What would it take to make VTM 5e not garbage?

[maglag]

Eeerr, isn't it kinda the RPG default that the PCs have super potential but are still thrown into the wild to fend for themselves? Even pokemon has moms kicking their 10 year old kids out of the house to go fight wild monsters and living in the wilderness.

Or regular D&D where clerics and druids and whatnot are supposed to belong to a faith/cult but don't really have any responsabilities and don't need to worry about holding ceremonies or cleaning the church grounds every new moon and can just go smash goblin face for their personal fame and fortune.

[Whipstitch]

I like oWoD's "Prince's approval" setup quite a bit and I think it checks enough boxes that I'm not really in a rush to mess with it too much, especially since the practical flaws of such a setup are easily converted into plot hooks. Remember that Vampires are still people at the end of the day and people are often somewhat blasé about existential but manageable dangers and we're demonstrably not above some brinkmanship. So politically there'd be plenty of reason to think that vampiric minority parties would chafe against heavy handed restrictions on siring childer on the grounds that they want more vampires who think like they do around. Neonates are a danger, sure, but they're also an opportunity so newbie vampires are likely plied with carrots and taken to fancy parties as often as they're micromanaged and threatened with sticks.

[Username17]

Obviously you'd want a system in which young vampires were assigned to a group of similarly young vampires of about 3 to 8 and told to help each other out and complete missions for the city in order to be initiated into the higher mysteries of the vampire conspiracy. Because it's a fucking role playing game and you want the players to have an in-world reason to stick together and go on missions together.

-Username17

[Thaluikhain]

Ok, it'd be a hell of a departure from existing VTM, but the solution that immediately comes to mind...you know how the most profitable fantasy franchise is currently (IIRC), Harry Potter? And the Vampire Academy books did pretty well (not the movie), and Monster High is still going?

Um, anyhoo, going back a bit. Frank pointed out the importance of not having racist stereotypes a few pages back, I'd also add the common theme of claiming your vampires are metaphors for minorities being oppressed, only your vampires are a terrible blight upon humanity, and are seriously powerful, monsters who easily can (and do) kill lots of people for no good reason. That's not particularly good social commentary.

(Also, if it's supposedly a metaphor for LGBT people, but some decent LGBT characters in. Looking at you, Charlaine Harris)

[Whipstitch]

Obviously you'd want a system in which young vampires were assigned to a group of similarly young vampires of about 3 to 8 and told to help each other out and complete missions for the city in order to be initiated into the higher mysteries of the vampire conspiracy. Because it's a fucking role playing game and you want the players to have an in-world reason to stick together and go on missions together.

-Username17

Yeah, I consider it a solved problem, basically. Character advancement is already tied more to having crazy adventures than raw age so even if a group doesn't have an older NPC checking up on them like some kind of quest giver parole officer there's still no real reason why one of the PCs can't be nominally older and charged with showing the new kids how to find the bursar's office. The only bit of coterie building I ever found troublesome is the whole bit where the Clan fluff is sometimes at odds with running the almost inevitably mixed bag of sheets the players will bring to the table.

[Longes]

Um, anyhoo, going back a bit. Frank pointed out the importance of not having racist stereotypes a few pages back, I'd also add the common theme of claiming your vampires are metaphors for minorities being oppressed, only your vampires are a terrible blight upon humanity, and are seriously powerful, monsters who easily can (and do) kill lots of people for no good reason. That's not particularly good social commentary.

(Also, if it's supposedly a metaphor for LGBT people, but some decent LGBT characters in. Looking at you, Charlaine Harris)

Boy, did Beast: the Primordial slammed its face into this wall hard. B:tP wants you to think that it's a game about oppressed minorities suffering under the yoke of white cis males, MRA gamergaters, Heroes. What B:tP really is is a game about being an abuser.

And yes, B:tP explicitly coded its villains as MRA gamergaters.

[Prak]

That's interesting, Longes. Looking into B:tP a bit makes me kind of want to run a game that is specifically about "afflicting the comfortable" and avoiding being abusers. It seems that may have been the intent, but I'm looking at wiki and TV Tropes pages, not the primary source, so I can't say.

[Longes]

Beasts are people who sold their souls to an alien dreamspace horror and got fancy powers from that. In return, Beasts have to feed said horror by inflicting pain and suffering on people. This can range from keying someone's car to feed your hunger for destruction, to stealing shit to feed your hunger for the hoard, to being an obstructive bureaucrat to feed your hunger for power. Feeding generally involves the target suffering an Integrity break, but high level feeding requires murder.

Beasts have an in-universe rationalization for feeding that they are "teaching lessons" to people by scaring the shit out of them, but you explicitly don't have to teach shit, and lessons can be completely arbitrary. One of the Beasts in the book hunts bad tippers. The example of feeding is a character poisoning a frat boy and choking him in his own vomit for the evil crime of stealing halloween candy. Another example is a pair of beasts tag teaming - one keeps a treasure hidden in a cave and spreads rumors to attract people and feed on their greed, another murders them for the crime of trying to take that treasure and thus feeds his hunger for punishment. It may sound like entrapment, because it literally is.

But what's really damning is that the writer of Beast, Matt McFarland, got called out as a child molester. It's a book about abusers written by an abuser and couched in justifications for abuse.

[Prak]

Welp, there's another reason for me to rip out the concept and rebuild it as a one off about using supernatural monster powers to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.

[Thaluikhain]

But what's really damning is that the writer of Beast, Matt McFarland, got called out as a child molester. It's a book about abusers written by an abuser and couched in justifications for abuse.

Ok...I just thought of another thing V:TM should avoid.

As a related aside, I always thought a creature that fed of fear and suffering could just always see the latest slasher film on release night when the theatres are packed. Having to cause suffering...well, who get to decide the cause of things? People argue over that all the time.

[hyzmarca]

Beast the Primordial was sold as Otherkin Godzilla. It really doesn't meet that premise at all. Instead of Godzilla: The SKREEEONGK its just Jerk:The Jerkening.

"You're a giant monster from before the dawn of humanity, live out your sociopathic power fantasies." Is a hard premise to screw up. Beast fails because it's married to the idea of lower power levels and relevant social situations. So instead of smashing Tokyo, you end up being a school shooter.

I've seen a couple dozen suggestions for fixing Beast. The ones that don't involve playing as Heroes (The designated antagonists) suggest upping the power scale to Tokyo smashing. Not even intentional Tokyo smashing, but more like you're walking to the 7/11 to pick out some snacks and skyscrapers start falling around you because you're just that powerful. No need to feed on fear and suffering, just Godzilla trying to work a normal 9-5 job without accidentally stepping on his coworkers. And then Rhodan shows up and starts shit.

[Omegonthesane]

But what's really damning is that the writer of Beast, Matt McFarland, got called out as a child molester. It's a book about abusers written by an abuser and couched in justifications for abuse.

Ok...I just thought of another thing V:TM should avoid.

As a related aside, I always thought a creature that fed of fear and suffering could just always see the latest slasher film on release night when the theatres are packed. Having to cause suffering...well, who get to decide the cause of things? People argue over that all the time.

Clearly the Sabbat Toreador have been commissioned to kill the slasher movie industry as a plot to drive Beasts out of their havens for easy disposal.

...oh shit, BTP was the no-setting WoD wasn't it.

[Mord]

That's interesting, Longes. Looking into B:tP a bit makes me kind of want to run a game that is specifically about "afflicting the comfortable" and avoiding being abusers. It seems that may have been the intent, but I'm looking at wiki and TV Tropes pages, not the primary source, so I can't say.

The FATAL & Friends review of Beast is quite thorough at explaining how and why Beast is a disgusting pile of feces.

[Username17]

As horrible as Beast is, I think it's important to remember that it's not actually a part of the World of Darkness at all and was never even sold as such. It's a "Chronicles of Darkness" game, which is a thing where Onyx Path charges authors money to advertise their kickstarters. Everything about Beast is horrible, including the author, but it's also a triviality. It's the terrible kickstarter project of a terrible person and it was only lent any legitimacy by the fact that said terrible person was mysteriously allowed to be a moderator on rpg.net.

So no, you wouldn't "rewrite the concept." The concept is stupid and terrible. You wouldn't rewrite the concept of FATAL or RaHoWa either.

But equally, the failures of Beast - and they are numerous - don't really have anything to do with rebooting Vampire or making a new World of Darkness game generally.

-Username17

[Prak]

I meant rip out the concept where you have the soul of a kraken or a dragon or whatever, leave the other shit there as I use AS' system to make a self contained game about godzilla kin antifa and bikers against child abuse.

[Omegonthesane]

I'm confused that the writer felt it necessary to make Heroes have to have low Integrity to the point of ceasing to be "Heroes" on getting Integrity 4, since that stat isn't your Morality stat in the version of CoD core that was actually published under that name. Works more like sanity.

[Longes]

I'm confused that the writer felt it necessary to make Heroes have to have low Integrity to the point of ceasing to be "Heroes" on getting Integrity 4, since that stat isn't your Morality stat in the version of CoD core that was actually published under that name. Works more like sanity.

There's a paragraph in the book that Heroes can have Integrity above 4, but those Heroes know to shut up and take it like a good boy, so Beasts never identify them.

[Wiseman]

That's interesting, Longes. Looking into B:tP a bit makes me kind of want to run a game that is specifically about "afflicting the comfortable" and avoiding being abusers. It seems that may have been the intent, but I'm looking at wiki and TV Tropes pages, not the primary source, so I can't say.

The FATAL & Friends review of Beast is quite thorough at explaining how and why Beast is a disgusting pile of feces.

I'm working on a concept that's similar to the concept of Beast, with similar creatures embodying humanities primal fears and urges who want to keep humanity afraid and in the dark. Difference is they're the bad guys.

[Whipstitch]

Creepy stuff aside one of my biggest issues with Beast is that disproportionate response & poetic injustice are such classic examples of stock villainy that it feels kinda dumb to try to write an entirely new splatbook that tries to own that territory within one broad supernatural type. I mean, ffs, if you want Faustian bargains and Monkey's Paw scenarios you could already go with evil fairies, demons and djinn instead. Likewise an murderous avenger could very plausibly be a poltergeist haunting an ancient burial ground, a recently unearthed golem or a witch's curse. Seriously, just go nuts; there's so much source material to mine that nobody will even find it weird as long as you can avoid obvious pitfalls like writing apologetics for Pennywise the Clown.

[Username17]

The FATAL & Friends review of Beast is quite thorough at explaining how and why Beast is a disgusting pile of feces.

Thorough yes, effective no.

That rant had several really big problems:

• Giant block quoting. Like, what the fuck levels of block quoting. I understand that it's a Chronicles of Darkness book, and one of the signature facts of that is that it is something close to half a million fucking words, so I'm sure the amount of quoted text is some shockingly small percent of the original work. But it's still an absurd amount of shitty text. You can get across the fact that the text is horrible by just quoting a few horrible things. Nothing is gained by graphically representing the enormous amount of fucking filler text by actually quoting enormous amounts of filler text. For fuck's sake. The review as a whole is unreadable, and can only be skimmed.
• Inconsistent Voice. Outside the blockquotes I can rarely tell when the author is straightforwardly reporting what the book says in perplexingly thorough fashion and when he's editorializing. Often he switches from one to the other and back again within the same paragraph with no warning. This makes it really hard to tell what parts are actually worth reading - since I'm already skimming the TL;DR block quotes. More importantly, since the author is frequently sarcastic, it is often hard to tell whether a sentence is the author saying what the book says or making fun of what the book says.
• Trivial Bullshit. Chronicles of Darkness games are really bad. Like, they were so bad that they destroyed White Wolf and then destroyed the table top gaming arm of the company that bought White Wolf's IP. No right minded person is going to play any CoD game in modern nights, and the impetus to not play fucking Beast is higher still. So no one gives a shit about individual die roll modifiers to specific tests or the XP costs of whatever the fuck or really any of this shit. Just give us the failure points and don't dryly report a bunch of extraneous bullshit no one cares about.
• Questionable Authorial Competence. With so much of the text taken up with literal copypasta and so little given over to analysis, it's very difficult to tell whether and how much one should be giving credence to the analytical skills of the author. Sure, often you get some looooooong piece of quoted text followed by a one sentence judgement that you could rationally agree or disagree with, but as mentioned earlier you often get a one sentence description of a section followed by a one sentence hot take. How accurate are those? To be honest, I don't have a lot of faith in these hot takes because a lot of them that I can double check seem to be pretty dumb. There's one where he talks about how badass it is to have a magic power that is the equivalent of a kind of shitty gun that never runs out of ammo - but guns suck in Chronicles of Darkness because of the fact that Save or Lose effects just work and it takes a lot of success accumulation to drop fools with weapon attacks. Also, no one ever runs out of ammo in that fucking game because fights don't last many rounds and you need a special merit to fire two bullets a turn. But I had misgivings right from the get-go because he straight up says that Demon was released to universal acclaim. This is... not true. Demon has a very small number of people who even know that it exists, and despite the massive overhaul of the system, the contention that "nWoD is still shit" was so close to universal that the gameline and the company that spawned it is still dead.

-Username17

[Longes]

Frank, Chronicles of Darkness haven't killed anything because CoD was released long after White Wolf died. Chronicles of Darkness is the second edition of nWoD, and it has some genuine improvements, like linear xp costs post chargen. It's still fundamentally nWoD but slightly less shit.

[Whipstitch]

I did get a hearty chuckle when the author wrote "near universal acclaim and several positive reviews." That shit sounds like a pointedly disingenuous John Cleese line.

I think what bothers me the most about the article though is how it expresses a lot of disgust but never really engages with the inherent dilemmas involved in writing edgelord games about characters who are bad people.

[Wiseman]

Beast is certainly worth an OSSR here.

[hyzmarca]

I did get a hearty chuckle when the author wrote "near universal acclaim and several positive reviews." That shit sounds like a pointedly disingenuous John Cleese line.

I think what bothers me the most about the article though is how it expresses a lot of disgust but never really engages with the inherent dilemmas involved in writing edgelord games about characters who are bad people.

Writing edgelord games about characters who are bad people is easy. Gary Gygax did it in 1974. That's easy. People will uncritically buy into basic premise conceits like "you break into people's houses, kill them, and steal their stuff, but it's okay because they're exotic foreigners."

If you want to play Sopranos: The RPG, then you just have to say "Sopranos: The RPG" and people will get that you aren't nice guys.


Dungeons and Dragons chose not to engage with the moral hypocrisy of he premise and just ignores it. That's okay.

Vampire chose to only engage with the moral hypocrisy of the premise, and eventually striped themselves down to engaging with nothing but the moral hypocrisy of the premise. The former is cool, the latter is really depressing.

Beast chose to buy into the moral hypocrisy. And that's terrible. Not only that, it added moral hypocrisy to buy into where the premise required none. There's really nothing in the premise of Otherkin Mythological Monsters that requires feeding on human suffering.

[Whipstitch]

I hear ya. I just feel like the uncritical route often doesn't serve us very well and if there's anything I've learned from White Wolf it's that people are often quick to mind caulk things in ways I never saw coming. The topic is probably less interesting than I'm giving it credit for, but frankly I don't think it's very hard to top a wall of FauxWoD block quotes, so I thought I'd bring it up.