which is somehow even more limited than Vampire disciplines.

I've never heard anyone say that a Mage with 3 spheres could barely light a match. Why would people say that? And as for Paradox, there is a way around it -- a personal space that you can take as a background. I can't think of what it's called (since it has been years for me), but I'm sure you or someone else will know pretty quickly. Sanctum, perhaps?

Oh, I would not dismiss them so easily, the werewolves do have some ridiculous abilities but...they require a lot more work to be used decisively.
Spiritual attacks that target Gnosis as the difficulty?
Right there you have some way of doing hideous amounts of damage with no defence against most supernaturals.

The 'elite' werewolf pack never even had some of the uber gifts, hence since we got one side, the werewolves, playing without their most powerfull abilities and all the other sides do get to use their shiniest toys the wolves are of course going to look pretty bad.

There is a rank 6 gift that transforms someone into a standard, unpowered human...
This in of itself is not much.
However combine it with gifts that allow you to use a gift from a distance (and distance is determined by how you do it, it can be unlimited and transcending planes of existence if you are really pushing it).

If you combine several gifts, the rank 6 gift and two rituals you can change any creature, anywhere in the world that you know something about into a unpowered mortal human and to top it off drag that mortal through a portal to you...

Of course no GM in his right mind is ever going to let you get away with that :).

For WoD rankings there was a topic not too long ago, you might want to look into it.
Werewolves are not anywhere near the top but they are not the bottom either.

Psyx

2010-10-12, 05:54 AM

but I got sent out during the daylight in shade gel.

!!!

Where does path of Humanity lead? Say I burn 14 xp then 16 xp to get humanity 9? What do I get in return? I can use more dice during the day in shadegel? The only thing humanity is useful for is not losing more humanity. I should start pumping my piddly willpower instead, three points isn't enough.

It leads to being a better person, instead of being an inhuman monstrosity.
I also believe that your dice pool for operating during daylight hours is capped by humanity.

Part of this is my fault for not realizing that having 5 points in firearms is the biggest waste of time

And the reason why starting characters are normally capped at 3 - I believe - for anything is partly stop such expensive mistakes.

I don't see how I can get any better at combat outside

Buy disciplines [ie celerity] out of clan, for an increased XP cost.
Burn blood for extra physical traits.
Buy more skill levels.

***

Please don't judge V:tM based on your campaign experiences. It seems you are playing a superhero game, not a vampire one.

It really is a very good roleplaying game, although the mechanics are a bit poor. If you later read the books and want to play a campaign, I'd probably recommend using the new rules and perhaps the old setting. The new rules are a lot better thought out and streamlined.

***

The problem with oWoD werewolves is in live games, where high levels of Celerity and Potence allow kindred to will all ties on speed/strength based tests, making the werewolf's vast number of physical traits laughably moot.

Jornophelanthas

2010-10-12, 06:47 AM

I ended up killing 4 of the elders.
[...]
On the plus side, I didn't have to make any humanity rolls.

This is wrong. At Humanity 7, you should be required a Conscience check for this or lose Humanity. In fact, given that this is outright murder - you were carrying out an order to kill them, even if it was reluctantly - this would require a Conscience check at Humanity 3 or above. If you were really hell-bent on just talking to them, but ended up killing them in self-defense, then I would rule it was manslaughter, which means a Conscience check at Humanity 4 or above. Which doesn't matter for you, because your Humanity score is 7.

Please check the hierarchy of sins table on page 221 of your V:tM rulebook. It lists what types of acts are forbidden at given levels of Humanity. Yes, the descriptions are intentionally vague, because morality is inexact by nature. However, please note that Humanity does not care who the victim of your transgressions is. This means that, yes, killing other vampires is in fact murder.

It's another thing if you don't remember the act (e.g. if you were high on LSD), but upon learning of what you have done, you should still check if it is a transgression of you Humanity score.

A low Humanity score give you all kinds of penalties.
- Any Virtue roll cannot use more dice than your current Humanity (or blood pool, whichever is lower)
- If you enter torpor from sustaining too much damage to your health, the duration is exponentially longer if your Humanity is low. At high Humanity, it is days, at lower Humanity, it can be years.
- The lower your Humanity score, the more you look like a walking corpse. You become deathly pale, you forget to breathe when not speaking, your skin is cold to the touch, etc.
- If you commit Diablerie, you always lose 1 Humanity, and you still need to do a Conscience check in order to not lose a second Humanity point. Committing Diablerie means eating someone's soul, and as such it is a "heinous act" (which means a Conscience check even if your Humanity is at 1).
- If your Humanity reaches 0, you permanently lose your sense of self and your Beast Within takes over. Hand in your character sheet to the DM if this happens, because your character is now totally unplayable.

A high Humanity score not only counteracts this, but provides some additional advantages.
- The higher your Humanity score, the earlier you rise every night. Low Humanity creeps are less active.
- If you want to pass yourself off as human for a scene, and are subject to close scrutiny, you have to spend blood points equal to (8 - Humanity). Yes, this means you can do so at will if your Humanity score is 8 or above.
- A high Humanity score means you can sustain a few extra failed Conscience checks before you succumb to the Beast.

There is one advantage to a lower Humanity score, however. You do not need to make Conscience checks for transgressions that are only appropriate for higher levels of Humanity than you have. Therefore, if your Humanity is 6, you can steal as much as you want without fearing for your Humanity (as long as it does not count as property damage, or worse). Conversely, Humanity scores of 9 or 10 are near-impossible to maintain and require you to be a saint.

I'm guessing your Storyteller does not care much for any of the above. However, the Humanity system is what makes Vampire: the Masquerade a horror game.

Psyx

2010-10-12, 08:10 AM

This is wrong.

I think we've already established though that what the Story Teller is running is the anathema to V:tM, both in terms of throwing the rules out of the window, in urinating upon the entire game's background material, and -of course- in wiping his butt on the ethos behind the entire idea.

HMS Invincible

2010-10-12, 11:05 AM

Oracle_Hunter

2010-10-12, 11:14 AM

It's a good thing I'm rich, or I'd have to make so many humanity rolls. Every single interaction with humans consists of me making them give me something they want to keep. Usually, I just hand them money until they agree. Is humanity that strict? From a D&D point of view, this is pretty annoying. You lose humanity from liberating bad guys of their stuff. And you can't kill bad guys. =\ With humans, I could see doing it without a problem, because you are so much stronger than them. But interacting with any vampire can be deadly. How did you interact with anybody important who was aggressive? Pass it off to your low humanity PCs? Or does the game intend for your character to die/stay weak burning tons of xp to regain humanity. If it is that strict, I won't be spending any points into humanity until I reach the 2-4 range. I can't afford keeping my humanity high via xp.
Yes, Humanity is strict.

No, bribing people should not generally trigger Humanity Checks (although Humanity 9 is, IIRC, no lying).

Yes, it is a waste of time spending XP to up Humanity; I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to be able to do it that way anyhow.

In most oWoD games you either play with weak Humanity (i.e. few called checks) and lots of combat or strong Humanity and lots of running away. Truth be told, Vampires can afford to ignore most violence directed at them - and inflicting psychological trauma doesn't trigger Humanity checks... usually :smallamused:

comicshorse

2010-10-12, 11:16 AM

At this point, I've given up trying to influence the storyline, and I just want to learn the rules now.

I can buy other disciplines?! Why am I wasting points on dominate? =.= Should I buy only celerity or Potence? Assume I'll be in heavy combat.

It's a good thing I'm rich, or I'd have to make so many humanity rolls. Every single interaction with humans consists of me making them give me something they want to keep. Usually, I just hand them money until they agree. Is humanity that strict? From a D&D point of view, this is pretty annoying. You lose humanity from liberating bad guys of their stuff. And you can't kill bad guys. =\ With humans, I could see doing it without a problem, because you are so much stronger than them. But interacting with any vampire can be deadly. How did you interact with anybody important who was aggressive? Pass it off to your low humanity PCs? Or does the game intend for your character to die/stay weak burning tons of xp to regain humanity. If it is that strict, I won't be spending any points into humanity until I reach the 2-4 range. I can't afford keeping my humanity high via xp.
I guess humanity isn't really a problem once you get to lower humanity, since it's harder to lower your humanity further.

One of the guys in my group suggests I take blade dance, even though I only wield guns and a magical longsword. Thoughts?

Yes you can buy any Discipline provided you can find someone to teach it to you. Non Clan Disciplines will cost more XP though.
Both Celerity and Potence are good. Probably Celerity is more useful as extra actions can also be used to get the hell out of combat if you're overmatched.
I've been playing Vampire for years and have no idea what 'blade dance ' is.
Regarding Humanity, higher has all the advantages stated but on the other hand the higher it is the more you can lose it. Read the Heirarchy of Sins and decide what you feel is right for your character. Remember Vampire is meant to be the game of politics and subtle manipulation, actually killing your opponents should be a relatively rare occurrence. Think of how you can defeat them politically instead ( destroy their reputation, steal their allies, wreck their businesses, etc)

Chen

2010-10-12, 11:50 AM

Regarding Humanity, higher has all the advantages stated but on the other hand the higher it is the more you can lose it. Read the Heirarchy of Sins and decide what you feel is right for your character. Remember Vampire is meant to be the game of politics and subtle manipulation, actually killing your opponents should be a relatively rare occurrence. Think of how you can defeat them politically instead ( destroy their reputation, steal their allies, wreck their businesses, etc)

Note too though that most of that stuff will also drop humanity until you hit ~5 or so.

HMS Invincible

2010-10-12, 12:02 PM

I've been pretty lucky that I've passed all my humanity rolls so far, and I've avoided combat except in the most dire situations. Having dominate/presence and lots of money really helps. My character is tasked with helping out a legendary scourge on his missions. In addition, the scourge has been taking care of most of the combat for everybody, so we're pretty safe on humanity. Lastly, I did own a corporation which does corporate level indiscretions, but I have a lackey/retainer/ally who runs the day to day ugly business. I only show up to collect refill my wallet, overseer R&D, and grab any goods that get researched.

I'm more worried about my humanity now. My corporation is destroyed, I pissed off an antediluvian, I got custody of a strange little girl that everyone wants sealed/dead, and I just got my first taste of antediluvian blood... I'm going to have to defend myself at some point, and it won't be pretty.

That corporation was my last card to play in order to stop the antediluvian, which greatly reduces how much I can help. It's entirely in the hands of the Scourge PC and his formerly Brujah(now sabbat) friend. He has a 3 part plan, and the ST said that only one of those would actually have a chance of working.

After getting celerity, is there any need to put points in anything else? I don't have any knowledges or skills so it seems pertinent to improve my combat.

Psyx

2010-10-12, 12:14 PM

At this point, I've given up trying to influence the storyline, and I just want to learn the rules now.

As much as I love oWoD and it's amazing background, I wouldn't recommend that you bother. nWoD is a far better, balanced system. If you like the background of oWoD after reading the books, there's no reason not to play it, but I'd use the nWoD system. We did it, and had a lot of fun.

I can buy other disciplines?! Why am I wasting points on dominate? =.= Should I buy only celerity or Potence? Assume I'll be in heavy combat.

It depends on ST fiat. Typically, you would need to be taught them, and it increases cost from 5xlevel to 7xlevel. If you are fighting, buy celerity. If you are fighting in a giant mecha-combat-suit, then probably don't bother, unless you think your GM is dumb enough for the suit to work as celerity-speed.

You are 'wasting' points on dominate to create a vast empire of dominated subordinate minions, all implanted with various commands, and covertly working for you. It's petty, but given enough time, it's easy enough to implant a simple command into every taxi-drivers mind that they never charge you and never remember you were in the cab. Sure: They won't be great conversationalists for the journey, but otherwise they'll lead normal lives. Or just implant them to drive off a cliff when person who looks like *insert photo here* gets in the cab. Ultimately you are 'wasting' points in order to possess other mortals so that you never need risk your life in physical confrontation again: You steal a body, and if it gets broken... so what?

Is humanity that strict? From a D&D point of view, this is pretty annoying.

WoD is not D&D. And most humans don't have Humanity of ten. Mother Theresa might have done, but we haven't.

Humanity needs to be strict because you are no longer a person. You are an inhumane shell driven by hunger for blood and power. Other people are walking snacks. Your empathy with them slowly decreases, until they are simply there for food and perhaps entertainment. And of course, every moment there is a slavering monster inside your mind which you must constantly fight with and repress. If you let it loose, it turns you into a monster who just wants to kill and consume, and has no thought for consequences.
Vampires who don't want to surrender do everything they can to keep their humanity intact, because every minor moral slide lengthens the beast's chain that little bit further.

How did you interact with anybody important who was aggressive? Pass it off to your low humanity PCs? Or does the game intend for your character to die/stay weak burning tons of xp to regain humanity.

The game intends to to either constantly struggle enormously with such problems in order to retain your humanity, or for your character to slowly slide morally. It's all about the angst, y'see. Read some Ann Rice if you can stomach the awful prose.

Most vampires who don't fight the slide tend to stabilise around humanity 3-4.
Yes: That means they can't go out at day, and that mortals find them repugnant. That's the downside to it. You still have to be careful though, because one night of crazed mayhem can see that remaining vestige seep away. Again: angst.

However, as a non-combat character with Presence and Dominate, you can generally get by without loosing too much humanity, by avoiding conflict. Someone wants to start a fight? Use Presence. They push it further: Dominate. I appreciate that this is mooted by your ST's fondness for over-the-top carnage, and by railroading, but normally in a game a social character can preserve their humanity quite well.

One of the guys in my group suggests I take blade dance, even though I only wield guns and a magical longsword. Thoughts?

I have no idea what that is. At all.

Jornophelanthas

2010-10-12, 07:20 PM

I'll add my two cents.

I have also never heard of something called "blade dance" in Vampire: the Masquerade.

Tiki Snakes

2010-10-12, 09:02 PM

I think we've already established though that what the Story Teller is running is the anathema to V:tM, both in terms of throwing the rules out of the window, in urinating upon the entire game's background material, and -of course- in wiping his butt on the ethos behind the entire idea.

I think this might be part of why I enjoy reading these updates. The idea of taking such a stuffily prescriptive setting and rocking it out the wazzoo with your own, often antithetical concepts and lulz kinda appeals to me. Like running a fluffy space-romp in a barbarella style using the Traveller rules. :smallcool:

a_humble_lich

2010-10-12, 10:18 PM

Traveler rules? We can do better--a Barbarella game using Dark Heresy rules!

Kingweasel

2010-10-13, 04:29 PM

After a year long game, our party discovered a takeover plot headed by the kiasyd that included some sort of chip which, when embedded in a vamp, bestowed wildly powerful abilities...or drawbacks. After a lot of trial and error, we sorted them out and everyone in the party had some sort of bonus: walk in the sun, generation boost, werewolf style healing...

I stole the 'being human' chip from another character who had pocketed it.

On the night of the final session, after the BBEG fight, while the DM's were doling out the denoument, my character slipped off to a quiet room, slapped the human chip into action, and shot himself in the head.

For my character, it made sense--he never wanted to be a vamp, so taking the opportunity to be human and ending it on a high note seemed like the perfect ending.

Thoughts?

Iceforge

2010-10-13, 04:50 PM

Wait...you have 5 firearms and resources 5?

Hmm, do you have any contacts that could perhaps get you some double-barreled shotguns?

Saw them off and **** those bastards with swords in melee, just double-shoot them in the head.

1 firearms roll, diff 8 (if you have just average dexterity, that should be a clean shot), and watch the agony of them having to soak 16 potential lethal to the head.

Also, grenades, a vampires absolutely best friend, works off from firearms as well, nothing like a bit of bashing and some fire damage (aggrevated) to boot.

Or go all-out-spoiler fun on it, and get some firebullets (forgot the technical term, but if you are a science student, you should be able to find out), all out aggrevated ranged damage, doesn't really do much for them to have high stamina then.

Firearms is only wasted if your ST limits you entirely to only use things found in the main book

Jornophelanthas

2010-10-16, 07:51 PM

It's Saturday again, and this terrible interesting chronicle is likely to have a new installment. I look forward to any update HMS Invincible is willing to post on the next outrageous things the Storyteller managed to pull.

GeminiVeil

2010-10-18, 12:25 AM

Yes, Humanity is strict.

No, bribing people should not generally trigger Humanity Checks (although Humanity 9 is, IIRC, no lying).

Yes, it is a waste of time spending XP to up Humanity; I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to be able to do it that way anyhow.

In most oWoD games you either play with weak Humanity (i.e. few called checks) and lots of combat or strong Humanity and lots of running away. Truth be told, Vampires can afford to ignore most violence directed at them - and inflicting psychological trauma doesn't trigger Humanity checks... usually :smallamused:

Actually, on page 143 of the core book, it gives you the table saying you use XP to up humanity. Also, on page 135, it specifically says that spending XP is the only way to raise humanity. That's the only thing I can really find on that subject.

Psyx

2010-10-18, 05:51 AM

I too have a kind of masochistic streak that makes me look forward to the next instalment of super-heroes-who--only-come-out-at-night*-on-a-rail-road.

*Except they also come out in the day because of 'gel suits'.

Jornophelanthas

2010-10-18, 06:51 AM

Actually, on page 143 of the core book, it gives you the table saying you use XP to up humanity. Also, on page 135, it specifically says that spending XP is the only way to raise humanity. That's the only thing I can really find on that subject.

Yes, it is true that Humanity (and Virtues) can only be raised through expenditure of Experience Points (XP).

While I can't find the exact quotation (or perhaps it's just a popular houserule among the people I play with), players are also required to roleplay out this personal growth. This means they should show through roleplaying that the character is indeed making the effort to attain (and maintain) a higher moral standard. This typically requires both an in-character motivation to improve in this regard (because degeneration is mostly subconscious), such as a traumatic event or "wake-up call", and a consistent portrayal of the character behaving in a more soulful manner.

And the Storyteller should only actually allow the XP expenditure when the character has proven to persistently roleplay this change in personality.

Jeivar

2010-10-18, 10:49 AM

Say, could someone help me out with some of the rules? Me and my friends are gearing up to play Vampire: Dark Ages in the coming weeks, and I only have the book on my computer. The index is pretty sparsely detailed and I'm having trouble finding some of the stuff I need.

*How are the darkness rules? I have three points in Archery, but I'm thinking of dropping them because I'd just be shooting into darkness most of the time. That and the low damage makes the bow a little unappealing to me.

*What kind of character point allocation do mortals get? I have a ghoul retainer, a Ward, and a True Love character and I'd like to stat them out.

*Maybe I'm just incredibly oblivious but I COULD NOT find the hunting rules (as in, hunting for blood).

I have a nagging feeling that there was more, but this is all I can think of right now.

Jornophelanthas

2010-10-18, 11:29 AM

I don't know Vampire: the Dark Ages setting at all, or in what ways it differs from Vampire: the Masquerade, so I'm not able to help you.

*Maybe I'm just incredibly oblivious but I COULD NOT find the hunting rules (as in, hunting for blood).

In the basic present-day rules, the system is Perception + Herd (using your Herd is optional), with a difficulty dependent on the circumstances / neighbourhood. Each roll requires an hour, and each success is a vessel. It's a rather meagre rule, so most Storytellers I've played with devised their own house rules for it. Still, I'm guessing this system will still be in place in the Dark Ages.

Tiki Snakes

2010-10-18, 12:02 PM

I'm pretty sure there's something you need to take to see in the dark. I think if this were nWoD it might be Auspex, but I thiink it's one of the others in oWoD. Possibly, ah, what was the name? The physical-transformation-esque one, I think. Protean? Might be. I'm hazy, but have heard the subject discussed.

I also understand that the dark ages can be otherwise hilarious for Vamps. something about the lack of electric lighting. Those Vamps without the ability to see in the dark needing torchlight, but needing to make checks all the time because of the fire of the torchlight.

So, yes. I'd recommend checking which thingy will get you the ability to see in darkness. Which will also solve the archery in the dark issue. :smallcool:

Psyx

2010-10-18, 12:40 PM

Protean 1 gives eyes of the night, which solves the problem. Likewise Auspex 1 can be used to see in the dark.

Always struck me as odd that Vampires - au naturale - cannot see in the dark!

your GM would normally get to stat NPCs, especially the True Love. However, I believe that they get the same base skills number as normal starting characters. Not sure that they get Freebie points, though.

Jeivar

2010-10-18, 12:43 PM

I don't know Vampire: the Dark Ages setting at all, or in what ways it differs from Vampire: the Masquerade, so I'm not able to help you.

Well, I'm pretty sure the basic rules are exactly the same, with only setting-related differences.

In the basic present-day rules, the system is Perception + Herd (using your Herd is optional), with a difficulty dependent on the circumstances / neighbourhood. Each roll requires an hour, and each success is a vessel. It's a rather meagre rule, so most Storytellers I've played with devised their own house rules for it. Still, I'm guessing this system will still be in place in the Dark Ages.

Huh. I could have sworn Stealth was involved somehow. And I have neither Herd nor good Perception . . .

I'm pretty sure there's something you need to take to see in the dark. I think if this were nWoD it might be Auspex, but I thiink it's one of the others in oWoD. Possibly, ah, what was the name? The physical-transformation-esque one, I think. Protean? Might be. I'm hazy, but have heard the subject discussed.

It's Protean, yeah. And I meant how much darkness subtracts from vision-related rolls, and how far you can see without using Protean.

Jornophelanthas

2010-10-18, 02:00 PM

Well, I'm pretty sure the basic rules are exactly the same, with only setting-related differences.

I know for a fact (from friends who have played Dark Ages) that certain Disciplines work differently. Something about Celerity costing more blood, and maybe more.

comicshorse

2010-10-18, 04:36 PM

Say, could someone help me out with some of the rules? Me and my friends are gearing up to play Vampire: Dark Ages in the coming weeks, and I only have the book on my computer. The index is pretty sparsely detailed and I'm having trouble finding some of the stuff I need.

*How are the darkness rules? I have three points in Archery, but I'm thinking of dropping them because I'd just be shooting into darkness most of the time. That and the low damage makes the bow a little unappealing to me.

They aren't there as far as I can tell.
So using the Difficulty table on p177 as a guide I'd suggest firing at night without any Disciplines would be Diff 8, with Auspex Diff 7 and with Protean the normal Diff 6

I know for a fact (from friends who have played Dark Ages) that certain Disciplines work differently. Something about Celerity costing more blood, and maybe more.

Yep you have to spend Blood equal to the number of extra actions you wish to take. Our group always ignored that rule but if you do use it look into the 'Retain the Quick Blood' combination power

Jeivar

2010-10-18, 04:54 PM

Yep you have to spend Blood equal to the number of extra actions you wish to take. Our group always ignored that rule but if you do use it look into the 'Retain the Quick Blood' combination power

Huh. Any idea why they made this change? Did they stick with it in subsequent version of the modern vampire setting?

I just remembered the other thing I wanted to clear up: Are there official rules for regrowing lost body parts? I'm pretty sure the Cainites can regrow limbs and eyes and whatnot, but how long does it take and how much does it cost?

comicshorse

2010-10-18, 05:04 PM

No real idea why they changed it, I suspect it may have something to do with Celerity being considered too powerful a discipline in a world where without firearms melee is really king. And no it was unique to the Dark Ages, we tried it for a bit and quickly went back to the original rules

I can't find the rules for regrowing limbs. Our house rules were ( for what they're worth) re-growing a limb costs 3 blood. It can be done as fast as you can spend the blood, so if you're Eighth generation or lower you could re-grow a limb in one round

Jornophelanthas

2010-10-18, 07:45 PM

Huh. Any idea why they made this change? Did they stick with it in subsequent version of the modern vampire setting?
It is setting-specific. Because the blood line got thinner and thinner (there were hardly any 13th Generation vampires in the Dark Ages), Celerity was slowly developed to be more blood-efficient over the centuries.

I just remembered the other thing I wanted to clear up: Are there official rules for regrowing lost body parts? I'm pretty sure the Cainites can regrow limbs and eyes and whatnot, but how long does it take and how much does it cost?
Personally, I would rule that a lost body part is always aggravated damage, which requires 5 blood points and a day's rest to regenerate per health level, (and 1 willpower for every additional aggravated wound healed during the same day).

I would say an eye or hand is 1 wound, an arm or leg is 2 wounds, and bigger than that would be three wounds. Having either your heart or your brain destroyed (or separated from each other) results in Final Death.

This is not based on any official rules that I know of, just my interpretation.

HMS Invincible

2010-10-18, 10:20 PM

Hello guys, I didn't think this was that popular of a game/thread. But, I should at least give an update.

We didn't do too much this week, but we decided to take stock of what we had and give everyone a chance to reconcile in character, so we don't kill each other.
Between the 3 of us, we have:
1. We have a former gen 13 vampire turned into human by a really powerful elder, and then turned into a 4-5th gen Sabbat aligned vampire. He and I both got dominated into working for said elder, but I can't say anything because it breaches my domination/loyalty. He gets humanity 9 and can heal any damage by spending a will point. Healing allies regains him a willpoint. In addition, he can heal any derangement. (Antediluvian ventrue apparently had schizophrenia. Did not stop his war path.) He has other vampire magic powers which can but I don't know Sabbat rituals/powers. Installed an accelerator suit on him, grants him 5 dots in celerity, we are unable to locate extra copies. He and the Scourge were about to exchange blows because he betrayed the Camerilla by healing some important daughter of a Sabbat vampire. Armed with a magic sword, makes him immune to fire. How do you turn an inanimate teddy bear that deals holy damage to whatever touches it? It has intelligence and it bound to its owner's will. It gets stronger as its bound to its owner grows.(Bound grows as owner gets more humanity. When vampire reaches humanity 10, teddy bear gets true faith 10?, no idea what that means.) Also can psychically move up to 10 lbs. Belongs to said vampire.

2. I did have a corporation, but the antediluvian seized my company, because I saved a little girl. Now I have $40 Million, 1 Italian gold bar (weighs 70 lbs. or ~$2 million), access codes to satellite and naval based nuclear rail guns, and one ally/cohort 14th gen vampire employee. This underling has 5 dots in finance, intelligence, and specializes in running corporations. Armed with a sword that gives me auspex 1/spirit vision, and a chance die to send someone to hell. I have no idea where my Metal Gear went, but I do have custody of a little girl/daughter of Caine and Lilith. What can I do with a succubus? In addition, I have been branded a worldwide terrorist. Apparently, arming Somali pirates with battlecruisers isn't a big deal, but you blow up one measly house that has ventrue elders with a Metal Gear, and the whole world gets pissy.

3. Scourge, a low gen combat vampire with potence and celerity. Armed with a magical sword. Has a cloak that generates whatever object a time mage created in the past. Cloak has previously retrieved thermonuclear devices and porno mags from the future. He stores his stuff there. Lastly, one amulet that is made out of the blood of Lilith and Caine, has Caine's finger embedded inside. This mcguffan can be used like a philosopher's stone, so it's a catalyst to anything and everything. Because of that , everybody wants it. It's still a part of Caine, so hurting it affects Caine as well.

We don't have a plan A, but plan B and C are so much worse that nobody wants to consider them.
Plan B: We seize control of the satellite cannons long enough to fire it into the space station that burned my Vancouver base to hell. They are owned by the Technocracy, so pissing them off should get their attention. Then we run like hell after framing the Antediluvian. If we can blame the antediluvian brad for it, then they should kill each other or at least inconvenience him.

Plan C: Use some blood magic to up a vampire's generation to gen 1 or 2, and then dominate the antediluvian into burning all his will points. Then kill him.

Plan Z?:
We shove the amulet into the teddy bear, and tell it to fly into the center of the sun. Caine will be forced to soak infinite agg damage from his finger being in the center of the sun for the next 5 billion years. This should cancel out Caine's ability to soak infinite damage. We go kill Caine as a group; the few who survive can watch as all the vampires turn human because Caine is no more. We then go and shoot the antediluvian (Brad is his name...) in the head. There, no more mary sue villain, and no more superheroes at night.

Oracle_Hunter

2010-10-18, 11:00 PM

Have you considered initiating global thermonuclear war?

Find a way to hijack some Russian missiles (and US missiles, if you can) and launch 'em at major civilian sites. With luck, knocking out Washington & Moscow will convince someone on the chain of command to launch a Massive Retaliation and hopefully wipe out life as we know it.

I think this is the only proper course of action 'cause this is the silliest game I've ever heard. Truly, the only appropriate response is to make the world burn.

Quincunx

2010-10-19, 06:18 AM

Say, could someone help me out with some of the rules? Me and my friends are gearing up to play Vampire: Dark Ages in the coming weeks, and I only have the book on my computer. The index is pretty sparsely detailed and I'm having trouble finding some of the stuff I need.

*How are the darkness rules? I have three points in Archery, but I'm thinking of dropping them because I'd just be shooting into darkness most of the time. That and the low damage makes the bow a little unappealing to me. . .

LARP handled all these differently than tabletop, so the only useful thing which carries over would be, if you use Auspex to amplify your ability to find foes in the dark, don't always augment your sight. There were such things as ambushes with extra flammables added to blind normal human night-sight, let alone Auspex-enhanced eyes. Check if you can use auras instead or if you have to pinpoint that there's a living being before reading its aura.

Archery is low and slow damage, yes, but in the times when melee is king, staying out of melee range and/or getting a head start on fleeing for your unlife is worth at least a lordship.

Psyx

2010-10-19, 06:36 AM

Huh. Any idea why they made this change? Did they stick with it in subsequent version of the modern vampire setting?

I'm guessing that it was changed because Celerity is horribly broken, nad slows the game down drastically. I much prefer the newer version. As-was in oWoD, you either had celerity, or you weren't a combat character.

Jornophelanthas

2010-10-19, 06:52 AM

None of the special abilities you have just described are part of the V:tM rules or setting. Apparently, nobody is anybody without a magic sword.

Have you considered diablerizing the "little girl"? If this truly is a Childe of Caine's, then you'll likely gain several generations and special homebrew powers. I'm betting this is the railroad track your Storyteller has set up for you, because your character is such a weakling (physically) compared to the other two.

Have you considered firing the sattelite nukes directly at the Antediluvian? I'm sure a mushroom-shaped explosion is quite hard to soak, even with high Fortitude. Do it during daytime in the place he resides, just to make sure he doesn't see it coming. Does he reside in the middle of a big city? Well, that's just too bad for the city.

Have you considered giving the amulet to the Technocracy? This should divert all vampires' attention away from you and towards the Technocracy. With any luck, they'll start experimenting on it, awakening Caine in the process.

Have you considered having one of you swallow the amulet whole? This would be something like a partial diablerie of Caine, or at the very least a temporary boost in blood potency (i.e. Generation), as Caine's and Lilith's blood in your system will concentrate your vampiric abilities. Or try to break it open, take the finger out, and sink your teeth into it to taste Cainy goodness. It might awaken Caine, ending the world faster. It might destroy the amulet, ruining the agenda of anyone who was out to get it. Either way, it's an escalation your Storyteller will probably not see coming.

Have you considered stabbing the Antediluvian with your special sword, often enough to trigger the random "send him to hell" event? Give it to one of the other with high Celerity, and raise his/her Generation enough to be immune to Dominate by the Antediluvian. Avoid eye contact, because Presence 2 still works. Just make sure to roll the chance die on the hell-event yourself, where you can see it.

Have you considered just staying out until sunrise, in order to end the chronicle? Just tell the Storyteller: "Sun rises, we all die. No, don't tell us what you still had planned for Brad the Antediluvian. We don't want to hear it." Incidentally, is your Storyteller named Brad? If not, stop using his real name, and start calling him Brad.

Tiki Snakes

2010-10-19, 09:21 AM

comicshorse

2010-10-19, 09:22 AM

.(Bound grows as owner gets more humanity. When vampire reaches humanity 10, teddy bear gets true faith 10?, no idea what that means.)

.

It means you melt it you go anywhere near it :smallsmile:

Oracle_Hunter

2010-10-19, 09:41 AM

I like Plan Z. Something about possibly de-vampirizing all of the vampires in the world, or waking Cain and destroying the world, by flying a magic teddy bear with a severed finger into the heart of the sun really appeals to me.
Isn't Plan Z "turn all humans into zombies? :smallbiggrin:

Not that bad of an idea, really. I bet the Tremere could figure out some sort of Blood Curse. Actually, what have the Tremere been doing while antediluvians have been firing railguns at each other? :smallconfused:

HMS Invincible

2010-10-19, 12:55 PM

We don't know where Brad is. He's somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea sailing with a stolen fleet of MY Battle ships. I know he's there because I can't see any pictures of what the ocean looks like for hundreds of square miles centered in the Mediterranean. Someone has obfuscate in that fleet, but I know it's there because I was just on it.

The only people firing railguns has been me. =.= We've been holding back with our world war plans because we didn't want to run and hide. Nor did we want to start a war. At this rate, the campaign will end in a couple of sessions instead of the end of the year. The strange thing is, the teddy bear is part of a story arc that isn't finished yet. A PC of ours got killed, but someone took "pity" on that person and shoved his soul into the teddy bear as a temporary measure. They were suppose to come back and make a new body for him. Being in a teddy bear makes him immortal but he also has no blood points. The player was a vampire who could create materials out his blood magic thingy. Mostly gold and thermite, but always useful. With no blood points, we can't create anything anymore. The teddy bear also drives the pc insane over time, and too much time passed. The Pc is no longer playable. This elder is the same one who turned our other pc into a low gen sabbat vampire.

Every vampire that is not us either works for Brad, doesn't know for very odd reasons what is going on, or wants the amulet. We haven't heard from the Trimiere, but presumably, they want the amulet.

What is true faith? And is what is happening to the teddy bear a real mechanic? It's becomes like an avatar of the vampire or something. Bastard really hurts, he deals holy damage to anything he touches.

You can diablerize succubus? I didn't know that. The ST told me she can create things and cast magic by spending dark legacy points?

Oracle_Hunter

2010-10-19, 01:15 PM

What is true faith? And is what is happening to the teddy bear a real mechanic? It's becomes like an avatar of the vampire or something. Bastard really hurts, he deals holy damage to anything he touches.
True Faith is a mechanic by which mundanes can threaten Vampires in the traditional fashion - with crosses and such. By fluff, crosses and holy water do nothing to Vampires; but, such implements wielded by someone with True Faith can do Aggravated damage, provoke Rotschrek and the like. However, only true believers (i.e. those completely devoted to God) should be able to wield this power at even the lowest levels; stuffed animals and ghosts should not have it :smallsigh:

If the bear itself is a battery of True Faith Power then may I recommend turning it into a flail? This would allow you to manipulate it without getting burned and makes it a potent weapon in your fight.

I'm still backing the "provoke global thermonuclear war" plan, BTW :smallbiggrin: