[V5] How to get away with diablerie now?

[PixelPuzzler]

With the lack of a hidden diablerie merit (That I could see), how are you supposed to avoid being very quickly and easily found out if you commit it? Experience gains in the book are so low that if you're playing it even close to RAW, the only real way to gain even moderate power growth that I could see, is to diablerie. Maybe not even a lower generation, although that would have a greater RoI, but just anyone in general. But it feels like you'd just be caught very quickly.

So yeah, that. How would you do it, and would it be different, easier or harder in, say, the anarchs over the camarilla?

(As a small additional note/question, what methods of approach, mechanically and narratively, would make diablerie on lower gens feasible?)

[CTPhipps]

With the lack of a hidden diablerie merit (That I could see), how are you supposed to avoid being very quickly and easily found out if you commit it? Experience gains in the book are so low that if you're playing it even close to RAW, the only real way to gain even moderate power growth that I could see, is to diablerie. Maybe not even a lower generation, although that would have a greater RoI, but just anyone in general. But it feels like you'd just be caught very quickly.

So yeah, that. How would you do it, and would it be different, easier or harder in, say, the anarchs over the camarilla?

(As a small additional note/question, what methods of approach, mechanically and narratively, would make diablerie on lower gens feasible?)

* Say you did it in a Blood Hunt in another city
* Say you killed a vampire suffering wassail after frenzying
* Blood Sorcery ritual
* Loresheet

[Cifer]

I think the main tool against diablerie being found out is not being suspected. Consider that there are two ways of figuring out Diablerie:
Blood Sorcery Taste for Blood. That one requires that a Tremere has your blood. Pro tip: Don't give up blood to a Tremere. That's just good advice in general.
Auspex Scry the Soul. First raise your Composure and Subterfuge as high as possible. Then the person gets to ask relatively few questions. Diablerie will likely always be on the list the first time someone scans you and nearly never afterwards unless they have a concrete suspicion.

In general though: Diablerie is the ultimate sin. It's supposed to be hard and messy and problematic. If you're not sweating at the prospect of being found out, it's not being done right.

[Kammerer]

Just because someone accuses you of diablerie doesn't mean you get imprisoned and executed. Just like always in vampire, who are your backers and who are your enemies is much more important than whether you actually did anything. Always remember that Camarilla and Anarchs are not lawful societies. They are societies with laws. So sometimes "no u" is a sufficient response to "hey, this guy has black streaks in his aura!" and other times you need to leave town immediately because you are being accused by Tremere Primogen even though you've done nothing at all.

[Cifer]

Just because someone accuses you of diablerie doesn't mean you get imprisoned and executed. Just like always in vampire, who are your backers and who are your enemies is much more important than whether you actually did anything. Always remember that Camarilla and Anarchs are not lawful societies. They are societies with laws. So sometimes "no u" is a sufficient response to "hey, this guy has black streaks in his aura!" and other times you need to leave town immediately because you are being accused by Tremere Primogen even though you've done nothing at all.

While that is somewhat correct in general, Diablerie in particular seems a little different from most crimes - if the accusation is known, everyone with Auspex can check it. Also, everyone (in the Camarilla) at least publicly agrees that it's a horrible crime. A Prince who does not punish someone credibly accused burns a lot of social capital with people who are the most obvious Diablerie targets - the elders of the city. Of course, the Prince can do that if they've got a good reason like pushing a valuable asset deeper into their pocket. But compared to many other crimes like domain violations or non-Diablerie destructions, the social mechanics of Diablerie work a little differently.

[Kammerer]

credibly accused

But that's the issue. There is no way to "credibly accuse" someone of Diablerie. Auspex isn't exactly precise science, and you can't show it to anyone, so all anyone has is a word of an Auspex user that he really does see a black streak. And in 5e there are probably not a lot of vampires with Auspex 3 in any given city.

[CTPhipps]

If there's no victim anyone can point to, there's not going to be an accusation.

[Cifer]

But that's the issue. There is no way to "credibly accuse" someone of Diablerie. Auspex isn't exactly precise science, and you can't show it to anyone, so all anyone has is a word of an Auspex user that he really does see a black streak. And in 5e there are probably not a lot of vampires with Auspex 3 in any given city.

Why wouldn't there be? Of the six Camarilla clans, three have Auspex in-clan. Let's say half of those vampires don't bother to develop it to level 3 and half of the rest choose another power and noone else chooses to learn one of the most practical and common disciplines out of clan. That still means one in eight vampires in a city have the ability to directly see for themselves whether an accusation is true - an accusation of a monstrous crime where the way to check for it is not free, but very cheap compared to the consequences of not knowing whether someone in your social circle is a Diablerist or not. Compared to trials in the human world, that is massive. Take the highest-profile crime in your community: How many people know the truth about it and how many can only rely on media reporting on a trial where people are heard interpreting evidence collected by other people? One eighth, distributed through the community and able to convince their closest friends, is a huge number.

If there's no victim anyone can point to, there's not going to be an accusation.

Do you mean noone will get suspicious in the first place or black veins in the aura will not on their own lead to an accusation? Because I vehemently disagree with the second one. As mentioned before: Diablerie is the ultimate crime and the vampiric society does not have a presumption of innocence. If someone finds those veins and decides to make them public, it's upon the Diablerist to to prove to the Prince's satisfaction that the Diablerie was in some way sanctioned. Who cares if no victim was found? There's obviously someone in our midst who is a filthy Diablerist!

[Leandro16]

Experience gains in the book are so low that if you're playing it even close to RAW, the only real way to gain even moderate power growth that I could see, is to diablerie.

Welcome to gritty street level , that said no matter the edition why would you socialice without waiting for the stains to go? Losing influence and temporal power is way better than losing your head.

Diablerie is never aceptable it´s canibalism , it´s murder , it´s rape and sometimes incest.Not the kind of people anyone feels confortable to be with.Wait you did it with the blessing of the prince? What happens when he meets final death or the comunnity/elder deems you a danger for them and decide to take justice with their own hands? not to mention the ostrascism or that maybe the allies of the victim want vengance/release the soul of his friend

[PixelPuzzler]

Welcome to gritty street level , that said no matter the edition why would you socialice without waiting for the stains to go? Losing influence and temporal power is way better than losing your head.

I admit that interacting or socializing after diablerie instead of just waiting it out is a bad idea, but it's a conceit of logic often made for the sake of gameplay, which rarely if ever takes place over dozens of years or more.

As for gritty street level, I've played gritty street level games before, both in and out of vampire. Making it so no character growth ever occurs is not how it's done.

[Cifer]

As for gritty street level, I've played gritty street level games before, both in and out of vampire. Making it so no character growth ever occurs is not how it's done.

The XP gain in V5 is pretty low. If your group agrees, I would suggest simply houseruling it up to a level you are comfortable with rather than trying to work your way around the diablerie mechanics - establishing the assumption that you have to diablerise for power growth in the game seems a far more harmful change to me.

[Madcello]

With the lack of a hidden diablerie merit (That I could see), how are you supposed to avoid being very quickly and easily found out if you commit it?

To be fair, that is just one merit that most certainly not every vampire that commited Diablerie had in older editions. So, it is not a matter of how to get away with it NOW, but how did vampires got away with Diablerie since Day Zero of VtM.

Easiest road is to retreat from major social gatherings. You still interact with the city's vampires, but definitely don't show for the Toreador ball or this month's Elysium, for example. It is not like everyone is scanning other people's soul everytime they meet (some paranoic might, though), especially when it is someone you've delt with before and have no ground for extra suspicion.

Caution is definitely a must, and a bump to Insight trait might really help, so you can detect the sudden surprise when someone you are interacting with detects the black stains in your aura. Be ready to eliminate more people.

On a proactive basis, you could find a way to frame someone for a crime that would result in a Blood Hunt, only to have a "safe house" prepared for said "criminal" that is not really safe from you and your coterie. From there, you guys could walk around with those black stains for a year resulting from a "sanctioned" Diablerie, for example.

[CTPhipps]

Welcome to gritty street level , that said no matter the edition why would you socialice without waiting for the stains to go? Losing influence and temporal power is way better than losing your head.

Diablerie is never aceptable it´s canibalism , it´s murder , it´s rape and sometimes incest.Not the kind of people anyone feels confortable to be with.Wait you did it with the blessing of the prince? What happens when he meets final death or the comunnity/elder deems you a danger for them and decide to take justice with their own hands? not to mention the ostrascism or that maybe the allies of the victim want vengance/release the soul of his friend

Except for during a Blood Hunt, literally the only legal form of justice the vampires have.

Vampires commit diablerie all the time.

Almost all Elders have done it at least once in their lives. Why? Because vampires are hypocrites. The more a vampire hates it, the more likely they've done it.

That's how I run it, at least.

[PixelPuzzler]

Would committing diablerie on a member of the Sabbat as a member of the camarilla or anarchs be something justifiable then? Based on the responses, it seems to be a maybe at the moment, although I wonder if asking forgiveness rather than permission actually works in this instance lol

[CTPhipps]

Would committing diablerie on a member of the Sabbat as a member of the camarilla or anarchs be something justifiable then? Based on the responses, it seems to be a maybe at the moment, although I wonder if asking forgiveness rather than permission actually works in this instance lol

By definition, diablerie on a member of the Sabbat would not be a crime.

Blood Hunts literally are sanctioned diablerie.

Technically, diablerie outside of your domain might not be a crime as well.