Vampire: The Masquarade also Bloodlines Two (2) 2020 edition

[Takeguru]

Bottom post of the previous page:

But that's boring
The apparent insanity, even if it skirts the line of being lolsorandumb, makes it fun

[cedarbridge]

But that's boring
The apparent insanity, even if it skirts the line of being lolsorandumb, makes it fun

Though I'd be amused to see some sort of fish joke pop up somewhere, I doubt they'd do it. The BL1 references to confusion and lolrandum were decently interesting (Talking to a stop sign, interrogating the newsreader on the TV, that sort of thing.)

That said, the interviews with the story writer have been riding the lines of "old malks were insensitive." This is what is giving people pause to wonder if they'll water them down to file off some of the edges.

[Lumbermancer]

well at least you can be a transvamp now

[Screemonster]

well at least you can be a transvamp now

baby I don't care

[Lumbermancer]

>he doesn't care about Velvet

[Screemonster]

> he doesn't recognise the title or how it relates to his post

Spoiler:

[youtube]r26krlXFmOI[/youtube]

[Lumbermancer]

i beg forgiveness

[Drynwyn]

That [Soapboxing about politics in video games] tends to be a bad sign

I mean, my World of Darkness tabletop game was HEAVILY motivated by my politics, and you seemed to enjoy that!

That said: WoD has always been a pretty political game- the three main vampire factions are extraordinarily transparent metaphors for existing political ideologies. (I mean, shit, one of the Anarchs in the original was running around in a che guevara hat if I recall correctly) "How do you cope and survive individually in the context of a system whose primary players are all grotesque" is the big question of the games. And given the increasing relevance of that question- I'd be frankly disappointed if it wasn't making a clear political point.

[Whoisthere]

I'm here to shill Clan Quest Mod for the first Bloodlines. In case you didn't play it already, you can join Sabbat and diablerize dorks, and the Sabbat part is done pretty well, in my opinion. Joined for diablerie stayed for the plot/characters. Evil, but not cartoonish - heck, Andrei the tzimisce looks cartoonish compared to Sabbat pack leaders. Non-sabbat-related content is good too.

[Screemonster]

That said: WoD has always been a pretty political game

reminder that changeling the dreaming literally had a thing in its history called the "night of iron knives" in which the sidhe conducted a purge of commoner leaders and sparked off a civil war

[cedarbridge]

That [Soapboxing about politics in video games] tends to be a bad sign

I mean, my World of Darkness tabletop game was HEAVILY motivated by my politics, and you seemed to enjoy that!

That said: WoD has always been a pretty political game- the three main vampire factions are extraordinarily transparent metaphors for existing political ideologies. (I mean, shit, one of the Anarchs in the original was running around in a che guevara hat if I recall correctly) "How do you cope and survive individually in the context of a system whose primary players are all grotesque" is the big question of the games. And given the increasing relevance of that question- I'd be frankly disappointed if it wasn't making a clear political point.

You're mixing metaphors though. Nobody is claiming that WoD doesn't have internal political elements. That was a lot of what made Bloodlines interesting to begin with: factions politicking each other and the player as a sort of go-between patsy. People just get turned off quickly by injections of current events that will age poorly or just exist to draw attention to the writer's personal political faction.

Like that uncle at dinner who can't go three minutes into the potatoes without talking about his own personal politics.

[Grazyn]

What exactly is gonna age poorly? Sex/gender politics, which have been around since the sixties, order vs anarchy, left vs right?

[Super Aggro Crag]

Considering a recent WOD book revealed that Gamergayte was actually created by a female hacker internet beast who wanted to farm the alt-right so she could eat them: that

[Malkevin]

Rebecca Watson?
Yeah, I heard she sucks.

[cedarbridge]

What exactly is gonna age poorly? Sex/gender politics, which have been around since the sixties, order vs anarchy, left vs right?

Watchdogs 2-tier "orange-man-but-not-in-name bad" references, unironic deferences to Gamergate, etc

Devs have been doing that shit for years and its all very tedious and tiresome. You can have factional politics without injecting political events from the C U R R E N T Y E A R into the game too.

[Super Aggro Crag]

grazyns just gonna be like but that stuff is AWESOME are you just MAD be cause it DISAGREES WITH YOU like usual because his entire personality is being a contrarian pasta pounding fettuccine faggot

[Grazyn]

What exactly is gonna age poorly? Sex/gender politics, which have been around since the sixties, order vs anarchy, left vs right?

Watchdogs 2-tier "orange-man-but-not-in-name bad" references, unironic deferences to Gamergate, etc

Devs have been doing that shit for years and its all very tedious and tiresome. You can have factional politics without injecting political events from the C U R R E N T Y E A R into the game too.

I'm not saying it's necessarily good, I can see how negative references to those things can be annoying to some. But if Trump's presidency is really gonna have a GREAT impact on America with lasting consequences, I doubt those references to current events will age poorly. Imagine an early 2000s game not mentioning the war on terror, or a game set in the 60s not referencing the cold war, civil rights issues etc.
It's hard to see History when you're inside it.

[Lumbermancer]

Did you just compare Trump to Cold War?

[cedarbridge]

What exactly is gonna age poorly? Sex/gender politics, which have been around since the sixties, order vs anarchy, left vs right?

Watchdogs 2-tier "orange-man-but-not-in-name bad" references, unironic deferences to Gamergate, etc

Devs have been doing that shit for years and its all very tedious and tiresome. You can have factional politics without injecting political events from the C U R R E N T Y E A R into the game too.

I'm not saying it's necessarily good, I can see how negative references to those things can be annoying to some. But if Trump's presidency is really gonna have a GREAT impact on America with lasting consequences, I doubt those references to current events will age poorly. Imagine an early 2000s game not mentioning the war on terror, or a game set in the 60s not referencing the cold war, civil rights issues etc.
It's hard to see History when you're inside it.

Lots of early 2000s games managed to not mention terrorism at all.

Also, saying "its hard to see history when you're inside it" is all the more reason to stop injecting personal politics into things. What you think is a /big deal/ often isn't and just ends up coming out as obnoxious.

[Malkevin]

Yeah, 2000s were just nazi or alien shooters for the most part
Wasn't until the 2010s that BLOODY SCREEN SO REAL sandpeople shooters became big

[Grazyn]

Wut, I'm talking about games with a contemporary setting, like this one. Of course sci fi or WW2 games wouldn't have you killing brown people, don't be dense. Wasn't the first modern warfare before 2010, with much of the plot being faux Iraq invasion? What about soldier of fortune, which was even earlier? Splinter cell? I recall middle eastern terrorism being a big thing with fps and action games in that period

[Super Aggro Crag]

grazyn obviously never played any of those games because you fought russian supercommies in those games, and this was pre-2016 when the Powers that Be decided the Cold War Was Back On because ITS HER TURN

[Grazyn]

I played soldier of fortune and I recall literally seeing SADDAM FUCKING HUSSEIN through my sniper optics, the fuck are you on?

[Super Aggro Crag]

Soldier of fortune came out before the iraq war dumpass

[Malkevin]

I remember the first SoF being shooting neo-nazis then africans and then russians
Second one was shooting Cold War Commies, then South Americans (in a war on drugs, another 80s reference), then nipps.

[Grazyn]

Soldier of fortune came out before the iraq war dumpass

Holy shit do you think the war on terror happened in a vacuum? Do you even know that your country bombed Baghdad in '98/99 or so?

inb4 "We bomb so many countries it's hard to keep track"

[Malkevin]

Keep moving the goal posts spaghettio

[Grazyn]

My goal post is "it's normal for games with a contemporary setting to reference contemporary events" and you're nitpicking the examples I pulled from memory while missing the bigger picture. Yes, SoF had some missions set in Iraq despite being released before the 2003 Iraq war, because Iraq instability was very much relevant even then. Duh, you wouldn't have invaded it a couple years later if it wasn't, despite it being completely unrelated to 9/11. Speaking of SoF, one of the first missions was set in Kosovo, another C U R R E N T E V E N T which I guess aged very poorly according to your argument.

[Super Aggro Crag]

Soldier of fortune came out before the iraq war dumpass

Holy shit do you think the war on terror happened in a vacuum? Do you even know that your country bombed Baghdad in '98/99 or so?

inb4 "We bomb so many countries it's hard to keep track"

In 99 i was playing Unreal Tournament, a game in which, surprisingly enough, they dont mention Iraq OR the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal.

Coincidentally UT is still installed on my PC and I go back and play it frequently.

[Grazyn]

Super Mario 64 came out in 96 and didn't feature the Srebrenica Massacre, I guess my argument is void

[cedarbridge]

You're all kinda missing the point of my original post though. Its entirely possible (as Bloodlines 1 and multitudes of games have already) do inter-group politics in contemporary settings without a need to go full fucking Cliffy B: https://img.fireden.net/v/image/1502/34 ... 991867.png

[Grazyn]

You're all kinda missing the point of my original post though. Its entirely possible (as Bloodlines 1 and multitudes of games have already) do inter-group politics in contemporary settings without a need to go full fucking Cliffy B: https://img.fireden.net/v/image/1502/34 ... 991867.png

Yeah that's a bad way to insert a reference. Because he took a current event, then used it to create a situation which is the complete opposite of it. If the government is banning transgender bathrooms NOW, why would you have them in the FUTURE? If anything, you could use it to describe a future where lgbt people are put in death camps or something.

That's not what bloodlines seems to be doing. First of all, it's set in the present. And the "I identify with an attack helicopter" people may be weird and mentally ill, but they still exist right now. So making references to them or their lifestyle, how it may create conflict with normal people etc... isn't a stretch, it's just something that is happening in our time.

[Takeguru]

The point is, modern devs love to insert references that aren't going to age well at all
Until proven otherwise, I'm fully expecting an evil orange vampire with a weird haircut, trying his best to hoard money to build a wall to keep werewolves out

[Anonmare]

Remember when werewolves had to fuck actual wolves to make more werewolves? They need to be kept out the mangy mutts

[XSI]

That [Soapboxing about politics in video games] tends to be a bad sign

I mean, my World of Darkness tabletop game was HEAVILY motivated by my politics, and you seemed to enjoy that!

That said: WoD has always been a pretty political game- the three main vampire factions are extraordinarily transparent metaphors for existing political ideologies. (I mean, shit, one of the Anarchs in the original was running around in a che guevara hat if I recall correctly) "How do you cope and survive individually in the context of a system whose primary players are all grotesque" is the big question of the games. And given the increasing relevance of that question- I'd be frankly disappointed if it wasn't making a clear political point.

Bit late because the forum gave me shit not resetting my password until now(And I haven't bothered to check the games section for a while)
But there's the thing

I trust you to do the politics in a reasonable way, and my trust there was correct
I don't trust modern game devs, as they have a history of being as subtle as a sledgehammer with the design skill of a toddler

[Shadowflame909]

Oh no my fun soap opera vampire game is involving real world politics

this is gonna be dated or bad

hopefully not both

[Anonmare]

I miss Vampire being about the personal horror of a kindred, what they've become, the predatations of vampire society and the things they need to do to survive. I hate superheroes with fangs

[Drynwyn]

I miss Vampire being about the personal horror of a kindred, what they've become, the predatations of vampire society and the things they need to do to survive. I hate superheroes with fangs

I mean in fairness the 'a game of personal horror' concept was fucked from the beginning because the devs didn't understand the tabletop game they'd made. The unspoken assumptions of the mechanics just don't support telling that kind of story (though later editions of the game are much better at it).

If you want a game of personal horror go play Wraith: The Oblivion, the mechanics there actually support it


Unrelated hot take: references to current politics and events as side moments in games are fine, if not particularly inspired. They rarely shed light on new perspectives and tend to unsubtly push a viewpoint, but sometimes subtlety is not desirable and expressing a viewpoint is part and parcel of storytelling. Even if WoD isn't saying 'orange man bad' directly it's never been a secret that it pushes left-leaning and broadly anti-authoritarian viewpoints, and there's nothing wrong with that. If you disagree with that viewpoint then don't buy the game or argue with the games message rather than whinging that it shouldn't have disagreed with you in the first place. games are art, art is political, political things will sometimes disagree with you.

that said using present day political events as primary loci of conflict date the game pretty quickly/raise constant suspension of disbelief issues because functional solutions to complex systemic issues are very rarely the sort of thing that is engaging to depict in a vidya.

man I should write a guide to putting present-day politics in your tabletop campaign without making a farce of it

also @whoever told me I was confusing terms: there's no real difference between examining the underlying issues of today's politics vs. referencing specific political events, one is just significantly less subtle/more dated. personally i prefer to work at a remove, but there's no particular reason not to reference or directly parallel present-day events other than the aforementioned suspension of disbelief issues (and, arguably, a drop in persuasive effectiveness because you get the people who disagree with you's hackles up and they don't consider your viewpoint)

[Grazyn]

Wait a second, how did you guys even come up with this thing about devs referencing specific current political events? All I found in this thread was this (which sparked the whole argument)

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ ... AAj7x8.png

all it says here is that devs are going to take a "political" stance in the themes of "art vs commerce" and "technological advance vs tradition". That's hardly current politics and not even very original, still better than the usual "authority vs anarchy" (seen thousands of times in vidya and will surely be referenced here as well).
Then it goes on to say you can customize your character in a variety of ways and choose pronouns. People do that in real life, so why wouldn't you be able to do it in the game? That's not politics.

There's a line about White Wolf referencing the "current event" of homosexuals being persecuted in Chechnya, that's a good point so I looked it up and found this (from the tabletop sourcebook)

Spoiler:

“Despite its infamy,” the section continues, “almost no mortals knows [sic] the truth about Chechnya or how it has become an undead refuge, a homeland for Kindred, where vampires not only rule with absolute authority but can exist in the open.”
"The recurring international controversy over the persecution of homosexuals is a clever media manipulation designed to keep the focus on Sharia law, away from the true inner workings of the republic. While homosexuals are indeed held in detention facilities for days, and humiliated, starved, tortured, and eventually fed upon and killed, this is not the point. The point is to distract from the truth of what Chechnya has become. That said, even among the Kindred [vampires of the Camarilla] any kind of “homosexual behavior” is punished harshly. ... There is unfortunately nothing we can do for our brothers and sisters in Chechnya who suffer under this — interference is ill-advised at this point, but should any Kindred (or even kine [mortals]) seek asylum within regnums under our control, granting it may win allies to our side who are not just well-trained in combat and thankful to us, but also knowledgeable in the ways of a people who might already be preparing to attack us."

And here I agree with you in saying "WHAT WERE THEY THINKING" because holy shit that's bad. It's really distateful to take a tragic current event about people being imprisoned, tortured and killed and use it this way. "Persecution of gays in Chechnya is actually a cover-up for vampires doing their nasty things in the open" eugh

[ThanatosRa]

Its definitely in incredibly bad taste.


But they ARE monsters. Even then you don't fucking do this. There are other ways to write something like this that doesn't exploit such suffering.

[Anonmare]

Wait one french toasting minute, why the flying fuck would the cammies give a shit about homosexuality? Vampires have zero sex drive, none, zil, nothing. It is a null value. Seduction is just a means to an end and that end is usually to get the next fresh fix of blood. That flies in absolute defiance of the lore, Vampires don't give a fuck if you like men or women, least of all the Camarilla - most are too focused on the Jyhad. Hell, Vampires would be *encouraging* homosexual acceptance as it means they attract less attention when feeding on the same gender.

If you want to make a political parable, fine, but at the very least respect the damn lore and don't make the vamps act like retards, the cammies are insular and bound by tradition sure - but those traditions make sense.

[Super Aggro Crag]

you could fuck in bloodlines 1

[Anonmare]

you could fuck in bloodlines 1

You could, but it was explicit in that there was zero pleasure for the PC. Vampires can't feel pleasures like kine can anymore, conversely, drinking blood is like having sex while snorting a line of cocaine, eating your favourite meal and drinking your favourite drink all at once. Everything a vampire does is for the pursuit of blood, even Elders, Methuselahs and Antideluvians need blood and they're double fucked in they need to feed on other vampires. Hell, Methuselahs can only feed on other Elder vampires and Antideluvians can only feed on Methuselahs, and because drinking another vampire's blood can bind you to that vampire - they feed until their victim's drained completely and not risk becoming bonded to them.

Vamp society is pretty cannibalistic in both the figurative and literal sense.

[srifenbyxp]

I'm going full fishmalk.