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View Full Version : Grimdark Fluff vs. Actual Play



Aron Times
2011-06-23, 03:17 PM
I'm a big fan of the nWoD, specifically Vampire: The Requiem. I also have a passing knowledge of Warhammer 40K due to my friends' fascination with it. Both of these settings fall into this trope:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CrapsackWorld

nWoD books are written from a glass half empty perspective, and the writers go out of their way to point out just how crappy being a vampire/werewolf/mage/promethean/changeling/hunter/sin-eater/mortal is, focusing mostly on the drawbacks of their condition, describing their advantages as insignificant compared to the former.'

For example, vampires are said to angst about not being able to enjoy mortal pleasures like food and sunlight, and the books state that once a vampire loses humanity, he can never again become the person that he once was. If you only read Vampire: The Requiem, and not other splats, you'd think that vampires get a raw deal compared to others.

I believed that, too, until I managed to learn more about the other splats. Going through my group's shared library was quite an amusing experience, as I learned that each splat is written to make the reader think that said splat has it worse than the others, with the notable exception of Geist: The Sin-Eaters, which tropers suspect that White Wolf said to themselves, "Ah, who the hell are we kidding?" when it comes to getting cool powers for being a supernatural.

So, does anyone actually play up the angst in games like WoD or Warhammer? Or do players usually go for the Cursed with Awesome trope when they play?

What do you think?

Nachtritter
2011-06-23, 03:25 PM
In my experience, playing up the angst in any game lasts approximately 2 hours into the first session. After that point, craziness ensues and you'd better damned believe the person playing the lovestruck Toreador or the subtle and Machiavellian Nosferatu is going looking for a shotgun to straight up kill some fools.

Storyteller: Okay, you're moping around your club looking effete. Outside it's pouring rain.
Player: I look out a window and sigh heavily.
Storyteller: Give me a perception roll. Okay. You notice a trio of tall, pale men in black suits, hats, and sunglasses enter through the front door, scanning the room very mechan-
Player: OH **** I GRAB MY SHOTGUN AND HIDE IT UNDER THE TABLE WHAT ARE THEY MAN WHAT ARE THEY YOU HAVE TO TELL ME

Rixx
2011-06-23, 03:26 PM
Tropes tropes tropes tropes tropes

tropes


I normally run pretty lighthearted games in general, so I've sort of gravitated away from the WoD stuff to begin with. If I played VtM again, though, it'd be tough not to run through the streets Nic Cage style, shouting "I'M A VAMPIRE, I'M A VAMPIRE!" and ruining things for everyone.

Nachtritter
2011-06-23, 03:30 PM
Tropes tropes tropes tropes tropes

tropes


I normally run pretty lighthearted games in general, so I've sort of gravitated away from the WoD stuff to begin with. If I played VtM again, though, it'd be tough not to run through the streets Nic Cage style, shouting "I'M A VAMPIRE, I'M A VAMPIRE!" and ruining things for everyone.

You are now my favorite person on this board.

oxybe
2011-06-23, 03:32 PM
step 1) play a newly created Vampire
step 2) in-game (or out of game, either works fine), make/buy batman costume
step 3) large ham (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LargeHam) it up and fight crime.

let the froufrou princes and elders and whatnot wangst and wax poetically about their lack of humanity...I'M A SUPER STRONG, MAGICAL AND NIGH IMMORTAL UNDEAD! WOO HOO! I'M THE GOSH DARNED BATMAN, BABY!

Ravens_cry
2011-06-23, 03:32 PM
I haven't played those, but I do plan to, but playing them constantly grimdark could lead to a major problem, a trope called "Darkness Induced Audience Apathy" Simply put, piling on the grim dark can lead to a situation where the audience, the players in this case, just don't care any more. Angst, done right, can add emotional depth, but for it to be meaningful, the players have to actually care about what happens to the characters. Which means you need contrast, you need sometimes where it's not all bad, things actually, somewhat, go te players go their way, and they feel they are actually making progress or making a difference, forge emotional connections to PC and NPC alike.

Silus
2011-06-23, 03:42 PM
I play in a OWoD game as the lone vampire in the group, and I don't think I've angst'ed once. It's mostly been, at most, a brief period of sadness/depression followed swiftly by furious righteous anger (I play a russian Brujah hitman).

In my experience, it's usually "Anger > Angst". I just can't bring myself to play an angst-ridden character. 'Sides, if your ward was kidnapped and your only childe had to be put down by your own hand, then I think angst would step aside for anger.

LibraryOgre
2011-06-23, 05:43 PM
step 1) play a newly created Vampire
step 2) in-game (or out of game, either works fine), make/buy batman costume
step 3) large ham (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LargeHam) it up and fight crime.

let the froufrou princes and elders and whatnot wangst and wax poetically about their lack of humanity...I'M A SUPER STRONG, MAGICAL AND NIGH IMMORTAL UNDEAD! WOO HOO! I'M THE GOSH DARNED BATMAN, BABY!

Actually, I ran a 14th gen blood trash anarch Brujah who did kind of that.

He hunted drug dealers. In a dark trenchcoat. He was aware, on some level, that he was more or less ripping off Angel and Spike, but he more or less shrugged, claimed it paid the rent, and went on with his unlife (until the Brujah primogen decided to turn into the most Ventrue of Ventrue, claiming to hate the Sabbat while more or less parroting their party line, and tried to convince me I needed to diablerize someone to stay in New York...)

Aron Times
2011-06-23, 05:59 PM
I guess my actual question should've been, "Do members of the Playground actual play up the wangst in grimdark games?"

I have had the misfortune of joining several online roleplaying communities which focused mostly on wangst and cybersex. This includes most chat-based nWoD sites and most Mature/Adult games on rpol.net. Surprisingly, all of the real-life groups I've played with focused more on having fun than wangsting about their characters' fate.

Wangst is second only to purple prose as my biggest pet peeve in RPGs.

Lord Raziere
2011-06-23, 06:18 PM
Nope! I've played settings set after apocalypses as: an idealistic peace-loving humble elven ambassador, a rebellious storm mage and his much more reasonable water mage sister, a perfectly sane scientist who decided to create life using alchemy and succeeded, and a epically powered dragon inventor who managed to create a utopian nation in a world of evil warlords trying to conquer the world after eight or so apocalypses happened.

If I were plopped in warhammer 40k, I'd probably find away to destroy the Chaos Gods.

Frozen_Feet
2011-06-23, 06:20 PM
In my games, the mood around the table tends to stay rather light-hearted, regardless of what abominable deeds are going on in the game. So in trope speech, the feel ends up closer to Crapsaccharine World. At the surface, everyone is bright and funny, when in reality, things are messed up. On occasion, the despair spills over to the players as well, but in my experience, it's hard to consistently pull off. Or maybe my players are laughing to conceal how weirded out they really are... >=D

Shadowknight12
2011-06-23, 06:25 PM
I guess my actual question should've been, "Do members of the Playground actual play up the wangst in grimdark games?"

Only at certain specific moments, where it is likely to produce an enhanced effect to the players. A surgical strike of wangst at the right time can make a session memorable.

After fighting your way through a demon-infested Empire State and having the bloodiest werewolf-on-diabolist fight known to nWoD, a moment of raging against the world as your "vengeance" leaves you feeling even more emptier than the moment you discovered your wife had been sacrificed to an Elder Demon... well, it can be the crowning moment of glory for a character and the culminating ending of an otherwise wangst-free campaign.

LibraryOgre
2011-06-23, 08:20 PM
I guess my actual question should've been, "Do members of the Playground actual play up the wangst in grimdark games?"


Now, I will say that wangst tends to be higher in on-line games, and my backgrounds for such games tend to be fairly wangsty (a term I love).

Part of the reason in on-line games is that you've got more room for individualized character development. I may think of my Crazy in Rifts as being this dark and conflicted character (http://rpg-crank.livejournal.com/32281.html), but, chances are, most of the party doesn't want to hear me wax poetic how dark and conflicted my character is (http://www.goblinscomic.com/07102005/). In PBR, however, I can wax poetic and people can skim it, rather than listen to me blather in person.

In grimdark games, I tend to have a much darker background, describing some painful things that gives fodder to the GM. I had a werewolf character, raised ignorant of his heritage, whose First Change story involves his brother turning into a vampire, turning his parents and little sister, and having to track them all down and kill them... before running the streets for a few months, and knocking up a Black Fury just after HER first change (both being ignorant of each others werewolf sides). This meant I had a teenage gutter punk Fianna Ahroun who had bad dreams about killing his sister, parents, and brother, and a metis son back in Boston, while he was banished to Ohio. Wangsty in the extreme but, in teenage fashion, resilient enough to bounce back and raise his hackles to a rank 5.

profitofrage
2011-06-23, 08:52 PM
I would just like to point out that warhammer 40k is probably one of the best examples of "absolutly rediculously grimdark" butl pulling it off VERY well.
I mean this is a setting where the STARS are out to get you!.

Hell if 40k didnt actually invent the trope Id like to know what did O.O because it would be scary.

Shadowknight12
2011-06-23, 08:56 PM
I would just like to point out that warhammer 40k is probably one of the best examples of "absolutly rediculously grimdark" butl pulling it off VERY well.
I mean this is a setting where the STARS are out to get you!.

Hell if 40k didnt actually invent the trope Id like to know what did O.O because it would be scary.

There's a difference between the thing that invented the trope and the thing that made the trope popular. Often, they coincide. Sometimes they don't. Then there's another thing altogether different, which is "who took the trope and ran with it so hard you'll be pulling bits of trope out of your teeth for two weeks." That'd be your WH40K.

I would guess that Ravenloft or Dark Sun invented grimdark for RPGs. I could be sorely mistaken, however.

profitofrage
2011-06-23, 09:01 PM
There's a difference between the thing that invented the trope and the thing that made the trope popular. Often, they coincide. Sometimes they don't. Then there's another thing altogether different, which is "who took the trope and ran with it so hard you'll be pulling bits of trope out of your teeth for two weeks." That'd be your WH40K.

I would guess that Ravenloft or Dark Sun invented grimdark for RPGs. I could be sorely mistaken, however.

Yea I suppose even if they didnt invent the trope / style I have yet to really hear of or see a setting as grimdark (and still actually GOOD) as 40k...The funniest and most lighthearted thing in the universe is a green skinned race of murderous fungis hordes that eat pillage and destroy all nearbye civilisation.

Shadowknight12
2011-06-23, 09:07 PM
Yea I suppose even if they didnt invent the trope / style I have yet to really hear of or see a setting as grimdark (and still actually GOOD) as 40k...The funniest and most lighthearted thing in the universe is a green skinned race of murderous fungis hordes that eat pillage and destroy all nearbye civilisation.

The reason it's "good" (I wouldn't know, myself, as sci fi isn't my thing) is probably because it's so over the top (as I've heard), while at the same time, it lets you play it straight if that's what the group wants. A setting that forces you to play it straight will probably do poorly. Going over the top and using a liberal dose of Appeal To Awesome probably help sell the game despite whatever its grimdarkness. And also, every combat-centric RPG needs its Acceptable Targets. Grimdarkness makes this oh so very easy.

profitofrage
2011-06-23, 09:17 PM
The reason it's "good" (I wouldn't know, myself, as sci fi isn't my thing) is probably because it's so over the top (as I've heard), while at the same time, it lets you play it straight if that's what the group wants. A setting that forces you to play it straight will probably do poorly. Going over the top and using a liberal dose of Appeal To Awesome probably help sell the game despite whatever its grimdarkness. And also, every combat-centric RPG needs its Acceptable Targets. Grimdarkness makes this oh so very easy.

Yea I must agree with that, they didnt just start shoveling grimdark onto a setting, they hired a ton of professional landscapers to make a super awesome grimdark cathedrall...that played METAL.
I think overall 40k's best aspect is that its all peiced together remarkably well, things tend to "make sense" in its own way. The setting consistant ^_^

Urpriest
2011-06-23, 09:35 PM
Yeah from what I've seen while 40k is grimdark it isn't wangstily grimdark, it's humorously grimdark. It's grimdark where the orcs speak cockney and the dwarves (used to :( ) ride flying motorcycles.

The Glyphstone
2011-06-23, 10:35 PM
There's a difference between the thing that invented the trope and the thing that made the trope popular. Often, they coincide. Sometimes they don't. Then there's another thing altogether different, which is "who took the trope and ran with it so hard you'll be pulling bits of trope out of your teeth for two weeks." That'd be your WH40K.

I would guess that Ravenloft or Dark Sun invented grimdark for RPGs. I could be sorely mistaken, however.

Dark Sun might qualify. Ravenloft was classic horror gaming though, so if you'd give grimdark status to that, you'd have to give it to Call of Cthulhu first.

Rixx
2011-06-23, 11:43 PM
You are now my favorite person on this board.

D'aw shucks :D

Talakeal
2011-06-24, 12:21 AM
When I play WoD there is quite a bit of angst and drama but very little of it has to do with supernatural stuff, it is normally just everyday stuff, mental distress, and relationship dynamics that could just as easilly apply to mortals.

Frozen_Feet
2011-06-24, 09:25 AM
Yeah from what I've seen while 40k is grimdark it isn't wangstily grimdark, it's humorously grimdark. It's grimdark where the orcs speak cockney and the dwarves (used to :( ) ride flying motorcycles.

40K is something of a Tragicomedy. It's simultaneously a very nasty setting, but at the same time so over-the-top that it almost becomes a parody of itself. Even when you take the setting seriously, as a really dim future, it's still awesome enough future that a game can go without extended angst.

profitofrage
2011-06-24, 09:36 AM
40K is something of a Tragicomedy. It's simultaneously a very nasty setting, but at the same time so over-the-top that it almost becomes a parody of itself. Even when you take the setting seriously, as a really dim future, it's still awesome enough future that a game can go without extended angst.

See this is why I have yet to play any RPG outside the warhammer 40k setting...I dont want to leave the setting is just to damb good.
My only fear is that there screwing up the Grey Knights. Hopefully hte new DH suppliment for them will put them back on track as being "the next tier up from space marines" and less "space marines with shiney toys" like there new codex made them out to be.

hamishspence
2011-06-24, 09:48 AM
The new codex did bump up their "fluff power" in certain aspects- the fact that only one in a million trainees completes the training- that they wield powers that would corrupt a "normal" psyker in an instant, and so on.

What was reduced was their in-game melee combat power (lower WS, less attacks).

profitofrage
2011-06-24, 09:56 AM
The new codex did bump up their "fluff power" in certain aspects- the fact that only one in a million trainees completes the training- that they wield powers that would corrupt a "normal" psyker in an instant, and so on.

What was reduced was their in-game melee combat power (lower WS, less attacks).

and its that specific change that drives me nuts :P absolutly nuts. If I wanted shiney marines id buy squads of vanguards or some terminators with assault cannons. There used to be so much fun in having my basic infantry being as skilled (or more so) then the enemies HQ. It fit there fluff well and made them stand out as an army. Now they may as well just be downsized to a space marine suppliment codex. Though ill stop here lest I totally derail the thread with my whining :P

The Glyphstone
2011-06-24, 10:18 AM
and its that specific change that drives me nuts :P absolutly nuts. If I wanted shiney marines id buy squads of vanguards or some terminators with assault cannons. There used to be so much fun in having my basic infantry being as skilled (or more so) then the enemies HQ. It fit there fluff well and made them stand out as an army. Now they may as well just be downsized to a space marine suppliment codex. Though ill stop here lest I totally derail the thread with my whining :P

That's how GW 'balance' works, pendulum-style. Grey Knights were ridiculously overpowered in the previous codex...one squad of GK terminators could solo an entire 2000-point enemy army regularly, while costing half that. Now they've been dragged down to 'marines with shiny toys', as you said, in overcompensation.

hamishspence
2011-06-24, 10:26 AM
Still- if the army's reasonably well balanced, that might be enough of a justification.

potatocubed
2011-06-24, 11:17 AM
I've read campaign journals of WoD games 'played straight' as it were, and they're phenomenal reads (check out the Actual Play subforum at rpg.net for examples).

But me? No chance. Sign me up for the superheroes with fangs brigade, hand me my trenchcoat and find me a katana. :smallcool::smalltongue:

Roderick_BR
2011-06-24, 11:47 AM
That's pretty much what ALL my VtM games where. I had people that claimed that it was "a superior RPG than D&D"... although we RPed more in D&D than Vampire...
Seriously, no one plays "poor me, I'm a inhuman monster". What people actually play are "Holy crap! I have superpowers! Wooooh!"

The only WW game people seem to play right is Werewolf, as it's pretty much a mythical modern D&D game. "The world is going to hell? Not if we have something to say about it!"

Mage is people playing epic wizards and not giving a crap about it.

Pisha
2011-06-24, 12:21 PM
In my experience, the nWOD splats that lend themselves best to angst are Changeling and Promethean. Seriously, if you're playing Changeling: the Lost and you're not feeling the angst, fire your ST 'cuz he's doing it wrong.

Mage and Geist, nah. I mean, you might get some interpersonal issues going, but for the most part, you have superpowers and life is good. Hunters is dark, yeah, and sometimes you get the despair of fighting an unwinnable fight, but hey - you still get to blow up monsters from time to time.

Vampire is weird. Yes, vampires are made for angst, but it's tempered by the fact that you're surrounded by predators. For instance: I play a Mexican Nosferatu who is, background-wise, pretty much Angsty McAngstalot, with extra angst sauce and some angst on the side... however, she knows perfectly well that if she whinges about it, or shows any front other than the intense, fearless brawler that she is, other vampires will rightly view it as a sign of weakness and they will eat her.

Pisha
2011-06-24, 12:41 PM
...for the record, I'm coming at this from the pov of playing in large larp games. In smaller games or in tabletop, of course your experience is going to vary based on the group.

Tyndmyr
2011-06-24, 12:48 PM
Tropes tropes tropes tropes tropes

tropes


I normally run pretty lighthearted games in general, so I've sort of gravitated away from the WoD stuff to begin with. If I played VtM again, though, it'd be tough not to run through the streets Nic Cage style, shouting "I'M A VAMPIRE, I'M A VAMPIRE!" and ruining things for everyone.

If I ever played in a WW game, my character would be Jason Stathalm. My powers would consist of pull-ups, cars, and guns.

If anyone actually let me have real powers, things would only get worse.

oxybe
2011-06-24, 12:57 PM
@ Tyndmyr : i nearly spat pepsi from my nose. good show.

Tyndmyr
2011-06-24, 12:59 PM
@ Tyndmyr : i nearly spat pepsi from my nose. good show.

Thank you. I would also like to see the Harry Potter series with Jason Stathalm cast as Harry Potter, with a 9mm for his wand. Everyone else is exactly the same.

Kris Strife
2011-06-24, 01:21 PM
If I ever played in a WW game, my character would be Jason Stathalm. My powers would consist of pull-ups, cars, and guns.

If anyone actually let me have real powers, things would only get worse.

Even Exalted? :smalltongue:

Tyndmyr
2011-06-24, 01:22 PM
Yes. Jason Stathalm in Exalted would be the greatest. He could walk away from things, and they would explode.

The Glyphstone
2011-06-24, 01:26 PM
You'll need some custom Charms.

Hundred-Splinter Glass-Shattering Entry Leap?

Dramatic Stride Imminent Detonation Technique?

LibraryOgre
2011-06-24, 01:30 PM
Vampire is weird. Yes, vampires are made for angst, but it's tempered by the fact that you're surrounded by predators. For instance: I play a Mexican Nosferatu who is, background-wise, pretty much Angsty McAngstalot, with extra angst sauce and some angst on the side... however, she knows perfectly well that if she whinges about it, or shows any front other than the intense, fearless brawler that she is, other vampires will rightly view it as a sign of weakness and they will eat her.

That's actually an interesting point. I'm far more familiar with oWoD (I couldn't reliably name any of the clans or associations from VtR), but that does set Vampire apart.

In Vampire, you're surrounded by predators who likely hate you on some level.

White_North
2011-06-24, 02:43 PM
In my experience, wangst in WoD games isn't active. As in, the characters won't actually sit there and reflect on how their lives are miserable. They just act like immortal people with superpowers who are detached from humanity. And it works great. People have fun, characters are outrageous and the mood, while still WoD-esque, is light enough so that everyone is enjoying playing.

Now, the actual drama doesn't actually come in roleplay, but when you think about the characters outside of actual roleplay. Like the fat, lusty, influencial and arrogant Roman praetorian who devours people. Sure, he's pretty extravagant and entertaining to watch manipulate and intimidate people. But then, you realize that he'll never again be able to enjoy the finest foods of life and that, as time passes, the number of people he'll be able to be intimate with will drastically reduce as he becomes a bloated, psychopathic abomination. Then, all of a sudden, his cannibalistic appetites just become a desperate attempt to hold on to one of the few aspects of life he ever enjoyed. And his frenzied lustiness betrays the fact that on some level, he knows that soon, most people will be revulsed at the very sight of him.

So yeah, when playing in a grimdark setting, one should remember that it's still a game. People are here to have fun, not listen to someone angst in-character for three hours. In the end, drama in the WoD is best kept below the surface, and not constantly on display. Like in any good story, one should show, not tell.

kyoryu
2011-06-24, 03:01 PM
Yes. Jason Stathalm in Exalted would be the greatest. He could walk away from things, and they would explode.

It's entirely possible that you've stumbled upon a fundamental law of the universe - everything is better with Jason Statham.

Imagine:


His ship crashed. He's alone, surrounded by people who want to kill him. Jason Statham is.... E.T.

"Phone home? After I pull the phone out of your #$@, &#($" (violence and explosions ensue)

Werekat
2011-06-24, 03:44 PM
*raises hand* Looks like I'm in the minority here, but we've played grimdark as it's supposed to be played. It was and is fun and intense. Vampire games, mostly. We get decisions that take us away from humanity, we get to decide between loyalty to others and to your own self, we get to make brutal choices, and then see the consequences play out, and those are nearly always sour...

...Then again, we also had a Kiasyd who sicced giant lightning-eating worms on San-Francisco. In that same game. So... Yeah.

Tyndmyr
2011-06-24, 03:49 PM
It's entirely possible that you've stumbled upon a fundamental law of the universe - everything is better with Jason Statham.

Imagine:

How to lose a guy in ten days....with Jason Stathalm.

Actual quote from the movie...but with Jason Stathalm:

“You're already falling in love with me.
I'm gonna make you wish you were dead.”

TheCountAlucard
2011-06-24, 06:04 PM
Yes. Jason Stathalm in Exalted would be the greatest. He could walk away from things, and they would explode.


You'll need some custom Charms.

Hundred-Splinter Glass-Shattering Entry Leap?

Dramatic Stride Imminent Detonation Technique?Sounds to me like a Solar Hero expansion where dramatically walking away from an object or structure counts as punching it. Add in Sledghammer Fist Punch and Orichalcum Fists of Battle, and this will actually happen. :smalltongue:

Gardener
2011-06-26, 07:07 AM
I've played a couple of nWoD games. They've been gritty for the most part, but not that dark. You have superpowers... but so do all the things trying to take over/destroy the world, so you'd better go out there and stop them. And small mistakes could quickly spiral out of control.

Oh, and there was that one time I made an Awakened comedian with high Forces whose primary weapon was a water pistol. He'd Jury-Rigged in a pistol and a cigarette lighter, and had enough Forces to make Control Flame on the lighter mode into a better attack than the gun at melee range.

SurlySeraph
2011-06-26, 12:15 PM
Yes. Jason Stathalm in Exalted would be the greatest. He could walk away from things, and they would explode.


Dramatic Stride Imminent Detonation Technique

Thunder Stride Dismissal
Cost: 10m, 1wp; Mins: Stealth 5, Essence 3; Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Merged (Athletics), Shaping, Mirror (Nefarious Sabotage Stride)
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: King Strides Unseen

The Daggers of Heaven leave no evidence of their deeds - only proof that justice has been done. This Charm supplements a move action to walk away from a location in which the Solar has spent at least 16 motes of Essence within the last scene. He sends pulses of Essence through his footsteps, setting up vibrations that harmonize with the echoes of his earlier Essence-use to produce an explosion. Treat this as an attack against every target in an area of [Essence x5] yards in radius, targeted with [Appearance + Stealth] and causing a base 10B piercing damage to all characters and objects caught within it. This also perfectly obliterates all evidence of the Solar's presence at the scene, and adds [Essence] automatic successes to the opposed Essence roll against any investigatory effect that would contest this.

This Charm also appears in Athletics (prerequisites: Increasing Strength Exercise, Glorious Temple Body).

/derail

Aron Times
2011-06-26, 03:49 PM
I haven't played those, but I do plan to, but playing them constantly grimdark could lead to a major problem, a trope called "Darkness Induced Audience Apathy" Simply put, piling on the grim dark can lead to a situation where the audience, the players in this case, just don't care any more. Angst, done right, can add emotional depth, but for it to be meaningful, the players have to actually care about what happens to the characters. Which means you need contrast, you need sometimes where it's not all bad, things actually, somewhat, go te players go their way, and they feel they are actually making progress or making a difference, forge emotional connections to PC and NPC alike.

Oh, thank you very much!

I had this trope at the tip of my tongue, and I couldn't remember the exact name until I read your post.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DarknessInducedAudienceApathy

Ravens_cry
2011-06-26, 04:07 PM
Oh, thank you very much!

I had this trope at the tip of my tongue, and I couldn't remember the exact name until I read your post.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DarknessInducedAudienceApathy
No. No! NO! ! !
*Ravens Cry sucked into a swirling vortex of tropes*

tahu88810
2011-06-26, 04:42 PM
The one thing I've always loved about WoD, is that the burden of telling a story does not fall as squarely on the shoulders of the ST as it does in, say, Dungeons and Dragons. If the game is to work out, the players need to put in just as much as the DM does, they can't just sit back and idly wait for the next adventure.
Their characters need to be motivated, whether it be by an internal but hidden fear of their own descent into self-loathing and inhumanity (as in White_North's example), rage at the heavens for what they have become, an ideological battle, their need to distract themselves from some horrific memory, or anything else really.
And this is, I think, where the grimdark comes in. There are three kinds of conflict, man vs nature, man vs man, and man vs self. Since the job of creating conflict (and thus motivation) falls on both the ST and the players, having a world filled with despair assists in the creation of all three forms.

ATTENTION: Rambling wall of text ahead.

To use White_North's example again, the Praetorian conflicts with nature as he slowly becomes a bloated abomination as a result of his predations. He combats this not directly, but indirectly by frantically devouring more people -- or whatever.
The Praetorian conflicts with man, because surely he must hide this sort of behavior. He also needs to acquire people to eat, and there are surely people who know what's he doing who are trying to stop him (or at least, know that something is up and are trying to find out what). He deals with this sort of thing directly in a number of ways.
The Praetorian conflicts with himself because he knows, even if he won't admit, that he is the cause of his descent into the abomination of territory. He also likely loathes himself, because nobody is every completely convinced that the horrific things they do are correct. He deals with this conflict directly, but not efficiently, through the pursuit of blind pleasure; eating people and more carnal acts. This in turn fuels the conflict with nature and self, and it repeats.
In turn, this is all so dark because of the way he deals with the conflict. Because the character is so very flawed things only get darker as his chronicle continues. Such a character arc could easily take a slightly less dark turn with only a slight change to the way the character acts (something the player causes) or the way world around him works (something the storyteller and other players are responsible for) and so maintaining a grimdark atmosphere requires full cooperation of everybody at the table.
Of course, this really only works if everyone operates under "Show don't tell", because nobody is going to have fun if the Praetorian's player decides to spend an hour waxing poetic about how much he hates his gaining weight or how awesome human flesh tastes (unless there's a comedic slant, but then it isn't so dark anymore).

And then of course, it's also the STs job to keep the players caring about their own characters, each other's characters, and the world the characters inhabit. This is accomplished by giving the characters some path to redemption, even if they don't take it (and eventually punishing them when all the paths are left untaken) or just otherwise providing them with a good, not-horrific connection to the world through their characters...which is something Ravens_cry already brought up.

In the Praetorian's case, the ST could give him a young kind-heated/naive niece who he dotes on (and would NEVER eat). Or simply an old friend who finds out about his abomination, forgives him for it, and then tries to "save" him (even if the Praetorian would never allow himself to be saved).
But even then, just having the Praetorian help the niece out of a bind every now and then lets the player(s) think something like "He's not all that bad. He cares about family, he might eat people but at least he has that!" and that let's them care about the character and put more effort into playing it...which in turn reinforces the give-and-take playstyle that's so great.

But really, i forgot where I was going with all this, so I'll end the spoiler now.

darkpuppy
2011-06-26, 07:51 PM
Oooh, loving this discussion! I've also done both grimdark and silly, and I've managed both, mainly in oWoD (nWoD I haven't fully gotten the hang of yet, although you'll see from the Snippets (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=166503&page=17) thread (plug plug plug) that I and a few others do have the general idea at least). The main thing is to keep the players invested, and for that, you need to vary things. Changeling, as people have noted, can be extremely grimdark. But it is, as noted, a game of "Beautiful Madness". Paradox. The bright points are brighter, but the dark points... I could, I reckon, make somebody wet themselves RL from an encounter with their Keeper, if I prepared for it. :smallbiggrin:

Each game has its own flavour of grimdark, that you can play on, and its own flavour of what I like to call "W00tsauce", which counterbalances it. Vampire, both o and nWoD, I see as having the grimdark from "I'm a predator surrounded by other predators, who's boned because he has no real mates in a hostile world", but the w00tsauce is intellectual: "If I'm smart, I'll live forever, and take what shadow of joy I can from being powerful enough to keep living."

Werewolf grimdark: "You're boned, because you're a monster, and you're never going to be part of the big pack that you used to belong to." w00tsauce? "When I feel stuff, I feel it."

Mage grimdark: "Reality has it in for me, because I'm an egotistical sod screwing with what should not be screwed with." w00tsauce? "I screw with reality. Tek it, bizhatches!"

*laughs* obviously, these are all bad examples, because it's 2AM here, but the general idea is sound: there is good and bad, and one can lighten up occasionally with the good, while keeping it grimdark overall.

Want the best example of how to make grimdark ott and still work in WoD? remember Bloodlines. That, especially such peeps as the Voerman twins and Jack, made that world really shine for me.

Pisha
2011-06-28, 01:28 PM
Oooh, loving this discussion! I've also done both grimdark and silly, and I've managed both, mainly in oWoD (nWoD I haven't fully gotten the hang of yet, although you'll see from the Snippets (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=166503&page=17) thread (plug plug plug) that I and a few others do have the general idea at least). The main thing is to keep the players invested, and for that, you need to vary things. Changeling, as people have noted, can be extremely grimdark. But it is, as noted, a game of "Beautiful Madness". Paradox. The bright points are brighter, but the dark points... I could, I reckon, make somebody wet themselves RL from an encounter with their Keeper, if I prepared for it. :smallbiggrin:

Each game has its own flavour of grimdark, that you can play on, and its own flavour of what I like to call "W00tsauce", which counterbalances it. Vampire, both o and nWoD, I see as having the grimdark from "I'm a predator surrounded by other predators, who's boned because he has no real mates in a hostile world", but the w00tsauce is intellectual: "If I'm smart, I'll live forever, and take what shadow of joy I can from being powerful enough to keep living."

Werewolf grimdark: "You're boned, because you're a monster, and you're never going to be part of the big pack that you used to belong to." w00tsauce? "When I feel stuff, I feel it."

Mage grimdark: "Reality has it in for me, because I'm an egotistical sod screwing with what should not be screwed with." w00tsauce? "I screw with reality. Tek it, bizhatches!"

*laughs* obviously, these are all bad examples, because it's 2AM here, but the general idea is sound: there is good and bad, and one can lighten up occasionally with the good, while keeping it grimdark overall.

Want the best example of how to make grimdark ott and still work in WoD? remember Bloodlines. That, especially such peeps as the Voerman twins and Jack, made that world really shine for me.

Yeah, pretty much everything you just said :) A lot of WoD strikes me as the game equivalent of chiaroscuro (http://emptyeasel.com/2007/07/20/chiaroscuro-in-painting-the-power-of-light-and-dark/): it's the darkness that makes the light shine brighter. If you're playing these games and not playing the dark aspects, you're going to miss out on a lot of the awesome too.

Also, I agree with the person who spoke about layers. I've played some pretty light and fluffy nWoD characters before, but you always have to keep in mind that the light and fluffiness is always just on the surface. The cheerful, happy-go-lucky changeling went through the same dehumanising, sanity-cracking durance as the rest; she just hides it better. The hail-fellow-well-met vampire, quick with a smile and a helping hand, can be capable of breathtaking cruelty if he feels it's necessary to protect his city or his covenant or his coterie. Sometimes the grimdark just comes from those little uncanny valley moments, where the mask slips and it becomes chillingly obvious that these goofy, charming, likeable characters are not human, not even close.

kyoryu
2011-06-28, 03:32 PM
If you're playing these games and not playing the dark aspects, you're going to miss out on a lot of the awesome too.


This is actually why I'm in firm favor of having failure be a very real possibility in whatever PCs do, including permanent character death (though I draw the line at player death). It is the failures and the risk that makes the victories spectacular, and the sacrifices memorable.

Our last game, a friend and I were playing two kobolds (independently created) from the same tribe. At one point, he was trapped in a building, but I refused to let him die, instead risking myself to get him out. When I fell from the attacks I took in the process, he picked me up and carried me out - taking injuries sufficient to kill him in the process, but I ended up living. These are the moments I game for. With freebie rez or plot armor, there would have been no reason for either character to do what they did. And even if they did, without the real threat of character death, there would have been no meaning to it.

Ravens_cry
2011-06-28, 04:05 PM
Yeah, pretty much everything you just said :) A lot of WoD strikes me as the game equivalent of chiaroscuro (http://emptyeasel.com/2007/07/20/chiaroscuro-in-painting-the-power-of-light-and-dark/): it's the darkness that makes the light shine brighter. If you're playing these games and not playing the dark aspects, you're going to miss out on a lot of the awesome too.
The reverse is also true, the light makes the darkness darker. Like I said, contrast. You can't expect a player to care about the village being burned down if you don't spend time and effort to forge an emotional bond between the players and the denizens thereof.

Solaris
2011-06-28, 04:06 PM
We quit playing Dark Heresy 'cause the one player was quite certain we should all be wangsting and hopeless due to a few dozen daemons massacring the colony. The rest of the party was busy trying to figure out how to strap a Basilisk into a shuttle to make the 40th millennium's version of an AC-130 and demonstrate to the Khornates that maybe they should look into ranged weaponry.
Grimdark is swell, but that kind of thing gets lame with a quickness and a vigor unless it's used as a chiaroscuro technique: Making the world all the crappier so the players feel like The Big Heroes when they save it.

Neon Knight
2011-06-28, 07:39 PM
We quit playing Dark Heresy 'cause the one player was quite certain we should all be wangsting and hopeless due to a few dozen daemons massacring the colony. The rest of the party was busy trying to figure out how to strap a Basilisk into a shuttle to make the 40th millennium's version of an AC-130 and demonstrate to the Khornates that maybe they should look into ranged weaponry.


Your party is, with one exception, my kind of party.

Morghen
2011-06-28, 09:48 PM
How to lose a guy in ten days....with Jason Statham.

Actual quote from the movie...but with Jason Statham:

“You're already falling in love with me.
I'm gonna make you wish you were dead.”
Animal Crackers... with Jason Statham

Actual quote from the movie... but with Jason Statham:

"One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know."

stainboy
2011-06-29, 04:46 AM
For example, vampires are said to angst about not being able to enjoy mortal pleasures like food and sunlight, and the books state that once a vampire loses humanity, he can never again become the person that he once was. If you only read Vampire: The Requiem, and not other splats, you'd think that vampires get a raw deal compared to others.


I don't know Requiem but V:tM was wall-to-wall power fantasy. The two most common character specializations are (1) Matrix bullet-time combat and (2) making anyone do anything you want and fall droolingly in love with you at any time. I don't care what Rein-Hagen says, being a vampire is awesome.

It didn't help that the Humanity rules didn't make any sense. You can drop down to Humanity 2 just for doing things Bruce Willis did in Die Hard, but there were metaplot characters who had apparently been murdering people for centuries and still had Humanity ratings. I've played Vampire with a lot of different GMs and literally never been asked to make a Conscience roll.

One Step Two
2011-06-29, 05:11 AM
I think by far this has been a fascinating discussion, so I'd like to add my own little story about a game I ran. Spoilered for length.


When I was running a Dark Heresy Game, I took the Ciphas Cane approach, for those not familiar with the character, he is essentially the Mortal Big Damn Hero of the 40k setting. He saves the day and gets the job done. While in the grand scheme of the setting it won't change a thing, he makes meaningful changes to those around him.
This playstyle is something my players are used to, being heroic in the face of adversity. But as mentioned above, it's these shining moments that make the darkness really feel harrowing.

The mechanics helped, slow gains of corruption and insanity was a price paid in the name of the Emperor, but they felt it worthy. The big shock came after they decided to travel across different sectors through the warp, that when they eventually returned "home" alot of the good deeds they had done were swallowed by the encroaching darkness. They players actually were annoyed (More pissed than annoyed actually) about it untill I reminded them they spent almost 30 years away.

The upside is that when they did some digging, trying to see what happend, was that the few places that managed to defy the odds had tales and legends about them. It made them smile that they weren't forgotten, and set them on the path to attempt actual Sainthoods from the Ecclisiastry.

Running grimdark settings requires a good tuning to your gaming group, and the right application of the carrot and stick approaches, don't over use the stick, but when you do use it, make it sting.

As a final note to playing in Grimdark, I always loved the W:tA approach, the part I loved most is something I will paraphrase from the actual Apocalypse book: "We may die, but we will die fighting, we will fight them so hard and so visciously that when we finally fall, that when there is nothing left of us but a memory, they will look into the shadows and shudder in fear of the thought that there is any small chance we could come back."

Talakeal
2011-06-29, 05:20 AM
I don't know Requiem but V:tM was wall-to-wall power fantasy. The two most common character specializations are (1) Matrix bullet-time combat and (2) making anyone do anything you want and fall droolingly in love with you at any time. I don't care what Rein-Hagen says, being a vampire is awesome.

It didn't help that the Humanity rules didn't make any sense. You can drop down to Humanity 2 just for doing things Bruce Willis did in Die Hard, but there were metaplot characters who had apparently been murdering people for centuries and still had Humanity ratings. I've played Vampire with a lot of different GMs and literally never been asked to make a Conscience roll.

I always thought it was wierd that vampires can make humans immortal and eternally loyal by ghouling them, that vampires can lick their prey's wounds closed, and that being fed upon is not only not painful, it is pleasureable.
These three facts really make the need to feed off of human blood less of a horrifying drawback than it is made out to be.

One Step Two
2011-06-29, 05:26 AM
I always thought it was wierd that vampires can make humans immortal and eternally loyal by ghouling them, that vampires can lick their prey's wounds closed, and that being fed upon is not only not painful, it is pleasureable.
These three facts really make the need to feed off of human blood less of a horrifying drawback than it is made out to be.

This is where a good Storyteller starts to erode your humanity. It begins as making human loved ones immortal ghouls so they can be with you forever, and you letting people enjoy as you sup on their life blood. But soon you wonder why your loving Ghoul becomes so erratic and dependant on you as they slowly become addicted to your blood. And sure, you decide this really pretty guy/girl in the club would be interesting to feed on, but you can't figure out why they're trying so hard to avoid you, I mean it will feel good, maybe you should grab them and take a drink, they'll enjoy it afterwards right? Infact you're enjoying it too, their blood tastes great! So good, hey something feels heavy in your hands, oh, you just drained them dry. But, hey, it's cool. They enjoyed it the whole time.

stainboy
2011-06-29, 06:02 AM
I always thought it was wierd that vampires can make humans immortal and eternally loyal by ghouling them, that vampires can lick their prey's wounds closed, and that being fed upon is not only not painful, it is pleasureable.
These three facts really make the need to feed off of human blood less of a horrifying drawback than it is made out to be.

The whole blood thing has a definite S&M vibe, which is part of the power fantasy for a lot of players. That's fine, that's a big part of why people like Vampire. I wouldn't change it. (The setting is mature enough to acknowledge that you're not a good person when you go around brainwashing people. I wouldn't change that either.)

The Vampire writers wanted to impose angst on the setting so they could continue taking themselves too seriously. But they could never quite make it fit, because it doesn't belong there.


The angst in the old Werewolf does fit pretty well though. The big source of whining in Werewolf is that the all the problems that matter are too big for you to affect, which is just like real life. And werewolves are supposed to express their emo-ness by going on killing sprees and making the problems worse. The players were going to do that anyway.

Talakeal
2011-06-29, 06:07 AM
The angst in the old Werewolf does fit pretty well though. The big source of whining in Werewolf is that the all the problems that matter are too big for you to affect, which is just like real life. And werewolves are supposed to express their emo-ness by going on killing sprees and making the problems worse. The players were going to do that anyway.

You know, maybe if D&D had rules for frenzy we would have a lot less complaining about "Chaotic Neutral" PCs.

RPGuru1331
2011-06-29, 07:10 AM
The problem with feeding, from an angst perspective, is that you're one bad roll away from completely draining a mortal you actually like. If you've made a habit of trying to feed off a few dedicated people who you actually had any care for, you've... probably gone through a non-zero number of replacements.

If you're in general trying not to kill people, this is still a problem with strangers, too.

Personally, I don't really play for that kind of aaaaaaaaangst, and nor do folks I play with. To be sure, I appreciate angst and drama, but the level that nWoD generally portrays, eh, not really the thing of folks I know. I know there *are* some angsty WoD games, and just games in general, but they're not in my circles (Though I've known at least a couple folks who went out and searched such games out, or only had them in their area). Grimdark Fluff can feed more grimdark, and it can feed substantially less.

For instance, everyone I like treats Warhammer 40k as Parody. When you've got a setting wherein everyone's wearing skulls, has emblems of skulls on their armor, has a banner with a skull on that has a skull hanging off it, and a banner of a skull drapes from that skull's mouth, you're either dealing with amazing parody or people who take themselves waaaaaaaay too seriously. So while I haven't played Dark Heresy, discussions of it are always done in that level of parody, and I can't really fathom playing it at the level at least some 40k fans think it's 'supposed' to be portrayed at.

Morty
2011-06-29, 07:24 AM
Speaking of the "grimdark" games I've actually played...
When I ran WFRP 2nd editon, I didn't play up the angsty elements a lot for two reasons. First, the plot was political and had nothing to do with Chaos, skaven or anything of the sort. Second, trying to impose any seriousness on the group I played with back then was a failed endeavor. In the campaign I'm playing right now, our GM doesn't put any emphasis on the grimdark elements either... it really plays more like D&D with NPC classes. This is due to the GM's style; I'm not particularily fond of it but I'm happy to just play with an IRL group again.
In the Hunter: the Vigil games I've ran and played, the grimdarkness was definetly quite present. Monsters the cells were up against were brutal and the Hunters got into trouble from more than just them or their minions while dealing with them. Not playing it that way would have made no sense for me, really.
I don't know how the Vampire: the Requiem game I plan to play will go, but I'm definetly going to make sure the players know their characters are not heroes and the world they live in is half empty. What they do with it is up to them.
I think this thread presents something of a false dichotomy: there's a lot of options between "Oh, woe is me and I'm ready to talk about it in blank rhyme for 5 hours" and "I'm a magical superhero, awesome!"

Talakeal
2011-06-29, 07:40 AM
Don't get me started on WHFRP. It is one of the best fantasy settings imho (although they are slowly retconning all the flavor out of it), but everything is so dark and brutal that there really are no good guys anymore. What's worse, even the bad guys are all just boring stabby psychopaths. I remember reading the Chaos Bestiary and noticing how the demons of Tzeentch and Slaanesh should be masters of manipulation and corruption, yet all they are ever described doing is simply killing the mortals they interract with at the first option. How boring.

Morty
2011-06-29, 07:45 AM
That really depends on how you approach it. Warhammer Fantasy Battle is as GRIMDARK as WH40K and it seeps into WFRP as well, but my preferred way to play WFRP is to just run it as a group of normal people thrusted into a life of adventure and trying to survive in a dangerous world, perhaps even make names for themselves. And it works well this way.

comicshorse
2011-06-29, 12:45 PM
It didn't help that the Humanity rules didn't make any sense. You can drop down to Humanity 2 just for doing things Bruce Willis did in Die Hard, but there were metaplot characters who had apparently been murdering people for centuries and still had Humanity ratings.

I always remeber the NPC who had Humanity 9 but murdered any Vampire who set up in his city and was considering murdering his protegee because he wasn't learning fast enough
But yeah trying to play a defender of the Camarilla is pretty damn difficult when you lose Path by for killing the Sabbat attacking you.

kyoryu
2011-06-29, 01:17 PM
I always remeber the NPC who had Humanity 9 but murdered any Vampire who set up in his city and was considering murdering his protegee because he wasn't learning fast enough
But yeah trying to play a defender of the Camarilla is pretty damn difficult when you lose Path by for killing the Sabbat attacking you.

But most WoD (at least oWoD) games were designed to make you inevitably lose your Humanity Equivalent, leading to the angst of the settings.

comicshorse
2011-06-29, 03:06 PM
Losing Humanity for feeding accidents or just for being a heartless monster was alright, its just there was no way with the rules as they were presented that any Vampire was going to last to be the age of the NPC's presented without being a monster. And that's assuming all you did was sit in your library reading and nipping out occasionally to feed. Try and get involved in the conflict with any of the Camarilla's enemies and watch your Path imitate the proverbial brick

I didn't mind taking Path rolls when my character did something he was ashamed of but for defending his society was ridiculous

Ravens_cry
2011-06-29, 03:31 PM
I remember in the first Blade movie, some of the vampires at least sucked on blood from blood donations, no biting necessary. Seems like a fairly humanitarian way to do things in such a situation.
Also, it's the things you are NOT ashamed of that you know you are starting to slip.

stainboy
2011-06-29, 06:07 PM
The problem with feeding, from an angst perspective, is that you're one bad roll away from completely draining a mortal you actually like. If you've made a habit of trying to feed off a few dedicated people who you actually had any care for, you've... probably gone through a non-zero number of replacements.


Can't you spend willpower on that? I can't remember, it's been awhile.



I remember in the first Blade movie, some of the vampires at least sucked on blood from blood donations, no biting necessary. Seems like a fairly humanitarian way to do things in such a situation.
Also, it's the things you are NOT ashamed of that you know you are starting to slip.

This happened in oWoD. There's even a bit in one of the Sabbat books about hijacking the refrigerated trucks that transport blood bags.

Unfortunately getting blood bags usually requires mind control or armed robbery. You're less likely to be directly for someone's death but you're still a bad person.

There's also rats, which I think were your best option in terms of blood points per biomass. You'd need to kill thousands of them per year but lab rats aren't expensive. You'd probably spend less on lab rats than the average middle-class American spends on food.

Pisha
2011-06-29, 06:24 PM
I've played Vampire with a lot of different GMs and literally never been asked to make a Conscience roll.

Really?? Wow. Man, I've lost Humanity just by being there when bad stuff was happening.

While I'll admit the system has problems, I do think it's a useful roleplay tool, especially for keeping a darker atmosphere. The idea, I think, is that non-human characters really do have to work harder to keep from becoming soulless monsters. Bruce Willis can kill a lot of people in Die Hard, but at the end of the day he's still human, can still relate to humans as people. The more people a vampire kills, on the other hand, the easier it becomes to just see them as walking bags of blood - not anyone you need to care about.

It also helps to discourage playing vampires as though they were simply light-sensitive, blood-drinking superheroes - which, in the WOD, they aren't supposed to be. (Not that there's anything wrong with playing light-sensitive, blood-drinking superheroes, but if that's what you want to play, surely you can find a system that supports it better than the WOD!)


Losing Humanity for feeding accidents or just for being a heartless monster was alright, its just there was no way with the rules as they were presented that any Vampire was going to last to be the age of the NPC's presented without being a monster.

Yeah, but do keep in mind that a) just because you might lose Humanity doesn't mean you will lose Humanity - there's still a roll for it, and mitigating factors like "he was trying to kill me" or "I had to protect someone" do make a difference, and b) there are ways to gain Humanity back. An elder character who really is concerned with not being a monster may actively seek out "humanizing" activities to help them retain some vestiges of compassion and empathy (in game terms, allowing them to buy back Humanity.)

kyoryu
2011-06-29, 06:25 PM
Unfortunately getting blood bags usually requires mind control or armed robbery. You're less likely to be directly for someone's death but you're still a bad person.

There's also rats, which I think were your best option in terms of blood points per biomass. You'd need to kill thousands of them per year but lab rats aren't expensive. You'd probably spend less on lab rats than the average middle-class American spends on food.

And if the Storyteller doesn't play up all the delicious, delicious, snacks just wandering about that aren't nearly so degrading to just have one innocent little harmless taste of...

Ravens_cry
2011-06-29, 06:40 PM
This happened in oWoD. There's even a bit in one of the Sabbat books about hijacking the refrigerated trucks that transport blood bags.
Unfortunately getting blood bags usually requires mind control or armed robbery. You're less likely to be directly for someone's death but you're still a bad person.
Can WoD vampires be affected by human diseases? It might not be much, but drinking rejected blood could even be considered a service to the community at large. Stealing doesn't have to enter into it, a young childe who works as a doctor or other medical professional might be able to work out something without resorting to armed robbery. It is still stealing, but you are stealing waste.



There's also rats, which I think were your best option in terms of blood points per biomass. You'd need to kill thousands of them per year but lab rats aren't expensive. You'd probably spend less on lab rats than the average middle-class American spends on food.
Or better yet, breed your own. There is all sorts of permits you need to have to experiment on live animals, which is the most likely excuse for large quantities of rats, but the creatures are self replicating Von Neumann machines.

Solaris
2011-06-29, 06:46 PM
Really?? Wow. Man, I've lost Humanity just by being there when bad stuff was happening.

Heh, I've made fellow players lose Humanity just from being there when I was doing stuff.
Characters too.

stainboy
2011-06-29, 06:47 PM
Can WoD vampires be affected by human diseases? It might not be much, but drinking rejected blood could even be considered a service to the community at large. Stealing doesn't have to enter into it, a young childe who works as a doctor or other medical professional might be able to work out something without resorting to armed robbery. It is still stealing, but you are stealing waste.


They can carry blood-borne diseases but they're not affected by them. And the Sabbat have their whole blood-sharing thing. As I understand it getting bitten by a shovelhead is supposed to be like diving into a bin full of used syringes.

comicshorse
2011-06-29, 07:05 PM
[QUOTE=stainboy;11314579

There's also rats, which I think were your best option in terms of blood points per biomass. You'd need to kill thousands of them per year but lab rats aren't expensive. You'd probably spend less on lab rats than the average middle-class American spends on food.[/QUOTE]

Yeah but they taste TERRIBLE (at least thats what my ST always told me)

Also as you get older animal blood will stop sustaining you

Ravens_cry
2011-06-29, 07:12 PM
They can carry blood-borne diseases but they're not affected by them. And the Sabbat have their whole blood-sharing thing. As I understand it getting bitten by a shovelhead is supposed to be like diving into a bin full of used syringes.
Well, assuming you bite anyone, gargle your mouth out with alcohol . . .or bleach? Having even a human bite pierce the skin is pretty bad from a disease perspective.

One Step Two
2011-06-30, 02:50 AM
Well, assuming you bite anyone, gargle your mouth out with alcohol . . .or bleach? Having even a human bite pierce the skin is pretty bad from a disease perspective.

It's actually an interesting point here you've brought up. See, as a Vampire, you don't necessarily loose any sense of taste, it's just that blood is so much better than anything else. So, while it can't kill you gargling bleach... yeah, not a great idea.

Also, as someone mentioned above with feeding on rats, or any animal really, in oWoD atleast, this was a legitimate thing to do at any level of being a Vampire, other than the wierd social taboos other Vampires seem to give you.
That and the fact blood does have distinct qualities, you can only get so much blood from a rat. Also, to give a human analogy, Sardines. They're pretty decent tasting, not the best thing in the world. Now, lets say you need to spend sixty years only eating sardines...

Honest Tiefling
2011-06-30, 02:53 AM
I understand that Humanity is meant to provide Angst, with a capital A. But then the game allows me to pick the Wrath vice and the Justice virtue. (I think? Been a while) Seriously, what are you expecting to happen at this rate?

Not Twilight at any rate.

Ravens_cry
2011-06-30, 03:33 AM
It's actually an interesting point here you've brought up. See, as a Vampire, you don't necessarily loose any sense of taste, it's just that blood is so much better than anything else. So, while it can't kill you gargling bleach... yeah, not a great idea.

Well, high proof alcohol (like 181 proof rum) would be measurably more pleasant than bleach (only just, that stuff fracking burns) and I imagine would kill a lot of pathogens. After all, ethanol alcohol is used as an antiseptic.


Also, as someone mentioned above with feeding on rats, or any animal really, in oWoD atleast, this was a legitimate thing to do at any level of being a Vampire, other than the wierd social taboos other Vampires seem to give you.
That and the fact blood does have distinct qualities, you can only get so much blood from a rat. Also, to give a human analogy, Sardines. They're pretty decent tasting, not the best thing in the world. Now, lets say you need to spend sixty years only eating sardines...
Price one pays I suppose, and it could be a good source of drama right there. Being rejected by both sides, a stranger in all lands. Sucking on rats, when there is the feast of kings. Outside. Just walking about. No one would mind if you took just one . . .

Fri
2011-06-30, 06:05 AM
I found a strip by Rich that's surprisingly relevant :smallbiggrin:

http://www.wizards.com/global/images/rpga_hq_polyffs3_picMain_en.gif

Force
2011-06-30, 07:41 AM
Or better yet, breed your own. There is all sorts of permits you need to have to experiment on live animals, which is the most likely excuse for large quantities of rats, but the creatures are self replicating Von Neumann machines.

Pet store vampires?

That's it, the next time I run a one-shot the players will be hunting down a vampire whose home base is a warehouse filled with rat cages and zookeeper ghouls.

One Step Two
2011-06-30, 08:45 AM
Well, high proof alcohol (like 181 proof rum) would be measurably more pleasant than bleach (only just, that stuff fracking burns) and I imagine would kill a lot of pathogens. After all, ethanol alcohol is used as an antiseptic.

Or some Absinthe. But it's one of those wierd not-quite real medicine thingd that Vampire has. See, sure the vampires mouth is sterile, but the blood which is also infected mixes with the other blood you have stored, and suffuses tissue which spreads, with no antibodies, and a moist sac kept at room temperature, your body becomes a petrie dish. I don't remember if there's any in rules way of dealing with infected blood and it's removal, but my ST was rather creative in that if you drank infected blood, the only way to remove it was to burn through all your blood points before feeding again.


Price one pays I suppose, and it could be a good source of drama right there. Being rejected by both sides, a stranger in all lands. Sucking on rats, when there is the feast of kings. Outside. Just walking about. No one would mind if you took just one . . .

As I mentioned in a previous post, a good ST can take whatever loop-hole you've found and, aslong as you're a willing roleplayer and not just being a pill about it over-all, and make that really good thing you've found a curse.

Hey, theme recurrsion. What do you know :smallwink:

comicshorse
2011-06-30, 01:00 PM
O I don't remember if there's any in rules way of dealing with infected blood and it's removal, but my ST was rather creative in that if you drank infected blood, the only way to remove it was to burn through all your blood points before feeding again.


I'm pretty sure that was the official way of dealing with infected blood


That's it, the next time I run a one-shot the players will be hunting down a vampire whose home base is a warehouse filled with rat cages and zookeeper ghouls.

My Nosferatu invested heavily in slaughterhouses :smallsmile:

MickJay
2011-06-30, 01:23 PM
Losing Humanity for feeding accidents or just for being a heartless monster was alright, its just there was no way with the rules as they were presented that any Vampire was going to last to be the age of the NPC's presented without being a monster. And that's assuming all you did was sit in your library reading and nipping out occasionally to feed. Try and get involved in the conflict with any of the Camarilla's enemies and watch your Path imitate the proverbial brick

Keep in mind that the lower your humanity was, the more vile deed the vampire has to do to actually risk losing more of it. Accidentally killing a vessel no longer triggers any humanity loss rolls once you're down to humanity 5 (or below). 5 also happens to be a fairly common Humanity trait for elder vampires, for one reason or other, and is still high enough for the vampire to be considered "normal", if perhaps callous and generally uncaring.

comicshorse
2011-06-30, 01:44 PM
Keep in mind that the lower your humanity was, the more vile deed the vampire has to do to actually risk losing more of it. Accidentally killing a vessel no longer triggers any humanity loss rolls once you're down to humanity 5 (or below). 5 also happens to be a fairly common Humanity trait for elder vampires, for one reason or other, and is still high enough for the vampire to be considered "normal", if perhaps callous and generally uncaring.

But that leaves the Vampire haging right on the edge, one bad day, one minor accident and you plunge into monsterdom. The chances of that happening before you can complete the laborious task to put your Humanity up again seem very slim to me ( Assuming at Humanity 5 you even care anymore )
Also Humanity 4 is 'deliberate injury'. If there's a Sabbat pack, slaughtering people in your city attacking them can lose you Humanity
For myself I found playing a character on the Path of Chivalry provided me with sufficent moral challenges to fit in with the atmosphere of a creature holding his monstrous instincts in check ( which I feel is a vital part of the atmosphere of the game) while still enabling me to play the concept of a knight pledged to defending the Camarilla and mankind without plunging into being the thing I was oppossing within a few years.

stainboy
2011-06-30, 02:47 PM
Since it's been awhile for me and I think a lot of other people in here, here's the Hierarchy of Sin from Revised:

10 - Selfish thoughts
9 - Minor Selfish Acts
8 - Injury to another (accidental or otherwise)
7 - Theft
6 - Accidental violation (drinking a vessel dry out of starvation)
5 - Intentional property damage
4 - Impassioned violation (manslaughter, killing a vessel in a frenzy)
3 - Planned violation (outright murder, savored exsanguination)
2 - Casual violation (thoughtless killing, feeding past satiation)
1 - Utter perversion or heinous acts

So you can kill someone by feeding without having to check below 6, but winning combat is a check at 4. And if you go into the fight with a plan, you check at 3. This system has a lot less to do with roleplaying than it does with trying to punish players for getting in combat.

(Remember, combat is something all those immature D&D players do and has no place in a shared storytelling experience. Never mind that we keep printing combat disciplines.)

Also, property damage is worse than killing someone by drinking their blood? Whose moral code is this and what the hell is wrong with them?

comicshorse
2011-06-30, 02:53 PM
(Remember, combat is something all those immature D&D players do and has no place in a shared storytelling experience. Never mind that we keep printing combat disciplines.)

Or publish adventures that are basically dungon crawls that end in you devouring somebody's soul :smallsmile:(Presumably so you have something you can angst about for years afterwards)

Pisha
2011-07-01, 12:34 PM
I understand that Humanity is meant to provide Angst, with a capital A. But then the game allows me to pick the Wrath vice and the Justice virtue. (I think? Been a while) Seriously, what are you expecting to happen at this rate?

Not Twilight at any rate.

Well, I think what they're expecting to happen is for your character to have to make some really hard choices.

So there you are. You've just beat the living crap out of this guy, and oh man, did he deserve it. Seriously, and they call you the monster? He deserves to die. You want him to die, and it would be so easy. He's helpless. The Beast in you hungers for violence and blood; the Man in you wants him to suffer for his crimes. The best and the worst instincts in you are, for once, in full agreement, and it would be so very, very easy to just reach out and end him.

Except.

Except that you know, somewhere in the back of your mind, that it's a slippery slope. If you tell yourself it's ok to kill this scumbag... maybe you'll be fine. Maybe it won't affect you. Maybe. Or maybe it'll eat away, just a little, at whatever human feeling you still have left. Maybe the next time, you'll find a way to justify killing a guy who deserves it just a little bit less. How many justifications can you get away with, before there's no more room for compassion and you become just as bad as the people you're fighting?

So what do you do? What choice do you make, what risks do you take - and how do you handle the consequences?

As for all the combat disciplines - yes, combat is a part of the game, but it's part of the neonate game. "There are old vampires and bold vampires, but there are no old, bold vampires." Elders pretend that combat is undignified, but in reality, it's pragmatism: if you want to live to be 500+ years old and still have your wits about you, you'd better learn ways of dealing with your enemies other than violence. Neonates can get away with being violent combat monkeys, because neonates are expected to crash and burn young. (Which is, incidentally, why I think the game assumes you're going to be playing a young'in - because combat is fun, and the elder game is hard.)

But if you're thinking that the Humanity system is designed to make you fall eventually... well, yeah. This isn't a game of happy endings; did you read the book?? All vampires know, deep down, that there's only one ending for them, and it's not a good one. The question is how you view it, and how long you can stave it off. (Assuming, y'know, you want to stave it off.) Elders are respected because they beat the odds. Surviving for hundreds of years without a) getting killed, or b) becoming a ravening monster is statistically improbable, which is why there are so few elders compared to neonates.

Look, the game isn't subtle about this. These are the major themes of the game! I'm getting this impression from several folk that they "like Vampire, but not all that angsty stuff," which is kinda like saying that you really like D&D, except for all the fighting and treasure-collecting.

(And for the record: I've seen vampires in play that were much worse than this (http://www.wizards.com/global/images/rpga_hq_polyffs3_picMain_en.gif) :) It's always fun to watch the bright shiny ones fall...)

Honest Tiefling
2011-07-01, 01:42 PM
No, I am not well versed with any of the WoD books, but my problem is that the baseline assumption assumes that you want not to be an immortal killer. And then it gives me tools to go against this.

The angst comes from not descending into being a monster. But I'm quite sure that there's enough people who given the right situation would quite happily turn into the worst humanity has to offer. And I think being turned into an unholy abomination who must feed on death is going to rank up quite high in ways to turn people into really, really bad people.

RPGuru1331
2011-07-01, 02:42 PM
No, I am not well versed with any of the WoD books, but my problem is that the baseline assumption assumes that you want not to be an immortal killer. And then it gives me tools to go against this.

The angst comes from not descending into being a monster. But I'm quite sure that there's enough people who given the right situation would quite happily turn into the worst humanity has to offer. And I think being turned into an unholy abomination who must feed on death is going to rank up quite high in ways to turn people into really, really bad people.

So you consider it a problem that the game does not absolutely force you to comport to the aesthetics of the game, instead relying on players actually wanting to do that themselves?

Pisha
2011-07-01, 03:33 PM
No, I am not well versed with any of the WoD books, but my problem is that the baseline assumption assumes that you want not to be an immortal killer. And then it gives me tools to go against this.

The angst comes from not descending into being a monster. But I'm quite sure that there's enough people who given the right situation would quite happily turn into the worst humanity has to offer. And I think being turned into an unholy abomination who must feed on death is going to rank up quite high in ways to turn people into really, really bad people.

Yes. It assumes you don't want to be a monstrous, soulless killer. And then puts lots and lots of sweetly reasonable temptations (in the form of said tools) in your way, to make it hard not to become one. We call that conflict.

And... I'm not sure how your 2nd paragraph contradicts any of that, really. You absolutely can play a worst-of-the-worst character in Vampire, if you really want to. I mean, if it gets too bad, you lose all capacity for higher thought and become an npc, but honestly, you really have to be trying to make that happen. If you want to play a Humanity 1 or 2 monster, though... go for it. But the game is not designed to make your life easy if you do. There are consequences to every choice.

stainboy
2011-07-01, 07:53 PM
I do think it's a strength of the game that it's easy to disregard the Humanity rules. If your GM likes them and you don't, you can even take a Path of Enlightenment.

My problem with them is I just don't agree with what it considers a "monstrous, soulless killer." The rules for killing don't make any allowance for self defense or for how much the target deserves it (and the WoD is full of people/creatures that really really deserve it). But somehow you take less of a hit for killing by feeding, which is almost certainly on an innocent person who wasn't any danger to you.

It also makes a big freaking deal out of theft and property damage without considering how much the owner would be harmed by the loss.

Talakeal
2011-07-01, 09:02 PM
I once had a player in a vampire game actually deciding to be a super hero. As in, called himself a super hero, wore a cope (the colorful kind), and went around at night looking for wrongdoers to punish. His motivation was "I am a vampire and therefore stronger than any mortal, so I have a responsibility to save them." It was all well and good until he started referring to his haven as his bat cave and the other players as his side kicks...

Speaking of humanity and heroes, anyone else find it funny that Blade would probably have the lowest humanity of any character in those movies?

Personally I think being a vampire should be a bit more faustian. The more blood you drink the stronger you become. It is possible to remain alive by carefully feeding off one or two willing ghouls, but doing so will just mean you are just an undying human who can't see the sun at that point. If you ever want to be a god among men with tons of supernatural powers you need to feed and to kill often.

Captain Six
2011-07-01, 10:26 PM
Look, the game isn't subtle about this. These are the major themes of the game! I'm getting this impression from several folk that they "like Vampire, but not all that angsty stuff," which is kinda like saying that you really like D&D, except for all the fighting and treasure-collecting.

I can see where you're coming from but the analogy doesn't hold up that well. WoD has an awesome, cinematic combat system. It's simple, it's lethal, it's fast, it's fair. Dungeons and Dragons does not do much outside of "adventure" well. The social rules are broken with the smallest amount of attention, the Craft skill is mostly a rule-of-thumb progress tracker and Profession just pain doesn't work. All items are priced on how useful they are in a dungeon not how useful they are in life. Spells, class features, feats are paced out the same scale of "usefulness". All verisimilitude would shatter as these flaws now take center stage. You could run a combat-free D&D game but many other systems would do it so much better, by that point you would pretty much be free-form roleplaying. On the other hand WoD makes for excellent pulp action game if you want it to. Consider it a complement to the flexibility of the system.

Honest Tiefling
2011-07-01, 11:01 PM
So you consider it a problem that the game does not absolutely force you to comport to the aesthetics of the game, instead relying on players actually wanting to do that themselves?

No, nor did I mean to imply it. The first post asks what individual people do in their games, and I often pick up that vice/virtue combo because it makes sense for the types of characters I tend to play.

I was really just trying to point out that there are features to avoid the angst if necessary, and that they aren't terribly hard to stumble across. I think Wrath/Justice makes sense when combined, so it is not that munckin-y in my opinion.

Maybe I shouldn't have used the word problem, but I meant that the DM expects me to play a certain way but my character is instead merrily skipping down murderous rampage lane, that is a problem. An easily rectified one, and one bound to come up in any RPG.

stainboy
2011-07-02, 10:10 AM
On the other hand WoD makes for excellent pulp action game if you want it to. Consider it a complement to the flexibility of the system.

I gotta strongly disagree, at least for any splat that can consistently pull off one-round kills, or any setting that doesn't hand out enough soak dice/body armor to fix the Three Monkeys with Shotguns problem.

Oddly enough though, Wraith: the Oblivion combat turns out to be really fun. It's hard to reduce someone to zero HP (by White Wolf standards) and even then they don't really "die," but what does happen is super grimdark and players don't assume the GM will save them from it. Wraiths have lots of incentive to flee regenerate or restock MP, so you get these long running chase scenes with both sides blindly phasing through walls, or dropping into the Tempest and then running into something worse. It's really cool.

RPGuru1331
2011-07-02, 12:10 PM
I was really just trying to point out that there are features to avoid the angst if necessary, and that they aren't terribly hard to stumble across. I think Wrath/Justice makes sense when combined, so it is not that munckin-y in my opinion.

Maybe I shouldn't have used the word problem, but I meant that the DM expects me to play a certain way but my character is instead merrily skipping down murderous rampage lane, that is a problem. An easily rectified one, and one bound to come up in any RPG.
The problem is entirely on your end. Don't blame the system that you're willfully ignoring the story's aesthetics.

Gamgee
2011-07-02, 02:24 PM
I try, I really do. Then I remember these two characters. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhIVLNI71lc and him http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY4_hfqQW0E

Then I have to laugh.

Rogue Shadows
2011-07-02, 04:36 PM
Going to be playing in my first Vampire: The Maquerade story soon enough.

I've looked over all the material, given it serious thought, and decided to play an 8th-generation Caitiff, just to see what happens.

I can say this: angst will not factor into it.

Some explosions, probably. An awful lot of running. But the soundtrack to my unlife won't be something by Evanescence or My Chemical Romance. It'll be Benny Hill.

One Step Two
2011-07-02, 06:16 PM
Speaking of humanity and heroes, anyone else find it funny that Blade would probably have the lowest humanity of any character in those movies?

Blade is a different vampire genre first off, but if we do want to define him in WoD terms, two things to consider are:
A: He may follow a different path than Humanity
B: He isn't really a vampire, but a Hunter with some extra fluff to give him a uniqe edge in the setting.

comicshorse
2011-07-02, 06:23 PM
Blade is a different vampire genre first off, but if we do want to define him in WoD terms, two things to consider are:
A: He may follow a different path than Humanity


Path of Power and the Inner Voice IMHO

stainboy
2011-07-02, 07:01 PM
Blade is a dhampyr. In White Wolf terms that means he's from an obscure Kindred of the East splat that doesn't use Humanity. You could also run him as a revenant/ghoul (both). I believe that would give him a break on Humanity checks compared to vampires..

Shadowknight12
2011-07-02, 07:08 PM
Blade is a dhampyr. In White Wolf terms that means he's from an obscure Kindred of the East splat that doesn't use Humanity. You could also run him as a revenant/ghoul (both). I believe that would give him a break on Humanity checks compared to vampires..

Night Horrors: The Wicked Dead has the Dampyr. They are meant to be antagonists for vampire characters. Might be a good fit.

Talakeal
2011-07-02, 08:29 PM
Time of thin blood has western Dhampyrs.

Its been a while, but I seem to recall Ghouls, Dhampirs, Revenants, and even Hunters (the real kind, not the Imbued) all having to use humanity. I remember thinking how stupid it was that I had to spend freeby points / xp on making a hunter with a high humanity as it had no mechanical advantages unless you were a vampire.

Honest Tiefling
2011-07-02, 10:23 PM
So you consider it a problem that the game does not absolutely force you to comport to the aesthetics of the game, instead relying on players actually wanting to do that themselves?

I do not consider it a fault of White Wolf games that people must communicate. I consider that a facet of human interaction, because I'll be darned if I can think of a single system where communication isn't necessary to some degree. I never meant to imply that that it was a problem with the game, but could be easily avoided either by design or simply a player making a certain character archetype.

I am sorry if my posts sound snarky, I have quite enjoyed White Wolf games, and do not mean to imply that they are bad games. I just wanted to remark that in my experience people just use the system to avoid angst intentionally or not.