Question on V20 Ventrue weakness

[Ipergigio]

About the weakness of the Clan Ventrue I've always considered it as something interesting and yet frustrating at the same time.
I mean, how can they understand if their victims are what they need?

[Chris24601]

This is honestly one of the things I found a vast improvement in V5; sensing if someone matches your prey type and being able to feed from others by burning Bane willpower makes it less all or nothing.

The main thing in V20 is to just make sure your category isn’t something you could easily confuse; ex. prostitutes (if they take your money they’re a meal) or green eyes or red hair. The biggest unanswered question is how much of this restriction is psychological vs. supernatural... i.e. if a woman dyed her hair red is that sufficient to qualify or do only natural redheads count? (honestly, the answer probably depends on the particular vampire).

[MyWifeIsScary]

If it isn't immediately obvious, use your ventrue dollary-doos to find horny singles in your area research locals that fit your criteria.

[Prometheas]

Also consider that each ventrue's feeding restriction isn't going to be random, it's going to be something personally significant to them. It's either going to be a type of person they're highly attracted to, a member of a group that they're proud to be a part of, or someone who's home culture they were heavily effected by.

The ventrue shouldn't have a lot of trouble identifying people they're feeding-restricted to because they should already be significant to them for other reasons.

[Black Fox]

I think this is a combination of several things.

First, there's a learning period when the Ventrue fledgling learns to feed and determine what fits for him. It would make the childe more dependent on his sire initially, but that fits the clan which as a whole depends on one another more than other vampires. New PCs aren't intended to be newly made, but have experienced 5-25 years or so of tutelage as a fledgling, so this is typically ignored. But a significant part of his time as a fledgling is spent figuring out this exclusion, and during this time his sire or another Ventrue helps him out a lot. Someone without an easy to figure out restriction is going to spend a lot of time hungry, and he needs a more experienced Ventrue to locate specimens that are known to work and bring them to the new vampire.

Second, I think it would be likely that the same Curse which limits their feeding, also helps them determine who can fit that criteria. It's like when people develop a sudden craving for a specific food - the mind unconsciously knows a certain nutrient is needed, and that comes across as a craving for a food that provides that nutrient. So a Ventrue probably instinctively finds someone as appetizing or not as long as it is based on some obvious characteristic. If the Ventrue has a prey selection with criteria that is not obvious at first glance, that would take a while to kick in until the Ventrue learns that person has that characteristic. Then suddenly, he develops a "craving" to feed on that person. It just takes some time for a Ventrue to figure out a definition of his exclusion based on that.

Third, the Ventrue as a whole have a very long history of dealing with such things, as well as a clan culture that encourages Ventrue to help each other out. So there is probably a lot of lore in the clan that helps new Ventrue navigate this. There are probably types of categorizations the Ventrue use to help narrow down the typical feeding restrictions. So when a Ventrue shows a strong bias towards one type of prey, he could quickly be educated that it might mean these other kind of people are included or excluded.

So at the end of the process, the new Ventrue has a good what his prey exclusion is. A Ventrue who hasn't done this, simply isn't ready to be released. At some point after that happens, he is ready to be released. And some point after that, he begins play as a PC.

[Cadmiumcadamium]

Reminds me of a concept for a Ventrues weakness for a DA game I've heard about (I think it was here) where they could only drink from certain people and they couldn't figure out what it was that they had in common. Only after many centuries of trial and error they eventually figured out what it was. They could only drink from a certain blood type (like A- or something).

[Thoth]

The thing that makes a given prey edible to a Ventrue is often something rather blatant. Like a specific bio-sex, an age bracket, how clean they are, etc. Obviously things like virginity or natural hair color are more complicated, but generally when a Ventrue sees a person who fits their inner criteria they just salivate like showing a person a picture of their favorite meal. Not exactly RAW but it keeps things moving along if the player doesn't want to overly dwell on the clan weakness.

Interesting side question about the Ventrue Weakness, what happens if the preferred human type no longer exists? In previous editions it was suggested that a particular race might be the food restriction. There have been many instances through out history where entire genetic lineages have been wiped out by plagues, wars, or other catastrophes. This can get compounded by the fact that even if there are survivors, given how long a vampire can exist, after centuries of cross breeding or evolving to their new environment, the food supply no longer counts as that original people.

In one dark age game we ran, we used it as a major plot point where the PCs had the option to exterminate the last descendants of a food tribe that was being carefully maintained by an ancient Ventrue. This would allow them to drive the elder to torpor or at least weaken him to the point that he couldn't fight back.

[MyWifeIsScary]

In LotC in states that, when a Ventrue can't find his food source at all, he goes into a Torpor and awakes looking for a new food source type.

[Garygeneric]

Side thought: One thing I’ve noticed is that both players and writers always try to come up with something totally unique when deciding a Ventrue’s preference, but consider the friction and story potential that might arise if several Ventrue enjoyed the same “flavor.”

[Father Enoch]

I was looking for an "Ask a simple question," thread here, but I found this instead. Sorry for the thread necromancy, but I've been wondering something recently and I wasn't sure it was worth making a new topic.

Before V5, how did a Ventrue Embrace someone if they were NOT of the Ventrue's feeding restriction?

[AnubisXy]

To embrace someone, you just drain the person to the point of death and given them your blood. You don't have to drink that person's blood.

[Father Enoch]

So Ventrue Sires just let the blood go to waste?

[Hades]

About the weakness of the Clan Ventrue I've always considered it as something interesting and yet frustrating at the same time.
I mean, how can they understand if their victims are what they need?

I believe this is addressed in a splatbook somewhere, where they basically say that Ventrue, like addicts looking for their fix, "just know." So a Ventrue, being given five goblets of blood, would know which one they could gain sustenance from.

[monteparnas]

So Ventrue Sires just let the blood go to waste?

Yes. Or let someone else take it, that's also valid, specially when "classic" was more lenient with out-of-body blood. The person must loose the blood, the sire don't have to be the cause, and there are a few stories of self-embraces where the person arranged their own exsanguination.

In fact, if the Ventrue is careful enough about it, they may even try to give the childer their own blood stored a few moments before. If it goes well, you can give the Fledgling a nice first meal.

[Gangrel44]

If it isn't immediately obvious, use your ventrue dollary-doos to find horny singles in your area research locals that fit your criteria.

Now this a man who talks sense...