[oWoD - V:TM] Question about Humanity, Killing, and Siring.

[Rogue Shadows]

Something just ocurred to me when looking over the Degeneration rules vampires, specifically the Hierarchy of Sin for the path of Humanity, and trying to create childer.

For reference, this is the Hierarchy of Sin for humanity according to V:tM's Revised rulebook.

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 frenzy)
3 - Planned violation (outright murder, savored exsanguinations)
2 - Casual violation (thoughtless killing, feeding past satiation)
1 - Utter perversion or heinous acts.

Now, this has not yet come up in the game of Vampire that my Storyteller is running, and my character does not, herself, plan on siring any childer, at least not yet.

Having said that: to sire a vampire, you first have to kill the person by exsanguinating them - draining every last drop of blood from their body. Following that, you feed them some of your own, which gives them unlife.

Unless you screw up or your blood is weak, then they just die, but we're ignoring that for now.

The question is: Does Siring a Childe Count as a Violation Against the Path of Humanity?

I can see arguments for it running both ways. You're exsanguinating someone with the intention of killing them. If this is your typical Embrace, then this essentially constitutes outright murder, since it's likely that you've been "scouting" the soon-to-be-neophytal-vampire for some time.

On the other hand...you're not really killing them. You're Embracing them. A vampire is no longer alive, but nor is she dead, and this is key; if everything goes right with the Embrace then it can't really be murder, or even manslaughter, can it?

Also, I'm wondering if the Embrace itself counts as an "utter perversion or heinous act," on the grounds that you're turning someone into a vampire. We've once again got For and Against here:
- Yes, the act itself is heinous: You're turning someone into an undead predatory creature of the night that must steal the blood of the living in order to continue its own unnatural existance.
- No, it's not heinous: You get sweet powers, a good chance at living forever, and all you really need is one blood point per night, and it doesn't even need to be human blood. A vampire with no outside influences could literally spend all of eternity without ever killing anyone, just kicking back and enjoying themselves.

Especially, I'm interested in situations wherein the vampire potentate knows the vampire that's going to Embrace her for some time, as a vampire, and goes into the whole thing entirely willing - such as with the typical method of Giovanni Embraces, wherein the soon-to-be-vampire has grown up knowing that he'd one day become a vampire and expects and wants this thing to happen.

Obviously the Giovanni are, themselves, something of a bad example, given that they're in a competition with the Tzimisce for "most screwed-up-in-the-head-yes-even-more-than-the-Malkavians-on-average" vampires, but you see the idea.

[comicshorse]

I'd say No and must say I've never seen it run that Embracing causes a violation for the Path, though I do see where you're coming from.

If the person being Embraced isn't offered a choice in the matter I'd see a good argument for a roll on the Path for a lesser crime than outright murder

I was gonna comment on the Giovanni bit but I see you've already thought of that :smallsmile:

[Rogue Shadows]

I'd say No and must say I've never seen it run that Embracing causes a violation for the Path, though I do see where you're coming from.

It's a bit awkward. The whole idea that killing someone is a Bad Thing is inherently based on the idea that killing is sort of permanent.

[comicshorse]

It's a bit awkward. The whole idea that killing someone is a Bad Thing is inherently based on the idea that killing is sort of permanent.

Well the Giovanni would have something to say about that as well



- Yes, the act itself is heinous: You're turning someone into an undead predatory creature of the night that must steal the blood of the living in order to continue its own unnatural existance.
- No, it's not heinous: You get sweet powers, a good chance at living forever, and all you really need is one blood point per night, and it doesn't even need to be human blood. A vampire with no outside influences could literally spend all of eternity without ever killing anyone, just kicking back and enjoying themselves.


There isn't really a yes or no for this. As with Life Unlife is what you make it. I've seen Embraces done by Toreador where it was probably the most exquisite night of the persons life and done by the Giovanni where the Vampire still has screaming nightmares about it.
Unsuprisingly the two Vampires had very different unlives from then on as well. One can be brought into the eternal party or the eternal nightmare depending on your choices, your clan and your Sire and a thousand other factors

[Rogue Shadows]

Well the Giovanni would have something to say about that as well

I did say "sort of."

:smalltongue:

[Dingle]

now that you mention it, it does seem very much like a planned murder or savoured exanguination.

Vampirism is kind of a curse, putting it on a similar level to death.

and I do remember seeing somewhere that the embrace isn't guaranteed, so you'd be taking a risk of murder as well.

[Rogue Shadows]

Am I really the first person to wonder this?

[Shadowknight12]

I wondered.

It's not a sin against the morality chart because the chart measures specific, self-contained actions. Take, for example, theft. If you take something from someone with the intention of returning it later (and you do), it's not theft. Yet part of the action (removing an item from someone's possession) is, in fact, just like theft. Embracing works the same way. The 'killing' part is contained within a larger action that makes it disqualify from being a sin (because 'Embracing' doesn't appear on the chart).

Also, no, it's not a heinous act. A vampire is not 'Blessed With Suck,' she is 'Cursed With Awesome,' no matter what the Angst Brigade wants you to believe.

[Rogue Shadows]

It's not a sin against the morality chart because the chart measures specific, self-contained actions. Take, for example, theft. If you take something from someone with the intention of returning it later (and you do), it's not theft. Yet part of the action (removing an item from someone's possession) is, in fact, just like theft. Embracing works the same way. The 'killing' part is contained within a larger action that makes it disqualify from being a sin (because 'Embracing' doesn't appear on the chart).

Well, the chart is specifically mentioned in the book to be both vague, and merely a general guideline. So I was wondering.


Also, no, it's not a heinous act. A vampire is not 'Blessed With Suck,' she is 'Cursed With Awesome,' no matter what the Angst Brigade wants you to believe.

Oh, don't get me wrong: I'm fully in the "I get sweet powers and a good shot at living forever and properly speaking don't ever have to kill anyone, so why should I angst?" camp.

[MickJay]

Well, there's enough problems with being Embraced, some (or all) may apply to pretty much any vampire:

- you have to forever struggle with the Beast; there's always a risk of killing while feeding, of losing self-control
- you have to abandon family and friends (masquerade), or make them into ghouls (effectively taking away much of their free will)
- many, most or all of the things the vampire formerly cherished and appreciated in life are now replaced by a single desire for blood (Toreadors are are a rare exception, but they suffer from lack of creativity)
- forced, complete change of the lifestyle
- getting involved in ongoing struggles and conflicts the neonate has no hope of understanding
- more than that, you end up in a world of supernatural beings where you're pretty much on the bottom of the power scale; werewolves, mages, demons are all more powerful than you are, and some of them will try to kill you just because you exist
- last but not least, according to at least some of the lore, the vampire becomes genuinely cursed, losing hope of salvation

Sure, powers are nice, and if the newly created vampire didn't have much he enjoyed in life he had, he might well enjoy the new existence. Personally, I've never been in a vampire game where the PCs would be angsty, but then again, most of the PCs were, at best, sociopaths :smalltongue:

Then there are reasons for embracing: was it a genuine attempt at making the other's "life" better, or preserving some talent? Selfish act caused by, say, loneliness? Or was it done to swell Sabbat ranks with expendable meat shields before an assault on a Camarilla stronghold? The motive, more than anything else, should determine whether the act would ping on the Humanity path as a sin or not.

[Rogue Shadows]

- you have to forever struggle with the Beast; there's always a risk of killing while feeding, of losing self-control

Well, the first is true, but the second isn't, really: You lose control if your current blood pool is equal to [7 - Self-control]. So assuming that our neonate vampire is of the default 13th generation, keeps himself generally full on blood (resulting in him having 10 blood at any given time), and has an average Self-control (2), then he only risks exsanguination if his blood pool falls to 5 or lower. Since it only takes 1 blood point to wake up every night, a vampire who's just coasting through unlife should have 9 BP on waking up, giving him 4 blood points as a sort of "safety" before he risks frenzying and exsanguinating his next target.

Lower generation vampires have it even easier, since they have both more blood points and, typically, higher Self-Controls.

Plus - and this really can't be stressed enough - they don't have to feed on humans. This is purely a taste issue; nothing compels any vampire (sans Ventrue, due to the nature of their curse) to drink from humans.


- you have to abandon family and friends (masquerade), or make them into ghouls (effectively taking away much of their free will)

This is true, I guess.


- many, most or all of the things the vampire formerly cherished and appreciated in life are now replaced by a single desire for blood (Toreadors are are a rare exception, but they suffer from lack of creativity)

This doesn't really seem to be the case with any vampire media I've found.

Well, let me clarify. This is stated to be the case when talking about vampires in the abstract. On the other hand, having read a few of the Masquerade novels and having had a chance to see things through the eyes of several vampires from several clans - Vykos, Hesha, Victoria, Leopold, Ramona, and others - this certainly does not seem to be the case when actually applied to any given vampire.

Indeed, the Toreador novel was largely centered around a vampire art show with art created by vampires, for vampires. None of it seemed particularly sterile.


- forced, complete change of the lifestyle

This is a point, generally, assuming that the vampire potentate hasn't been groomed first, I guess.


- getting involved in ongoing struggles and conflicts the neonate has no hope of understanding

This is entirely the result of the state of the vampiric society, and has almost nothing to do with the Embrace in and of itself.

As a comparison; do a pair of parents in Somalia, North Korea, or other horrible places to live, get a ping against their Humanity for having children there?


- more than that, you end up in a world of supernatural beings where you're pretty much on the bottom of the power scale; werewolves, mages, demons are all more powerful than you are, and some of them will try to kill you just because you exist

I'm trying to focus on Vampire without involving the other supernatural beings here.


- last but not least, according to at least some of the lore, the vampire becomes genuinely cursed, losing hope of salvation

This seems to largely depend on Storytellers; like, more so than some of the other things you mentioned. Is it a genuine curse? Is all hope of salvation lost? At least two of the Gehenna scenarios presented the curse as something that could be transcended. Is siring a vampire really that different from creating a child, who has to live with and overcome original sin?


The motive, more than anything else, should determine whether the act would ping on the Humanity path as a sin or not.

Well, I definitely agree with this; having said that, I was more interested in whether the action was a ping against the Humanity path in and of itself.

[Shadowknight12]

Well, the chart is specifically mentioned in the book to be both vague, and merely a general guideline. So I was wondering.

You can't discuss 'vagueness.' You have to discuss the things you have evidence for. Right now, your options are either "no, it's not a sin" or "it's up to the Storyteller." That's what the evidence supports. So take your pick.


Oh, don't get me wrong: I'm fully in the "I get sweet powers and a good shot at living forever and properly speaking don't ever have to kill anyone, so why should I angst?" camp.

Then we agree.


The motive, more than anything else, should determine whether the act would ping on the Humanity path as a sin or not.

Irrelevant. Embracing isn't on the list, so intent matters very little. It's like "selling a gun." It doesn't matter if you sell the gun to the person so that they can protect themselves or so that they can go rob a liquor store or commit a cold-blooded murder. It's not a sin, so intent doesn't matter.

[Rogue Shadows]

You can't discuss 'vagueness.' You have to discuss the things you have evidence for. Right now, your options are either "no, it's not a sin" or "it's up to the Storyteller." That's what the evidence supports. So take your pick.

We come back to, though, is the Embrace more than just killing? Again, to Embrace, you have to exsanguinate the target first - drain them completely dry of blood. Doing this kills them. Then you turn them into a vampire. The Embrace isn't an instance so much as a process, and part of that process would seem to suggest a ping at Humanity 6, for the cases of accidentally Embracing someone after exsanguinating them out of starvation (which can and does happen in the WoD).

On the other hand - they come back, not truly alive, but no longer dead, and certainly, at least, conscious and aware. Does that "make up" for things? That's the question.


Irrelevant. Embracing isn't on the list, so intent matters very little. It's like "selling a gun." It doesn't matter if you sell the gun to the person so that they can protect themselves or so that they can go rob a liquor store or commit a cold-blooded murder. It's not a sin, so intent doesn't matter.

The list is specifically mentioned in the book to be both incomplete and to be used simply as a guideline. Just because a given action "isn't on the list" doesn't mean it doesn't ding the Humanity scale; this is, again, specifically outlined in the rules concerning degeneration.

Anyway. I guess the end is "it's up to the storyteller." I was just curious to see what people thought of the situation.

[Shadowknight12]

We come back to, though, is the Embrace more than just killing? Again, to Embrace, you have to exsanguinate the target first - drain them completely dry of blood. Doing this kills them. Then you turn them into a vampire. The Embrace isn't an instance so much as a process, and part of that process would seem to suggest a ping at Humanity 6, for the cases of accidentally Embracing someone after exsanguinating them out of starvation (which can and does happen in the WoD).

Yes, Embracing is more than just killing. That is patently obvious. Vampires are more than corpses.

To borrow something, you have to remove an item from someone's possession. Which is just like stealing. And to perform many kinds of medicine, you must take sharp blades to their flesh and cut deep. Just like assault. And to reset a broken bone, you must inflict violence on someone and cause them terrible pain.

And the fact that every medicine is a poison depending on dosage (so you can be arguably poisoning people by giving them medicine, especially if we take into account allergies and poor liver/kidney function) means that you can easily have the best intent and still end up harming someone. Or not harming them but still committing every step before that. So if you are punishing someone over the result of their actions and not their intent or procedure, then Embracing is just like that. You punish them if the Embrace fails and they end up killing someone.

Which proves my point all along. If the Embrace attempt fails, it's not actually an Embrace, it's plain old murder, which is right there on the list. If the Embrace succeeds, it's not murder, it's Embracing, which isn't on the list, and therefore is not a sin.


On the other hand - they come back, not truly alive, but no longer dead, and certainly, at least, conscious and aware. Does that "make up" for things? That's the question.

No, not really. That's not the question. The question is not whether turning someone into a vampire is a sin or not. It's not. The question is whether a botched attempt at Embracing is a sin or not (It is).


The list is specifically mentioned in the book to be both incomplete and to be used simply as a guideline. Just because a given action "isn't on the list" doesn't mean it doesn't ding the Humanity scale; this is, again, specifically outlined in the rules concerning degeneration.

Which is what I meant when I said "or "it's up to the Storyteller."" And what I meant before when I talked about evidence. You can't just speculate without basis. You have to speculate based on solid, tangible evidence. That list is evidence. The part about the list being incomplete is also evidence. However, what this bit of evidence tells you is that any addition to the list is up to the ST. It doesn't allow you to speculate on what could be missing from the list or not. It simply tells you that if you, as the ST, feel like something should be added to the list, you can do so.

If you meant to ask if us, as STs, have ever penalised Embracing (or as players, have been in a game where this has happened), then you have worded your question poorly. I was under the impression that this was a rules discussion about whether Embracing qualified as a sin or not.

[Rogue Shadows]

If you meant to ask if us, as STs, have ever penalised Embracing (or as players, have been in a game where this has happened), then you have worded your question poorly. I was under the impression that this was a rules discussion about whether Embracing qualified as a sin or not.

It was both. Or neither. Really it was more an observation in the form of a question, then intended to be any serious examination of the system.

[Shadowknight12]

It was both. Or neither. Really it was more an observation in the form of a question, then intended to be any serious examination of the system.

Then haberdashers save me, I've made my observations. Toodle-oo.

[nersxe]

As a Storyteller, I have penalized exactly once for Embracing, and it went thusly,

The players "needed" a vampire to give to a spirit for possession (don't ask, the story only gets more ridiculous the further back you go), so they went looking in alleys. They found two men making out, knocked them unconscious, and dragged them back to the spirit. They turned the one, fed him the other, and waited for him to stop feeding. When the new fledgling was done, he gave an angsty monologue about how that was his partner, and how they were going to move in together, about how he could never see his family again, etc. Instead of stopping to think about the reprecussions of their actions, they threw the man to the spirit to be possessed. He became possessed, and the body walked away without chase or tracking by the players. I made them all roll Humanity, even the guy who claimed "but I only stood there watching!".

tl;dr, I've penalized for a very immoral Embrace.

[S_Grey]

I tend to "golden rule" the humanity scale pretty drastically from how it was originally displayed in that book.
Some of the the circumstances of being a vampire, and certainly more so the circumstances that I enjoy hurling my players through would demand that every player have a maximum humanity of 1. It can't be very fun having no one in the group even strive to uphold the path of humanity, when it's a great mechanic placed there to maintain a standard for behavior.

[Chen]

Embracing someone who is unwilling should probably ping the humanity scale somewhere around 3-4. Its effectively destroying their whole current life.

Embracing someone who is willing or to save the person's "life" should not be a violation.

[Shadowknight12]

Embracing someone who is unwilling should probably ping the humanity scale somewhere around 3-4. Its effectively destroying their whole current life.

Embracing someone who is willing or to save the person's "life" should not be a violation.

Give someone a ludicrous amount of money. BAM, you've just destroyed their whole current life too.

[The Glyphstone]

Give someone a ludicrous amount of money. BAM, you've just destroyed their whole current life too.

And depending on who you give it to and where, you may have just effectively murdered them.

[Rogue Shadows]

Give someone a ludicrous amount of money. BAM, you've just destroyed their whole current life too.

True...proof I guess that destroying someone's life can be a good thing.

Of course, this has an element of choice to it. Give someone a billion billion dollars and their life only changes if they choose to use it. They could just donate it all to charity or burn it or something.

[Shadowknight12]

And depending on who you give it to and where, you may have just effectively murdered them.

Precisely.


True...proof I guess that destroying someone's life can be a good thing.

Hence why turning someone into a vampire is not a sin against Humanity. Even if it didn't require murder (say, if someone develops some magic ritual or artifact that does so).


Of course, this has an element of choice to it. Give someone a billion billion dollars and their life only changes if they choose to use it. They could just donate it all to charity or burn it or something.

It changes their life all the same. Donate it? You get fame. Burn it? Someone WILL stop you. And steal it. With potentially fatal consequences.

It's not that easy to foresee all the possible changes something like that might entail.

[The Glyphstone]

Precisely.



Hence why turning someone into a vampire is not a sin against Humanity. Even if it didn't require murder (say, if someone develops some magic ritual or artifact that does so).

We may be crossing wires here, but I was arguing that giving someone a billion billion dollars could in fact be a Humanity sin, depending on circumstances. If you gave it to them in the middle of the ghetto, for instance, or if you knew they were a compulsive gambler/drug/alcohol addict limited only by the funds they had to burn. The fact that you weren't holding the gun/knife/bottle doesn't excuse you knowing what would be likely to happen.

[Rogue Shadows]

We may be crossing wires here, but I was arguing that giving someone a billion billion dollars could in fact be a Humanity sin, depending on circumstances. If you gave it to them in the middle of the ghetto, for instance, or if you knew they were a compulsive gambler/drug/alcohol addict limited only by the funds they had to burn. The fact that you weren't holding the gun/knife/bottle doesn't excuse you knowing what would be likely to happen.

Hmm. Curiously enough, my current (and first!) vampire character primarily gets money via selling cocaine. She makes the excuse to herself and to others that all she's doing is making the pitch - people choose to buy and what they do from there is neither her fault nor her problem.

[The Glyphstone]

Hmm. Curiously enough, my current (and first!) vampire character primarily gets money via selling cocaine. She makes the excuse to herself and to others that all she's doing is making the pitch - people choose to buy and what they do from there is neither her fault nor her problem.

Well, it all depends on your storyteller, obviously. Though a vampire who doesn't believe people can be addicted to something is in some pretty heavy delusional self-denial anyways.

[Shadowknight12]

We may be crossing wires here, but I was arguing that giving someone a billion billion dollars could in fact be a Humanity sin, depending on circumstances. If you gave it to them in the middle of the ghetto, for instance, or if you knew they were a compulsive gambler/drug/alcohol addict limited only by the funds they had to burn. The fact that you weren't holding the gun/knife/bottle doesn't excuse you knowing what would be likely to happen.

I wouldn't penalise that as a sin against humanity, actually. Causing someone's death indirectly shouldn't ding the karma meter, otherwise you get into all sorts of murky territory. What happens to the guy who orders a carpet-bombing and ends up killing over a hundred people? Does he automatically reach Morality 0 from all the rolling? What about chains of reactions, where one tiny act causes a series of events that culminate in the death of many people? When do you draw the line between 'indirect' murder and things that are beyond the character's control? I'd only penalise it if the character felt guilty and responsible about it (which means, if the player asks for a roll).


Hmm. Curiously enough, my current (and first!) vampire character primarily gets money via selling cocaine. She makes the excuse to herself and to others that all she's doing is making the pitch - people choose to buy and what they do from there is neither her fault nor her problem.

I completely support this view. I wouldn't have a character roll for degeneration for selling drugs. Illegal =/= immoral.

[The Glyphstone]

I wouldn't penalise that as a sin against humanity, actually. Causing someone's death indirectly shouldn't ding the karma meter, otherwise you get into all sorts of murky territory. What happens to the guy who orders a carpet-bombing and ends up killing over a hundred people? Does he automatically reach Morality 0 from all the rolling? What about chains of reactions, where one tiny act causes a series of events that culminate in the death of many people? When do you draw the line between 'indirect' murder and things that are beyond the character's control? I'd only penalise it if the character felt guilty and responsible about it (which means, if the player asks for a roll).


That'd be a single roll against Morality Level 1 (Mass Murder), not hundreds of rolls. And wartime circumstances cause problems for arguing morality with regards to killing anyways.

And yeah, the line is murky, but you have to draw the line somewhere. Instant Morality 0 from a Butterfly Effect chain is as absurd at one end as pushing someone off a cliff and walking away free because 'it was the ground that killed them, not you' is at the other end. It's just going to vary by ST and player.


I completely support this view. I wouldn't have a character roll for degeneration for selling drugs. Illegal =/= immoral.
Indeed. Selling drugs (Illegal) isn't necessarily immoral. But, say, selling extra-high purity crack cocaine to a regular customer in a quantity that would kill them? That would be.

[Rogue Shadows]

Indeed. Selling drugs (Illegal) isn't necessarily immoral. But, say, selling extra-high purity crack cocaine to a regular customer in a quantity that would kill them? That would be.

Well, extra high-purity crack cocaine to a regular customer in a quantity that would kill them without telling them that it's an extra-high purity amount, anyway; that's like selling a lemon of a car that you know is going to fall apart after five miles - that would definitely ding the karma meter. But there's nothing wrong with selling an alleged car if you don't try to hide that its merely a lemon.

Wow, I can actually see that now.

"Whoa whoa whoa! Amigo! What are you doing? This is the good stuff! Take all that and you friggin' die, man!"

"...you realize I'm Keith Richards, right?"

"Oh. Lo siento. Carry on."

[The Glyphstone]

Well, extra high-purity crack cocaine to a regular customer in a quantity that would kill them without telling them that it's an extra-high purity amount, anyway; that's like selling a lemon of a car that you know is going to fall apart after five miles - that would definitely ding the karma meter.

Wow, I can actually see that now.

"Whoa whoa whoa! Amigo! What are you doing? This is the good stuff! Take all that and you friggin' die, man!"

"...you realize I'm Keith Richards, right?"

"Oh. Lo siento. Carry on."

Bwahahahahaha. Okay, point conceded - if they're knowingly commiting suicide, or at least risking it, that wouldn't be murder. Maaaaaaaaaaybe involuntary manslaughter, but that's not even on the Morality chart (manslaughter as a passionate crime is at 4, but that's different).

[Reluctance]

Hmm. Curiously enough, my current (and first!) vampire character primarily gets money via selling cocaine. She makes the excuse to herself and to others that all she's doing is making the pitch - people choose to buy and what they do from there is neither her fault nor her problem.

Welcome back to the Humanity chart. At 10, impure thoughts are enough to cause you to stumble. Once it gets low enough, I'd say 6 for a dealer who only supplies to existing addicts without getting anybody new hooked, you stop caring.

Embracing, I'd say 9 or 10 (essentially no sin) if turning them is the only alternative to them dying. 7ish if they're given a choice or at least go along willingly. (It's tricky if they say no, but most STs are lenient on invasive memory modification when the only other options are murder and de facto suicide.) An unwilling embrace is serious assault, and most likely kidnapping in the mix. If you're forcing fangs on someone, you're going to use them for something other than letting them stay comfortable at home. 3 or so sounds about right.

[stainboy]

The Heirarchy of Sin is a lot more forgiving if you kill someone by draining them. Murder is usually a check at 3, but draining someone to death is less severe than vandalism. So if you have to check for killing someone even to Embrace them, kill them by draining their blood.

[MickJay]

The Heirarchy of Sin is a lot more forgiving if you kill someone by draining them. Murder is usually a check at 3, but draining someone to death is less severe than vandalism. So if you have to check for killing someone even to Embrace them, kill them by draining their blood.

Keep in mind that killing by draining only pings as '6' if it's been accidental. No matter what method of killing you use, murder pings at '3'.

[The Glyphstone]

And draining someone is, I'm pretty sure, a required component of Embracing anyways.

[Cirrylius]

This is a really difficult question. So much of it is subjective to personality and motivation, and only partially dependent on Humanity, IMO.

One one hand you've got the nature of the character; an ex-hunter who was turned as revenge by an angry elder is going to consider granting the Embrace to another the most hell-worthy sin imaginable, while a Cainite mystic who believes that vampirism is a holy experience will interpret it as a gift for only the most worthy. On the other hand, you've got the nature of the victim; that same hunter from the past example as opposed by your Giovanni revenant, for example. Obviously most characters and victims will fall somewhere in the middle.

For an ordinary, run-of-the-mill embrace, a sire stalking a victim with the right qualities and embracing him without permission, I would consider it a sin equivalent or one step less than rape or torture. The Embrace is usually described as a painful, wrenching process, and violates the victim's sense of self-nature by completely transforming their drives and motivations in ways they almost always find utterly horrifying. Most of the fictions depict the victim as suffering terror, revulsion, remorse and despair on discovering their new nature. In addition, the sire has released a new predator on the world that, statistically, will kill. That makes him responsible for any sins committed by his childe in frenzy.

Of course, there's no guarantee that the victim will hate who he is now. For every half-dozen Louis-s there's a Jessica or two. But that doesn't change the fact that the sire has just played Russian roulette with his new childes psyche and moral code. YMMV. And, of course, most new vampires DO regain their footing after a time, striking a balance somewhere between regret and pragmatism, so even if they're sheer awfulness, the problems of the early days doesn't usually last forever.

PERSONALLY, I'd consider the transition wicked-in-a-can; I'd get over the initial discomfort. And that's how most players consider it. But the source material seems to indicate most people don't handle it quite so well.

[TheCountAlucard]

And draining someone is, I'm pretty sure, a required component of Embracing anyways.Didn't the Malkavian clanbook have an instance of someone being Embraced via dialysis machine? :smallconfused:

[Rogue Shadows]

And draining someone is, I'm pretty sure, a required component of Embracing anyways.

Yup. The Revised rulebook, at least, states that to Embrace, the sire must first drain all the blood from a victim's body.

(I'm assuming that it doesn't have to be literally every last drop, though; you could probably get 95% on the initial draining, but then hunting down every last drop trapped in the liver or the muscles or something would take hours, if not longer, and it's never described as taking that long. Likely what the book means is that the victim must have 0 Blood Points left in their body).

[stainboy]

And draining someone is, I'm pretty sure, a required component of Embracing anyways.

They go back and forth on this. If I still had my books I could cite canon characters who were Embraced without being drained first. Half the time the draining matters, the other half all you need is to be fed vampire blood while dying or dead.


(I'm assuming that it doesn't have to be literally every last drop, though; you could probably get 95% on the initial draining, but then hunting down every last drop trapped in the liver or the muscles or something would take hours, if not longer, and it's never described as taking that long. Likely what the book means is that the victim must have 0 Blood Points left in their body).

That's the only thing that makes sense, at least. Vitae has never mapped to any physical volume of blood. Cows have a lot more blood in their bodies than humans but they have fewer vitae.

[nersxe]

They go back and forth on this. If I still had my books I could cite canon characters who were Embraced without being drained first. Half the time the draining matters, the other half all you need is to be fed vampire blood while dying or dead.

Keep in mind that the book itsef says, "these are Da Rules, but if you don't like them, chuck them out the window!!!". The fluff text and novels seem to have very much taken this to heart, and let's not get started on what the low-gen Kindred can do even completely within the rules.


Wow, I can actually see that now.

"Whoa whoa whoa! Amigo! What are you doing? This is the good stuff! Take all that and you friggin' die, man!"

"...you realize I'm Keith Richards, right?"

"Oh. Lo siento. Carry on."

I just can't with you, man. How am I supposed to take this thread seriously when all I can think about is some guy selling Keith Richards primo, starting to roll Humanity, and then Richards revealing himself, and the subtitle, "CRISIS AVERTED, PARTY TIME!!!" appearing. Congratulations, I'll never be able to take drug-dealing Kindred seriously ever again.

EDITED: Because I apparently suck at html.

[Rogue Shadows]

Keep in mind that the book itsef says, "these are Da Rules, but if you don't like them, chuck them out the window!!!". The fluff text and novels seem to have very much taken this to heart, and let's not get started on what the low-gen Kindred can do even completely within the rules.

Actual thing from one sourcebook:

ANY DISCIPLINE :smalltongue::smalltongue::smalltongue: :smalltongue::smalltongue::smalltongue: :smalltongue::smalltongue::smalltongue: :smalltongue: : PLOT DEVICE
A vampire with ten dots in a discipline can do just absolutely anything related to that discipline. Period. Punch a mountain in half with Potence, supernaturally blot out the sun with Obtenebration, sway entire nations of people with Presence, and so on. This power is limited solely by the Storyteller's imagination.
However, this power does not grant a Kindred the ability to dodge sunlight. That can only be done if he or she (or it) can beat Flandre Scarlet withut dying once.


I just can't with you, man. How am I supposed to take this thread seriously when all I can think about is some guy selling Keith Richards primo, starting to roll Humanity, and then Richards revealing himself, and the subtitle, "CRISIS AVERTED, PARTY TIME!!!" appearing. Congratulations, I'll never be able to take drug-dealing Kindred seriously ever again.

My Storyteller...does not run a World of Darkness. He runs a World of Turn Off The Damn Lights I Have a Headache.

[TheCountAlucard]

However, this power does not grant a Kindred the ability to dodge sunlight.Potence 10 - I turn the world around so it's night. Alternatively, I just stop the earth rotating while I'm already on the night-side.

Celerity 10 - I run around to the other side of the world so it's night. Alternatively, I dodge the sunlight. :smalltongue:

Fortitude 10 - I'm tough enough to not care about sunlight.

Vicissitude 10 - I'm unkillable. Now what, sun? Alternatively, I shape myself a nice people-skin umbrella and go for a stroll.

Chimeristry 10 - I create a world without a sun.

Obfuscate 10 - I hide the sun. Alternatively, I hide myself from the sun.

Protean 10 - I become the sun.

Dominate 10 - I order the sun to stop shining.

Dementation 10 - I convince myself the sun is just a figment of my imagination, and thus it can no longer harm me.

Note that while sunlight killed Zapathasura, it only occurred after he'd been weakened enough by spirit nukes and a week of straight combat, and that the sunlight in question was super-focused from the Technocracy's orbital mirrors.

[nersxe]

My Storyteller...does not run a World of Darkness. He runs a World of Turn Off The Damn Lights I Have a Headache.

That sounds like the world I used to run. Then I created gangs who Did Not Mess Around, and everything got a lot more serious.

To get a little bit back on topic, one of my high-gen players just turned a pair of humans, and got two seers who are slowly going insane before her eyes. I'm debating on when I should have her roll Humanity, because I'm pretty sure she's just going to let them lose it without looking for a way to cure/help them.

[Rogue Shadows]

Note that while sunlight killed Zapathasura, it only occurred after he'd been weakened enough by spirit nukes and a week of straight combat, and that the sunlight in question was super-focused from the Technocracy's orbital mirrors.

Mmn...I actually almost regret only reading the first four Clan Novels. That sounds like it must have been an epic read. I was just sick of each of them ending mind-numbingly depressingly. Gangrel especially...it's a bad thing when the Tzimisce clan novel had a happier ending, even if only for Vykos. Gangrel just ended poorly for every named character in it.

On a related note, I take it you've read this, then. (http://touchedbyimmortality.bravehost.com/humor/ante11.html)

[nersxe]

On a related note, I take it you've read this, then. (http://touchedbyimmortality.bravehost.com/humor/ante11.html)

That was an incredibly accurate portrayal of how ridiculous the higher-level Disciplines get.

[TheCountAlucard]

On a related note, I take it you've read this, then.I have... now. :smalltongue:

[Rogue Shadows]

That was an incredibly accurate portrayal of how ridiculous the higher-level Disciplines get.

And yet Caine can still take 'em all...

...sadly, most of that website doesn't work anymore, which is a shame, 'cause there's a lot on there that I'd like to read. Most of the Antediluvian stories do, though.

[nersxe]

And yet Caine can still take 'em all...

If that's what the antediluvians can do, Caine is terrifying. Seriously.

[Strawberries]

My Storyteller...does not run a World of Darkness. He runs a World of Turn Off The Damn Lights I Have a Headache.

....And this is a great, sig-worthy quote. Really, I have to start collecting playgrounder's quotes again in the future. Mind if I steal it?

On topic? I am with those who said that it entirely depends on intent and methods. Arbitrary, maybe, but still the best answer I can come up with.

[battleburn]

I say that all the ones who say that you don't lose humanity are the ones that do lose humanity.
The characters that do the embrace has to kill the person first, before the embrace. If the character starts to defend his actions and starts to rationalise that he is actually doing him a favour. That is when the character is not sorry, does not regret and does not feel guilt about what just happened. That's when you lose humanity.
But, if the character knows that it was a bad thing and deeply regrets it, maybe repents for his sins, and tries to get the new kindred a good start in his new world and helps to soften the pain of losing his/her old life. That is when he redeems himself and gets to keep/regains his point of humanity.

-Battleburn

[TheCountAlucard]

That was an incredibly accurate portrayal of how ridiculous the higher-level Disciplines get.One of the big reasons these guys just sit tight in torpor around the world and play at the Jyhad rather than engage in direct conflict. :smalltongue:

And yes, the rules for fighting Caine are, "You lose." :smallsigh:

[Shadowknight12]

And yes, the rules for fighting Caine are, "You lose." :smallsigh:

TERRIBLE GAME DESIGN ALERT! TERRIBLE GAME DESIGN ALERT!

ALL IN POSITION. ALL IN POSITION. INCOMING BRAIN DAMAGE. INCOMING. INCOMING.

No, but seriously. There should never, ever be an insurmountable challenge in an RPG. If the DM wants to make it so in his campaign, that's his prerogative, but what about the ones that don't? Are they left out in the cold to come up with the rules and stats themselves? Pfeh.

[comicshorse]

TERRIBLE GAME DESIGN ALERT! TERRIBLE GAME DESIGN ALERT!

ALL IN POSITION. ALL IN POSITION. INCOMING BRAIN DAMAGE. INCOMING. INCOMING.

No, but seriously. There should never, ever be an insurmountable challenge in an RPG. If the DM wants to make it so in his campaign, that's his prerogative, but what about the ones that don't? Are they left out in the cold to come up with the rules and stats themselves? Pfeh.

Really most games I enjoy have insurmountable challenges. DnD is strange in that you actually may have a chance against the gods. Maybe Mage too.

[Rogue Shadows]

....And this is a great, sig-worthy quote. Really, I have to start collecting playgrounder's quotes again in the future. Mind if I steal it?

Go right ahead.


The characters that do the embrace has to kill the person first, before the embrace. If the character starts to defend his actions and starts to rationalise that he is actually doing him a favour. That is when the character is not sorry, does not regret and does not feel guilt about what just happened. That's when you lose humanity.

Wait, because it can be rationally argued, it's bad?

Robin Hood had Humanity 6? Because that's what you're saying here: he stole from the rich and gave to the needy in order to help the needy, but he was nevertheless taking things that did not belong to him, which pings the Humanity chart.

Hey, people die. Stuff breaks. A vampire below the cultural human norm has little difficulty with the fact that she needs blood to survive, and she does what needs to be done to get it. Though she won't necessarily go out of her way to destroy property or end a victim's life, she accepts that sometimes that's what fate has in store for some folks. Not automatically
horrid, Kindred at this stage of Humanity are certainly at least mildly unpleasant to be around. Their laissez-faire attitudes toward others' rights offend many more moral individuals, and some minor physical eeriness or malformation may show up at this stage.

Obviously Robin Hood wouldn't physically deform, being a normal human, but still...


No, but seriously. There should never, ever be an insurmountable challenge in an RPG. If the DM wants to make it so in his campaign, that's his prerogative, but what about the ones that don't? Are they left out in the cold to come up with the rules and stats themselves? Pfeh.

I think they just saw it as a consequence of the game they had designed. The Antediluvians were essentially physical gods and just barely within the range of the Storyteller System to actually stat out (as the system doesn't have an equivalent to "epic"). It took all thirteen Antediluvians together to bring down Enoch, Irad, and Zillah (unless Saulot or Arikel weren't part of it, as they claimed, in which case just eleven, unless one of those two are lying, in which case twelve, unless they're both lying, in which case thirteen, unless there were more Antediluvians than is commonly known, in which case possibly as many as sixty). And Caine was supposed to be more powerful than all of them combined. So of course he's going to be impossible to stat out. Hell, they've never even statted out the Antediluvians (though out of boredom I did up Absimiliard and Arikel recently).

Plus, we can't forget that Caine kind of has God on his side, after a fashion, and is estimated to be around two hundred thousand years old.

I mean...you get +100 freebie points at character creation if you're just a thousand years old. Caine would get, like, 20,000,015. He'd have a 10 in everything and would still be filling out character sheet after character sheet with ever more obscure abilities ("Taxi: 10 dots")

So, yeah. Even if they had statted out Caine, by their own rules for character creation - the players lose.

In any event, don't forget that one of the very first rules in the book is "if you don't like it, change it."

Still, I can't see me as doing anything other than giving Caine 10 in all Attributes and a rating of 10 in the eight basic Disciplines plus one Thaumaturgy path, plus at least one joke Discipline (The "Taxi" Discipline, most likely).

Also, to be fair, it's hardly unique to Vampire, the idea of at least one insurmountable opponent. The Lord of the Rings PnP, if I recall, has similar rules for trying to fight Sauron directly if the heroes are ever captured, brought into Morder, and presented before the dark lord.

[battleburn]

Wait, because it can be rationally argued, it's bad?

Rational, Rationalised. There is a difference.

Anyway, You do something bad, you kill someone. You are a human being, (or you have been, as now you're a vampire) that nags at your conscience. So what do you do, you rationalise that it is not actually murder if you make him a vampire.

If your character accepts this as a truth, he will believe he has come to it rationally, I say he just rationalised what he did. Do you see the difference?

Who is going to lose a point of humanity here. The person who realises it is a bad thing and shows remorse, or the one who convinces himself it is not a bad thing.

[The Glyphstone]

Isn't that what the Humanity test is supposed to represent? If you pass, you feel remorse, and if you fail, you've decided it wasn't a bad thing after all (rationalizing). Expressing remorse IC doesn't save your Humanity roll, it just gives a bonus to the test.

[TheCountAlucard]

Isn't that what the Humanity test is supposed to represent?Yeah, pretty much.

Only-tangentially-related Bloodlines discussion:That was one of the things that bugged me about Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines. Killing people, even in self-defense, is something you're gonna feel bad about. Considering you can get a ding against your Humanity for selfish thoughts at level 10, there's no way the player character could realistically keep his Humanity above a 7, because the game forces killing, looting, and vampire-politicking on you. There's plenty of room in the game for Humanity, but realistically, it's optimistic to think you can go through the events of the game with Humanity 5.

[Shadowknight12]

Really most games I enjoy have insurmountable challenges. DnD is strange in that you actually may have a chance against the gods. Maybe Mage too.

And I don't enjoy games that have insurmountable challenges, go figure.

You know what makes insurmountable challenges objectively bad? The fact that the DM already has the power to make *any* challenge insurmountable. You, as a game designer, are not delivering anything new to your buyers if you sell an insurmountable challenge.

Situation A: The designer delivers a surmountable challenge. DM Alice wants to make it insurmountable, so she ignores the stat block or rules associated with it and makes it all purely narrative. DM Bob wants to make it surmountable, so he uses the rules he's been given. Both DMs win.

Situation B: The designer delivers an insurmountable challenge. DM Alice wants it to make it insurmountable, so she just runs the challenge as written. DM Bob wants to make it surmountable, so he ends up having to scrape together rules that will most likely end up being imbalanced and an utter failure because he's not a game designer and his system mastery can only get him so far. Alice wins, Bob loses.

Situation A is the one that benefits the highest number of potential buyers, so choosing B deliberately is being a terrible game designer. If it's so important to you that your precious Canon Sue character is respected and feared by players, add a sidebar encouraging DMs to go with fiat rather than statblocks. It will make you far less pathetic than outright stating "HE CAN'T BE KILLED CUZ HE'S THE ROXXORZ!"

[comicshorse]

You know what makes insurmountable challenges objectively bad?

I'd say nothing, ever. Subjectively, maybe.


Situation B: The designer delivers an insurmountable challenge. DM Alice wants it to make it insurmountable, so she just runs the challenge as written. DM Bob wants to make it surmountable, so he ends up having to scrape together rules that will most likely end up being imbalanced and an utter failure because he's not a game designer and his system mastery can only get him so far. Alice wins, Bob loses.


Its really not that difficult to make something insurmountable


If it's so important to you that your precious Canon Sue character is respected and feared by players, add a sidebar encouraging DMs to go with fiat rather than statblocks. It will make you far less pathetic than outright stating "HE CAN'T BE KILLED CUZ HE'S THE ROXXORZ!"


Of course the flipside of that is it doesn't matter how the world's been for centuries. Of course you can change everything 'cause the P.C.s are Super Special Snowflakes that the whole world revolves around.

Worlds without insurmountable problems just seem to me to have no reality to them. There is nothing happening that the P.C.s can't do, there is nothing happening they can't solve. The world is just a toy for them to mess with. It didn't really exist before them and nothing really happens that they aren't involved in. I prefer world that go on around the P.Cs, that develop independent of them. It makes them feel more real. My five cents

[Shadowknight12]

I'd say nothing, ever. Subjectively, maybe.

*shrug* I'd say that "screwing a sector of your audience" counts as something pretty objectively bad.


Its really not that difficult to make something insurmountable

That is precisely my point. Anyone can make anything insurmountable. Making something surmountable out of nothing at all requires expert system mastery. If DMs had that, they wouldn't need to pay for game designers to build challenges for them.


Of course the flipside of that is it doesn't matter how the world's been for centuries. Of course you can change everything 'cause the P.C.s are Super Special Snowflakes that the whole world revolves around.

Worlds without insurmountable problems just seem to me to have no reality to them. There is nothing happening that the P.C.s can't do, there is nothing happening they can't solve. The world is just a toy for them to mess with. It didn't really exist before them and nothing really happens that they aren't involved in. I prefer world that go on around the P.Cs, that develop independent of them. It makes them feel more real. My five cents

That's actually completely unfounded. In order to surmount a challenge, you must cause a change. All things change. The ability to make something change according to your will is dependant on your power. A universe where no amount of power can cause a given change is incredibly unrealistic, because such a thing violates the very laws of reality. Not the laws of physics, but the laws of what reality IS and how it works. Things change, and there is always a certain level of power that can cause a change. Saying that such a thing is impossible wilfully contradicts one of the most basic laws of all realities, fictional or not.

I find that far, far, far, far more mind-shatteringly unrealistic.

And besides, what's the point in having an insurmountable challenge? It victimises the PCs, puts them into the role of the passive victim who may only take what's dealt to them and perhaps react emotionally for the DM's amusement. "The True Fae abuses you again. What do you do?" "I cry harder." "Mwahahaha. Excellent."

*shrug* Not my kind of thing at all.

[Rogue Shadows]

All things change.

"War...war never changes." - Solid Snake

But on a more serious note, I was under the impression that the immutable, monolithic structure that is Kindred society was the whole point of Vampire. They're unliving, unaging, unchanging beings who have been worming their way through human society for so long that unseating them without having been there from the start is impossible.

For that matter...that was a theme in most of White Wolf's game lines, wasn't it? In Werewolf, the world is screwed - largely thanks to your ancestors - and all you can do is fight against the inevitable which, is in fact, inevitable; while in Mage, the Technocracy has essentially won control of the Consensus, and all you're doing is little tiny pinpricks that mean nothing to it anymore.


"The True Fae abuses you again. What do you do?" "I cry harder." "Mwahahaha. Excellent."

Or alternatively, "I've had enough of this bull. I accept my True Fae nature and become of Fae."

Just because a situation is insurmountable doesn't mean there isn't a choice. The players can never beat Caine but that only really matters if they have to fight him, doesn't it?

[Shadowknight12]

"War...war never changes." - Solid Snake

*twitch* Every... time... I hear... that... quote... *twitch*


But on a more serious note, I was under the impression that the immutable,
monolithic structure that is Kindred society was the whole point of Vampire. They're unliving, unaging, unchanging beings who have been worming their way through human society for so long that unseating them without having been there from the start is impossible.

For that matter...that was a theme in most of White Wolf's game lines, wasn't it? In Werewolf, the world is screwed - largely thanks to your ancestors - and all you can do is fight against the inevitable which, is in fact, inevitable; while in Mage, the Technocracy has essentially won control of the Consensus, and all you're doing is little tiny pinpricks that mean nothing to it anymore

I refluff the hell out of that. If I were to play a rational being on such a campaign, the first thing I'd do upon being told the truth behind whatever supernatural conspiracy I now belong would be to commit suicide. There is no course of action more rational than that when faced with an insurmountable challenge of epic proportions.

[Rogue Shadows]

I refluff the hell out of that. If I were to play a rational being on such a campaign, the first thing I'd do upon being told the truth behind whatever supernatural conspiracy I now belong would be to commit suicide. There is no course of action more rational than that when faced with an insurmountable challenge of epic proportions.

Clanbook: Toreador has an interesting bit it in wherein one Toreador theorizes that the vast majority of vampires that have disappeared without a trace over the years haven't been eaten by elders, or killed by hunters or werewolves, or unmade by mages, or even just moved away.

He theorizes that they've gone sunbathing. Willingly.

So at least in vampire's case, you're probably right, most of the coldly rational ones do commit suicide. Which leaves us with the ones that choose to man up and make the best of a bad situation and redefine what "winning" means.

What does a neonate care if they can't beat Caine? Was the neonate seriously planning on trying in the first place?

[Kazyan]

I started writing this post back when it was relevant.

"You lose" is pretty much exactly what should happen if you fight Caine, but you could totally stat him out if you take some liberties (which shouldn't have needed to be done to begin with; Shadowknight has a good argument). Since it's speculated that he can create new disciplines on the fly, let him do that, and give him 10 in everything else ever, plus his "damage is returned sevenfold" bit. That's somewhere in the books.

Alternatively, go by the semi-canon thing where the only reason vampires get weaker with higher generation is because of the curse Caine put on them. Thus, generations one through three are identical in power because the curse wasn't applied until third, and the only reason the second and first generations would be stronger are because of increased experience in using disciplines. While Antideluvians could have three disciplines at three, 2nd-gens could have five, and Caine could have most of them + 7x damage return. Thus, Caine becomes within the system to model.

But, fighting Caine is basically "you lose" even if you take these liberties. Assume you get the jump on him with an H-bomb, pierce his Fortitude 10, and deal a level of aggravated. Awesome. You just took 7 aggravated, which kills you. So you should probably try lethal or bashing, but at the magnitudes of force you have to use even if you kneecap Fortitude 10, it's all aggravated anyway. Wood chipper < what you have to use to do damage. Therefore, the only possible damage you can do to Caine is aggravated, which instakills you. You must take Huge Size to gain another health level if you don't want to die as soon as you cut his skin.

Now let's assume Caine gets the jump. He takes 10 additional actions due to Celerity 10, then slice 'n dices you with Protean 2 claws, with a dice pool of Dex + Brawl = 20 to hit, and Potence+Strength+1 = 11 dice and 10 extra sucesses. If he uses his first action to get in range, that's 10 clawings. Let's assume the best for you, so you have a dice pool of 10 to dodge and 5 to soak. In a simulation I just did, Caine hits you seven times, and a total of 14 sucesses beyond the one needed to hit. The next part of the sim indicates that he does a total of 20 damage from his damage rolls after you soak, plus 10 for each due to Potence, so you take 90 aggravated damage total. We'll call that 80 if he uses his last action to go back to the cab.

This means that Caine basically can't be killed in combat, unless you get him to hit himself. When he inflicts 1+ damage to himself, he takes 7+ damage, killing himself even if we don't go into pedantic infinite damage loop shenanigans.

This is why you solve your 1st-gen problem with something other than whacking it with a neutron star, because that's not going to work. You talk him into hitting himself. And that's not insurmountable.

[comicshorse]

That's actually completely unfounded. In order to surmount a challenge, you must cause a change. All things change. The ability to make something change according to your will is dependant on your power.

So your perfectly okay with something being able to crush the P.C.s because it has the power to impose its will on them. Glad to see we agree.


A universe where no amount of power can cause a given change is incredibly unrealistic, because such a thing violates the very laws of reality. Not the laws of physics, but the laws of what reality IS and how it works. Things change, and there is always a certain level of power that can cause a change. Saying that such a thing is impossible wilfully contradicts one of the most basic laws of all realities, fictional or not.

No because no such law exists. Just because something exists doesn't mean there is a way to change it.


find that far, far, far, far more mind-shatteringly unrealistic.


Succesfully ski through a revolving door and then get back to me


And besides, what's the point in having an insurmountable challenge? It victimises the PCs, puts them into the role of the passive victim who may only take what's dealt to them and perhaps react emotionally for the DM's amusement. "The True Fae abuses you again. What do you do?" "I cry harder." "Mwahahaha. Excellent."

No. Just because something exists that the P.C.s can't deal with doesn't mean it has to victimize the P.Cs. It can be run without needing to humiliate them. It just is part of the world.
Call of Cthulhu is built on this principal and thousands have played and enjoyed the game knowing there is nothing they can really do to stop the Mythis. Ditto for Changeling. Dealing with the emotions of your characters is what makes RP'ing interesting. Its terribly boring if they are always the same ones.
" Yes you beat the dark overlord, nobody you likes ever got hurt, you always win and there's nothing that can stop you. Isn't this fun. What it took you too long to win. I'll work on that." "

[Shadowknight12]

Clanbook: Toreador has an interesting bit it in wherein one Toreador theorizes that the vast majority of vampires that have disappeared without a trace over the years haven't been eaten by elders, or killed by hunters or werewolves, or unmade by mages, or even just moved away.

He theorizes that they've gone sunbathing. Willingly.

So at least in vampire's case, you're probably right, most of the coldly rational ones do commit suicide. Which leaves us with the ones that choose to man up and make the best of a bad situation and redefine what "winning" means.

What does a neonate care if they can't beat Caine? Was the neonate seriously planning on trying in the first place?

I would take issue to the portrayal of self-indulgent masochism as "manning up" but hey, you've got every right to try to portray it on a positive light. :smallamused:


So your perfectly okay with something being able to crush the P.C.s because it has the power to impose its will on them. Glad to see we agree.

No, we don't, because you start with the presumption that no level of power will be enough for the PCs to surmount such a challenge. That's what insurmountable means, that the PCs will never and can never, surmount it. Not that they currently lack the necessary power to do so, but that such a power level does not exist. There's a very big difference there.


No because no such law exists. Just because something exists doesn't mean there is a way to change it.

Does not compute. If it exists, it can be changed. All things that exist are subject to change simply by the virtue of time, space and entropy. Change is inescapable. Nothing stays the same. That is an axiom of all realities. A reality without change cannot exist. If it exists, it is subject to change.


Succesfully ski through a revolving door and then get back to me

Sure, I'll just need a revolving door made of rice paper and we'll be cool. Or a timely placed explosive that detonates just as I'm going through it. Or special rails upon which my skis will be connected. Or any number of other ways to do exactly as you describe. Or, in other universes, MAGIC.


No. Just because something exists that the P.C.s can't deal with doesn't mean it has to victimize the P.Cs. It can be run without needing to humiliate them. It just is part of the world.

True, but if it doesn't get in the PC's way, it's not a challenge, therefore it doesn't need to be surmounted, therefore the whole point is moot.


Call of Cthulhu is built on this principal and thousands have played and enjoyed the game knowing there is nothing they can really do to stop the Mythis. Ditto for Changeling. Dealing with the emotions of your characters is what makes RP'ing interesting. Its terribly boring if they are always the same ones.
" Yes you beat the dark overlord, nobody you likes ever got hurt, you always win and there's nothing that can stop you. Isn't this fun. What it took you too long to win. I'll work on that." "

That's precisely why I'll never play CoC and why I refluff the crap out of changeling. To me, exploring how much the characters are willing to pay to achieve their goals, the perils they must overcome and the sacrifices they must make, makes for a far more interesting story than "The world is bleak and there's nothing you can do about it. Struggling just makes you suffer more. Here's a razor, knock yourself out. Literally. You don't want to be awake when our seven apocalypses combine."

[comicshorse]

time[/I], space and entropy. Change is inescapable. Nothing stays the same. That is an axiom of all realities. A reality without change cannot exist. If it exists, it is subject to change.


But that does not in anyway mean that the P.Cs will have the power to do it. Or that anything short of Eons of time will.



True, but if it doesn't get in the PC's way, it's not a challenge, therefore it doesn't need to be surmounted, therefore the whole point is moot.


Absolutely not. It can be part of the world to add to its flavour ( See CofC). Or it can get in the P.C.s way but not want to destroy them. Or they can hide from it. Or they can be dealing with the aftermath of it manifesting. There are dozens of way it can exist to add to the game without the P.C.s having to plant their flag on its corpse.


hat's precisely why I'll never play CoC and why I refluff the crap out of changeling. To me, exploring how much the characters are willing to pay to achieve their goals, the perils they must overcome and the sacrifices they must make, makes for a far more interesting story than "The world is bleak and there's nothing you can do about it. Struggling just makes you suffer more. Here's a razor, knock yourself out. Literally. You don't want to be awake when our seven apocalypses combine."

Again just because there are things that are out there that are beyond the P.C.s ( and probably y'know everybody else in the universe) doesn't mean there can't be struggle, perils, triumphs and courage.


I refluff the hell out of that. If I were to play a rational being on such a campaign, the first thing I'd do upon being told the truth behind whatever supernatural conspiracy I now belong would be to commit suicide. There is no course of action more rational than that when faced with an insurmountable challenge of epic proportions.

Because obviously living your life and enjoying it would be too hard knowing there's something out there that you can't defeat.
You do realize Shadowknight that you're going to get old and die and you can't surmount that. Its been fun arguing with you but I assume you're imminent suicide gonna put a kink in that. :smallsmile:

[Shadowknight12]

But that does not in anyway mean that the P.Cs will have the power to do it. Or that anything short of Eons of time will.

If the PCs cannot reach that level of power, it is just as insurmountable and therefore doesn't count as power, since it cannot be used. Power only exists if there's someone to make use of it. Saying "only eons of time can change it" and then making it impossible to have power over the eons of time is just the same as saying "it cannot change."


Absolutely not. It can be part of the world to add to its flavour ( See CofC). Or it can get in the P.C.s way but not want to destroy them. Or they can hide from it. Or they can be dealing with the aftermath of it manifesting. There are dozens of way it can exist to add to the game without the P.C.s having to plant their flag on its corpse.

I never said "destroy." I said "victimise." You're just proving me right with all the 'options' you give there. Not everyone wants to play a victim.


Again just because there are things that are out there that are beyond the P.C.s ( and probably y'know everybody else in the universe) doesn't mean there can't be struggle, perils, triumphs and courage.

Like I said, if it doesn't oppose the PCs, it's not a challenge, and therefore not what we're talking about. If it does oppose the PCs or affects them in any way, then it becomes a challenge, and then it makes every struggle, peril, triumph and courage meaningless because no amount of that will change anything in the end.


Because obviously living your life and enjoying it would be too hard knowing there's something out there that you can't defeat.
You do realize Shadowknight that you're going to get old and die and you can't surmount that. Its been fun arguing with you but I assume you're imminent suicide gonna put a kink in that. :smallsmile:

Actually, you just said it yourself. Suicide IS a way to surmount the challenge of growing old. And who says that dying is an insurmountable challenge? Maybe we just haven't reached the adequate level of technology (i.e., power) yet. And also, depending on what you define as "living" it's possible to defeat death by living on in the memory of the living.

It's not as clear-cut as you think it is. :smallwink:

[comicshorse]

If the PCs cannot reach that level of power, it is just as insurmountable and therefore doesn't count as power, since it cannot be used. Power only exists if there's someone to make use of it. Saying "only eons of time can change it" and then making it impossible to have power over the eons of time is just the same as saying "it cannot change."


No its saying the P.C.s cannot change it. They aren't the whole universe. The universe can change without them. But yes I am saying there should be things the P.C.s can't change




I never said "destroy." I said "victimise." You're just proving me right with all the 'options' you give there. Not everyone wants to play a victim.


But, and this is IMHO the fundamental flaw in your argument, only you are saying 'victimize'. That things exist that are more powerful than the P.C.s. doesn't in any way victimize the P.C.s None of the options I presented( but one) involve the P.C.s playing the victim. And I remain unconvinced that the P.C.s being the victims occasionally is a inherently bad thing. Always winning is very boring


Like I said, if it doesn't oppose the PCs, it's not a challenge, and therefore not what we're talking about.

Fair enough but things can exist in the universe that aren't there to challenge the P.C.s.



f it does oppose the PCs or affects them in any way, then it becomes a challenge, and then it makes every struggle, peril, triumph and courage meaningless because no amount of that will change anything in the end.


And just because something exists that the P.Cs cannot bring down in no way detracts from their triumphs over other things. You might as well say that if a policeman brings in a member of organized crime it means nothing because the rest of the orginazation is still out there.
Anything is bolded because it seems to me you want everything to change.


And who says that dying is an insurmountable challenge? Maybe we just haven't reached the adequate level of technology (i.e., power) yet.
Well if you die before the research is complete that makes it pretty hard to overcome. Unless you're working on genetic research into immortality I still think you're not going to surmount death. Even if other people do, you still didn't surmount it, others did it for you.

Boy this has got off topic :smallsmile:

[Shadowknight12]

No its saying the P.C.s cannot change it. They aren't the whole universe. The universe can change without them. But yes I am saying there should be things the P.C.s can't change

Yes, but if the power to change something is not attainable, it doesn't exist, since power only exists if someone can make use of it. It's by definition only existent with an agent to use it. And going by pure logic here, all changes can be provoked by sufficient power, so if such changes can happen, then that power does exist, you're just preventing PCs from accessing it.


But, and this is IMHO the fundamental flaw in your argument, only you are saying 'victimize'. That things exist that are more powerful than the P.C.s. doesn't in any way victimize the P.C.s None of the options I presented( but one) involve the P.C.s playing the victim. And I remain unconvinced that the P.C.s being the victims occasionally is a inherently bad thing. Always winning is very boring

I said it before and I will say it again. If the undefeatable whatever does not affect the PCs in any way, then it's not a challenge to surmount, and if it's not a challenge to surmount, then it's not within the scope of this conversation, because I never talked about that sort of thing in the first place. If Cthulhu never affects the PCs in any way, he's not an insurmountable challenge because he's not a challenge and therefore it's not what I'm talking about.

If Cthulhu does affect the PCs and he can't be defeated or changed in any way, then you *are* victimising the PCs, because all the options you gave (hide, dealing with the aftermath, etc) are victim reactions. The lack of a "defeat" or "overcome" the challenge puts the PCs into the position of someone that can do nothing but attempt to avoid the challenge or suffer whatever effects it inflicts upon them. That is victim behaviour.


Fair enough but things can exist in the universe that aren't there to challenge the P.C.s.

Nobody said otherwise. However, when something affects the PCs, it becomes a challenge, because the PCs never asked to be affected, and therefore they have a choice to make that effect stop or modify it, and that is a challenge.


And just because something exists that the P.Cs cannot bring down in no way detracts from their triumphs over other things. You might as well say that if a policeman brings in a member of organized crime it means nothing because the rest of the orginazation is still out there.
Anything is bolded because it seems to me you want everything to change.

That analogy rings hollow. A better analogy would be a cop that brings in a member of organised crime and the organisation can never be brought down. In that case, then yes, his triumph is utterly meaningless because nothing he does will ever change anything. If bringing in the member would change something, then the organisation wouldn't be undefeatable. But it is, so all his hard work is meaningless. The guy will be out soon and someone probably picked up the guy's slack and committed extra crime to make up for his temporary absence. That's what 'insurmountable' means.


Well if you die before the research is complete that makes it pretty hard to overcome. Unless you're working on genetic research into immortality I still think you're not going to surmount death. Even if other people do, you still didn't surmount it, others did it for you.

Boy this has got off topic :smallsmile:

Maybe it doesn't have to be physical immortality. Maybe I'll live on in the memory of my loved ones or go down in history. Or maybe I'll be a ghost. Or have an afterlife. Or reincarnation. Or maybe I don't see death as a challenge to surmount and therefore it's not applicable to this conversation. :smallwink:

But yes, you're quite correct.

[nersxe]

And I don't enjoy games that have insurmountable challenges, go figure.

You know what makes insurmountable challenges objectively bad? The fact that the DM already has the power to make *any* challenge insurmountable. You, as a game designer, are not delivering anything new to your buyers if you sell an insurmountable challenge.

Situation A: The designer delivers a surmountable challenge. DM Alice wants to make it insurmountable, so she ignores the stat block or rules associated with it and makes it all purely narrative. DM Bob wants to make it surmountable, so he uses the rules he's been given. Both DMs win.

Situation B: The designer delivers an insurmountable challenge. DM Alice wants it to make it insurmountable, so she just runs the challenge as written. DM Bob wants to make it surmountable, so he ends up having to scrape together rules that will most likely end up being imbalanced and an utter failure because he's not a game designer and his system mastery can only get him so far. Alice wins, Bob loses.

Situation A is the one that benefits the highest number of potential buyers, so choosing B deliberately is being a terrible game designer. If it's so important to you that your precious Canon Sue character is respected and feared by players, add a sidebar encouraging DMs to go with fiat rather than statblocks. It will make you far less pathetic than outright stating "HE CAN'T BE KILLED CUZ HE'S THE ROXXORZ!"

I think this case may be the exception. How many Kindred are actually going to want to track down Caine anyway (let alone have the ability to trace a being with 10 Obfuscate)? I mean, every bit of information on him says, "if you track this being down and try to kill it/him, you will lose", so why would they do it? And if they do, aren't they getting what they're chasing?

As said above, it's like having a Lovecraftian game where they actively search for Cthulu. If you do it, be prepared to get eaten.

And in any case, if the GM is "victimising" the PCs using Caine, that's the GM's error anyway. Everything that happens in a campaign should be the result of everything that came before. If the PCs don't bring "bricks fall, everyone dies" upon themselves, the GM shouldn't bring it down.

I think one of the things that hasn't been mentioned here thus far is that one of the themes of Vampire is helplessness/despair. Unless you choose suicide (which, I honestly think, is the option that a great deal of coldly rational/very humane Kindred end up taking), there's nothing you can do about the Embrace. You're a vampire. Period. You must become a leech to live your life, even as the most low-impact Kindred imagineable. Therefore, having a being that you cannot kill is thematically appropriate.

EDIT: Just realized how long that post is. Spoiler'd.

[Shadowknight12]

I think this case may be the exception. How many Kindred are actually going to want to track down Caine anyway (let alone have the ability to trace a being with 10 Obfuscate)? I mean, every bit of information on him says, "if you track this being down and try to kill it/him, you will lose", so why would they do it? And if they do, aren't they getting what they're chasing?

As said above, it's like having a Lovecraftian game where they actively search for Cthulu. If you do it, be prepared to get eaten.

Does it really matter why the confrontation takes place? The PCs are faced with a challenge they cannot overcome. If they 'brought it upon themselves' or not is completely meaningless because (as I explain below) that's completely subjective. If you have something the PCs cannot defeat and you make that affect the PCs' life, you are effectively victimising them, and they don't have the option to be anything but victims.


And in any case, if the GM is "victimising" the PCs using Caine, that's the GM's error anyway. Everything that happens in a campaign should be the result of everything that came before. If the PCs don't bring "bricks fall, everyone dies" upon themselves, the GM shouldn't bring it down.

See, the problem with your reasoning is that you seem to assume that 'bringing something upon themselves' can be reliably, objectively measured. It's not. It's something that varies from person to person. Say the GM has Caine as an NPC that roams the world à la Odin, and the PCs, for a variety of reasons (some of which may have been deliberately or inadvertently caused by the GM himself), attempt to imprison, wound or kill him. So they lose. Did they bring it upon themselves? What about a GM that punishes players for behaviour he dislikes? What about a GM that thinks that some players deserve to be "put in their place" for their attitude? What about people who play the game to overcome challenges, rather than to play victims? What are the rights of the players? Don't players have a right to overcome the challenges that are placed before them (regardless of whether they seek out the challenge themselves or the GM places it before them)?


I think one of the things that hasn't been mentioned here thus far is that one of the themes of Vampire is helplessness/despair. Unless you choose suicide (which, I honestly think, is the option that a great deal of coldly rational/very humane Kindred end up taking), there's nothing you can do about the Embrace. You're a vampire. Period. You must become a leech to live your life, even as the most low-impact Kindred imagineable. Therefore, having a being that you cannot kill is thematically appropriate.

Actually, themes and moods are dependant on the people at the table. The designers have their vision and they try to convey it, but it's entirely optional. If someone wants to use the VtM setting to play a Twilight/30 Days of Night/Anne Rice/John Carpenter's Vampires/custom-made world/etc game, that's their prerogative, and you can be assured that not all of them will have a theme of hopelessness or despair there at all.

At most, you may say that 'having a being you cannot kill befits the suggested themes in the book,' which would be 100% correct. However, that runs counter to the notion of the WoD setting as a toolbox for you to realise your own vision, rather than the designers'. Look no further than Mirrors for an example. The designers have a responsibility to deliver what they promise. If they promise that their setting and system can be used to realise a Storyteller's vision, they have a responsibility to deliver just that when it comes to statblocks and rules.

[Rogue Shadows]

See, the problem with your reasoning is that you seem to assume that 'bringing something upon themselves' can be reliably, objectively measured. It's not. It's something that varies from person to person. Say the GM has Caine as an NPC that roams the world à la Odin, and the PCs, for a variety of reasons (some of which may have been deliberately or inadvertently caused by the GM himself), attempt to imprison, wound or kill him. So they lose. Did they bring it upon themselves?

Did they persist in fighting him even after he was revealed? Caine could be the forgiving sort, so if they jump him, one stakes him, is instantly obliterated by the 7-fold curse (and the stake doesn't work anyway), at which point he goes "You know I'm Caine, right?", and they still keep trying to fight him...

...well, it's not really that different from a bunch of level 10s trying to take down Vecna, is it? I don't think I've ever meant this quite so literally - but you rolls your dice, you takes your chances.

I think I told you thins before, but I once ran a campaign wherein as the second session closed, the players, a bunch of level 5's or so, met an elder red wyrm. Now as it turned out by the next session, the elder red wyrm (who was Chaotic Neutral, leaning Chaotic Good) didn't want to fight the players, he wanted to hire them for a few jobs (and was perfectly okay with them turning him down). Nevertheless if the players had wanted to fight the elder red wyrm, well, I had his stats and was more than willing to indulge their suicide.

How's Caine different from that? An elder red wyrm is so far beyond a level 5 PC that isn't named Pun-pun that he might as well have stats that say "you lose." Caine is just the exact same situation writ large.


What about a GM that punishes players for behaviour he dislikes? What about a GM that thinks that some players deserve to be "put in their place" for their attitude? What about people who play the game to overcome challenges, rather than to play victims? What are the rights of the players? Don't players have a right to overcome the challenges that are placed before them (regardless of whether they seek out the challenge themselves or the GM places it before them)?

Yes, but these are all problems with the GM, not with Caine, so your problem...is with the GM, not with Caine.

And again, it depends entirely on what you define as "winning" an encounter with Caine to be. Rules for fighting Caine invariably feature the player losing. Surely you know that encounters with Caine need not be combat, however. He could just be your taxi driver taking you place to place.


Actually, themes and moods are dependant on the people at the table. The designers have their vision and they try to convey it, but it's entirely optional.

So is Caine.

Indeed the Gehenna book had an entire chapter, which was only two pages long, devoted to Caine and how Storytellers probably should never include him in their games; if they do include him, they should keep him distant and never have the players encounter him; if they do encounter him, they should never have the players fight him, because they lose. He has a hundred and ninety thousand years of experience on the Antediluvians, never mind the players, whom all the rules assume are neonates embraced within the last 25 years.

[Shadowknight12]

Did they persist in fighting him even after he was revealed? Caine could be the forgiving sort, so if they jump him, one stakes him, is instantly obliterated by the 7-fold curse (and the stake doesn't work anyway), at which point he goes "You know I'm Caine, right?", and they still keep trying to fight him...

...well, it's not really that different from a bunch of level 10s trying to take down Vecna, is it? I don't think I've ever meant this quite so literally - but you rolls your dice, you takes your chances.

Yes, but see, Vecna can be taken out at some point. I think he's statted out somewhere. Sure, a bunch of level 10s won't cut it, but that's just because they lack the necessary power. However, the key difference is that said power IS available. Just look at the Epic Level Handbook, for example.

When it comes to Caine, however, no such amount of power exists. The PCs could be the most powerful supernaturals to have ever walked the Earth and they would still lose. That's what makes it terrible game design. There's a crucial difference between "requires insane amounts of power to defeat (but it's still a possibility)" and "cannot be defeated, period."


I think I told you thins before, but I once ran a campaign wherein as the second session closed, the players, a bunch of level 5's or so, met an elder red wyrm. Now as it turned out by the next session, the elder red wyrm (who was Chaotic Neutral, leaning Chaotic Good) didn't want to fight the players, he wanted to hire them for a few jobs (and was perfectly okay with them turning him down). Nevertheless if the players had wanted to fight the elder red wyrm, well, I had his stats and was more than willing to indulge their suicide.

How's Caine different from that? An elder red wyrm is so far beyond a level 5 PC that isn't named Pun-pun that he might as well have stats that say "you lose." Caine is just the exact same situation writ large.

But the elder wyrm was defeatable. Not right then, of course. They just needed more power to do so.


Yes, but these are all problems with the GM, not with Caine, so your problem...is with the GM, not with Caine.

The game designers are giving the GMs a tool with the specific intention to victimise the players. It has no other purpose but that, since any change that it inflicts upon the PCs, regardless of how benevolent it may be, is unfightable, because Caine can't be stopped or defeated. It is an external, unstoppable force that the PCs cannot defend against. Their only choices are all summed up under "victim behaviour."

The fact that some GMs take more to that sort of playstyle than others is irrelevant.


And again, it depends entirely on what you define as "winning" an encounter with Caine to be. Rules for fighting Caine invariably feature the player losing. Surely you know that encounters with Caine need not be combat, however. He could just be your taxi driver taking you place to place.

The problem is that, as I said before, any interaction or effect he has on the players is impossible to counter. It may be diminished, remedied or perhaps even avoided (though avoiding Caine is highly unlikely as well), but it cannot be defended against. The PCs are forced to accept whatever happens to them. There is no option to deny, to rebel, to fight. Do that and you will lose. How dare you defy the will of the game designers and/or the GM. How dare you.


So is Caine.

Indeed the Gehenna book had an entire chapter, which was only two pages long, devoted to Caine and how Storytellers probably should never include him in their games; if they do include him, they should keep him distant and never have the players encounter him; if they do encounter him, they should never have the players fight him, because they lose. He has a hundred and ninety thousand years of experience on the Antediluvians, never mind the players, whom all the rules assume are neonates embraced within the last 25 years.

I will have to quote myself, because I addressed this already.


The designers have a responsibility to deliver what they promise. If they promise that their setting and system can be used to realise a Storyteller's vision, they have a responsibility to deliver just that when it comes to statblocks and rules.

The designers are being lazy (and/or presumptuous) by giving you an undefeatable encounter. Why give it at all if it's going to be the same as the Storyteller winging it? How does Caine being undefeatable add anything to the game? That option was always on the table. The GM didn't need the designers' permission to make Caine undefeatable because that was always an option from the start (that requires no rules, I might add). By making 'Caine is undefeatable' the *only* option, they are hosing all the GMs that do not want to see it that way.

Maybe in their stories, Caine's strength depends on the fears that all vampires have of him, so by a lengthy campaign of killing off vampires and/or convincing them that Caine is a myth/is nothing to fear/etc, they can weaken him enough to kill him. But nope, that storyline is rendered invalid because Caine is still undefeatable even then. It's just terrible game design when you add *nothing* to the table and actively interfere with your customers' vision.

[Deadmeat.GW]

I honestly think you are not GETTING it.

You want players to be able to BEAT ANYTHING because they are players?

In DND original you HAD things that were unbeatable, it is only becuase in later versions people felt the need to stat everything out that you suddenly started to be able to beat certain things.

Cuthulhu Mythos is a prime example, no matter what the players do if they fight the monsters they will loose in the end.
Against some of the things out there your best hope is to never let them get sofar as to face those things themselves becuase if you do you loose automatically.

A great many things in games have been stated as you loose, do not bother going here but if you play smart and avoid conflict you 'get to win'.

By avoiding the fight, by negotiating, by RUNNING away.

If you only accept 'players MUST win, nothing else is valid' then you really need to restrict yourself to 2nd, 3rd or so DND and immediately sell off any games likely Cuthulu Mythos, any White Wolf games, and 40k based games, Cyberpunk, ...
Because in those games no matter how powerful you get there are things that you WILL NOT WIN against in a fight.

ALL of these games are 'bad design' according to you but then you DO NOT CARE about the background, only about 'players should always win and winning means able to fight something and beat it down'.
Heck an awfull lot of computergames are 'bad design' according to this, like Half-Life, Dreamfall the Longest Journey, ...

Struggling against the odds and surviving can be a win just in itself.
'Winning' does not mean that you have to beat 'them'.

If you in your personal sandbox want to have the players beat Caine in a bloody pulp and win a physical confrontation, please go for it but please do remind yourself you are no longer playing White Wolf World of Darkness VtM tm.
Your playing Shadowknight12 variant on said rules.

P.S. you are aware that the first rules of White Wolf games is if YOU do not like the setting then YOU may change it?
It is the Storytellers setting, but complaining about the cannonical setting as given to us is silly.

[TheCountAlucard]

In DND original you HAD things that were unbeatable, it is only becuase in later versions people felt the need to stat everything out that you suddenly started to be able to beat certain things.In OD&D, Lolth had 65 hit points. Lolth. Not an aspect of her, not a proxy, whatever... Lolth. The Spider Queen.

[Deadmeat.GW]

And was she able to be targetted?

[TheCountAlucard]

And was she able to be targetted?Umm, yeah. Why wouldn't she, because she's a deity? Pfft. That didn't matter back in first edition - back when talented players could kill a great wyrm red dragon with clever application of skunks.

[Rogue Shadows]

Umm, yeah. Why wouldn't she, because she's a deity? Pfft. That didn't matter back in first edition - back when talented players could kill a great wyrm red dragon with clever application of skunks.

But then again, don't forget that in 1st Edition D&D, it was assumed that the vast majority of player characters would die. And stay dead. Players would go through multiple characters over the course of a dungeon dive.

[TheCountAlucard]

But then again, don't forget that in 1st Edition D&D, it was assumed that the vast majority of player characters would die. And stay dead. Players would go through multiple characters over the course of a dungeon dive.So? My point is, D&D is a bad example for Deadmeat.GW's argument, regardless of edition.

[Deadmeat.GW]

I vaguely remember several DnD 1st edition modules where you encounter deities with no stats whatsoever and the statement that if players attack they are dead...

My appologies then, still, a great many games do not let players win against everything by simple means of beating things up.

No matter what level, experience the players have...

[MickJay]

In most of the games I've played, or I'm still playing, there are a fair number of obstacles, enemies, or various forces that the PCs have no hope of overcoming, regardless of what they do or how much xp they'll gain. They are part of the world, add to the overall story, they might affect it, but they players will never be forced to fight them head on (unless it's explicitly mentioned at the beginning that this is how the story will go). Personally, I'd be quite disappointed if the whole setting revolved around the PCs; as far as I'm concerned, there should always be a 'bigger fish', it's what makes the game more interesting. What's he purpose of the game, where's the challenge, if whatever the PCs will decide to do will succeed, just because they're the PCs?

[Rogue Shadows]

In most of the games I've played, or I'm still playing, there are a fair number of obstacles, enemies, or various forces that the PCs have no hope of overcoming, regardless of what they do or how much xp they'll gain. They are part of the world, add to the overall story, they might affect it, but they players will never be forced to fight them head on (unless it's explicitly mentioned at the beginning that this is how the story will go). Personally, I'd be quite disappointed if the whole setting revolved around the PCs; as far as I'm concerned, there should always be a 'bigger fish', it's what makes the game more interesting. What's he purpose of the game, where's the challenge, if whatever the PCs will decide to do will succeed, just because they're the PCs?

Indeed. Hell, even D&D has its insurmountable odds. They're called the overdeities: Ao, the Highgod, Her Serenity the Lady of Pain...

[Shadowknight12]

I honestly think you are not GETTING it.

Assuming that because I disagree, I am not getting it, is extremely poor form. Trust me, I get it. I just argue that it's terrible game design.


You want players to be able to BEAT ANYTHING because they are players?

And why not? Isn't the game supposed to be both about what the GM and the players want? I'm sure that if there's a disagreement there, every group has its ways to reach a compromise, but why should the players' wants be ignored outright? Where's the harm in compromising, in opening venues and options?

If the GM wants some challenges to be unbeatable and the players are fine with that, then the presence of rules to defeat the challenge is of no consequence to them because they can be ignored. Caine being defeatable, to them, is something that gets ignored and does them no harm. For the crowd that *wants* him to be defeated, the absence of rules on how to defeat him *does* harm them.


In DND original you HAD things that were unbeatable, it is only becuase in later versions people felt the need to stat everything out that you suddenly started to be able to beat certain things.

So? How does that prove that it's not terrible game design? Because the old ways were always 100% better, flawless and did nothing wrong? I assure you, the old ways had their instances of terrible game design and if what you say is true, then that's definitely one such instance.


Cuthulhu Mythos is a prime example, no matter what the players do if they fight the monsters they will loose in the end.
Against some of the things out there your best hope is to never let them get sofar as to face those things themselves becuase if you do you loose automatically.

Again, so? Just because a game does it doesn't mean it's good game design. And just to give you an example of how said bad design is hurting them, I know for sure that I myself would actually try the game if it wasn't for the undefeatable challenges. And I'm not the only one who thinks so, so it's positive proof that said decision cost them a non-zero amount of potential buyers.


A great many things in games have been stated as you loose, do not bother going here but if you play smart and avoid conflict you 'get to win'.

By avoiding the fight, by negotiating, by RUNNING away.

A.K.A.: Victim Behaviour.


If you only accept 'players MUST win, nothing else is valid' then you really need to restrict yourself to 2nd, 3rd or so DND and immediately sell off any games likely Cuthulu Mythos, any White Wolf games, and 40k based games, Cyberpunk, ...
Because in those games no matter how powerful you get there are things that you WILL NOT WIN against in a fight.

Firstly, I never said "players must always win, nothing else is valid." That's all you. I am arguing that the *option* for players to succeed should always exist because there's a substantial amount of potential buyers who will find it useful *and* the amount of potential buyers who won't find it useful can just ignore it.

Yes, I know, which is why I say it's terrible game design. You seem to think I'm unaware of the nature of the products I purchase. I'm not. And indeed, it cost them a non-zero amount of sales.


ALL of these games are 'bad design' according to you but then you DO NOT CARE about the background, only about 'players should always win and winning means able to fight something and beat it down'.

Are you aware that a game can have instances of terrible design without being terrible? Because I never said that "X game was terrible." I only said that "doing X is terrible game design." There's a difference. When too many of these instances occur, then sure, the game itself becomes terrible (See: F.A.T.A.L.), but I can be rational enough to criticise the faults of games I like without feeling like I have to pretend they're perfect. I can accept that I like flawed things, and I can speak openly about their flaws. Where's the problem in that?


Heck an awfull lot of computergames are 'bad design' according to this, like Half-Life, Dreamfall the Longest Journey, ...

*shrug* Comparing tabletop RPGs to videogames is rather like comparing apples to oranges. They run on different design principles.


Struggling against the odds and surviving can be a win just in itself.
'Winning' does not mean that you have to beat 'them'.

I never said that the only way to obtain victory from a challenge is to defeat it. The many instances of victim behaviour (hiding, avoiding, surviving, minimising damage, etc) can all be treated as victories. I said that without the option to fight and conquer the challenge, the PCs must accept what happens to them (being forced to hide to stay alive, for example, is a situation they must accept and cannot fight, because the alternative is death).


If you in your personal sandbox want to have the players beat Caine in a bloody pulp and win a physical confrontation, please go for it but please do remind yourself you are no longer playing White Wolf World of Darkness VtM tm.
Your playing Shadowknight12 variant on said rules.

Yes, and if they hadn't made such a terrible game decision, I wouldn't have to go out of my way to change everything. If they had offered options, taking into account diverse playstyles, you could've had your invincible Caine and I could've had my defeatable Caine. And we'd both be happy.


P.S. you are aware that the first rules of White Wolf games is if YOU do not like the setting then YOU may change it?
It is the Storytellers setting, but complaining about the cannonical setting as given to us is silly.

Uh, yes? And that's what I've been saying all along, that I refluff the hell out of the WoD as written because the fluff is awful? My argument is (and I'll repeat this for the umpteenth time): Adding an option that brings nothing new to the table and hampers the campaigns of a subgroup, while forcing players to engage in Victim Behaviour and shattering one of the fundamental laws of reality, is terrible game design. That's about it.

Why is it silly, exactly? Evidence, please.


What's he purpose of the game, where's the challenge, if whatever the PCs will decide to do will succeed, just because they're the PCs?

Do keep in mind that I'm *not* saying that the PCs should defeat any encounter with whatever amount of power they happen to have at the moment. I have no problem with challenges requiring an extreme amount of power to overcome. My only concern is that such option *exists*. If such an option does not exist, the reality of the world shatters before my eyes because such a thing raptures one of the most fundamental laws of all realities.

[Rogue Shadows]

Do keep in mind that I'm *not* saying that the PCs should defeat any encounter with whatever amount of power they happen to have at the moment. I have no problem with challenges requiring an extreme amount of power to overcome. My only concern is that such option *exists*. If such an option does not exist, the reality of the world shatters before my eyes because such a thing raptures one of the most fundamental laws of all realities.

But that doesn't even exist in published D&D settings...like I said, the overdeities.

And once more - Caine is a) purely optional and b) explicitly subject to Storyteller whim anyway.

"This is the most important rule of all, and the only real rule worth following: There are no rules. This game should be whatever you want it to be, whether that's a nearly diceless chronicle of in-character socialization or a long-mnning tactical campaign with each player controlling a small coterie of vampires. If the rules in this book interfere with your enjoyment of the game, change them. The world is far too big - it can't be reflected accurately in any set of inflexible rules. Think of this book as a collection of guidelines, suggested but not mandatory ways of capturing the World of Darkness in the format of a game. You're the arbiter of what works best in your game, and you're free to use, alter, abuse or ignore these rules at your leisure."

So the game said Caine is unbeatable, and then the same game said "or not."

So...dude, what is your problem?

[Kazyan]

So...dude, what is your problem?

Because the GM has to do a lot of work to make Caine killable, which is likely inferior because he's probably not a seasoned game designer, and the game breaks. If the seasoned game designers just gave an optional rule of "here's Caine's statblock if you want to make him killable", they avoid the terribleness that would ensue otherwise.

[Shadowknight12]

But that doesn't even exist in published D&D settings...like I said, the overdeities.

Ao is explicitly said not to intervene in the affairs of mortals except when the designers need him to perform Deus Ex Machina. That means that he never becomes a challenge to overcome, so his undefeatability does not harm the game.

The combination of the Lady of Pain's undefeatability and her tendency to mess with the lives of her citizens is an example of terrible game design.


So the game said Caine is unbeatable, and then the same game said "or not."

And then completely failed to give tools to the Storyteller on how to make him defeatable. If the Storytellers didn't need those tools, they wouldn't need game designers to write rulebooks for them. Ergo, the game designers were all talk and failed to deliver what they allegedly offered.


So...dude, what is your problem?

This:


Because the GM has to do a lot of work to make cain killable, which is likely inferior becuase he's probably not a seasoned game designer, and the game breaks. If the seasoned game designers just gave an optional rule of "here's Caine's statblock if you want to make him killable", they avoid the terribleness that would ensue otherwise.

Thank you for saying it better than I could.

[Rogue Shadows]

Because the GM has to do a lot of work to make cain killable, which is likely inferior becuase he's probably not a seasoned game designer, and the game breaks. If the seasoned game designers just gave an optional rule of "here's Caine's statblock if you want to make him killable", they avoid the terribleness that would ensue otherwise.

S...seriously? You want a Vampire monster manual? Did you know that the Revised edition for V:TM didn't have a stat block for any vampire? It had some wraiths, fairies, mages, mortals, ghouls, and so on, but no vampire stats.

This is because the Storyteller thing said "Make the character first. Make his motivations second. Make the stats last. And make those last up however you like. They're dots on paper; they're not important."

And what do you mean they didn't give the Storyteller the tools, anyway? The character creation process is right there.

Core D&D doesn't show you how to make level 50 characters. But it does show you how to make up to level 30 characters and then gives you rules to extrapolate further. Vampire did the exact same thing.

Do you really need a Vampire Monster Manual that badly? A Vampire Deities & Demigods?

[Shadowknight12]

S...seriously? You want a Vampire monster manual? Did you know that the Revised edition for V:TM didn't have a stat block for any vampire? It had some wraiths, fairies, mages, mortals, ghouls, and so on, but no vampire stats.

This is because the Storyteller thing said "Make the character first. Make his motivations second. Make the stats last. And make those last up however you like. They're dots on paper; they're not important."

So the rules to create vampire antagonists were located in the corebook. They existed, but they were meant for more prosaic antagonists. However, you would be hard-pressed to build Caine with the same rules as the players build their own characters. Hence why a statblock for him would've been far better than anything an average ST would've come up on his own. See the whole thing re: system mastery.

[Rogue Shadows]

So the rules to create vampire antagonists were located in the corebook. They existed, but they were meant for more prosaic antagonists. However, you would be hard-pressed to build Caine with the same rules as the players build their own characters. Hence why a statblock for him would've been far better than anything an average ST would've come up on his own. See the whole thing re: system mastery.

That's because the game limits things to 10 dice with 10 sides and a maximum difficulty of 10. Even the Andediluvians never roll more or higher than this.

Caine was projected as beyond this, but if you really want stats for Caine that badly, and don't want to take the time to build a more complicated character, just say he has a 10 in all Attributes and Abilities, 10 in all eight core Disciplines (Animalism, Auspex, Celerity, Dominate, Fortitude, Obfuscate, Potence, and Presence), plus one Thaumaturgy path, 10 in all Backgrounds (except Generation, which he just starts at 1st Generation), and 100 blood points, with the ability to spend 10 per turn.

There. Done.

[Kazyan]

In one of the splatbooks, they did stat out Caine. It's "You lose." The purpose of that, and a normal statblock, is to address what happens when you fight him. But they just said "You lose."

[Rogue Shadows]

In one of the splatbooks, they did stat out Caine. It's "You lose." The purpose of that, and a normal statblock, is to address what happens when you fight him. But they just said "You lose."

That's what happens when you fight a two hundred thousand year old being with God on his side. I find it a tremendously accurate stat block.

Hey, as long as we're on the subject, God is intimately involved with several White Wolf lines, including Vampire and Demon. Should White Wolf have statted out God as well? Have they failed for not doing that, too - for making God another insurmountable challenge.

[Shadowknight12]

That's because the game limits things to 10 dice with 10 sides and a maximum difficulty of 10. Even the Andediluvians never roll more or higher than this.

Caine was projected as beyond this, but if you really want stats for Caine that badly, and don't want to take the time to build a more complicated character, just say he has a 10 in all Attributes and Abilities, 10 in all eight core Disciplines plus one Thaumaturgy path, 10 in all Backgrounds (except Generation, which he just starts at 1st Generation), and 100 blood points, with the ability to spend 10 per turn.

There. Done.

Ah, but see, is that balanced? Is that underpowered? Overpowered? How do those disciplines, at those levels, interact with each other? What can he do? How can he combine his powers to be truly effective? What are his strategies? Doesn't he have any custom powers? I think he should. But what would be a benchmark for that? How can I create a custom power for him that fits with the rest of his abilities but isn't under or overpowered? How high should his health be? What about cheap but legal exploits that powergamers engage in? Shouldn't he have some form of protection from that?

The list of questions goes on and I'm not capable of answering them effectively. If I could just wing it, I wouldn't need game designers in the first place.


That's what happens when you fight a two hundred thousand year old being with God on his side. I find it a tremendously accurate stat block.

I don't. At all. But I think we've already clarified that already.


Hey, as long as we're on the subject, God is intimately involved with several White Wolf lines, including Vampire and Demon. Should White Wolf have statted out God as well? Have they failed for not doing that, too - for making God another insurmountable challenge.

If he is, in fact, involved, and he does affect the PCs, then yes, terrible game design for not statting him out. If you don't want to stat something out, don't make it actively involved in the lives of the PCs. Perfect example? Ao.

[TheCountAlucard]

Should White Wolf have statted out God as well? Have they failed for not doing that, too - for making God another insurmountable challenge.That's a strawman argument.

See, even with all this stuff, it's still kind of vague on whether God is even real in the World of Darkness, and no situation exists where the player characters will directly come into conflict with him, and thus there are no rules for doing so. Caine does exist, the player characters can come into conflict with him, and the rules for doing so are, "You lose."

[comicshorse]

I tried, I honestly tried to keep out of this.
Last comment (I promise)




Again, so? Just because a game does it doesn't mean it's good game design. And just to give you an example of how said bad design is hurting them, I know for sure that I myself would actually try the game if it wasn't for the undefeatable challenges. And I'm not the only one who thinks so, so it's positive proof that said decision cost them a non-zero amount of potential buyers.


No its really not. People who think that ( and they do frpm this thread and my experience appear to be very much the minority) may still buy the books regarding that as a minor point, nothing is perfect as you point out. Also people may make the opposite decision, deciding a game where the P.C.s can win anything as being too 'easy' ( really can't think of a better word there) for them. Costing them potential buyers


A.K.A.: Victim Behaviour.

THats definitely too strong a word for what you're describing


Adding an option that brings nothing new to the table and hampers the campaigns of a subgroup, while forcing players to engage in Victim Behaviour and shattering one of the fundamental laws of reality, is terrible game design. That's about it.

But it does bring something to the table. It makes the P.C.s think about the world in new ways, adds a sense of mystery and menance to the world, give them a chance to explore different emothions than normal.
And you're still using Victim Behaviour to describe things like 'not suicidally attacking' or 'avoiding trouble' when they really aren't.
And it REALLY doesn't break a fundamental law of reality for there to be things the P.C.s will never be able to gather the power to take down.



Because the GM has to do a lot of work to make Caine killable, which is likely inferior because he's probably not a seasoned game designer, and the game breaks. If the seasoned game designers just gave an optional rule of "here's Caine's statblock if you want to make him killable", they avoid the terribleness that would ensue otherwise.

I get that I'd just argue with 'awful lot of work' ( Could be done pretty easily given the rules for Elders) and 'terribleness'.

From Count Alucrad


See, even with all this stuff, it's still kind of vague on whether God is even real in the World of Darkness, and no situation exists where the player characters will directly come into conflict with him, and thus there are no rules for doing so. Caine does exist, the player characters can come into conflict with him, and the rules for doing so are, "You lose."

I believe in one of the Werewolf or Mage books they describe the gates of Heaven which you can reach and what happens if you touch them.

[Rogue Shadows]

That's a strawman argument.

See, even with all this stuff, it's still kind of vague on whether God is even real, and the player characters will certainly never be challenged by him directly, and thus there are no rules for doing so. Caine does exist, the player characters can come into conflict with him, and the rules for doing so are, "You lose."

Caine doesn't necessarily exist either - Gehenna is another one of those "entirely up to the GM' things. The core rulebook never presents the Antediluvian stories as anything other than just that - stories.

Even still, if Caine is real, someone cursed him. Regardless of whether it's literally God, Caine certainly thinks it was God, and it's presumably a being beyond even Caine in power.

So...yeah.


Ah, but see, is that balanced? Is that underpowered? Overpowered?

Maximum powered. There's no such thing as "overpowered" in the Storyteller system due to the cap. The characters would have to diablerize a few antediluvians to fight him. But that is possible; it's happened to at least four that I know of in-canon (Saulot, Sargon, Troile, and Typhon)


How do those disciplines, at those levels, interact with each other?

"[Any Discipline] 10: Plot Device." This was in the Gehenna book.

At level 10 of any Discipline (which only Antediluvians and higher can reach), the user of the Discipline can do essentially anything related to that discipline, limited only by the Storyteller's fiat. So with Potence 10 you can punch a mountain in half, with Fortitude 10 you can walk in sunlight, with Celerity 10 you can stand on water, with Thaumaturgy 10: Lure of the Flames you can boil an ocean...


What can he do?

SEE [Any Discipline] 10.


What are his strategies?

Oh, that one's easy. He's the first murderer, first vampire, cursed by God, everything he touches eventually turned to ruin...

...he drives a taxi in LA.


Doesn't he have any custom powers? I think he should. But what would be a benchmark for that?

Caine can create new Disciplines on the fly and set himself to any level. So again...SEE [Any Discipline] 10.


How can I create a custom power for him that fits with the rest of his abilities but isn't under or overpowered?

Well, if you want to create a new Discipline, the rules for doing so were in Time of Thin Blood. But in Caine's case, the eight basic ones are probably fine.


How high should his health be?

Same as a normal character, depending on his merit and flaw selection. So, like...10, at maximum, I think? But don't forget he has Fortitude 10 and Stamina 10, so can soak just about anything.


What about cheap but legal exploits that powergamers engage in? Shouldn't he have some form of protection from that?

He does. It's called having a 10 in everything. Nothing in Vampire is ever overpowered, just maximum powered.

[comicshorse]

If he is, in fact, involved, and he does affect the PCs, then yes, terrible game design for not statting him out. If you don't want to stat something out, don't make it actively involved in the lives of the PCs. Perfect example? Ao.

Have you never played 'Forgotten Realms' either during or after The Time of Troubles ?

[Shadowknight12]

No its really not. People who think that ( and they do frpm this thread and my experience appear to be very much the minority) may still buy the books regarding that as a minor point, nothing is perfect as you point out. Also people may make the opposite decision, deciding a game where the P.C.s can win anything as being too 'easy' ( really can't think of a better word there) for them. Costing them potential buyers

A whole lot of maybes there. Plus, the people who think it's "too easy" are being fallacious, because they forget the fact that the GM can make anything undefeatable on a whim. So that's pretty ignorant thinking.


THats definitely too strong a word for what you're describing

No, not really. It fits the psychological phenomenon to a T. When the victim fights back, they are no longer a victim. Removing the choice to fight back, to reject whatever the challenge is attempting to impose upon them, is removing the players' ability to stop being victims.


But it does bring something to the table. It makes the P.C.s think about the world in new ways, adds a sense of mystery and menance to the world, give them a chance to explore different emothions than normal.

No, see, that's what a lot of people on this argument are outright ignoring. You can always do that. You don't need the designer's stamp of approval to say "this guy's undefeatable." Every GM already has that power, so the designers are adding nothing to the table because that was already there all along.


And you're still using Victim Behaviour to describe things like 'not suicidally attacking' or 'avoiding trouble' when they really aren't.

I'm using "victim behaviour" to define non-confrontational behaviour. A victim does not confront. It avoids or accepts whatever is inflicted upon them, but they do not confront it. By removing the option to confront the challenge and succeed, you are placing the players in a perpetual victim position.


And it REALLY doesn't break a fundamental law of reality for there to be things the P.C.s will never be able to gather the power to take down.

Yes, it does. Because the implication is that the level of power does not exist. That destroys believability because reality doesn't work like that.


*speculation*

That's very nice, but see, I can guess that too. That doesn't make it actually balanced or appropriate to the game because I'm not a seasoned game designer. So all that speculation really adds nothing to the debate because we have no idea if it's correct or wildly wrong.


Have you never played 'Forgotten Realms' either during or after The Time of Troubles ?

During? Nope. After? Sure, and Ao's not around. I was under the impression that "The Time of Troubles" was an event that existed purely outside the scope of the rules, relegated only to the fluff/novels/etc.

[Rogue Shadows]

Have you never played 'Forgotten Realms' either during or after The Time of Troubles ?

Like Ao, Caine has better things to do with his time than pick fights with people, too, though the players might feel the effects of his decisions elsewhere.

In fact, that's the perfect analogy. Caine is the Ao of Vampire. He just happens to have a physical body and, therefore, can theoretically be fought by the players. It just won't end well - just like a smackdown with Ao.


During? Nope. After? Sure, and Ao's not around. I was under the impression that "The Time of Troubles" was an event that existed purely outside the scope of the rules, relegated only to the fluff/novels/etc.

Nope. There was a module and everything.

[Shadowknight12]

Nope. There was a module and everything.

Ah. I wasn't aware of that. Then I take back what I said. Ao affecting the lives of the PCs is an example of terrible game design.

[comicshorse]

A whole lot of maybes there.


Only as many as in your post about why people wouldn't buy the books.


I'm using "victim behaviour" to define non-confrontational behaviour. A victim does not confront. It avoids or accepts whatever is inflicted upon them, but they do not confront it. By removing the option to confront the challenge and succeed, you are placing the players in a perpetual victim position.

You can confront all you like. Win thats a different matter.


Yes, it does. Because the implication is that the level of power does not exist. That destroys believability because reality doesn't work like that.


And as I've pointed out before thats not true. It just means that level of power isn't available to the P.C.s. They aren't the whole universe.

Out of curiousity no that Ao has removed DnD. What system does meet your criteria ?

[Rogue Shadows]

Ah. I wasn't aware of that. Then I take back what I said. Ao affecting the lives of the PCs is an example of terrible game design.

You know, when D&D, WoD, and Warhammer - AKA the biggest RPGs - all seem to share this design point, you might want to consider that perhaps you're quite wrong on this point.

[Shadowknight12]

Only as many as in your post about why people wouldn't buy the books.

Point taken, I guess it all comes down to numbers, to see which group is bigger.


You can confront all you like. Win thats a different matter.

Correct. But if the option to confront and succeed is not on the table, then the option to confront is also not on the table because there is (almost always) no logical reason to choose 'confront and fail.'


And as I've pointed out before thats not true. It just means that level of power isn't available to the P.C.s. They aren't the whole universe.

Do you realise that such a thing is impossible to prove? It's the old "if a tree falls and there's nobody to hear it, does it make a sound?" conundrum. If such a power level exists but nobody can apprehend it, does it truly exist?


Out of curiousity no that Ao has removed DnD. What system does meet your criteria ?

No, Ao still meets the criteria, provided I selectively ignore that one module. Or just use D&D for a custom setting.


You know, when D&D, WoD, and Warhammer - AKA the biggest RPGs - all seem to share this design point, you might want to consider that perhaps you're quite wrong on this point.

Hilarious, when D&D and WoD (never played Warhammer, so I can't comment on it) actually do *not* share that design point save for extremely specific exceptions. Are you arguing that those games are flawless? Because that's the sort of thing I would call flaws, extremely specific instances of terrible design choices. The reason they're such popular games is (surprise!) precisely because those instances are not prevalent in the slightest!

[comicshorse]

Point taken, I guess it all comes down to numbers, to see which group is bigger.


It would be interesting to know.



Do you realise that such a thing is impossible to prove? It's the old "if a tree falls and there's nobody to hear it, does it make a sound?" conundrum. If such a power level exists but nobody can apprehend it, does it truly exist?


I'd argue it can be understood. After all if the 'power to be brought down' can be experienced by the P.C.s ( as you argued and I agree it must to count) then there is no reason that its opponent can't.



No, Ao still meets the criteria, provided I selectively ignore that one module. Or just use D&D for a custom setting.

Well the problem there is playing anything set after as you are experiencing the changes wrought by the Time of Troubles brought about by Ao's interference ( new god of magic, some gods rise, some fell, Cyric as new god, etc). All are now part of the world and affecting the P.C.s because of Ao

[Shadowknight12]

It would be interesting to know.

Indeed.


I'd argue it can be understood. After all if the 'power to be brought down' can be experienced by the P.C.s ( as you argued and I agree it must to count) then there is no reason that its opponent can't.

I never said it couldn't. I'm saying that you can't prove that said level of power exists if nobody like the PCs can access it. And if someone like the PCs can access it, why not the PCs themselves?


Well the problem there is playing anything set after as you are experiencing the changes wrought by the Time of Troubles brought about by Ao's interference ( new god of magic, some gods rise, some fell, Cyric as new god, etc). All are now part of the world and affecting the P.C.s because of Ao

There comes a point where you stop ascribing a person responsibility for something someone else does. Sure, if Ao made Mystra rise as the goddess of magic, that was Ao's interference. But you can't ascribe to Ao what Mystra does. You have to ascribe it to Mystra. As far as I know, Ao never actually interferes with the players directly.

[MickJay]

Shadowknight, you have stated a few times that introducing into the game insurmountable odds that the PCs cannot overcome is a "terrible game design" - and yet there are a lot of players who do enjoy games where they know they'll never be able to do some things. More than that, they enjoy games in which the best they can count on is making a small difference before their characters perish (or, at least, are highly likely to perish). It's only realistic that the PCs will sometimes give their best, and still fail. Why is that a bad design? And what would be, according to you, a good game design?

[Shadowknight12]

Shadowknight, you have stated a few times that introducing into the game insurmountable odds that the PCs cannot overcome is a "terrible game design" - and yet there are a lot of players who do enjoy games where they know they'll never be able to do some things. More than that, they enjoy games in which the best they can count on is making a small difference before their characters perish (or, at least, are highly likely to perish). It's only realistic that the PCs will sometimes give their best, and still fail. Why is that a bad design? And what would be, according to you, a good game design?

Nitpick: I didn't say "odds," I said "challenges." I've stated time and time again that introducing insurmountable 'things' is not terrible game design if they aren't meant to directly intervene in the PCs' lives.

Counterpoint: And there are just as many (if not more) players who play games precisely to overcome challenges, so presenting insurmountable challenges to them ruins their gaming experience because they are getting the opposite of what they came for.

Bad game design involves the removal of options and choice from the game without adding anything positive, harming sectors of your audience in the process. Good game design involves adding more options and choices for the players and GMs to use as they please without harming anyone in the process.

Mirrors is a shining example of good game design, though their proposed fantasy setting is an example of mediocre game design because it adds something to the game by detracting from somewhere else (in this case, it gives you a premade setting, ready to use, and detracts from the game by not giving you a guide or tools to create your own customised fantasy setting; so it's a trade-off in terms of book space, since we obviously couldn't have it both ways or else Mirrors would've been too expensive to produce and would've likely carried a prohibitive final price).

[Reluctance]

I double dog dare you to go to the 3.5 subforum and say that being a professional game designer immunizes one from massive blunders. Gaming is littered with the corpses of so-called "unbeatable" enemies who were brought low by moderate optimization. Trying to stat something outside the design scope of a game not only risks making it fall easily to players who have better op-fu than you (again, take it up with the 3.5 subforum), it wastes dev time at best and runs the risk of letting some gross toys fall into PC hands. See what happened to supposedly "enemy clan unique" disciplines.

Could the PCs have a shot at taking down Caine if they were maxed stat archmages or if they diablerized their way down to 3rd generation status? Possibly. Would the game have begun creaking under the stress of doing things outside of its intended design scope long before then? Absolutely.

[Shadowknight12]

I double dog dare you to go to the 3.5 subforum and say that being a professional game designer immunizes one from massive blunders. Gaming is littered with the corpses of so-called "unbeatable" enemies who were brought low by moderate optimization. Trying to stat something outside the design scope of a game not only risks making it fall easily to players who have better op-fu than you (again, take it up with the 3.5 subforum), it wastes dev time at best and runs the risk of letting some gross toys fall into PC hands. See what happened to supposedly "enemy clan unique" disciplines.

Could the PCs have a shot at taking down Caine if they were maxed stat archmages or if they diablerized their way down to 3rd generation status? Possibly. Would the game have begun creaking under the stress of doing things outside of its intended design scope long before then? Absolutely.

When have I said that designers were immune to making blunders? I said that making Caine undefeatable was precisely an example of a designer making a terrible game design decision!

Also, counterpoint: See every single "Fighter fix" or "Monk fix" or "Tier 1 fix" out there and tell me if the vast majority of GMs out there are actually capable of 'fixing the game' with the expertise of a professional game designer. Nobody says that game designers are perfect, but their audience is, in its majority, far worse at system mastery.

That doesn't excuse blunders, but it tells you that assuming that GMs will 'make do' on their own without help is fabulously ignorant.

[Rogue Shadows]

That doesn't excuse blunders, but it tells you that assuming that GMs will 'make do' on their own without help is fabulously ignorant.

What it tells me is that they'll certainly try to make do on their own.

Oh ye of little faith...

Also, when the official power of any Discipline at 10 dots is named "Plot device," then I think that having Caine statted out at all really becomes a moot point. Balance is gone anyway.

[nersxe]

I always thought the definition of "good game design" was "people are able to have fun with this".

[Rogue Shadows]

I always thought the definition of "good game design" was "people are able to have fun with this".

Indeed; and in fact Caine's status has essentially become a meme. People like that Caine is indefatigable, at least by standard rules.

[nersxe]

Indeed; and in fact Caine's status has essentially become a meme. People like that Caine is indefatigable, at least by standard rules.

I enjoy it. I mean, I have fun with just by-character-creation-rules Kindred, let alone Methuselahs and Antediluvians.

[Shadowknight12]

What it tells me is that they'll certainly try to make do on their own.

Oh ye of little faith...

And fail. And then resent the designers for forcing them into that position when they know a little extra work would've solved the problem in the first place.


Also, when the official power of any Discipline at 10 dots is named "Plot device," then I think that having Caine statted out at all really becomes a moot point. Balance is gone anyway.

Another example of terrible game design. The GM doesn't need anyone to tell him how and when to use plot devices, so making it 'official' just reeks of lazy game design. It's like Eberron's 'eldritch machines' which are also official plot devices.

Instead of such laziness, good game design would've been to use that same amount of book space to explain what a plot device is, and a few do's and don't's, then let the GM themselves choose how to use them.


I always thought the definition of "good game design" was "people are able to have fun with this".

People are able to have fun with pebbles and sticks. That's a very, very poor standard for 'good game design.'

[MickJay]

Nitpick: I didn't say "odds," I said "challenges." I've stated time and time again that introducing insurmountable 'things' is not terrible game design if they aren't meant to directly intervene in the PCs' lives.

Counterpoint: And there are just as many (if not more) players who play games precisely to overcome challenges, so presenting insurmountable challenges to them ruins their gaming experience because they are getting the opposite of what they came for.

Bad game design involves the removal of options and choice from the game without adding anything positive, harming sectors of your audience in the process. Good game design involves adding more options and choices for the players and GMs to use as they please without harming anyone in the process.

I'll have to check Mirrors out. Fair point, you did say "challenges"; however, I don't really see a problem with the game offering the GM some "official" insurmountable challenges. The GM doesn't have to use them, after all, if he knows his players wouldn't enjoy them.

Having stories of Caine in the setting adds an element of mystery (and trying to solve it might well be the goal for players). Information that 'if you fight him, you die' might be part of those stories, serving both to cause dread, and put the players (and the PCs) on their toes. Finally, this information might not even be true. In the end, Caine is just another plot hook, and you can't have one of those without at least some information about the plot hook in general. In a given ST's setting, Caine might simply be a myth, or be dead. Information on Caine in the official setting isn't "removing" options, it's adding them (you may or may not use Caine in some way; and you're free to change what Caine is exactly anyway).

Also, consider what you said about some players playing to overcome challenges - it's often true, but it's hardly a rule. Many players enjoy knowing that the setting doesn't revolve around them, that events are happening behind the scenes whether they know about them or not and that there are things they can't change. The game focuses on picking your battles, rather than winning everything.

In the end, I agree with how you define good and bad game design. However, I disagree with what you consider to be "removing of options without adding anything positive", because the examples discussed here add, in my opinion, options instead of taking them away, and make the setting more interesting overall.

[Rogue Shadows]

And fail. And then resent the designers for forcing them into that position when they know a little extra work would've solved the problem in the first place.

You are the only person I have ever known to have a problem with Caine.

Fair enough: I've hardly met everyone ever.

But my problem is that your entire argument is based on the idea that the Storyteller is, one way or another, incapable of doing his job (building a character - regardless of how powerful - is easy; or else simply not including Caine), incapable of asking another Storyteller to, one way or another, do his job for him; and for some reason will blame White Wolf for this, despite White Wolf providing him with all the tools necessary for the Storyteller to do his job, one way or another.


Another example of terrible game design. The GM doesn't need anyone to tell him how and when to use plot devices, so making it 'official' just reeks of lazy game design. It's like Eberron's 'eldritch machines' which are also official plot devices.

Caine! Is! Optional!

No one! Tells the Storyteller! How to! Use Caine!

As I said, White Wolf tells us "Rules for Fighting Caine: You Lose." And yet they also tell us "Or not; it's your story, and we've given you everything you need to build him if you really want to."

Your argument is based on the assumption that the Storyteller is an idiot. And a particularly stupid one at that.

"You Lose" was White Wolf's take on the character, if he was to ever show up, and he only ever did so twice in canon that I'm aware of - once as a taxi driver in LA in Bloodlines, whom you don't even interact with beyond a few lines of dialogue and him taking you from place to place (and indeed, you never even realize he's Caine unless you're a Malkavian or you as a player crack open the game files and find the taxi driver's dialogue in a folder named "Caine"); and once in the Gehenna novelization, which, being a written novel, is not something the players are going to be in, anyway, so it doesn't matter to them what his stats might be!


Instead of such laziness, good game design would've been to use that same amount of book space to explain what a plot device is, and a few do's and don't's, then let the GM themselves choose how to use them.

They do just that. It's called pages 242-244 of Gehenna (the splatbook; this section deals with nothing but putting Caine into your story); pages 252-257 of the Revised rulebook (the chapter on Storytelling).

I'm half-tempted to type up the entire Storytelling and Caine chapters just so that you can understand a little better that White Wolf despite what you think, actually did alright by their players; as it stands I'm just going to reprint the introduction to the Caine chapter, which certainly puts more effort into getting Caine as a character across than the Realms ever gave Ao or Planescape ever gave Her Serenity.

As the end of the world approaches, the founder of the feast deserves special mention. Were it not for Caine, vampires would (likely) not exist in the world, and he could make an appearance to watch all that he has wrought bear judgement in the eyes of God or simply wither and burn.

Before we discuss Caine, however, a word of warning: Do not use Caine lightly. Casually "tossing in" an appearance by the First Vampire will not serve your chronicle, especially in the end when every individual act the characters perform has so much importance. Think of certain movies or television shows in which all the drama quickly falls by the wayside as a heavy-handed deux ex machina appears on screen and renders everything else moot. Caine doesn't have to be "god in the machine," but he can be, especially if you use him awkwardly or as a method of overpowering the character's efforts.

Likewise, don't feel compelled to use Caine. Not every mystery has a solution, and even at the End of Days, the answer to the question "Why?" may solely be God's purview.

In most Gehenna scenarios, Caine should appear subtly, if you choose to involve him at all. He shouldn't leap from a shadow, landing in front of the characters to slay whatever foes they face or to personally lay the characters themselves to waste. Vampire is a game of subtleties, and players might not even know their characters have met the First Vampire. Indeed, "Caine" might be little more than ashes that blow on the wind or a single, sun-bleached skull found near a hidden temple in the desert.

Hereafter we present a few possibilities for incorporating Caine into your Time of Judgement Gehenna chronicle. You'll note that he's conspicuously absent from the scenarios written. That's our not-so-subtle way of saying "You don't have to do this." If you choose to involve Caine at the end of the world, however, bear a few considerations in mind.


People are able to have fun with pebbles and sticks. That's a very, very poor standard for 'good game design.'

As is whatever your standards are, since every RPG game line seems to do it, including the most popular ones. At a certain point you must stop to wonder if it's really bad game design, or if it's just a problem that you have with these RPGs.

[comicshorse]

Instead of such laziness, good game design would've been to use that same amount of book space to explain what a plot device is, and a few do's and don't's, then let the GM themselves choose how to use them.


The book space ? All two words ?:smallsmile:

[Rogue Shadows]

Incidentally, does anyone know where the official Rules for Fighting Caine were? All I can find on the Internet is "one Vampire rulebook," no one ever seems to be able to state which one.

I have a funny feeling it's the V:tM first edition book...


The book space ? All two words ?:smallsmile:

Hmm.

RULES FOR FIGHTING CAINE: "You win!"

The Vampire game thereafter became a wacky comedy series.

Alternatively -

RULES FOR FIGHTING CAINE: "He's tough."
RULES FOR FIGHTING CAINE: "Don't."
RULES FOR FIGHTING CAINE: "Be careful."
RULES FOR FIGHTING CAINE: "Jump good."
RULES FOR FIGHTING CAINE: "Celerity, Vicissitude."

Unfortunately, that last there leaves us confused as to whether it's Caine or the player that should be using Celerity and Vicissitude. But the player should probably use Celerity anyway.

[MickJay]

Not really relevant to the topic, but the taxi driver in Bloodlines was retconned soon after the game's release to actually be a 4th gen Malkavian who only thinks he's Caine (so canonically, the PC never met real Caine).

[Rogue Shadows]

Not really relevant to the topic, but the taxi driver in Bloodlines was retconned soon after the game's release to actually be a 4th gen Malkavian who only thinks he's Caine (so canonically, the PC never met real Caine).

That's stupid. It's Caine.

Or at least, if I ever run a chronicle, that taxi driver will have been Caine, if it ever came up.

That cuts the canonical appearances of Caine (that I'm aware of), though, down to one - the Gehenna novelization, where White Wolf is entitled to make Caine anything they want to be.

[Shadowknight12]

@MickJay:


I'll have to check Mirrors out. Fair point, you did say "challenges"; however, I don't really see a problem with the game offering the GM some "official" insurmountable challenges. The GM doesn't have to use them, after all, if he knows his players wouldn't enjoy them.

I do, since it's wasting book space (and therefore buyer's money) on something the DM can already do. What do you need the 'official' stamp for? What kind of GM needs validation for their decisions?


Having stories of Caine in the setting adds an element of mystery (and trying to solve it might well be the goal for players). Information that 'if you fight him, you die' might be part of those stories, serving both to cause dread, and put the players (and the PCs) on their toes. Finally, this information might not even be true. In the end, Caine is just another plot hook, and you can't have one of those without at least some information about the plot hook in general. In a given ST's setting, Caine might simply be a myth, or be dead. Information on Caine in the official setting isn't "removing" options, it's adding them (you may or may not use Caine in some way; and you're free to change what Caine is exactly anyway).

Fluff =/= Crunch. We're talking about crunch here, hard rules. When the mechanics for combat is 'plot device' or 'you lose', that's a terrible game design decision, because any DM can already do that. Designers are supposed to provide the GM and players with new mechanics to enhance their characters or campaigns, not take the easy way out and cheat them out of designing actual rules.


Also, consider what you said about some players playing to overcome challenges - it's often true, but it's hardly a rule. Many players enjoy knowing that the setting doesn't revolve around them, that events are happening behind the scenes whether they know about them or not and that there are things they can't change. The game focuses on picking your battles, rather than winning everything.

Where is the evidence that supports a correlation between "surmountable challenges" and "universe revolving around the players"? Since I have no idea where such an assumption is coming from. Nobody is saying that "surmountable" means "surmountable at whatever level of power the characters currently have." If defeating Caine requires the players to have Diablerised their way to 3rd generation, plus 1000 XP on top of that, cunning tactics and researching Caine's possible weaknesses, that's still a surmountable challenge. It may be tremendously difficult to achieve, but it's still achievable.

See, the problem with assuming that 'surmountable challenge' means 'the universe turns around the PCs' is that it falls apart the moment you stop thinking about the PCs as PCs. If you think of them as regular people in the campaign world, a surmountable challenge becomes completely natural because we don't know the limits of the human race. You can't make a categorical, definite statement that "this cannot be surmounted." How do you know? How do you know that there isn't a group of people out there with enough power, intelligence, luck and skill to surmount it?

Declaring something insurmountable just because shows a glaring disregard for the laws of probability, realism and logical consistency. It makes the universe less realistic because in the Real World, we don't have categorically insurmountable challenges.


In the end, I agree with how you define good and bad game design. However, I disagree with what you consider to be "removing of options without adding anything positive", because the examples discussed here add, in my opinion, options instead of taking them away, and make the setting more interesting overall.

Disregard the fluff about Caine and focus on his mechanics (i.e., "you lose"). How does that *add* anything at all? Logically speaking, it cannot add anything new because that mechanic has always been at the table. And it detracts options because now there's no way to make it surmountable (aside from houseruling). Before that publication, the options were open. It could be insurmountable or not, you just had to wait to see what WW published. But when they did, they chose the option that benefited the least amount of players (since making it surmountable benefits both crowds while making it insurmountable benefits only one).

@RogueShadows:



You are the only person I have ever known to have a problem with Caine.

Fair enough: I've hardly met everyone ever.

But my problem is that your entire argument is based on the idea that the Storyteller is, one way or another, incapable of doing his job (building a character - regardless of how powerful - is easy; or else simply not including Caine), incapable of asking another Storyteller to, one way or another, do his job for him; and for some reason will blame White Wolf for this, despite White Wolf providing him with all the tools necessary for the Storyteller to do his job, one way or another.

Not using Caine makes no sense for this argument. If the ST doesn't want to use Caine, this entire conversation becomes moot. We therefore must assume that the ST wants to use Caine for the sake of the argument.

We'll simply have to agree to disagree when it comes to ease-difficulty of creating complex, extremely powerful characters. I think that if WW was going to publish the stats for Caine and went for the cheap cop out, then their audience (the people paying for rules and fluff) have every right to feel cheated.


Caine! Is! Optional!

No one! Tells the Storyteller! How to! Use Caine!

A) See above why assuming the ST wants to use Caine is necessary for this argument.

B) That's exactly what WW is doing. It's telling the ST how to use Caine by forcing them to choose "You lose" as a rule or try their hand at a very inexact science with high amounts of failure.


As I said, White Wolf tells us "Rules for Fighting Caine: You Lose." And yet they also tell us "Or not; it's your story, and we've given you everything you need to build him if you really want to."

That is a very misleading assertion, because if the ST envisions Caine as an ordinary vampire, you'd be right. But if the ST envisions Caine as possessing powers that no other vampire possesses, then you're wrong, because WW did not provide that (And no, "You lose" doesn't count).


Your argument is based on the assumption that the Storyteller is an idiot. And a particularly stupid one at that.

"You Lose" was White Wolf's take on the character, if he was to ever show up, and he only ever did so twice in canon that I'm aware of - once as a taxi driver in LA in Bloodlines, whom you don't even interact with beyond a few lines of dialogue and him taking you from place to place (and indeed, you never even realize he's Caine unless you're a Malkavian or you as a player crack open the game files and find the taxi driver's dialogue in a folder named "Caine"); and once in the Gehenna novelization, which, being a written novel, is not something the players are going to be in, anyway, so it doesn't matter to them what his stats might be!

We're not talking about fluff here. We're talking about rules. The rules for Caine are a terrible game design decision for all the reasons I've explained already. And it seems we have a disagreement on whether creating rules whole cloth for the mightiest vampire ever is easy or hard, so let's just leave it at that, shall we?


They do just that. It's called pages 242-244 of Gehenna (the splatbook; this section deals with nothing but putting Caine into your story); pages 252-257 of the Revised rulebook (the chapter on Storytelling).

Fine, then their only mistake was telling the ST what to use as a plot device. As you said, the ST isn't an idiot, he doesn't need to be told what characters to use as plot devices or an official stamp of approval on a decision he already made.


I'm half-tempted to type up the entire Storytelling and Caine chapters just so that you can understand a little better that White Wolf despite what you think, actually did alright by their players; as it stands I'm just going to reprint the introduction to the Caine chapter, which certainly puts more effort into getting Caine as a character across than the Realms ever gave Ao or Planescape ever gave Her Serenity.

Irrelevant. We're not talking about fluff here.


As is whatever your standards are, since every RPG game line seems to do it, including the most popular ones. At a certain point you must stop to wonder if it's really bad game design, or if it's just a problem that you have with these RPGs.

In that, you are completely mistaken. RPGs don't "do it" if you intend that to mean in a regular basis. They do it exceedingly occasionally, and like I said before, everyone makes mistakes.


The book space ? All two words ?:smallsmile:

So that's literally what they wrote? I thought it was hyperbole.

It was worse than I thought.

[The Glyphstone]

Declaring something insurmountable just because shows a glaring disregard for the laws of probability, realism and logical consistency. It makes the universe less realistic because in the Real World, we don't have categorically insurmountable challenges.

Just to throw this out here - the existence of an unbeatable vampire makes the WoD less realistic than the real world? Didn't we already go well past 'less realistic' with the existence of any vampires, let alone unbeatable ones?

[Rogue Shadows]

Irrelevant. We're not talking about fluff here.

"You lose" is about as fluffy as you get. You know, there is an intersect between fluff and crunch, they are not always or even very often inseper -

- wait, something about this statement seems familiar -

- anyway, they are not always or even very often inseperable. Caine is a plot device. Plot devices are fluff. Plot devices can have any mechanical rules the Storyteller wants, because they're plot devices. Not challenges, not monsters, not encounters - plot devices.


Not using Caine makes no sense for this argument. If the ST doesn't want to use Caine, this entire conversation becomes moot. We therefore must assume that the ST wants to use Caine for the sake of the argument.

We must also therefore assume - or rather I have to assume because you seem to not want to - that the Storyteller who decided to include Caine has read the available information on Caine in White Wolf's library of books, or at least the major ones, almost all of which boil down to the following:


"Caine is very powerful, because he is a plot device, not a monster. Don't use Caine. If you choose to use Caine anyway, don't have your players fight him: he's two hundred thousand years old and has God on his side. He should be able to kick their asses.

"If you really really really want to have the players fight Caine and beat him themselves, go right ahead and all the power to you. However, we are not publishing an official character sheet, because if we did some powergamer would come along and present his own character that could beat the crap out of Caine, which subverts the entire point of Caine as a plot device.

"Remember when, in Revised Clanbook: Tzimisce, we pointed out that we do not give mechanical benefits towards higher existances because hard-and-fast guidelines rob the accomplishment of its mystery ('if the character sees God, she may ask him 1d3 questions.' Remember that joke)? Caine is the exact same way. Giving him stats takes away all the mystery and import of Caine as a character and plot device.

"Any Storyteller wishing to use Caine in their Chronicle - and we cannot stress enough that we advise against this - should take the time to tailor-craft Caine to their own chronicle, making him as easy or as hard for their players to defeat as the story demands.

"Certain amongst our powergamers may nevertheless feel cheated by this. They want to see a character sheet so that they can find a way to build a character that can take Caine in a one-on-one battle. In recognition of this desire, we hereby present the official rules for fighting Caine:

"You lose."


and went for the cheap cop out, then their audience (the people paying for rules and fluff) have every right to feel cheated.

...I sense a certain amount of personal resentment here...was one of your characters once subject to the tender mercies of an Antediluvian or elder god or something by a sadistic GM or something?

Also I'd like to point out again that it doesn't really seem to be "the audience," just you. And, like, one other person, IIRC. By and large, as I've pointed out, Caine's status as a badass has reached memetic proportions within the Vampire fanbase and his "You lose" stat.

So you're, like, at best, "vocal minority."


That is a very misleading assertion, because if the ST envisions Caine as an ordinary vampire, you'd be right. But if the ST envisions Caine as possessing powers that no other vampire possesses, then you're wrong, because WW did not provide that (And no, "You lose" doesn't count).

Yes it did. No other vampire in the game has "You lose" as a power, so clearly that's a power that Caine has that no other vampire has.

Also, the sevenfold curse, explained in Gehenna. Although, that's not really a power so much as God laying the smackdown on anyone who tries to lay the smackdown on him.

Which, by the way and again, means any stats for Caine would have had to be accompanied by stats for God. Just try to imagine how well that would have gone over...

Also, as pointed out, Time of Thin Blood has rules for creating new Disciplines, so it's not like the Storyteller is left hanging in that regard if he wants to create new Disciplines for Caine.


We're not talking about fluff here. We're talking about rules.

They are not exclusive to each other, especially in the Storyteller system -

- okay, we have defintiely had this argument before.


Declaring something insurmountable just because shows a glaring disregard for the laws of probability, realism and logical consistency. It makes the universe less realistic because in the Real World, we don't have categorically insurmountable challenges.

Go pick a fight with gravity and try to defeat it. Not subvert it or negotiate your way around it, I mean, defeat gravity itself, throughout the cosmos, in something that could reasonably be called a fight.

Good luck!

Also if you manage to even land a punch, please let Science know, as we still don't actually know, properly speaking, what creates gravity, and frankly Science is embarrassed at this point.


Disregard the fluff about Caine and focus on his mechanics (i.e., "you lose"). How does that *add* anything at all?

Don't forget that his mechanics include the sevenfold curse and the ability to create new Disciplines on the fly at any level, up to and including 10 dots, meaning that he can always have "Plot device" as a power.

It makes him cool.

Subjective, I know. Unfortunately his mechanics exist solely to add to his flavor, since they do intersect -

- okay, that does it, we've had this conversation before over in the 3.X forum. I remember...sorcerers, I think? -

- Anyway, since you are determined to dissasociate the two lest the purity of the crunch become corrupted by the baseness of the fluffy fluffiness, we don't really have much else to talk about here.


Logically speaking, it cannot add anything new because that mechanic has always been at the table. And it detracts options because now there's no way to make it surmountable (aside from houseruling).

God forbid that ever happen. It's not like White Wolf actively encouraged it or anything. Indeed I hear that Black Dog's original purpose was to hunt down people who dared houserule.


Before that publication, the options were open. It could be insurmountable or not, you just had to wait to see what WW published. But when they did, they chose the option that benefited the least amount of players (since making it surmountable benefits both crowds while making it insurmountable benefits only one).

"Don't use Caine" benefits the Storyteller?

...you would have liked official stats for what happens when a character achieves a higher existance, wouldn't you of? I.e., "If the character sees God, she may ask him 1d3 questions."

[Shadowknight12]

Just to throw this out here - the existence of an unbeatable vampire makes the WoD less realistic than the real world? Didn't we already go well past 'less realistic' with the existence of any vampires, let alone unbeatable ones?

There's this wonderful little thing called 'Willing Suspension of Disbelief' which lets us ignore something unrealistic and continue believing the realism of the work as a whole. That's the case with vampires and magic.

"Undefeatable" anything shatters Willing Suspension of Disbelief because it has no logical framework to operate in. It makes no sense in the slightest. How can something be *objectively* undefeatable? The actions that can be taken against a subject are infinite. How do you know with certainty that one of those actions, undertaken by the right people at the right time, won't cause that subject's defeat?

It's exactly like saying "there is no life in outer space." How do you know? Have you explored the infinity of space thoroughly enough that you can make such a categorical statement? No, which is why the correct assertion would be "We have yet to find life in outer space." And in the case of undefeatable enemies, the equivalent would be "We have yet to find a way to defeat him."


"You lose" is about as fluffy as you get. You know, there is an intersect between fluff and crunch, they are not always or even very often inseper -

- wait, something about this statement seems familiar -

- anyway, they are not always or even very often inseperable. Caine is a plot device. Plot devices are fluff. Plot devices can have any mechanical rules the Storyteller wants, because they're plot devices. Not challenges, not monsters, not encounters - plot devices.

Yes, and I don't need a book to tell me what is and what isn't a plot device. I want a book that gives me actual rules, not cheap cop-outs. If I want to make Caine a plot device, that's always been my prerogative. I don't need the designers telling me I should do so. What I need from the designers is to give me that which I cannot create for myself with a good degree of expertise (i.e., rules).


We must also therefore assume - or rather I have to assume because you seem to not want to - that the Storyteller who decided to include Caine has read the available information on Caine in White Wolf's library of books, or at least the major ones, almost all of which boil down to the following:

You do realise that WW is insulting part of its audience with that, don't you? Because they seem to assume that wanting stats for something immediately turns you into a powergamer. And then, what's worse, rather than accepting that part of their audience is like that, they pass judgement over them and purposefully go out of their way to spite them. It's all in keeping with the 'terrible game design' trend of this particular subject. Not only are they making bad mechanic decisions, they're also making bad PR decisions.

I would even go as far as to say that they resemble the typical immature writer with their most beloved creation. They don't accept that the creation is no longer theirs, but belongs to their audience, they act childishly in an attempt to keep their precious from being 'misused.' Ignoring the fact that they're not supposed to care how their audience uses their products. WW was really showing their lack of experience there.


...I sense a certain amount of personal resentment here...was one of your characters once subject to the tender mercies of an Antediluvian or elder god or something by a sadistic GM or something?

Not me, personally, but I've read enough horror stories to see that the last things GM need is official encouragement to be bad GMs.


Also I'd like to point out again that it doesn't really seem to be "the audience," just you. And, like, one other person, IIRC. By and large, as I've pointed out, Caine's status as a badass has reached memetic proportions within the Vampire fanbase and his "You lose" stat.

So you're, like, at best, "vocal minority."

Have you asked every single WW player ever? Or are you just guessing from the posters of a recent thread on an obscure subforum of an obscure subforum of a non-WW-centric forum, plus a 'vocal minority' of people raving about memes?


Yes it did. No other vampire in the game has "You lose" as a power, so clearly that's a power that Caine has that no other vampire has.

We could debate whether that's a power or not. Plot devices aren't part of the rules by their very definition. If they were codified within the rules, they wouldn't be able to function as plot devices.


Also, the sevenfold curse, explained in Gehenna. Although, that's not really a power so much as God laying the smackdown on anyone who tries to lay the smackdown on him.

Which, by the way and again, means any stats for Caine would have had to be accompanied by stats for God. Just try to imagine how well that would have gone over...

Also, as pointed out, Time of Thin Blood has rules for creating new Disciplines, so it's not like the Storyteller is left hanging in that regard if he wants to create new Disciplines for Caine.

I don't see the need to provide stats for God in the slightest. Take divine magic in D&D. Do you need to provide stats for your character's god whenever he casts Holy Word and says that their god is laying the smackdown on them? No, because it's just a way of fluffing the rules. Caine could've worked the same way.


They are not exclusive to each other, especially in the Storyteller system -

- okay, we have defintiely had this argument before.

Probably.


Go pick a fight with gravity and try to defeat it. Not subvert it or negotiate your way around it, I mean, defeat gravity itself, throughout the cosmos, in something that could reasonably be called a fight.

Good luck!

Airplanes. Spacecrafts. Trains that run on magnets. Current anti-gravity projects.

Gravity is being defeated every single time something gets to act without being affected by it. See: all the examples I mentioned above.


Also if you manage to even land a punch, please let Science know, as we still don't actually know, properly speaking, what creates gravity, and frankly Science is embarrassed at this point.

We know what creates gravity. Mass exerts a pull on its surroundings. For most instances of mass, that pull is negligible. For things the size of planets, it becomes actually relevant. We don't know why this happens, but we're getting there.


Don't forget that his mechanics include the sevenfold curse and the ability to create new Disciplines on the fly at any level, up to and including 10 dots, meaning that he can always have "Plot device" as a power.

Sevenfold curse? Fine, I'll take that as an actual rule.

Creating disciplines on the fly? No. That's, again, something the ST could have already achieved without the need to make it 'official'.


It makes him cool.

It makes him lame.


Subjective, I know. Unfortunately his mechanics exist solely to add to his flavor, since they do intersect -

- okay, that does it, we've had this conversation before over in the 3.X forum. I remember...sorcerers, I think? -

- Anyway, since you are determined to dissasociate the two lest the purity of the crunch become corrupted by the baseness of the fluffy fluffiness, we don't really have much else to talk about here.

It was the refluffing thread. We identified two very different camps. Team Jacob and. No, wait. Team Refluffing Is Impossible Because Fluff And Crunch Are The Same and Team Refluffing Is Possible Because Fluff And Crunch Are Divorced.

Catchy names.


God forbid that ever happen. It's not like White Wolf actively encouraged it or anything. Indeed I hear that Black Dog's original purpose was to hunt down people who dared houserule.

You're far closer to the truth than you think.


"Don't use Caine" benefits the Storyteller?

No. Giving you rules for Caine benefits both the crowd that wants surmountable challenges and the crowd that doesn't, because the latter can always replace the rules by 'you lose.'


...you would have liked official stats for what happens when a character achieves a higher existance, wouldn't you of? I.e., "If the character sees God, she may ask him 1d3 questions."

Yes. Because if I'm wasting my time reading a rulebook, I better get something useful out of it, not something I could've already done myself.

[LemuneSD]

Shadowknight12 - Your logic is well thought out and your arguments articulated nicely. You also brought up quite a few interesting points. That being said, I think you are mistaking the essence of the game.

WoD is notorious for saying "You do NOT have to follow our rules if you don't want to." That also includes Caine. They choose to make him undefeatable, because he is essentially a God compared to the players. And unlike D&D, WoD does NOT give stats for their Gods. Werewolf won't give you stats for Gaia or the Wyrm, either. It is within their right to do so, and they regularly state "if you disagree, change the rules. But we won't do it for you."

It isn't to make the players feel cheated. It isn't something they skirt around and don't feel brave enough to touch. They genuinely feel that it is not a good idea.

WoD in essence wants to have a group of players sticking together for a common goal, whatever it may be, and achieve something that only a group can do. Yes, I know you can argue that going against Caine can be a group objective. But if your group goes against the Immortal and wins, that would make THEM gods. That is not what WoD wants for its players. That is perfectly fine in other games, and even for specific players using the WoD system, but WoD as a general rule wants a darker, mortal feel where the player has challenge and constant threat from something bigger.

You defeat Caine, where is the next challenge? OTHER Kindred that can also defeat Caine? Vampire isn't a DBZ. The only WoD game that would probably allow it would be Exalted. You yourself talked about the stats of D&D gods, a game renowned for players going against the deities and winning. But if your particular group feels that it is something they truly want to do, throw out the rules and make up your own, like WoD encourages you to do. If you keep to WoD's flavor then your characters would achieve their ultimate goal, that particular campaing would end, and the Storyteller would have the humongous job of giving you a suitably rewarding ending for your immense efforts to accomplish the insurmountable. If that is what you wish to accomplish, awesome! But again, WoD won't give you specifics on how to do it.

I'm not saying you're wrong in wanting stats for Caine. I'm just saying you're going against what WoD wants the feel of the game to be, and so shouldn't hold it against them for denying published stats.

I forget who originally posted it, and I'm not sorting through all the past comments to quote it, but I agree that the only ones who would actually want to fight defeat Caine (out of game players, not in game character feelings) are power-gamers and Munchkins. The same group that purposefully picks Mages in D&D 3.5 so they can stop the DM from doing his job, then doing it for him. When character abilities go past game-Breaking to game-Making. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, but it is NOT how all gamers feel a campaign should be run.

What about in-game roleplaying? I can easily think of many reasons why a Kindred might want to find, and maybe even kill Caine. Most of the reasons are dramatic. Only one reason though, that I can think of, to think not only does he stand a chance, but he can calculate statistical probabilities (meaning checking out the stats of Caine). And that sole reason is "Because I can. Because I'm that awesome."

Edit: I also want to note that in each of the oWoD's ending books, they give multiple, possible conclusions to the series. The book Gehenna has 4 endings. None distinct enough to give the players actual statistics, but guidelines to follow if a group so chooses. This shows that oWoD wants you, as players, to do what they want.

[Rogue Shadows]

EDIT

I'm actually just going to delete my post that was formerly here and direct you, ShadowKnight, to the above post. It is better than mine.