nockermensch wrote:
There has to be some explanation of why the clans ended with their recognizable roles, tho.
I don't even care if the explanation is "pure social inertia". Some Ventrue in the past went into finance and the simple realities of networking means they're still strong in this area today. It can be just that, but it should be spelled out, so that people can play in type, or against type, and it makes sense.
Just having different powers is going to necessarily mean that there will be types that are better at being specific roles. While I think it's a good idea to make sure that whatever roles you envision are
potentially playable with all the magic types, there are going to be synergies and costs and there will be things that line up and things that don't. Which is basically a tautology, but let's discuss how that works for a bit.
Consider Werewolf. Not the dog fucking part, the part where there are moon based character classes. I can't remember what the waxing and waning moon classes did because no one fucking cares, but the full moon type was the "warrior" the half moon type was the "face" and the new moon was the "rogue." But here's the thing: all of those fuckers still are werewolves and have the power to turn into a 3 meter tall wolf monster. This means regardless of whether you're a Rogue archetype
Werewolf, you're still able to fight better than a Masquerade Vampire just based on the fact that you can turn into a monster and bite peoples' faces off. The Warrior
archetype of Werewolf makes them
better at fighting, and whether that matters or not depends on the opposition.
In Dungeons & Dragons the ability to be better at your main shtick in exchange for being worse at some secondary shtick is almost always a good deal. On the flip side, being worse at your main shtick in exchange for having some secondary shtick is almost always a bad deal. That's because tasks are level gated, and the ability to do better than your level at the tasks you're supposed to contribute to is really noticeable while the ability to attempt other tasks at a below level appropriate rate is essentially meaningless. It doesn't fucking matter how good your Barbarian is at Diplomacy because the party is going to shake the Bard at the problem regardless. And it doesn't matter how good at stabbing things your Wizard is, because the party wants you casting spells during Combat and not poking things with a stick. But in a modern setting skill based game there is no level gating. Combat and Stealth and Social challenges are simply around in the city and there's no specific level that the party is supposed to be in order to tackle them or order that that they must be attempted in. This means that the question "Should I invest in being even better at biting peoples' faces off or should I get better at hot wiring cars?" is not a question that has an easy answer.
The core issue is what opposition you're going to engage with. It's entirely possible that being a Werewolf and having some baseline combat skill is pretty much "enough" and that more stat points you put into Strength is essentially wasted. In such a scenario a Werewolf is better off being a wizard or a lawyer or something and contributing to non-combat encounters with the rest of their spells and skills. On the other hand, it's possible that you'll be up against enemy Leather Faces that are tougher than a baseline Werewolf and you'd better learn some time magic and strength boosting so that you can fight at that level.
In short, in a skill based system there isn't a consistent answer as to whether playing to type or playing against type is "better." It's answerable for any particular campaign, but isn't answerable for the game as a whole. And that fact has been mistaken by many people for the idea that World of Darkness was "balanced" or that it supported all kinds of characters. Those were definitely not true. It's just that without knowing a lot more about the expected opposition in your particular game I couldn't tell you which of many possible character types were non-viable.
You can definitely do better. But I still think you're going to find a situation where some tables will legitimately find that Werewolves are useless unless they are Warrior archetype and other tables will equally legitimately find that Werewolves are wasted in the Warrior archetype and should be literally anything else.
-Username17