u/Xenobsidian

Here is the next part about my thoughts and complicated feelings toward the V6 plattest. This time it’s humanity, which, for some reason, is talked about a lot recently.

To make it short it’s… it’s… damned, I can’t make it short and I have more feelings about that than I have a clear cut opinion. In my overview I mentioned that I am not the biggest fan of this version of humanity and like many other reviewers I said, that it does not feel like VtM to me. But to me there is a bit more to it, because I think they missed something and therefore walked in a weird direction with it.

First of all, I’m not entirely against the concept of a scale and the effects of balance or unbalance between two extrem poles. This would be silly, because this concept was actually already done in multiple WhiteWolf Games (Werewolf the Forsaken’s Harmony for example) and even VtM did it at least twice. But that is also what makes me spiral due to the way this is presented.

The concept of balancing between a monstrous and a rational part was a huge aspect of Kindred of the East. There characters have to deal with their animalistic P’o and their rational Hun. Balance is an option but leaning hard in to either of the sides and accepting the advantages and disadvantages that comes with this are all states of being for an eastern vampire. This of cause leans heavily in to the orientalist stereotype of a philosophy build around the concept of balance, but it shifted the downward spiral of falling to the beast in to kind of a decision you can make and even change, since you were allowed to change your Darma (or path of enlightenment for a lag of a better word) and your cardinal virtue with it. You were rational, or a beast or something in between, because it was what made the most sense to you in this specific stage of your unlife and you basically just had to keep it up.

Some may argue, that kindred of the east, while a VtM supplement, contrary to the name, does not present kindred and therefore you can’t compare their virtues with those of Caine‘s children. So well then, let’s look at the other example I mentioned, which probably most people haven’t even red: Kindred of the Ebony Kingdom. Other than KotE‘s Kui-Jin, KotEK‘s Laibon are actually considered to be related to the western kindred. Some are 1:1 VtM Clans with just different names and others are Bloodline variants with a twist, but which you could, for the most part, clearly identify. That means functionally they are Kindred in any meaningful way, even though they call the first vampire Cagn instead of Caine. There is one thing, though, the Laibon are different to other Kindred, and that is their philosophy. Instead of a regular humanity tracker they use two opposed sets of rules simultaneously (kind of like having two paths of enlightenment at the same time: Orun and Aye.

Orun (haven) represents their relationship to spirituality and spirits and the divine, Aye (earth) their relationship to the physical world. Interestingly Laibon could not only prefer one over the other, they can also level up both or loose levels in both. So you can end up with being low in one and high in the other or low or high in both which determined a bunch of effects and how others perceived you.

But here is the important part: it is heavily implied, that this concept is the actual metaphysical truth behind humanity and the beast and that western vampires are just to superficial and ignorant to understand it. If I would assume that the developers of V6 have actually paid attention to this, I would wonder if the story behind the new humanity system is, that suddenly all kindred had some kind of revelation and suddenly understood the duality between their animalistic and high rational side and therefore the struggle is over. This would be a big deal, because suddenly the Sabbat would make almost no sense anymore and had to rebuild itself from the ground. The Camarilla would need to become more accepting towards diverging philosophies, Anarchs could wildly grow in all directions…

But of cause, this will not happen because it is not like that.

For starters, Aye and Orun are not entirely comparable with V6’s beast and “mortal“ nature. For example, frenzy and other monstrous aspects are for Laibon connected to their Aye, their worldly part, not to the Orun, which is for the most part associated with the supernatural which therefore isn’t compatible with “mortal” nature either.

If we go back to KotE, we also find an equivalent to V6’s Nature. Tthere the Beast can have other personalities than the animalistic predator, but again, that’s not what V6 is doing. Because in KotE the Nature is connected to the monstrous P’o, not the humane and rational Hun.the closest equivalent we have in V6 for that are actually the different ways clans frenzy. Yet this is bound to the blood and not to the vampires individual personality, so it is’t that either.

So, where I am going with this? I think this is, like many other things in this edition a missed opportunity. If they would have looked a little bit deeper in their own material, they would have found stuff to use and to create something very interesting. But instead they went with the concept of balance between supernatural and mortal, that was already done pretty similarly by a bunch of other games.

My guess is, that the goal is to repeat the pattern of “mortal” nature vs “insert Splats supernatural aspect here” mechanic across all the 6th edition games. I assume that they want to strengthen the cross over ability between the splats. Issue is, though, while we all always wanted better cross over-ability for WoD games, it is kind of too late for that. It would turn the WoD in basically a copy of a copy of itself. Because the trope of a group of several different supernatural creatures was so missed by WoD fans that it has been done so many times by other games, like the Chronicles of Darkness, Curse Borne, Monster Heart, City of Mist… that nothing interesting would come out of that anymore.

WoD, however, had this thing where every game line was telling a different story. And this story was by no small amount shaped by the “morality” or “psychological” mechanics of any given splat. So here comes my question: what story is this system supposed to tell? Balance good, but being unbalanced also good due to the bonuses you get, just overdoing it is bad…?!? Also, overdoing is bad in both directions. Even being a saint can now cost you your character. There is nothing special or even desirable anymore about fighting your urges and try to stay straight. From the perspective of the player being too human is just as bad as being too monstrous, only a little bit out of balance is good.

KotEK gets away with this, because the most rare and desirable condition is to have it both high, your monster and your spirit. And maintains both is hard and you will often face situations in which the two concepts contradict each other and you have to make hard decisions,

KotE gets away with it, because which side you prefer is a decision you make and you can willingly change and you are even expected to do so, if you get old enough. Your struggle is with the teachings of the philosophy that has your virtues as side effect.

The problem seems to be, that the once again, the developers approached this to focused on game design. They seem to have brainstormed about how you can emulate the vampiric nature with a fun game mechanic, without thinking about,what statement they actually want to make with this or what story they want to tell here first. And the result was a mechanic that is very similarly already implemented in games they know (as you can tell if you look which TTRPGs they ask about in the feedback quarry) and probably liked.

But one more thing: I find the implementation is quite weird, because, on one hand it says explicitly, that humanity has nothing to do with morals (as VtR 2nd edition already did and V5 partially repeated). A beast leaning character can be a total good person and a mortal nature leaning character can be an absolute monster… but if that is the case, why is killing and feeding to extensively one of the main reasons you can get in trouble?

Other ways are waking up, which is agitating and gives you a dot in beast and mortal. But what does that actually mean in the actual play? It means that you have to release the pressure somehow or after five nights you will freak out one way or another… wait, where do I know this from? It almost reminds me on a certain system in a certain edition where, if you don’t due something to “slag your hunger” the likelihood to freak out becomes bigger and bigger until it is unavoidable… wait, this is just another version of hunger again. But since hunger is already part of the vitae scale and can cause issues through the entire quickening and drama system, we have another case of t another issue I see in the V6 system: Redundancy! This system just can’t stay focused, it does every aspect in multiple ways that exist side by side or interconnected. I don’t know if this is the intention but this is one of the things that causes this terrible “eat your cake and have it too”-feeling, I get from the V6 rules.

And then we have chronicle themes which is kind of like chronicle tenets for dummies. I agree that the tenet system needed experience or better advice how to use it, because, while the enormous freedom to shape what counts as “sin” is a great way to incorporate many plays tiles (to the contrary of what V5 is often accused of) it is also not exactly beginner friendly and I think it needs a lot of experience to implement tenets that matter. However, the shift to themes changes the entire humanity system from a custom made cautionary tale to basically a trope parade. It feels like that you are not supposed to have inner conflicts but to just interact with the theme of the chronicle… or not… and you get either punished or rewarded if you do, but if you don’t, it’s just there and doesn’t do much. There also are no convictions anymore to individualize your characters relation to the tenets. I kind of sonde how they want to deal with paths of enlightenment when it comes to this (remember, the Sabbat is supposed to be a supported option again), since there is nothing that stops you from just being a monster and getting away with it, so, what are paths for, then?

So, here the TL;DR and maybe some advice for the Devs:

Okay idea but not thought through. To detached from what being a kindred in
WoD means. Old WoD could have offered a smooth way to make this system more acceptable but obviously no one looked there. My main issue: this feels like a mechanic that is just there to be there and no one thought through what it is actually supposed to do in the game or for the game. My advice would be, do this step first, think about what the overarching story of vampires as a whole in this edition is supposed to be and then create a mechanic for that and not the other way around!

The other Posts I made about this topic:

https://www.reddit.com/r/vtm/s/5Y3FXg2BwX

https://www.reddit.com/r/vtm/s/WEjQ9cDFvR

We already have feedback from the Devs that the final game will be changed (Drama is most like done and gone) and therefore it’s kind of moot to add my V6 opinion on the pile of other peoples V6 opinions. Yet I think there are a couple of things not talked about enough.

In order to make this digestible I like to split this in several posts instead of putting it all in one, starting with my general impression.

So, is it any good? Sure, it’s as good as the twenty other games it took inspiration from. And that’s the main problem. I could not honestly say it’s a bad game while it is so similar to other games I find quite good, yet what is the point of being like twenty other games when you are famous for being the most important in your specific niche?

This also leads to another problem, it misses the mark, quite a lot. They took ideas from other games and put them together without thinking twice about why these other games have them. The now defunct Drama is a good example for that. They already admitted that this mechanic works well in a heroic game with a lot of player influence, which, so they recognized, VtM is not. Good for them that they got that and will change that.

There is also something that bugs me about the new general mechanics. They seem simple at first but they get so complicated in the details. You have about five currencies floating around, a bunch of trackers, many of them effect each other or convert in to each other, you constantly have to shovel points around the sheet that affects what you roll and if you would take their advice serious even how you are supposed to play your character… I can not say that I like that. It’s almost as if you are nudged in to using some online tool that constantly tracks your stats and does the math for you. But how exactly is that improving the game or the experience?

Let’s talk about Storytelling: I cannot say that I hate it because there must be a storytelling experience in order to hate it. By reading the ST manual and running the play test scenario I got the impression that it does not need a ST, it basically runs it self. NPCs are a joke, they have no personality or seem like threats, they are just obstacles with a name. Sure, they have some build in reactions but a computer can run them. And I’m not even talking about AI, a dice roll can replace me. Same goes for all the other ST mechanics introduced (including Drama, but again, talking to much about that is already moot).

All in all it felt like painting by numbers or STing with the training wheels still on. And I think that is on purpose. You will grate in the industry that GMs (STs in our case) are the bottle neck. Many people like to play but don’t find an ST to do so. And they are afraid of STing themself. STs are also the people who buy the books. Sometimes they are the only people who buy books but they are certainly the people who by most of them.

That means your growth as an RPG is limited by the ability to create new GMs/STs. And this system is supposed to make it super easy. So easy in fact, that you can almost run it on its own or as a solo RPG. This is not bad on its own but it is a very different game. To me this stops being the social experience of a TTRPG and becomes a board game. Think about it, while I am in favor of social mechanics, in this version it does not even matter what exactly you say to an NPC. You can decide if what nature your social interaction is, run it through the system, get an outcome and potentially willpower damage, end of story. Super interesting board game or solo rpg mechanic, super boring for an actual rather classic TTRPG.

But this might of cause end up being super successful since it addresses a certain problem, yet it ignores that this game does not come from nothing and people enter it with certain expectations even if they are not long time fans.

Let’s switch back to player perspective for a moment. The new mechanic makes success quite hard. You often end up with only a couple of dice sometimes even none and getting a 8, 9 or 10 with them is challenging. Does this increase the feeling of dread and horror? No, everyone is good and will always be good. Failing even makes you stronger through “quickening”. And even if something goes wrong, you decide if a failure is interesting or just a clap on the wrist. Why should being a cursed creature with a hungry, canibalistic beast inside them ever ruin your good time?!? Sure, if you one of those theater kids who desperately needs drama (no pun intended) you can “choose your pain” to be more substantial, but why running in to consequences of your actions? It just ruins the power fantasy! Why should this game be anything more than the worst accusation about it, I guess…?!

But not only the horror is gone, it’s also the investment. It starts with character creation. Life paths are in general a nice concept but it removes the need to think about who your character was and is now and how to put that in to stats.

Many are happy that powers aren’t limited anymore but that also means, you don’t need to think about twice, just get them all, eventually. If you don’t want a new power but a higher version you don’t even need to wait, just use blood surge and you can have the improved version right away. I think these are rather popular changes but what do they actually mean? Someone called it “all carrot no stick”. Nothing feels earned, nothing is deserved, you don’t need to put afford in to playing your character.

I don’t think that is on accident. Why this does is, you create a game that is great for one shots, on conventions, for casual players who just want to try something different in between two DnD campaigns. This is not meant to be “The” game of anyone, it’s meant to be just one game in someone’s game collections. Committed fans are great and all, but you only sell so many books to them. But there are just so many more “not fans” that might buy the books, no matter if they ever actually play this, then there are fans you can sell books to.

Talking about making the game more accessible to not fans, what really bugs me is how sugar coated it is. Blood is barely mentioned, even the blood pool is called vitae now and it is described as “life force” even Diablerie does works in skin contact now. I would not be surprised if they introduce an “energy vampire” option. Even frenzy is a joke. It isn’t going berserk anymore but becoming slightly angry. Humanity in general seems super weak and rather a personal choice than a problem, let alone curse, you have to deal with. Since half of the powers are powered by willpower you can even get away with next to no feeding while still having dope powers at your hand. It’s almost as if they an to make this version PG13, and I don’t really understand why there is still a mature constant worming when they soften everything that much.

Finally for this post, the biggest issue I actually have with this edition so far is the language. It’s so… don’t know… cringe?!?

“Choose your Pain”, “Davila Bargain”, “Drama”, “Quickening”… this feels to me like a Halloween Party, we use all spooky words while we stay away from actual horror. I really don’t like that. And the recommendation to use edible things like candy as tokens so that you can actually consume them if used just angers me. This is a fun thing to do at a table just to be a little bit silly but why does a game feel the need to tell me how to have fun? This is just not the language I expect from a book that takes me serious and that I am supposed to take serious.

If you ask me what my biggest complain about V6 is and what I would change immediately if I would have any saying in it, then it would be the language, because I don’t want to be accosted with a game that speaks this way. And we talk about a game which background includes multiple occurrences of people cutting their dicks off and throwing at people…

TL;DR: it’s fine but lacks anything that makes it VtM. It’s weirdly sanitized and sugar coated. It feels like STing by numbers and playing and Dating with the training wheels still on. I guess it is for inexperienced STs to create more STs and for one shots and casual players because you don’t want a few fans who love the game, you want many customers who might only play occasionally but buy the books. And last but not least, while I don’t think that everything is bad, I think the language they use is embarrassing and childish and needs to be change even if nothing else changes.

Don’t know if this was interesting for anyone but I felt the need to put it out there. I hope I get to put out some more posts about specific aspects I have mostly left out here. And of cause, we all know, this was just an alpha test. It can and will change before it gets released. So not all hope is lost.

Does this mean White Wolf/Paradox is pulling WoD away from Renegade or will they actually do both?

Hi folks, the “Live from the Succubus Club” sourcebook gave us a lot of interesting stuff. Among them are some powers but one, Masque of Death, left me with questions.

It’s a Protean 3, Oblivion 2 Amalgam and it reads like this:

“Not all Kindred who wander rest beneath the earth. Kindred using this power can assume the appearance of true death, even appearing to withstand sunlight while in such a state.

Cost: One Rouse Check

System: The Kindred assumes the appearance of a corpse, either freshly dead, mummified, rotting, or even a dried-up skeleton. While so transformed, the Kindred cannot move or physically communicate, but retains enough of their senses to understand what is happening around them. Disciplines can still be used at the Storyteller's discretion. Only injuries that would cause Aggravated damage are applied to the vampire, and only once they return to their unliving state. A Kindred may also choose to enter Torpor voluntarily when activating this power, where the power's duration extends until they wake from Torpor.

Duration: Until ended by the user or the user wakes from Torpor, otherwise until sunset.”

Great, actually one of the powers from old editions I always wanted reintroduced. But here is my confusion. It says “appearing to withstand sunlight” and “Only injuries that would cause Aggravated damage are applied to the vampire, and only once they return to their unliving state”…

Okay, cool, but does that mean that they are immune to sunlight while in this state since sunlight isn’t technically an injury, or does it mean that when you leave this vampires corpse out in the open for a day, that they burn the moment they awake since they only “appear” to withstand the sunlight? I think it must be the former, because otherwise how is this remotely worth taking over Earth Meld, but what do you think? Am I missing something?

Wait, have I just red that they made the Niko and Mrs Thorn side quests exclusive to their respective clans? WTF? Would be a shame if true, the Niko sides are about 50% of the game for me.