What's with all the V5 sour grapes?

[Schwann145]

I can't help but notice a trend of 3 common complaints about V5 so far, and I frankly don't understand any of them:
•Culling of Elders
•Hunger mechanics getting in the way
•Preference for cWoD disciplines

Re: Elders - How is this an issue? There's basically two types of Elders in Vampire; the active kind who are basically unstoppable, and the inactive/newly active kind who are also basically unstoppable but give you a sliver of hope in that you're educated on modern tech/politics/etc.
For active Elders, they totally dominate the story of a game even though the game is supposed to be about the players. Active Elders of low Gen (let's say 4-7) are such unbelievable powerhouses compared to players (let's say Gen 10-13) that there's basically no winning; they have more personal power, more experience, and through blood bonding and sycophants, greater influence/numbers. The only avenue you have to make up the difference at all is the one thing that the entirety of "civilized" vampire society will hunt you down for (or to start as an elder yourself).
For inactive Elders, they're still individually too powerful to contend with, but modern knowledge can give you a way to "break even" and that can make for fun storytelling experiences - but not over and over. It's a great "chapter" or a great individual game, but not a great meta consideration for overall plot lore.
tl;dr - Elders may make for interesting storytelling, but they make for *terrible* gaming - and this is, after all, a game. The existence of so many active elders in the lore makes it basically impossible to compete as a player. Getting rid of many of them is frankly the right move.

Re: Hunger - I've noticed one thing in common in basically all VtM gaming I've been a part of, seen from others, or even heard about on the internet: Feeding is hand-waved. The phrase, "okay, everybody tops up on blood," is sooo common and basically skips the entire "vampire" part of the Vampire game. "Blood-Mage, the Masquerade" is not the game I was sold on, but it's basically the game everyone has been playing.
So we *finally* get an edition that gets the struggle with hunger right, and tons of complaints pop up about it being inconvenient and getting in the way of what the players' want to do. Uh, duh! THAT'S. THE. STRUGGLE. lol

Re: Mechanics - I get it, power-gaming is popular and cWoD rules were great for power-gaming. If you prefer old-style Celerity, well, you still have your V20 or Revised or whichever edition and no one can stop you from playing that. Frankly though, I'm quite happy to play in an edition that gives me the Masquerade lore with the Requiem balance and get to play vampires that don't feel like if I don't take specific disciplines I just auto-lose.
Celerity broke the old game. You may like it, you may think it's a ton of fun, and you could even be right, but I'm also right. It (among others) was just objectively bad for the game.

Feel free to respond, agree, disagree, whatever you like.
Just consider this a rant from a fan of the game/lore that's just tired of all the complaining.

[IanWatson]

This thread has gotten entirely too contentious, and people have been ignoring site rules in favour of one-upping each other.

The thread is now closed. At this time, we do not want a duplicate thread to be opened on the same topic.

[Trippy]

You miss my point:

If I'm not wrong, WW wasn't interested in creating more Masquerade products until they saw V20 popularity. Originally V20 was going to be the last Masquerade product to milk an existing audience, there was no other vampire products in line. There was no other WoD products in the line. The product you people it's saying it wasn't popular or modern enough it's the product that revived interest in oWoD (to the point nWoD lost it's name) and made V5 possible.

There would have been no V5 w/o V20 audience because WW wasn't planning on returning to the franchise. My point it's that you people are underrating the audience that made your product possible. I'm I wrong about this chain of events?, you think V5 would have existed in spite of V20 popularity exeding WW expectations by a wide margin?

You are wrong, basically. V20 has nothing to do with it. It didn't "prove" it's popularity - because it was never released as a retail product. Onyx Path kickstarted a few supplements for it, and they kept it going through PDF and POD, which is fine, but it bears no comparison to the sheer prolificacy of the releases Vampire enjoyed in the 1990s. You've deluded yourself over what impact V20 had, because if it was anything like as successful as you seem to think it had been, WW would hardly feel compelled to be making a new edition immediately upon ownership of the IP, would they?

V20, as far as the new WW are concerned with their business dealings, is a side show. The business they are interested in has a much wider audience.

[Aleph]

Different editions have different design goals. In the case of V20, it was never designed as anything other than a "thank you" to existing fans, and was released under the cloud of new ownership without actually knowing if there would ever be any new material for Vampire again. As such it was an attempt to provide a compliation of as much material - over a 20 year span - that they could provide to existing fans.

And that is all fine……except none of this has anything to do with the goals of V5, which is attempting to modernise the game to new audiences that may not be well represented on this site, but who nevertheless have expectations of modern designs that appeal to modern sensibilities. V20 never tried to do this, even though it was later made more available through drivethru and had a few extra supplements kickstarted along the way too. V20 is built on the same soil that V5 was built on - it's called V1! - but the remit of what it was trying to do is different.

You miss my point:

If I'm not wrong, WW wasn't interested in creating more Masquerade products until they saw V20 popularity. Originally V20 was going to be the last Masquerade product to milk an existing audience, there was no other vampire products in line. There was no other WoD products in the line. The product you people it's saying it wasn't popular or modern enough it's the product that revived interest in oWoD (to the point nWoD lost it's name) and made V5 possible.

There would have been no V5 w/o V20 audience because WW wasn't planning on returning to the franchise. My point it's that you people are underrating the audience that made your product possible. I'm I wrong about this chain of events?, you think V5 would have existed in spite of V20 popularity exeding WW expectations by a wide margin?

[Redwulfe]

Also, as a developer, the PDFs are coming so much earlier because they can. Once layout is done you can spit out the file you send to the printers to produce the book and the PDF at the same time. A little quick digital touch up and you can drop your PDF before books are even close to being done printing, let alone getting them to your warehouse from the printer so you can distribute.

As for the other books coming later, I don't know the specifics on the staffing at White Wolf, but having too many books in development is a nightmare, and they also have their fingers in other media cookie pots too.

Just some food for thought.

agreed I understand RPG book development process, not that you guys would know that of course, but I am very aware of the process. I just think their were several ways to do it without forcing customers to wait while their friends are showing them their neat new book.

[Redwulfe]

Marketing was the wrong word, packaging maybe or pre-order bundling? doesn't matter. What I was referring to is selling a set and then forcing players to wait on part of the product while the set is being put together while those that did not buy the set get their product early. This is very common with Modifious so I am laying the blame on them since they have a history of doing this very thing regardless of PDF codes.

There are several ways this could have been done and the only ones that are having problems is store that are trying to get sales in store as those that ordered their slipcase directly had their corebook sent to them separately from the slipcase or at least the e-mail I got said that this is what was happening.

Once aagin this is only affecting customers who support their local game stores.
1. It would not have been as bad if they had the slipcases done and sent the core in the case with room for the other two books when they came out. Customers could buy the slip case deal and picked up the other two books as they came out to fill the case. this could also be done in reverse since they new that those tow would come out together, if they are coming out together. *Shrug*

2. Send the books with the case but only shrink the books. The store could give out the cores with their first order to cover pre-sales and then when the slipcases came in they could pull the cores in those to sell on shelf.

3. Forget the slipcase in the first place.

4. They could have also gave all of the slipcase buyers all the PDFs as a compensation for waiting for their core book, since they had per-orders on these items. they could have given the codes out. We as a store were sent the codes for those who pre-ordered in the store. to give out before the books came in, so this was an option.

Regardless of the books containing a PDF code since the pre-order code was for an advance of the pdf the codes in the book were additional. So basically players got two PDFs with their book, one when they ordered and one when they got their book.

The reason I say this is a marketing descition is because those who order direct therefor making the company more money had no problems with this. As a store I had to ask if we would get codes as well before we even new we would get the codes, it was not clear in their advertising of the sale.

Obviously since none of us work for Modifious or WW we can not say what actually happened I was mainly not trying to complain to much but just pointing out a annoyance.

[Red Eye]

Also, as a developer, the PDFs are coming so much earlier because they can. Once layout is done you can spit out the file you send to the printers to produce the book and the PDF at the same time. A little quick digital touch up and you can drop your PDF before books are even close to being done printing, let alone getting them to your warehouse from the printer so you can distribute.

As for the other books coming later, I don't know the specifics on the staffing at White Wolf, but having too many books in development is a nightmare, and they also have their fingers in other media cookie pots too.

Just some food for thought.

[thebiglarpnerd]

I see, so it is a society description and structure thing that is lacking and not a mechanical one. Makes since. I really wish the Cam guide and Anarch guides where available at launch rather than waiting so long. Many of us bought the slipcase and to have to wait 2 months after launch to get to the content is annoying. Though I blame Modifious' marketing strategy on that one rather than WW. It is looking like PDFs are coming for the guides in October with the guides themselves coming in November. I've never been a fan of Modifious on this, I am still waiting on my infinity slipcase and the book for that game has been out for almost a year now. though it took 5 years just to get that after the close of the kickstarter.

It's not a marketing strategy so much as it is a single product. All the books are sealed product because WW made the choice to include PDF codes with the games, and the sealed 3-pack slipcase is no different. It'd be like breaking open a modern DVD box set, to an extent. People who bought the slipcase bought the slipcase product code, not the three book product codes with a discount applied to each. It's a standard inventory method.

[Redwulfe]

While any Corebook describes the world in broad strokes, 2nd (and as much as I loath it 3Rev) had some structure of the vampiric society, you could easily impersonate a 08/15 Elder with the confines set by their society (Cami/Anarch/Sabbat) as ST and being halfway correct.
I like V5´s rework of the rules, but they went overboard on some changes and the Metaplot is silly, outside some specific changes like the overblown, overhyped Sabbat of 3rd pushed back. (OK, what Achilli and Co. produced with 3Rev plotwise was undiluted manure as well)

I see, so it is a society description and structure thing that is lacking and not a mechanical one. Makes since. I really wish the Cam guide and Anarch guides where available at launch rather than waiting so long. Many of us bought the slipcase and to have to wait 2 months after launch to get to the content is annoying. Though I blame Modifious' marketing strategy on that one rather than WW. It is looking like PDFs are coming for the guides in October with the guides themselves coming in November. I've never been a fan of Modifious on this, I am still waiting on my infinity slipcase and the book for that game has been out for almost a year now. though it took 5 years just to get that after the close of the kickstarter.

[Günther]

I agree you don't need an Elder book to play elders, but I was curious to what hints about elders and their power did you get in the 1st, 2,nd, or 3rd cores that made it better than V5?

While any Corebook describes the world in broad strokes, 2nd (and as much as I loath it 3Rev) had some structure of the vampiric society, you could easily impersonate a 08/15 Elder with the confines set by their society (Cami/Anarch/Sabbat) as ST and being halfway correct.
I like V5´s rework of the rules, but they went overboard on some changes and the Metaplot is silly, outside some specific changes like the overblown, overhyped Sabbat of 3rd pushed back. (OK, what Achilli and Co. produced with 3Rev plotwise was undiluted manure as well)

[Redwulfe]

You do not need an Elder book specifically for our playstyle for the starting phase, but some hints about the elders and their powers and outlook would be positive. And V5 suclks on that.

I agree you don't need an Elder book to play elders, but I was curious to what hints about elders and their power did you get in the 1st, 2,nd, or 3rd cores that made it better than V5?

[Günther]

I'm sorry you feel this way but playing such low gen characters has never been the focus of Vampire so I do think that you went into this edition with somewhat skewed expectations. Aside from V20 I'm fairly certain that none of the core books have contained rules for playing a character like the one you described.

At Kristviljan and xguild

It is quite an experience to roleplay a low gen neonate, one you should try out. Back in the day we were armed with 2nd Ed Core and the Players guide (Sabbat Book too, but we decided to stick with Cami chars) and thought about why not to try out low gen new characters. There were low Gen Vampires still active and it was ludicrous to think they would not embrace once in a while.

So we simply added the house rule that backgrounds such as generation, mentor, etc could be started with at up to 8 points and start with the maximum allowed Freebies at character creation at that time. It has been a fun run and not just because of the pontential power of your character. You are playing a double masquerade. You are playing a young vampire of great potential, but your generation makes you a target, if known. And since you are a young lick like all others, with low stats nearly everywhere, being careful and thinking ahead is even more king than with a 13th gen Youngling.
Yes, you might have a friendly, powerful sire for emergency help (if you sunk enough points in the corresponding backgrounds and merits, but that would have cost most of your freebies)), but even that could not help any time or anywhere, you had to prove yourself worthy of your blood! Your sires where some of the most important movers and shakers of the vampiric society, but "noblesse oblige", you had to show them they made the right decision embracing you.
So you could not run for "Dad/Mum" too often. Since you were not better off in most things than a 13th Gen Standard neonate, you had to tread carefully, moreso than him/her. For instance, a draconian Prince dominating your coterie into doing something? You better had to think on your feet how to pretend being dominated, if of truly low gen! In my case, playing a 5th gen Vampire, there are not too many beings being able to dominate you at all. Could be an Oops with many Princes outside Europe and Near East. Then, how to introduce yourself in a city, without blowing your cover? Some Princes still like the old introduction with telling your whole linage. How much truth, how much of it wordplay and by ear?

It was absolute fun but sometimes harrowing experience seeing the Vampires of our group grow.

You do not need an Elder book specifically for our playstyle for the starting phase, but some hints about the elders and their powers and outlook would be positive. And V5 suclks on that. You wrongly assume I went into the new Vampire with skewed perception. V5 is simply incomplete not on what you think I mean, but in that it only gives you stuff for playing exactly one type of Vampire: A random, weak (for a vempire) Dude in a random city, desperately trying to show your worth (Camarilla) or trying to stick it to "the Man" (Anarch).
Trying to play a Tremere sorcery researcher? Not enough info of V5 Sorcery and powers in the Corebook to really do so. Wanting to play "Beckett junior"? Lacking info even for the starting phase of it. Trying to play a vampiric diplomat? Nope. The silly Metaplot makes playing part of the entourage of an elder for learning diplomacy mostly mute and which Prince with his brains intact would send a fresh 13th Gen Nobody on important missions without prior experience?

V5 made many good changes to the rules, but overboard on some of it and where it really sucks is the push for just one playstyle and lacking info onthe gameworld even for a Corebook.

[Redwulfe]

I think the bolded points are misunderstandings of how it was discussed, from my understanding.

I saw it that Chesh indicated he doesn't care about authorial intent (because author intent has been thrown around a lot in the conversation). That they value what the audience responds to more.
Then xguild indicated they thought the VtM fanbase is actually tiny now, because White Wolf 'kept VtM as a cult book' and that they 'intentionally developed it in an unapproachable way' all during the last decade when vampires in general had an upswing in popularity.
And Krammerer's response being that VtM had been concluded since 2004. So this idea they've intentionally been doing these things doesn't seem to hold in this timeline.

So point two was more about 'the old audience is not as strong because of X reason'.
And Krammerer's response was, 'X reason is wrong.'

I see yes, I didn't have my fingure on the conversation. thank you.

[Redwulfe]

Kammerer Thats fine, I get that this thread is exacerbating and that its like beating your head repeatedly into the wall, no matter what side you have taken. I am not mad at you for that. Just please in the future realize that I am not your enemy and I like a civil discourse where two parties have the potential through said discourse to change each others opinions and grow. I've had to step back a bit from time to time as well.

I want people to change my mind through our conversations, this is how I prefer to learn.

[Monalfie]

That is completely possible, but the way it was responded to was not. the way you responded would have got a better response. I knew he was speaking of masquerade and put up requiem as a way to see the connection of WW to Vampire popularity and that WW possibly is looking at Vampire popularity as a reason to update an older line. I probably did not come off that way but I do not deserve to be spoken to in a disrespectful manor when clarification is needed or I am not being understood.

For my perspective the discussion was going thus:

Why id they change VtM?
Because they are probably trying to capitalize on the popularity of vampires with a new audience. the old audience is not as strong a reported.
VtM falling off the grid is not connected to the popularity

Me: But WW is directly tied to it through VtR though and they are the ones that are making the decision.

Krammerer: yelling and speaking down to me.

I think the bolded points are misunderstandings of how it was discussed, from my understanding.

I saw it that Chesh indicated he doesn't care about authorial intent (because author intent has been thrown around a lot in the conversation). That they value what the audience responds to more.
Then xguild indicated they thought the VtM fanbase is actually tiny now, because White Wolf 'kept VtM as a cult book' and that they 'intentionally developed it in an unapproachable way' all during the last decade when vampires in general had an upswing in popularity.
And Krammerer's response being that VtM had been concluded since 2004. So this idea they've intentionally been doing these things doesn't seem to hold in this timeline.

So point two was more about 'the old audience is not as strong because of X reason'.
And Krammerer's response was, 'X reason is wrong.'