What's with all the V5 sour grapes?

[Herbert_West]

I already told you, make a house rule that you don’t have to kill someone to get full.

So it can't.

I can housrule Maid The RPG to play Vampire, it does not make it Vampire.

[xguild]

So it can't.

I can housrule Maid The RPG to play Vampire, it does not make it Vampire.

Yeah your right!

Sorry Onxy Path Publishing ... You F*ed up, Herbert West is correct, everything is ruined! Burn all copies of V5 before its released, long live VTM20!

yeah..no

By your logic we should all be playing GURPS Vampire the Masquerade, because surely GURPS has way more coverage of everything under the sun.

I gotta be honest with you, if this is the type of ST you are, I feel sorry for your players and I'm being honest here. As a player, I can't imagine with a GM that has that attitude towards the game.

[jamiemalk]

I already told you, make a house rule that you don’t have to kill someone to get full.

My rule required a 6 word sentence, your required me to look up several rules only to discover that not all of them are in the core rulebook.

A system that has a metric ton of rules to cover everything is not more flexible than a system that has fewer rules that are easy to adapt.

I dont need rules to tell me how to roleplay, I want rules that give me direction on how to roleplaying.

All those flaws are in V20.,

You say that V5 is more flexible, just saying house rule it doesn't mean the system is fexible, it means it is deficient. I can do far more, with in the rules, in V20.

The rules were there all the time, you just never looked for them, and to be honest you shouldn't have needed to. If i want to play a V5 style vamp in V20, i can just do it, i can look at the book and just roleplay the way that fits. I can't do that in V5.

I have no problem with you preferring V5, like i said, i hope you have a great time with it.

What i object to is you harping on about how it's better, when in many ways it is clearly inferior.

You were complaining about how much V20 houseruling you had to do a while ago, and how that made it bad, Well straight out of the gate you're telling me to houserule V5, on one of it's core themes. That says it's certainly not a step forward.

[Ghostwalker]

V20 was NOT flexible, saying it doesn’t make it true. I literarly gave you an example. HUNGER HAD ZERO IMPACT IN VTM20.. It did nothing ZERO. So if you wanted hunger to have impact you had to hack the blood pool system... the only thing that has changed is that now its the oppossite.

Zero impact? What about page 197, in Second Edition? Or page 228 in Revised? Or page 260 and 298 in V20? oVTM has rules for Hunger that cause some impact in play. Could be better? Yes. The impact isn't that significant compared to V5. But isn't 0.

[xguild]

All those flaws are in V20.,

You say that V5 is more flexible, just saying house rule it doesn't mean the system is fexible, it means it is deficient. I can do far more, with in the rules, in V20.

The rules were there all the time, you just never looked for them, and to be honest you shouldn't have needed to. If i want to play a V5 style vamp in V20, i can just do it, i can look at the book and just roleplay the way that fits. I can't do that in V5.

I have no problem with you preferring V5, like i said, i hope you have a great time with it.

What i object to is you harping on about how it's better, when in many ways it is clearly inferior.

You were complaining about how much V20 houseruling you had to do a while ago, and how that made it bad, Well straight out of the gate you're telling me to houserule V5, on one of it's core themes. That says it's certainly not a step forward.

Well in fairness and to quote me accurately, I was not harping on how often we had to house rule oVTM (simply pointing out that we did) and I'm certainly not suggesting by any stretch of the imagination that V5 is perfect, but that attitude that "if we have to house rule anything, then the game is a failure", is pretty far fetched. The reality of most rules system is that having full rules converage of every conceivable possibility within a mechanic, is actually a miserable way to write rulebooks. As RPG players, we don't actually need the rules to play the game, what we want is to have flexible and easily adaptable rules that are dynamic.

That is the issue I have with oVTM and why I really like where V5 is going. I see systems like Hunger and Touchestones are increadibly dynamic and flexibile systems that can be very easily adapted in a wide range of ways, which is far super to having a 1000 rules that try to do the same thing and you will see that when Werewolf, Mage, Hunter and all the other V5 games come out and uses the exact same system to represent different things.

[RichT]

Yeah your right!

Sorry Onxy Path Publishing ... You F*ed up, Herbert West is correct, everything is ruined! Burn all copies of V5 before its released, long live VTM20!

yeah..no

By your logic we should all be playing GURPS Vampire the Masquerade, because surely GURPS has way more coverage of everything under the sun.

I gotta be honest with you, if this is the type of ST you are, I feel sorry for your players and I'm being honest here. As a player, I can't imagine with a GM that has that attitude towards the game.

Why do you keep saying Onyx Path? We didn’t create V5, that’s White Wolf Entertainment. We _are_ going to create V5 Chicago By Night, which will be a V5 supplement, just like we did all the supplements for V20. And we do provide space in this forum for V5 because it is important to our community. You might say, that until V5 Chicago By Night comes out that we are providing our forums for V5 discussion as a courtesy. So it’d be awesome if everyone (long-time posters and those brought here newly because of their passion one way or the other about V5) also kept courtesy in mind as they’re posting about V5. Y’know?

[Herbert_West]

Yeah your right!

Sorry Onxy Path Publishing ... You F*ed up, Herbert West is correct, everything is ruined! Burn all copies of V5 before its released, long live VTM20!

yeah..no

By your logic we should all be playing GURPS Vampire the Masquerade, because surely GURPS has way more coverage of everything under the sun.

I gotta be honest with you, if this is the type of ST you are, I feel sorry for your players and I'm being honest here. As a player, I can't imagine with a GM that has that attitude towards the game.

It would be weird for OPP to burn copies of a game they did not make and do not publish or distribute.

But at any rate:

As you are so fond of pointing out ad nauseam, rules indicate designer intent. Thus, it is clearly the designers intent in V5 to have vampires that have to kill in order to fully slake their hunger. There are no optional rules in the book that would indicate otherwise, and as you rightly point out, this makes hunger/Hunger a core focus, perhaps even the core focus.

With this focus come certain restrictions in player agency, namely players have to play a junkie always looking for their fix (unless they want to kill people). This was not the case in V20, and while it is true that in previous editions, hunger mattered less, this is still a restriction of player choice-space. One can play the blood junkie in V20, on cannot play anything else, as per RAW, in V5.

Saying that house rules are the solution is a fallacy, as has been pointed out to you numerous times. I used Maid:RPG as an illustration of how fallacious this is (as one's core argument), since Maid has obviously not been designed to run games about Vampires, yet, with enough house rules, one could run such games, the same way one can use an angle grinder to hammer in a nail.


I have had plenty of house rules in WoD games and other stuff, so please spare me your insults.


Edit: rules and dice are a part of an RPG game because we need an impartial arbiter of abilities and outcomes that is driven neither by the player, nor the GM/ST/MC/ETC. Without some framework of conflict resolution that imposes and outcome, we might as well go back to kindergarten and force shields that protect aganist everything and missiles that penetrate forcefields that protect against everything.

[Ghostwalker]

Well in fairness and to quote me accurately, I was not harping on how often we had to house rule oVTM (simply pointing out that we did) and I'm certainly not suggesting by any stretch of the imagination that V5 is perfect, but that attitude that "if we have to house rule anything, then the game is a failure", is pretty far fetched. The reality of most rules system is that having full rules converage of every conceivable possibility within a mechanic, is actually a miserable way to write rulebooks. As RPG players, we don't actually need the rules to play the game, what we want is to have flexible and easily adaptable rules that are dynamic.

Every RPG can have their own House Rules. The existence or not of house rules does not necessarily make a system bad. Even in my favorite systems I use some modifications. But this is not the point. If some system practically forces you to use house rules often, then something is wrong. Just look at the Lord of the Rings RPG using the CODA System. The books has plenty of god ideas and I still have everything that came out here. But the execution was bad. To be playable, He needed so many house rules that it was not worth the effort in the end. Even the book say that you need to ignore the rules to be playable. For me, that was a bad design (again, with good ideas).

I am not saying that is exactly the case o V5. I really think that it as potential and I liked many ideas there. But it could have been better polished. And for many players here the changes make the game different enough to be strange. Something like "this isn't the Masquerade I know".

I will give a try before decide myself, but you seem to be very defensive about the system from beginning.

[jamiemalk]

As RPG players, we don't actually need the rules to play the game, what we want is to have flexible and easily adaptable rules that are dynamic.

This is the opposite of

Now, I want to play a vampire who is ALWAYS hungry. Show me the default rule in VTM20 that does that.

You're deriding one for the same reason you're praisng the other. You need rules to be hungry in V20, but don't care about not having rules to cover stuff inV5



Oh, and

As RPG players, we don't actually need the rules to play the game, what we want is to have flexible and easily adaptable rules that are dynamic.

No, i stop playing a game, when they stop writing comprehensive and interesting rules and instead go here are some general guidelines to toss around, see what you like. A game needs rules that stand up to being tested, not handwaved.

[Neamhan]

By your logic we should all be playing GURPS Vampire the Masquerade, because surely GURPS has way more coverage of everything under the sun.

I own a copy of GURPS Vampire the Masquerade (and the Companion!). I'd much rather play that than V5. And you're right, it would easily be able to handle V5 universally murderous psychotic blood junkies (that no one in my circle of players would ever want to actually play) as well as the more nuanced Vampires from the first 4 editions of VtM.

But that's really not the point. The point is that it is impossible to play a Vampire who isn't constantly strung out for their next fix in V5, rules as written. House ruling is irrelevant because that is not what the conversation is about. The point is the V5 rules are lacking in options, which makes those rules deficient in the eyes of many people.

[Bluecho]

I'm honestly getting sick of hearing "just house-rule it!" as a bludgeon to shut down criticism of V5. It's not helpful for the discussion of the system AS WRITTEN.

[Undead rabbit]

I gotta be honest with you, if this is the type of ST you are, I feel sorry for your players and I'm being honest here. As a player, I can't imagine with a GM that has that attitude towards the game.

This is not the first time you go with ad hominem and insult people randomly.

Now, it seems that you have some kind of problem with this community, in which by the way you just arrived; maybe, if your taste in RPG is not shared here you might consider looking for a different place where your tastes are a bit more shared?
Because at the current time you are

1)Insulting people

2)Avoiding answers

3)Patronizing people on how they play

4) Advocating rule zero as a fit-for-all solution when several people have made clear that for them house ruling is a job that requires time and effort.

So I'm not really sure you will fit well here, and I'm not sure of what are you seeking or what is your point. Do you hope that by insulting people here the forum will become a V5 fan forum? I do not know, what I know is that at the current time it doesn't really seem that your behaviour will produce results or that your stay here will be pleasant, since it seems you can't abstain yourself from insulting the existing community.
So, given these circumstances, wouldn't be better for you to find a place that will suit your tastes better?


Just saying you know....

[Chesh]

Well in fairness and to quote me accurately, I was not harping on how often we had to house rule oVTM (simply pointing out that we did) and I'm certainly not suggesting by any stretch of the imagination that V5 is perfect, but that attitude that "if we have to house rule anything, then the game is a failure", is pretty far fetched.

We have far less of that attitude towards V5 than you do for oVtM. We have all consistently said that while, yes, we don't like V5 because [reasons] and we don't see a bright future for it, we hope those who do will enjoy playing it. You and a couple others here who are very pro-V5 are the one telling the rest of us that we're defective STs, defective players, our opinions don't matter, we should stop "complaining" and not say anything bad anymore about the new edition, it wasn't made for us anyway...

We're not trying to go out and shut down V5. We're explaining our perspectives and predictions. You, on the other hand, keep trying to proclaim oVtM "obsolete." Your attitude is far more rigid and hostile than ours.

Your logic is also more farfetched, given that every time someone presents an argument, you take it upon yourself to ignore parts of it and put words in people's mouths instead. I don't believe anyone here has denied houseruling oVtM editions to some extent. The question is how much, and whether those houserules were used to help the original rules fit more comfortably with the group playing, or whether they were used to alter the entire atmosphere and core themes of the game as written. For many of us, we'd have to hosuerule V5 until it feels like it's not V5 anymore. Houseruling is a fine and dandy tool, but not to try to mold a game we don't even like into one we maybe could. At that point, we might as well go play something else.

Insisting that houserules are the be-all, end-all solution to any problem is like saying, "Oh, you don't want to play volleyball? Well then, just cut the net down the middle, tie the two pieces into cylinders, and shove them off to the sides of the room so you have two hoops. Then you can dribble the ball around and throw it into your makeshift hoops, and voila! You're playing basketball!" How about I just go find a basketball court instead?

That is the issue I have with oVTM and why I really like where V5 is going. I see systems like Hunger and Touchestones are increadibly dynamic and flexibile systems that can be very easily adapted in a wide range of ways, which is far super to having a 1000 rules that try to do the same thing and you will see that when Werewolf, Mage, Hunter and all the other V5 games come out and uses the exact same system to represent different things.

That's great for you. I'm glad you'll get to play something you're excited about. Meanwhile, many here feel that possibly Hunger and especially Touchstones are dramatically less dynamic, flexible, or adaptable than past rules. Awhile back you said, what, that claiming V20 was more flexible doesn't make it so? Well, you claiming that V5 is more flexible doesn't make it so - except for you and your own group.

[Ideon]

- D&D 5e uses the extremely old-school Vancian "spell slot" system for most of its spellcasters. That is not an easy or intuitive system to get to grips with, no other tabletop game system does anything like it, and it certainly isn't reminiscent of any system younger players will encounter in video games.

Dark Souls (or at least 1 and 2) does something similar with its magic system, although the game automatically keeping track of how many casts you have remaining helps cut down on the mental bookkeeping.

[adambeyoncelowe]

Vampires are not just one thing.

"I want to play a vampire" is a statement that is practically meaningless in communicating what you want to play, because it could mean hundreds of things.

It's really very simple. Long time VtM fans are invested in the specific way VtM defined its vampires. Because every vampire story, let alone game, defines vampires for itself. V5 defines vampires in some fairly significantly different ways from the previous editions. People that still want to play pre-V5 VtM vampires feel like they can't play that in V5, despite V5 supposedly being a continuation of the same game. It's not complicated, the weasel wording with things like "mages that use blood," is nothing but obfuscation.

An important lesson from folklore and mythology: there aren't clean lines between monsters. "This is a vampire story." "This is a wizard story." "This is a werewolf story." Etc. Those are all modern conceits. Are the folktales about Elizabeth Bathory about a vampire that needs the blood of virgins to survive, or a witch using vile magics sacrificing the blood of virgins for her spells? The answer is both, and neither, because when those stories were started people didn't care about drawing such lines, and when we recontextualize those stories for modern literary purpose we decide what aspects of them to use to highlight what we want from them.

VtM is a vampire game with blood mages. MtA is a wizard game with parasite-like addicts for power. Each game does, indeed, have different focuses and themes, but there's a reason things get blurry at the edges.

On top of this the whole mechanical abstraction of choice thing is very obnoxious. Why shouldn't I accuse you of wanting to play werewolves that drink blood instead of vampires, because you like a game that uses d10s instead of d8s? I mean, d10s are clearly werewolf, and d8s are clearly vampire, right? Or can you acknowledge that a specific form of abstraction alone doesn't magically capture all of what makes a game what it is?



We've provided lots of counter-points. Though the specific, "mages that use blood as a resource," thing doesn't deserve much of a counter point other than: this is a bullshit statement that doesn't need to be refuted directly because it's so obviously flawed on a foundational level.



Yeah, no, fuck this noise.

I brought up my preference because it informs my opinions on a specific mechanic. I've spent years with my favorite game being let down by its Paradox drawback rules.

My complaint is that V5 makes things mechanically more like Mage mechanically and in my estimate makes a mistake in the process instead of learning from the decades of Mage games struggling with the values it made in how it was constructed.

You're completely twisting things here in a very disingenuous way. By your phrasing Mage fans should love V5, not be its biggest detractors, because it's doing things more like what we love. But instead it's the opposite, because I see V5 repeating a mistake Mage made decades ago and didn't fix until Awakening 2e.



It's funny that this is only brought up by one side to try to paint the other side of the debate in a bad light.

I can't imagine you'd enjoy Lot5R's rules being changed to, "you never roll to win fights, all contests - of swords, of wits, of honor - are rolled simply to see how much you lose," because losing isn't a bad thing. The game turned into a constant grinding down of your character until they finally have nothing left to do but die, having never achieved anything for their sacrifices; achievements are just another thing that are destroyed as your character loses everything.

That's why we don't like. V5 goes from, "hey you can lose, and that can be fun gaming to," to, "you will lose, and you can only delay the inevitable, making anything you do about it pointless and boring."



Right, and after 20+ years of dealing with Ascension's Paradox system's attempts to do similar things to V5 Hunger's intentions, I have seen exactly how boring stories get under this conceptual design. The incentives and designs aren't there to promote interesting stories over the long run, because they're too focused on a specific story, repetition breeds familiarity, and thus we get to boring.



Vampires are whatever we want them to be. There's lots of vampire stories where "junkie" is not an appropriate descriptor for vampires, and blood is no more or less important to them than a balanced diet is to you and I.

Others have already beaten me to pointing out a lot about addiction and fiction and vampires.



As has been pointed out repeatedly though, so are other themes that feel like they're getting brushed aside to focus on being blood junkies (including exploring addiction and dependency on a larger scale than just someone itching for a fix).



No, the were just not rather good at forcing the struggles of being a vampire into the forefront mechanically that you want to have put forward the most.

While flawed, VtM pushed the "monster I am, lest monster I become," angle far harder than the blood addict angle. This isn't right or wrong, more or less vampire, just what the game focused on. It's an essential part of the sell a lot of us bought though.



If we've learned anything from recent media, this isn't nearly so simple; especially for established franchises (even if ones long out of mainstream consciousness).

One thing we can definitely see, is that a transmedia property does much better making sure it's focused on being true to itself, than trying to worry about what other similar properties are doing.

This.

What I liked about Vampire is that I can play all of the following:

The Lost Boys
Necroscope
Interview with the Vampire
Queen of the Damned
Ultraviolet
Near Dark
Blade
Underworld
Anita Blake
True Blood

Do you know how often blood junkies are the focus of those stories? Never. Blood is wine, ritual sacrifice, daily bread, sex, and more, but none of the characters feel like junkies to me.

Sometimes I want to be Tom Cruise and sometimes I want to be Aliyaah. Sometimes I want to be Visagi the Suck or Thibor Ferenczy. Sometimes I want to be Kiefer Sutherland. And sometimes I really wanna be Wesley Snipes.

But most importantly, Vampire has other kinds of vampires that only it provides. That's why I return time and again to the game, because there are so many choices. I can play a Baali deceiving himself into thinking his infernalism is keeping demons at bay, or a Nagaraja living in the Underworld and feeding on souls, or an Anda warrior in the cold wastes of history.

Vampire has every kind of vampire. That is its strength. Or at least, it was. I hope future sourcebooks will make that possible again too (I'm fairly sure they will).