Obtenebration or Oblivion?

[Saturno]

Damn, you just reminded me how hilarious this Touchstone system is. Why the hell do the "Hecata," the "Clan-Sect" primarily focused on the concerns of death and unlife... have to have Touchstones? In what sake is this even feasible or realistic? Also being a babysitter to a serial killer? LOL!

You don't have to babysit your touchstone. One of my players has a touchstone, which her character hates, but he reminds reminds the character of something she lost after becoming a vampire. That's what touchstones do. They are not (necessarily) your friends but your anchors to something that came natural to you, when you were mortal, but that is always on the verge of slipping away since you are a vampire. I don't know why people want to hate the touchstone system, when it is one of the few things that should be clear to anyone as being an improvement from earlier editions. I mean, hell, the system with the hierarchy of sins was fun and all but really, really gamey (just the tiniest bit less gamey than the D&D-alignment system). No moral system ever worked that way, not even the ones, that were tenet based.

What morality means for vampires though, could probably be discussed with a variety of legit anwers. My take always was that vampires loose their capability of being moral as humans are. Instead they try to imitate human (moral) behaviour in order to retain their remaining humanity. Kinda the vampire equivalent to a medieval imitatio Christi, an imitatio humanitatis if you like.

From that follows that the Hecata of course don't have to have touchstones, but the consequence might be that their humanity rating might stabilize around 3 to 5, depending on the playing style and time. That doesn't seem unrealistic to me.

By the way: The thing I was asking for advice about was not the convictions (aka morals) but the chronicle tenets (aka the setting tonality and theme).

[Resplendent Fire]

Well, the Precepts of Damian are the closest to the Technocracy's Conventions and the higher-ups can agree to. I disagree that enforcing statis is exclusive with progress. Compared to mystical Magick, the Inspired Science of the Technocracy is just the kind of Enlightened progress they want, imbued with statism and predictibility.

Stasis means not changing. Progress means changing. They're literally contradictory. That progress might be idealized as toward a static state at some point in the future, but they'll never reach it. It'd run counter to the actual paradigm they're trying to enforce. Science is in a constant state of change, as new knowledge is discovered and older knowledge is sometimes found to be wrong or more likely incomplete. Some factors are practically unsolvable within the Technocracy's paradigm, or at least appear so now, but will that still be the case in ten years, twenty? The scientific knowledge they're trying to establish in an unchanging universe keeps changing. We keep ending up with discrepancies that need to be explained with further hypotheses and data. Maybe I spend too much time actually reading science but I don't see how the Technocracy can do both at the same time. The tighter they try to control the consensus, the more stuff slips through and we end up with the CMB Axis of Evil and the Anthropic Principle. The Progenitors, Iteration X, and Void Engineers are ahead of sleeper advances and certainly feed advances to sleepers but I see no reason to actually think they've created models that can explain the universe while simultaneously excluding all "reality deviant" elements.

But really we should take this to the Mage forum before Phipps asks us to.

[Resplendent Fire]

Damn, you just reminded me how hilarious this Touchstone system is. Why the hell do the "Hecata," the "Clan-Sect" primarily focused on the concerns of death and unlife... have to have Touchstones? In what sake is this even feasible or realistic? Also being a babysitter to a serial killer? LOL!

The Hecata have the clan (former clan?) that was most fixated on mortal family, although not in any remotely healthy way. It's not that far of a reach for the Giovanni, Pisanob, Dunsirn, or Putanesca especially. I agree it's really weird for the Harbingers of Skulls and the Nagaraja. I'd be seriously tempted to expand what touchstones can be just to accommodate them. I'm not really sure where the Lamia, Cappadocians, or Samedi would fall in this, but with expanded touchstone options that shouldn't matter too much.

Actually this is a genius idea. The Lasombra SHOULD'VE mass defected to the Anarchs instead and subsume full control of that Sect, instead of groveling to the one of their centuries old rival, the Venture. If the writers as we presume wanted to kill off the Sabbat for whatever inane reason, just switching the Lasombra to the revanchist post-underdog sect that is directly against the Camarilla would've made MORE sense than what we have in V5.

I agree with this. I think it would have been a better choice. With the Lasombra and Ministry/Setites joining the Anarchs you could have a sect that could almost be Sabbat 2.0 in the Camarilla's eyes. It certainly would've been interesting to see this play out.

That way the Venture and Lasombra could've kept their foil dynamic; and despite the Lasombra's whole Sabbat project bursting into flames (by writer's fiat), they at least suffer only minimal-to-slightly-moderate prestige lost instead of the embarrassments they are being put at the bottom of the pecking order in the Cam. Y'know, I predict that they might go with some metaplot that the Lasombra would actually try to scheme to pull the Camarilla out the rug from the Venture... I thought about this many times before.. but if it would become the actual case, then that would be very convoluted and unrealistic. The Venture have all the cards in their own house.. and this V5 Lasombra aren't crafty enough to go up against the Venture; for heaven's sake, they can't even use phones or certain pieces of technology.

I think they can be crafty enough, but their bane does hinder them a lot. The Ventrue - indeed all of the Camarilla clans - have all the power in their current arrangement.

[archderd]

The Hecata have the clan (former clan?) that was most fixated on mortal family, although not in any remotely healthy way. It's not that far of a reach for the Giovanni, Pisanob, Dunsirn, or Putanesca especially. I agree it's really weird for the Harbingers of Skulls and the Nagaraja. I'd be seriously tempted to expand what touchstones can be just to accommodate them.

iirc there's a loresheet that gives the ability to take corpses as your touchstone. (yes, it's kinda stupid that you have to take a loresheet for it i'm just saying it exists)

edit: checked it and it's the first dot on the harbinger's loresheet

[Shakanaka]

I don't know why people want to hate the touchstone system, when it is one of the few things that should be clear to anyone as being an improvement from earlier editions.

Well I guess we can disagree and agree on some points of the exact solvency of this new mechanic compared to the old one... it's just that I feel Touchstones are too Twilight-ish. The inner turmoil of retaining your PC's humanity should be just that, an internal and eternal clash against the Beast. Having some finite source (because Humans are mortal, unless you ghoul them.. but can ghouls be Touchstones?) that is external as your mediation in this said conflict.. just doesn't sit right and generally feels unneeded. The justification of Touchstones just "reminding you of your past humanity" is just to weak of a justification to have it be a thing.

It's not that far of a reach for the Giovanni, Pisanob, Dunsirn, or Putanesca especially.

THESE definitely make sense for Touchstones for anything else with their creepy family dynamic as you mention; but for the others? Not so much. Though as archderd mentioned, apparently corpses can be taken as Touchstones.. but if the fundamental aspect of this factor-mechanic is to remind you of Humanity, why do corpses make sense at all? All it would do would touch-on and remind you that YOU'RE undead.. not bring you closer to humanity.

[MyWifeIsScary]

-touchstones are better in requiem
-touchstones are explicitely meant to be something that can be threatened while reducing a player's ability to cost-benefit analysis. A vampire NEEDS to rescue their particular damsel to maintain who they are as a character.
-touchstones trivialize and gamify morality.
-touchstones are a cheap attempt force a misguided sympathy onto vampires, the object of satire.
-touchstones detract from most kinds of stories; IE political conflict.
-Touchstones become dicey when you need to consider the less human clans. like the lasombra, or CoD3, or the Assamites, or the Ravnos, or the...
-touchstones are better in requiem.

[Spencer from The Hills]

After one of my players lost his character recently due to sheriff-related agressions, my group now is a pure Hecata and Lasombra group. One thing I will enjoy is the possibility to use the CotBG ideas for Hecata-Camarilla plots.
The other thing is that I'd like to make Oblivion/the Labyrinth/the Shadowlands a bigger part of the chronicle.

Now I'm completely uninterested in wether the new conception is a retcon or not or if it's just a new rule mechanic for the same old metaphysical concept. I'm not doing werewolf or wraith crossovers and the way it is described in CotBG works for V5.

What interests me is: Under the V5-premise that the Lasombra and the Hecata draw from/relate to a common source. What kind of plots would you think are now possible? What kind of occult-ish plot-hooks would you suggest for a Hecata-Lasombra coterie?

You haven't explained to us why the group is all Hecata and Lasombra. It isn't clear what their business is. It could be utterly mundane, utterly otherworldly or otherworldly in mundane interests. It depends on the individuals and any authorities that may guide or constrain them. Do they answer to elders in one or both of their clans? How close are they to the Camarilla? Do they want to change that?

I agree with this. I think it would have been a better choice. With the Lasombra and Ministry/Setites joining the Anarchs you could have a sect that could almost be Sabbat 2.0 in the Camarilla's eyes. It certainly would've been interesting to see this play out.

These are the Lasombra who are ditching the original Anarchs. Been there, done that and they're dissatisfied with the outcome.

[Saturno]

Well I guess we can disagree and agree on some points of the exact solvency of this new mechanic compared to the old one... it's just that I feel Touchstones are too Twilight-ish. The inner turmoil of retaining your PC's humanity should be just that, an internal and eternal clash against the Beast. Having some finite source (because Humans are mortal, unless you ghoul them.. but can ghouls be Touchstones?) that is external as your mediation in this said conflict.. just doesn't sit right and generally feels unneeded. The justification of Touchstones just "reminding you of your past humanity" is just to weak of a justification to have it be a thing.

Ghouls can be touchstones. But that will probably be a pretty toxic relationship. Furthermore: Ghouling your touchstone normally incurs a large number of stains.

I mean, ok, if you like to focus on the internal struggle that's ok, but I would argue that internal struggle is mostly a roleplaying thing. And I don't think either system (pre-V5s hierarchy of sins or V5s touchstone system) makes it harder to roleplay internal struggle. But V5 makes it super-easy for the ST to generate story-hooks via the touchstone. V5 for me is a bit like the imperfect love-child of the old storyteller system and FATE. Both happen to be two of my three favourite RPG systems (the third would be Delta Green) and the narrative approach V5 took, was the thing that brought me back to playing VtM after years of playing other stuff although VtM was my first and long-time favourite RPG. Sorry for the derailing. I guess my point is, that the touchstone system is good at providing the basis for a game that is pretty much what I like about earlier editions of VtM, before it became to much high-power world wide conspiracies with clearly defined lore and metaplot. It put back the 'personal' into 'personal horror' for me.

You haven't explained to us why the group is all Hecata and Lasombra. It isn't clear what their business is. It could be utterly mundane, utterly otherworldly or otherworldly in mundane interests. It depends on the individuals and any authorities that may guide or constrain them. Do they answer to elders in one or both of their clans? How close are they to the Camarilla? Do they want to change that?

It's nothing too fancy. The Hecata character is a newly embraced Harbinger, who was brought back from the dead, and hence is a wraith in a vampire's body (as per the lore sheet). We play in Berlin, therefore it's/it was an Anarch chronicle. But since both players don't play Anarchs anymore (the Hecata player was playing a Thinblood before and the Lasombra player was playing a Gangrel), we decided to keep the chronicle but switch the viewing angle and now we're playing in Camarilla territory in Potsdam, which is directly adjacent. So we can keep all the NPCs, that the players like so much but have most of them as antagonists.

The Hecata's sire is one of the chronicles few elders, who wants to use Berlin to experiment with Necromancy and who noticed House Carna's special interest in Berlin and wants to investigate. (Also the other parts of the Hecata family see the the Berlin Barons as weak and want to seize the opportunity to grab a piece of domain for themselves.) I'm using some modified plot hooks from Beckett's Jyhad Diary. All that talk about the German Athens was pretty interesting, but Milwaukee is probably only interesting for US americans. Much more interesting for us is that Berlin has been called 'Spree-Athen' ( Spree Athens, named after it's largest river, the Spree) for threehundred years. So there is a much more usable version of German Athens for our chronicle. So the Book of the Grave War will play a role.

The Lasombra is a Lasombra antitribu, hailing from the line of Montano, who managed to achieve a relative freedom inside the Camarilla (as far as one can get such) and who is tired of politics and wants to study the Abyss and further his studies of abyss mysticism.

That's the short version. I know, what I will do sect and clan politics-wise, but I'm searching for some kind of unifying occult hook. Ideally something that touches the point that Lasombra and Hecata, as different as their work my be, research the same thing, the further they go metaphysically. That's an interesting plot hook.

[Shakanaka]

I would argue that internal struggle is mostly a roleplaying thing.

Yes... because VTM is a roleplaying game.. I would be of the belief that this factor isn't out of scope of the game..

But V5 makes it super-easy for the ST to generate story-hooks via the touchstone.

So plot-hooks like a "Touchstone" about to be kidnapped or assaulted because a rival to the Coterie found out about them and now everyone has to scramble to save that one member's Touchstone... or them just "being there" just for quibbles of dialogue and the scene moves on? I still see no benefit or reason for them to be so hard-integral to the game. They just could've been to the regular Allies, Contacts, Retainers, or Herd. Also its very iffy to call V5 "Narrative". From hard-mechanics for Frenzying now instead of being ST determined when you would outburst, to feeding types to be an explicit thing, Touchstones on its own, "Stains" for using certain Disciplines... I fail to see how V5 is more narrative based than the previous editions. If anything, its more hard-cased than it should be in all honestly.

It put back the 'personal' into 'personal horror' for me.

How do Touchstones evoke personal horror when its entirely based on an other NPC character? How do they make sense beyond Neonates or the Clans that deal with humanity less or are nomadic?

[Saturno]

So plot-hooks like a "Touchstone" about to be kidnapped or assaulted because a rival to the Coterie found out about them and now everyone has to scramble to save that one member's Touchstone... or them just "being there" just for quibbles of dialogue and the scene moves on? I still see no benefit or reason for them to be so hard-integral to the game. They just could've been to the regular Allies, Contacts, Retainers, or Herd. Also its very iffy to call V5 "Narrative". From hard-mechanics for Frenzying now instead of being ST determined when you would outburst, to feeding types to be an explicit thing, Touchstones on its own, "Stains" for using certain Disciplines... I fail to see how V5 is more narrative based than the previous editions. If anything, its more hard-cased than it should be in all honestly.



How do Touchstones evoke personal horror when its entirely based on an other NPC character? How do they make sense beyond Neonates or the Clans that deal with humanity less or are nomadic?

Of course you can interpret game rules in a way that creates more problems than necessary. The principle of charity is not the worst approach to game rules (if the goal is to have fun. Competitive games are another thing.) You say touchstones are about another character. I say a person, who is not a sociopath, can be well defined by his relationship to others and opposing assumption, that beliefs are something that results mainly from our own internal processes and instead making personal beliefs something that is formed and developed in interaction with other people and society might be a possible way to simulate that.

There are lots of narrative rule suggestions: Giving the player the choice e.g. to go through an appropriate compulsion voluntarily even though he didn't roll a beastly failure and thereby regenerating willpower is one such idea. Giving the player some agency in interpreting a messy critical and choosing if he wants to take the stain or the masquerade breach is another. Of course, one could argue that you can do the same things with V20 and of course you can. The thing is, that V5 actively suggests such things. And for people who like to integrate more narrative-oriented rules that's a good thing.
I'm not saying that touchstones are the best thing since sliced bread, just that they can be a good opportunity for plot development. That depends on the players and the ST as always. If the ST doesn't like the concept and only uses them begrudgingly as damsels in distress, he probably should kick out the whole concept and just let the players use convictions without tying them to people. (Which is pretty easy to do.) As I see it, the idea with the touchstones was to have 1-3 NPCs per character, who are defined by the player, which can be used for the chronicle. Session 0 is suggested to be a cooperative setting construction. Having some defined characters here is an asset. If a group doesn't like doing cooperative world building then you can kick the concept. (Predator types e.g. are all good and well, but can be kicked out without having problems with the system.) If someone feels that (for whatever reason) incurring stains with Oblivion means that Oblivion is evil and doesn't want that, he is free to kick the rule. I say getting a stain via discipline use doesn't say anything about morality, but about being alienated from ones former humanity, but hey, you do you.

I mean V5 has some hefty problems, but I find it strange if people think those easily fixable/modular rules are it.

[Spencer from The Hills]

It's nothing too fancy. The Hecata character is a newly embraced Harbinger, who was brought back from the dead, and hence is a wraith in a vampire's body (as per the lore sheet). We play in Berlin, therefore it's/it was an Anarch chronicle. But since both players don't play Anarchs anymore (the Hecata player was playing a Thinblood before and the Lasombra player was playing a Gangrel), we decided to keep the chronicle but switch the viewing angle and now we're playing in Camarilla territory in Potsdam, which is directly adjacent. So we can keep all the NPCs, that the players like so much but have most of them as antagonists.

The Hecata's sire is one of the chronicles few elders, who wants to use Berlin to experiment with Necromancy and who noticed House Carna's special interest in Berlin and wants to investigate. (Also the other parts of the Hecata family see the the Berlin Barons as weak and want to seize the opportunity to grab a piece of domain for themselves.) I'm using some modified plot hooks from Beckett's Jyhad Diary. All that talk about the German Athens was pretty interesting, but Milwaukee is probably only interesting for US americans. Much more interesting for us is that Berlin has been called 'Spree-Athen' ( Spree Athens, named after it's largest river, the Spree) for threehundred years. So there is a much more usable version of German Athens for our chronicle. So the Book of the Grave War will play a role.

The Lasombra is a Lasombra antitribu, hailing from the line of Montano, who managed to achieve a relative freedom inside the Camarilla (as far as one can get such) and who is tired of politics and wants to study the Abyss and further his studies of abyss mysticism.

That's the short version. I know, what I will do sect and clan politics-wise, but I'm searching for some kind of unifying occult hook. Ideally something that touches the point that Lasombra and Hecata, as different as their work my be, research the same thing, the further they go metaphysically. That's an interesting plot hook.

Pretty occult focus then? I asked because I've been playing Shadows of New York lately, which is about a young Lasombra in the Camarilla who's under remote supervision by other Lasombra. The obvious plot hook, put as vaguely as can be, is some sort of mysterious new cthonic phenomenon. How about trans-Abyssal aliens? Maybe they're animating the dead or posing as wraiths, including one of those with which the coterie deals. They turn out to be like nephwracks, but not with human origins.

So what are they doing here? God knows you'd discover this, but all that's left of the equivalents of their own Labyrinth, Shadowlands, Skinlands etc. is debris in the Abyss and a few entities like them who've managed to adapt. So how they did survive and adapt to each level of existence? How exactly did they get here? What was their world like? Are there others? What happened to it? Will that happen to ours? Can that be prevented and if so how? These are questions you might want them around to answer, but most of everyone else of who knows about them wants them gone, because they're destroying everything they touch in blatantly unnatural ways, either because they're oozing with Oblivion or because they don't respect anything in this world or understand why one would.


The prospect of learning some sort of anti-Oblivion that deals with forces and places in the opposite cosmic direction could be interesting. But maybe that's just super Auspex.

[Resplendent Fire]

iirc there's a loresheet that gives the ability to take corpses as your touchstone. (yes, it's kinda stupid that you have to take a loresheet for it i'm just saying it exists)

Okay I'm convinced just let them have fetters instead.

THESE definitely make sense for Touchstones for anything else with their creepy family dynamic as you mention; but for the others? Not so much. Though as archderd mentioned, apparently corpses can be taken as Touchstones.. but if the fundamental aspect of this factor-mechanic is to remind you of Humanity, why do corpses make sense at all? All it would do would touch-on and remind you that YOU'RE undead.. not bring you closer to humanity.

Yeah, I agree with you that living people are harder to explain with some of the other lineages. More options for what a touchstone can be would probably be useful. I mean beyond having a corpse as one through a loresheet.

These are the Lasombra who are ditching the original Anarchs. Been there, done that and they're dissatisfied with the outcome.

Yeah, I know. I remember when they were one of the two named Sabbat clans with hardly any information about them at all in the first edition. Maybe I need to read the V5 Chicago by Night but right now it's hard to see what would drive the Lasombra to swallow every ounce of pride they have left, join the Camarilla, and agree to destroy one Lasombra for every Lasombra welcomed into the Camarilla. Something is weird about this.

How do Touchstones evoke personal horror when its entirely based on an other NPC character? How do they make sense beyond Neonates or the Clans that deal with humanity less or are nomadic?

I think fairly easily based on past games I've run and played. Mortal connections can and do highlight how Kindred have been separated from humanity, and how connected they remain. Touchstones don't have to be kidnapped or threatened to have dramatic or emotional importance.

[Resplendent Fire]

Pretty occult focus then? I asked because I've been playing Shadows of New York lately, which is about a young Lasombra in the Camarilla who's under remote supervision by other Lasombra. The obvious plot hook, put as vaguely as can be, is some sort of mysterious new cthonic phenomenon. How about trans-Abyssal aliens? Maybe they're animating the dead or posing as wraiths, including one of those with which the coterie deals. They turn out to be like nephwracks, but not with human origins.

I'm glad you mentioned this because I think that Shadows of New York has a pretty good example of a touchstone (I know this diverges from your own point, but you reminded me).

[Heavy Arms]

We've had very long, and very contentious threads about Touchstones in V5 (and other mechanics for that matter).

While the Humanity system is part of this topic via the inherent Stain generation thing, it feels like the Touchstone argument should go back to the threads that were explicitly about those (or make a new one because those are getting old).

[Saturno]

Pretty occult focus then? I asked because I've been playing Shadows of New York lately, which is about a young Lasombra in the Camarilla who's under remote supervision by other Lasombra. The obvious plot hook, put as vaguely as can be, is some sort of mysterious new cthonic phenomenon. How about trans-Abyssal aliens? Maybe they're animating the dead or posing as wraiths, including one of those with which the coterie deals. They turn out to be like nephwracks, but not with human origins.

So what are they doing here? God knows you'd discover this, but all that's left of the equivalents of their own Labyrinth, Shadowlands, Skinlands etc. is debris in the Abyss and a few entities like them who've managed to adapt. So how they did survive and adapt to each level of existence? How exactly did they get here? What was their world like? Are there others? What happened to it? Will that happen to ours? Can that be prevented and if so how? These are questions you might want them around to answer, but most of everyone else of who knows about them wants them gone, because they're destroying everything they touch in blatantly unnatural ways, either because they're oozing with Oblivion or because they don't respect anything in this world or understand why one would.


The prospect of learning some sort of anti-Oblivion that deals with forces and places in the opposite cosmic direction could be interesting. But maybe that's just super Auspex.

That's pretty cool. (Sorry, for some reason I missed your answer.) I guess I'll look into Shadows of New York.
I'm pretty cautious with that amount of creativity when it comes to defining new stuff, that touches the worlds metaphysics. But it sounds really fun.
Do you have any idea, what kind of chronicle tenets one could use to reflect this? I'd like to have one tenet that goes into a quasi-lovecraftian direction.

(If it's important: The camarilla part of the chronicle was kicked out. The players want to remain in Berlin, which is still Anarch turf. The city is pretty fleshed-out in our chronicle, with many well-established NPCs and they want to use that. It's divided between 5 Barons, with de jure Zero camarilla presence, but de facto there's House Tremere via Maxwell Ldescu's chantry.)