Paths, and other Sabbat related shenanigans

[Haquim]

1) it's true because the battle against the beast is internal and personal, the tools.(Path) to fight that battle are yours alone.

2) and that's why I don't like how paths and the Sabbat were treated in revised.

1. It's false because, like it or not, vampires are social creatures that need contact with others of their kind and mortals to avoid degeneration (again, check it out on some of the old books if you don't believe me), and it's even more false if you consider how the Road system for DA:V even had priests for each of the Roads.

2. That's your prerogative. Back then I couldn't remember hearing the bitching and moaning I keep heraing these days on this subject though, as V2 was widely derided back in Revised era.

[MyWifeIsScary]

I feel that bad players will be bad players. Paths have little to do with that.

[Pleiades]

What I'm also saying is those people who look at Paths as a way to get justification for their bad behaviour at the table will have an hard time doing so under the V5 framework of rules

how so?

(blah blah 10 character minimum)

[Taggie]

1. It's false because, like it or not, vampires are social creatures that need contact with others of their kind and mortals to avoid degeneration (again, check it out on some of the old books if you don't believe me), and it's even more false if you consider how the Road system for DA:V even had priests for each of the Roads.

2. That's your prerogative. Back then I couldn't remember hearing the bitching and moaning I keep heraing these days on this subject though, as V2 was widely derided back in Revised era.

1. Counter point: Golconda seekers, and others seeking really high path scores, used to move away from kindred and kine societies, doing the wise vampire hermit thing.

2. the internet was much younger then. V2 wasn't perfect, but certain devs hatred of various factions made a mess of revised.

As to Path/Player interface: my experience is that Anarch players have a 100% hit rate for bullying sex pests in my local area (Seriously, 2 ended up in jail on sexual assault charges, 1 for attempted murder the rest just either didn't get charged, or kept it just this side of legal) you don't see me slamming people who want to play anarchs as rabidly as you are attacking people who want paths to work, and you are attacking, constantly.

[Haquim]

1. Counter point: Golconda seekers, and others seeking really high path scores, used to move away from kindred and kine societies, doing the wise vampire hermit thing.

2. the internet was much younger then. V2 wasn't perfect, but certain devs hatred of various factions made a mess of revised.

As to Path/Player interface: my experience is that Anarch players have a 100% hit rate for bullying sex pests in my local area (Seriously, 2 ended up in jail on sexual assault charges, 1 for attempted murder the rest just either didn't get charged, or kept it just this side of legal) you don't see me slamming people who want to play anarchs as rabidly as you are attacking people who want paths to work, and you are attacking, constantly.

1. Is Golconda even a thing? Cause VtM never defined what Golconda is and it was often suggested it may just be a myth. The part about leaving kindred society for enlightenment is very KotE I'd say...

2. Back then the Guide to the Sabbat (Revised ed) was widely praised and it changed the Sabbat in fundamental ways (for the better imo). Also Revised gave us books like Sins of the Blood and Chaining the Beast that made Paths less abusable and much more nuanced.

I'm not slamming anyone, I'm saying Paths can be played in V5 and I see you, who opened this thread asking about that not even trying to contemplate the notion it may be so. I'm also saying that in the past it was factually true that Paths could have the unwanted effect of giving in game justification to problematic behaviour, in a similar way to what happens in D&D with a lot Chaotic Neutral PCs. Of course it's the player who does these things but it's never good when the system gives justification to thatkind of behaviour.

To sum it up: Can Paths be implemented into the V5 framework? Yes, of course.
Will this make people who claim to love Paths finally happy? No, I don't think so, because their issue is not really with Path implementation in V5.

[Haquim]

how so?

(blah blah 10 character minimum)

Because the way morality rules work in V5 make sure you define what's ok and what's not before you start playing (see: Chronicle Tenets) and Tenets make sure you'll have to roll for degeneration sooner or later instead of never being challenged in your faith because the Path you choose magically justified you doing whatever you wanted to.

[Taggie]

1. Is Golconda even a thing? Cause VtM never defined what Golconda is and it was often suggested it may just be a myth. The part about leaving kindred society for enlightenment is very KotE I'd say...

2. Back then the Guide to the Sabbat (Revised ed) was widely praised and it changed the Sabbat in fundamental ways (for the better imo). Also Revised gave us books like Sins of the Blood and Chaining the Beast that made Paths less abusable and much more nuanced.

I'm not slamming anyone, I'm saying Paths can be played in V5 and I see you, who opened this thread asking about that not even trying to contemplate the notion it may be so. I'm also saying that in the past it was factually true that Paths could have the unwanted effect of giving in game justification to problematic behaviour, in a similar way to what happens in D&D with a lot Chaotic Neutral PCs. Of course it's the player who does these things but it's never good when the system gives justification to thatkind of behaviour.

To sum it up: Can Paths be implemented into the V5 framework? Yes, of course.
Will this make people who claim to love Paths finally happy? No, I don't think so, because their issue is not really with Path implementation in V5.

1. No one knows, but NPCs seeking it certainly did the withdrawal.

2. you are presenting a solution that isn't actually anything like a path, then attacking anyone who disagrees that your degenerate, insulting mess isn't a path.

[blailton]

Golconda is a thing. I remember I saw somewhere: You are no longer limited by gen. cap. except bloodpool, while in v5 you can walk in sun with it.

Harano is a WtA thing not a VtM thing. The books said every vampire want to be the unique. They dont leave the city "cause werewolfs".

In v5 to raise your humanity (despite being impossible with the xp tax) or, as someone is sugesting, path, you need to stop any interaction with vampires in general so no, deal with vampires to keep your beast chained was never a thing o.O

I never played a PC with path, but damn, anything but v5 humanity rules.

[MyWifeIsScary]

I played the cold path of Night, it was darkly hilarious. I've played Samasara Paradox, which is an amazing path to play, my favorite from experience so far. I've played Chivalry, but that's basically how vampires should normally act. I did go the extra mile with my modern-samurai gangster (vampire hunter-turned-vampire on chivalry. Thank you HHII for the inspiration) but uh... while there were no trenchcoats, that was a very bombastic, katana heavy game. Road of Sin; didn't go very far with it. I've never managed to get a settite game. I got someone to join the Bahari and they did Bahari stuff for a long time but that game stopped before they jumped paths. In a solo game I ran I turned someone to infernalism but, eh, that player got sucked in faster than he wanted to because I played the demon a little too well (IE he thought I, the ST, really really wanted it, and he caved. I was just having fun playing the demon.) so we took a step back and stopped the game before I could get him onto evil Revelations.
My tangling with other PCs has all been done on humanity. On paths i've been nothing but nice.

But, yeah, paths are great fun to RP.
You really need to get into the mindset of things. The more religious paths are a lot easier than, say, path of power and the inner voice.

[Shakanaka]

Paths could have the unwanted effect of giving in game justification to problematic behaviour,

Oh my god how many times we have to tell you that's just an OOC problem with your players, not the Paths themselves. Even with Humanity baseline your going to get people who are bad RP players, stop blaming Paths. And also why do people always find the need to bring up or compare this game to D&D, its annoying.

Path you choose magically justified you doing whatever you wanted to.

It's simple; if the PC does something that would get them in trouble if caught, use IC means to give them an interesting Consequence in reactivity to their action.. y'know, basic storytelling instead of crying about Tabletop and putting playing the characters how you want. If they are a smart player and able to get out of hairiness using their character skills, let them continue on. If not, it's interesting to how the story diverges from there and how that player specifically reacts. Also Paths don't magically justify anything, there codes of morality and ethics that tether whether or not the Beast is controlled. If the player is breaking bits of their Path, roll for degeneration to simulate that.. if they are inline with their Path, continue the game as usual. It's not hard.

[Pleiades]

Because the way morality rules work in V5 make sure you define what's ok and what's not before you start playing (see: Chronicle Tenets) and Tenets make sure you'll have to roll for degeneration sooner or later instead of never being challenged in your faith because the Path you choose magically justified you doing whatever you wanted to.

alright, I'm getting the big picture,
here are some scathered thoughts (keep in mind I have yet to try a v5 game on table)

if I understand the V5 rules properly, convictions allow you to challenge stains from chronicle tenets,
the ST would have to go out his way to make a murder-hobo character pay for their violations

and with the players telling me they have games where they butcher nazis and whatnot on a regular basis makes me think we're far away from the restrictive humanity of the Revised Era

(tell me if I'm wrong, of course)

also, so far, the depiction of sabbat in the canon seems to be going the "wanton violence" way,
they no longer have a political environment,
the only group published is the seven fires who are all about causing mayhem and grief
and the only published sabbat character is a guy that leaves a trail of raped mutilated tortured human bodies behind him

the devs don't seem to be making steps to make sabbat players more reasonable,
quite the opposite, they're pushing for the murder-hobo sabbat,
and that was the main thing the sabbat fans were complaining about in the beginning

finally, you were saying players weren't picking paths to play something outside of humanity,
good point, but here's the problem

old paths had a bunch of ethics and 10 sins in the hierarchy,
it was nowhere enough to define an alien (inhuman) morality, yet it's still alot more than the 3 chronicle tenets and the 5 convictions you get in v5,

and it gets worse if you consider that the chronicle Tenets will likely be sabbat related (pack, ritae, crusade etc...not political though, since that's out) rather than path related, further limiting the definition of the path

the way I see it, and I may be wrong, but v5 isn't making morality less abusable, and they're not making sabbat alien moralists,
if anything, they're actually making things worse

just like CTPhipps used to say, in this edition, the sabbat are not the warrior poets, alien priests or smart evil,
they're the stupide evil CN murder-hobos that you are criticizing,
and the rules aren't making things different

[Dwight]

Probably super late to the discussion but since a path utterly divorces you from humanity what about making touchstones into path tenants. It gets rid of the clunky level by level sin list

[MyWifeIsScary]

Level by sin works bad with humanity, but it works pretty well with paths. If only it wasn't so strong as -We must have a sin every level- and instead had a little more leeway for context and such.

[Haquim]

1. No one knows, but NPCs seeking it certainly did the withdrawal.

2. you are presenting a solution that isn't actually anything like a path, then attacking anyone who disagrees that your degenerate, insulting mess isn't a path.

1. Did it work for them? In VtM Golconda has always been presented as an option. Sins of the Blood (a GREAT book, track it down, really) tells you the tale of a Vampire who reaches the Suspire... and fails. What would have happened had he suceeded? No one knows, because WW never said Golconda is actually a thing. At best there were optional rules for PCs reaching Golconda but since damnation is such a strong theme for VtM Golconda was never made officially "a thing".

2. I'm presenting a solution for Paths to work under the V5 ruleset. This obviously means I neded to adapt the Path for the system. In V5 the morality ruleset depends on Chronicle Tenets/Convictions/Touchstones:

• Chronicle Tenets are the external morality that influences what's generally acceptable in a Chronicle and what is not. They are defined by the whole troupe before the chronicle starts. So if you want a game where Paths are viable you simply come up with a set of Tenets that challanges players without forcing them to aquire stains every time they do something. IF EVERYONE IS OK WITH IT under this system you can also have extremely lax morality rules.
• Convictions are your personal morality. Doing things in accordance to them makes violating Tenets less dangerous. This is where the Path Ethics should be included and that's exactly what I did with my suggestion. In order to make Convictions emulate Path etichs I suggested in V5 Path followers should not be able to choose their own convictions like they can do with Humanity but rather Convictions come fixed for them (and I suggested a set of 3 Convictions that represent the core of the Path of Blood values).
• The V5 corebook Touchstones are people who embody someone's convictions and allow that person to have more of them (up to 3). Since Paths try to generate non-human moral sets I suggested that to work in V5 Path followers should be able to use items as Touchstones as well. I personally think Ideas and concepts could work as well but it's important to note Touchstones should always present at least a modicum of a challenge to players. That means if we include different types of Touchstones we also need to include potential ways to endanger touchstones. For items it might be fear of theft or somesuch for ideas we need a system for debates much like what was done in VtR:Rome. I'm obviously not going to provide such systems here (no time and honestly, no incentive) but it's easily doable taking inspiration from what already exists.

Once all this stuff is in place you have a Path that can work in the framework of V5. Of course, if you reject V5 as a whole and only start thread to "prove" that something can't be done then you won't even try listen to people telling you something can be done instead.

[Haquim]

alright, I'm getting the big picture,
here are some scathered thoughts (keep in mind I have yet to try a v5 game on table)

if I understand the V5 rules properly, convictions allow you to challenge stains from chronicle tenets,
the ST would have to go out his way to make a murder-hobo character pay for their violations

and with the players telling me they have games where they butcher nazis and whatnot on a regular basis makes me think we're far away from the restrictive humanity of the Revised Era

(tell me if I'm wrong, of course)

In V5 morality works as follows:

If a character acts in violation of a chronicle Tenet, the Storyteller weighs the severity of the violation. A clear but justifiable or less-than-appalling violation may only incur 1 Stain. A truly bestial act, on the other hand, may incur 2 or even more Stains. If the Tenet was violated in the service of a Conviction, reduce the Stains gained by one or more.

Since Chronicle Tenets are set by the whole troupe before the Chronicle starts they can be tailored to serve the kind of Chronicle that is to be played. Want a Sabbat Game? Set Chronicle Tenets like "Show no mercy to the agents of the Ancients".

also, so far, the depiction of sabbat in the canon seems to be going the "wanton violence" way,
they no longer have a political environment,
the only group published is the seven fires who are all about causing mayhem and grief
and the only published sabbat character is a guy that leaves a trail of raped mutilated tortured human bodies behind him

the devs don't seem to be making steps to make sabbat players more reasonable,
quite the opposite, they're pushing for the murder-hobo sabbat,
and that was the main thing the sabbat fans were complaining about in the beginning

The Sabbat book for V5 will be done with the supervision of Justin Achilli, who, as you very well know, is the same guy behind the Guide to the Sabbat, a book that reinvented the sect and made it into something much more playable and less "murderhoboey" than it previously was. What we've seen of the Sabbat thus far is just broken survivors of a lost war. I don't think they represent what the Sabbat will become after El_Bastardo works on it. That said, from what happened to the Sabbat in V5 I suspect the Sect will become much more agile and effective. No more doing the Camarilla stuff but calling the de facto prince of the city "Cardinal". Also I hope V5 Sabbat will make it possible for the 3 sects to co-exist because in the past the Sabbat/Camarilla conflict turned the Anarchs in to a mere subsect of the Camarilla. Camarilla and Anarchs oppose each other because of politics. Sabbat and Camarilla and Anarchs need to oppose each other based on something else. This is beyond the point of this thread though.

finally, you were saying players weren't picking paths to play something outside of humanity,
good point, but here's the problem

old paths had a bunch of ethics and 10 sins in the hierarchy,
it was nowhere enough to define an alien (inhuman) morality, yet it's still alot more than the 3 chronicle tenets and the 5 convictions you get in v5,

and it gets worse if you consider that the chronicle Tenets will likely be sabbat related (pack, ritae, crusade etc...not political though, since that's out) rather than path related, further limiting the definition of the path

the way I see it, and I may be wrong, but v5 isn't making morality less abusable, and they're not making sabbat alien moralists,
if anything, they're actually making things worse

just like CTPhipps used to say, in this edition, the sabbat are not the warrior poets, alien priests or smart evil,
they're the stupide evil CN murder-hobos that you are criticizing,
and the rules aren't making things different

Humanity had 10 sins in hierarchy as well, yet the Humanity score in V5 just tells you what your morality score does for you. This may easily be adapted for paths. Keep in mind that Paths included examples of sins but at the core of those sins there were less than 10 ideas. In the case of the (Revised) Path of Blood for example the core ideas were you judge other vampires according to the law/you keep yourself under control/you don't bother mortals/you act with honour when dealing with your allies.

Also, CTPhipps has a right to his opinions but they are just that, opinions, not facts.