My review of SABBAT: THE BLACK HAND 4.5/5

[MarkK]

Note: This is a post in reply to this post: http://forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/m...23#post1463923

That is a.. really selective take on things and relies heavily on essentially taking a stance that this forum has seen a number of gripes about, including my own of course, that there's this idea that basically the only VtM that "counts" mostly came out in 1991 and *maybe* early 92.

The Anarchs were initially given a lot of support as the central opposing sect of the Camarilla in the main book with BAPTISM BY FIRE (Modius vs. Juggler) followed by 1st Edition CHICAGO BY NIGHT. The Anarchs were presented as the "friendly" faction in the module ASHES TO ASHES as well as in THE SUCCUBUS CLUB. Certainly, MILWAUKEE BY NIGHT made it clear that the Anarchs were a major power inside the city with the feud between the existing Elders having the Anarchs led by "The Black Prince" who was, himself, an ancient Elder.

This is not the same thing as saying the Anarchs were the most popular sect with the fans of Vampire the Masquerade. The very fact that the Camarilla was detailed as a thing in these books, by your logic, would let someone claim "the Camarilla was at least as popular." Milwaukee by Night had the Anarchs as *a* power within the city, not *the* power within the city. Which, particularly given things like Decker and the Anubi would be an interesting claim to make. They actually, and also in Chicago by Night, often felt like something of almost a relative minority, and particularly in the latter case with Maldavis, outright dupes.

While I'm there, Chicago by Night 1e itself, right in the "How to Use this book" talks about the potential for players who completed Ashes to Ashes and don't have anarch ties to have become Archons and Lodin's bodyguards, as though even right back then the Camarilla was being talked about as "potentially a thing the players are operating within as part of". And I need to try and have you understand in advance that replying to this with "well that means they were bad", does not change the point being made, that the book talked at one point about the pcs as though they were functioning within and along with the Camarilla just fine as an option for something players could have done and succeeded at doing. Because it feels like that's where you would want to go off that.

THE ANARCH COOKBOOK was a release in 1993 with Salvador's introduction and the idea of how to wage war against the Camarilla as well as overthrow Princes being a primary introduction of the story. This was all before CHICAGO BY NIGHT introduced the Anarchs as the central threat to the reign of Prince Lodin with Maldavis shown as a Humanity 10 vampire versus Lodin as a Humanity 4 as well as just being a real asshole.

Maldavis was shown as a failed pawn of the elders of Chicago who got by as much from her hidden support by the Primogen as anything. You have a really un-nuanced take on Chicago by Night is the most I can say there. Especially the Second Edition of Chicago By Night. The Anarch Cookbook was an Anarch focused supplement that came out *after* things like the Sabbat getting a Sabbat focused supplement, so again by the logic you're putting forward, the Sabbat must have been the most popular group with the fans in VtM before that. In fact, books like "a World of Darkness" had come out before the Anarch Cookbook, and in the main had a pretty thorough multi sect focus.

UNDER A BLOOD RED MOON is also notable as one of the main releases for a vampire module and the premise for the vampire chapters assumes that the player characters are Anarchs because they have the central goal of killing Lodin and his supporters if at all possible.

Under a Blood Red Moon states that the characters can be Sabbat, Camarilla, or Anarchs, what are you talking about? There are literal chunks of the book called "the chapter for Sabbat", as in, if you are running the book for Sabbat players.

In fact, here is the first paragraph right under "the chapter for kindred"

The following scenes detail the story up to this point from
the perspective of Camarilla Kindred characters. It is a good
idea to read the previous section for Garou anyway, as the two
perspectives tie together throughout the story.

As though that bit of the book is for Camarilla pcs. With other sections for Sabbat pcs. The idea that the book is solely Anarch focused does not jive with the content of the book. The characters can certainly be drawn into wanting to kill Lodin and his supporters, but reasons for that vary wildly from "the characters are the Sabbat" to "Al Capone tries to use them to destroy Lodin". There are otherwise options including not trying to be involved with Lodin's destruction at all and instead trying to prove to the Primogen council that the Sabbat are behind the Garou/Vampire conflict. The characters are potentially Camarilla enough that a potential ending is "one of them becomes Prince, somehow".

It feels like we're talking about two completely different books. I'm looking at Under a Blood Red Moon, this book:

Under a Blood Red Moon - White Wolf | Werewolf: The Apocalypse 2nd Edition | DriveThruRPG.com

In fact, from Drivethru's own description it's "Camarilla and Sabbat vampires", while we're there.

In fact the back cover of Under a Blood Red Moon says "a multifaceted story playable by Garou, Sabbat or Camarilla characters".

Yeah and the Camarilla content is generally from the perspective of a society the Anarchs are a PART OF and to oppose. The Sabbat have been playable since the near beginning but they were an Anarch offshoot that also came to prominence AFTER Los Angeles by Night. The Sabbat were not a major focus of the game until the 1999 Clan Novels where they went from being the occasional threat via siege to happening everywhere.

This claim does not work with the logic of your own statements. The Sabbat showed up as npcs and sect presences in multiple books before 1999. They were a part of the Revised corebook, that came out a year before that. They were a significant presence in A World of Darkness 2e, which came out in 1996. Under a Blood Red Moon, which came out in 1993 outright gave them entire chunks of the adventure module under the assumption of "if you are running this for Sabbat players". They had a player's guide in 1992 and a storyteller's guide in 1993.

The idea that the Sabbat did not get a major focus of the game until 1999, does not jive with the publication history of the game Vampire the Masquerade. The sect war certainly did not become defining until the revised era, but the idea that the Sabbat were not a major, playable presence in VtM before that doesn't make sense to say. This again goes to a binary viewpoint you seem to possess of something has to be the most important, or it couldn't have been important at all.

Yeah and the Camarilla content is generally from the perspective of a society the Anarchs are a PART OF and to oppose.

No, only sometimes. And certainly with decreasing mono-frequency after, say, 1992. The Camarilla was increasingly coming off as a valid option itself just fine. There are sections of books that talk like pcs are members of the Camarilla, seeking to advance and exist within it, not overthrow or oppose it.

I take it your answer is, "I do not believe the Anarchs were the most popular sect before LA by Night"?

My answer is, you've shown nothing of substance to support the claim you have made, and given the actual publication history and book content of VtM, nothing really exists otherwise to support that either without basically ignoring whole books or selectively reading existing ones. You want to say the Anarchs were the most popular sect with the fans of Vampire the Masquerade, and you want to base it on coming off as saying some books existed while ignoring the implications of completely different books existing at functionally the same time at various points, omitting the content of other books, and the like. The only thing you can say with any definition is that the Anarchs were popular enough that it was profitable to keep including them in stuff. But again, you could say that about the Camarilla and Sabbat as well.

See above. I'm also happy to ask developers if you want me to Twitter them.

Feel free, but unless they include the words "we conducted market research on the fanbase at the time and it showed that the Anarchs were the most popular sect with the fans", or "in terms of recorded sales, the Anarch only supplements outsold everything by a considerable margin", that's going to be straight up their own opinions besides.

[jamiemalk]

So you are postulating the idea the Anarchs weren't the popular sect? Just for the sake of clarity. Just how popular did you think they were?

Until V5, i had no idea anyone liked the "anarchs". No one i'd ever gamed with had liked them...

(excluding of course, the Sabbat)

In 1992, they established the Sabbat WERE Anarchs. Just the bad ones.

Noooo, the sabbat were the Anarchs that were achieved something and actually stuck at it, the ones that folded can hardly be described as good...

The default was being Anarchs after all.

News to me, i never would have reached that conclusion.

[CTPhipps]

Understood. Thanks for sharing your perspective. Opened my eyes to a very different view, MarkK

[Black Fox]

I disagree with this. Anarchists can be organised, in fact anyone worth their salt is and thats all a sect is really. "Don't mourn, organise!" is literally an anarchist motto.

The Anarchs of Vampire are not anarchists. Some might be, but others aren't. All vampires will have their own idea about what kind of political order constitutes freedom from the elders. Some Anarchs are merely vampires who don't like the rule of THIS elder but would be perfectly fine with another elder being Prince. So the label "Anarch" in VtM covers a lot of things. I would imagine any adherents of the varieties of political anarchism would be a minority among vampires for the same reason they are a minority among humanity. Almost none of the canonical examples of the Anarchs we have demonstrates anarchism to any degree.

[CTPhipps]

The Anarchs of Vampire are not anarchists. Some might be, but others aren't. All vampires will have their own idea about what kind of political order constitutes freedom from the elders. Some Anarchs are merely vampires who don't like the rule of THIS elder but would be perfectly fine with another elder being Prince. So the label "Anarch" in VtM covers a lot of things. I would imagine any adherents of the varieties of political anarchism would be a minority among vampires for the same reason they are a minority among humanity. Almost none of the canonical examples of the Anarchs we have demonstrates anarchism to any degree.

Hell some are socialists and some are outright fascists.

Anarch is basically a term that means, "Against the Camarilla and Sabbat."

[monteparnas]

That is a.. really selective take on things and relies heavily on essentially taking a stance that this forum has seen a number of gripes about, including my own of course, that there's this idea that basically the only VtM that "counts" mostly came out in 1991 and *maybe* early 92.

I specifically stated this is not what I think and I would really appreciate that you don't put words in my mouth. Not saying that you did on purpose, but this is a specific pet peeve of mine even when accidental.

What I did was an analysis of the early setting and its books, emphasizing that the trend is stronger the early you look. This in no way means the early setting is the only valid, the more valid, or the anything anything. It was just a factual statement without judgement.

The early Vampire is centered on the Anarchs. The early WoD also have Vampire Jesus, Gypsies, and every Asian Mage is a clone of Bruce Lee. This is a curiosity, a context, a historical fact, not an assertion about the One True Way of playing anything. As much as you're right that some people insist in this kind of argument, you cannot just try to ban historical analysis because it reminds you of past shitty posts.

By the way, my analysis can be wrong and I would love to read an actual counter analysis.

[MarkK]

I specifically stated this is not what I think and I would really appreciate that you don't put words in my mouth. Not saying that you did on purpose, but this is a specific pet peeve of mine even when accidental.

What I did was an analysis of the early setting and its books, emphasizing that the trend is stronger the early you look. This in no way means the early setting is the only valid, the more valid, or the anything anything. It was just a factual statement without judgement.

The early Vampire is centered on the Anarchs. The early WoD also have Vampire Jesus, Gypsies, and every Asian Mage is a clone of Bruce Lee. This is a curiosity, a context, a historical fact, not an assertion about the One True Way of playing anything. As much as you're right that some people insist in this kind of argument, you cannot just try to ban historical analysis because it reminds you of past shitty posts.

By the way, my analysis can be wrong and I would love to read an actual counter analysis.

I was replying to CTPhipps' take on things, not yours.

Didn't really see your post in the middle of that back and forth until after I was done. It's why he's the only person I'm quoting there.

[MarkK]

I'll go back and edit my post for clarity though to make that apparent though, no worries.

[Black Fox]

The Anarchs were initially given a lot of support as the central opposing sect of the Camarilla...

I think this was the intention of the original writers that the Anarchs would be the default PC faction for some of the reasons you gave. But I don't think that's what actually happened. From my personal experience of the early days (which of course is extremely limited but I have no reason to think it was an exception), players did in fact initially gravitate to Anarch type PCs because the initial presentation of the game encouraged it. Certainly Chicago By Night encouraged PCs to be enemies of Lodin. Most of us were coming from combat heavy RPGs, and it seemed like this is what we were supposed to do.

But quite early on, players started defecting away from the Anarch stereotype. They became much more interested in aspects of Vampire that took them away from being adolescent hoodlums angry at the Man. Not everyone wanted their PC to be in the movie The Lost Boys. They had other inspirations. The moment the first player brought the clanbook or players guide they just bought, interest in playing Anarch-type PCs declined.

They wanted to roleplay the interesting aspects of their clan's culture. They wanted to explore Elysium and salon culture of the elders. As more of the game setting was introduced in the Clanbooks and Players Guide, the less interested players were to be on the anarch side of things. They found the aspects associated with the Camarilla and the elders much more interesting. Players wanted to explore that. They couldn't explore those aspects of the setting well if they were actually Anarchs because Anarchs were expected to reject all of that.

The players who wanted to play Ventrue and Tremere were usually never interested in being Anarchs at all. And once more of the setting was explored, I saw the clans of the Toreador, Malkavians, and Nosferatu drop interest among the Anarchs. I really only saw many, but not all, of the Brujah PC players truly want to play Anarch characters.

Yeah, the PCs might still want to overthrow Lodin. But it wasn't so they could free the young and powerless vampires from the tyranny of the elders. It was to put one of the PCs (or a trusted NPC ally) as Prince instead which is a big difference.

From what I personally experienced, the Anarch phase of most tabletop games lasted about three months until the ST and PCs learned enough about the setting to move on to things they found much more interesting. Then they rebooted their chronicles.

I'm not saying all players did so. I know some Vampire players that were interested in playing only Anarch PCs or at least PCs that were sympathetic to the Anarchs. And the Brujah Anarch archetype was certainly a popular PC choice. But they were a distinct minority in most gaming groups, and had to adjust to most of their gaming group just wasn't interested in going down that route. I'm sure there were plenty of games where the players and STs were mostly interested on the Anarch side of things, but I don't think they were representative.

Likewise the LARPs I attended that were Anarch based were less well regarded than those that were Camarilla. Anarch LARPs quickly succumbed to the problem of no one knowing what to do with the setting. Things quickly became repetitive, especially if the Prince was gone and the setting was now a Free State. On the other hand, the Camarilla games have enough variety of aspects to them that more players found things to do.

I think one reason some players were really looking forward to LAbN originally was there was the hope that Anarch centric games could be just as interesting to explore as Camarilla games. We just needed to know what was in the secret sauce in the mysterious Anarch Free State! Then we found out it was bland and uninteresting. The main thing that made the Anarchs interesting to play was putting them in contrast to the rest of the vampire culture overseen by the Camarilla. Players might want their PCs to have feet in both worlds to a degree to explore as much of the setting as possible, but I didn't see most choosing to play Anarchs. It's a totally valid choice to do so, and I do want the game to have better toolkits to help STs run those kind of chronicles.

[CTPhipps]

I think this was the intention of the original writers that the Anarchs would be the default PC faction for some of the reasons you gave. But I don't think that's what actually happened. From my personal experience of the early days (which of course is extremely limited but I have no reason to think it was an exception), players did in fact initially gravitate to Anarch type PCs because the initial presentation of the game encouraged it. Certainly Chicago By Night encouraged PCs to be enemies of Lodin. Most of us were coming from combat heavy RPGs, and it seemed like this is what we were supposed to do.

But quite early on, players started defecting away from the Anarch stereotype. They became much more interested in aspects of Vampire that took them away from being adolescent hoodlums angry at the Man. Not everyone wanted their PC to be in the movie The Lost Boys. They had other inspirations. The moment the first player brought the clanbook or players guide they just bought, interest in playing Anarch-type PCs declined.

They wanted to roleplay the interesting aspects of their clan's culture. They wanted to explore Elysium and salon culture of the elders. As more of the game setting was introduced in the Clanbooks and Players Guide, the less interested players were to be on the anarch side of things. They found the aspects associated with the Camarilla and the elders much more interesting. Players wanted to explore that. They couldn't explore those aspects of the setting well if they were actually Anarchs because Anarchs were expected to reject all of that.

The players who wanted to play Ventrue and Tremere were usually never interested in being Anarchs at all. And once more of the setting was explored, I saw the clans of the Toreador, Malkavians, and Nosferatu drop interest among the Anarchs. I really only saw many, but not all, of the Brujah PC players truly want to play Anarch characters.

Yeah, the PCs might still want to overthrow Lodin. But it wasn't so they could free the young and powerless vampires from the tyranny of the elders. It was to put one of the PCs (or a trusted NPC ally) as Prince instead which is a big difference.

From what I personally experienced, the Anarch phase of most tabletop games lasted about three months until the ST and PCs learned enough about the setting to move on to things they found much more interesting. Then they rebooted their chronicles.

I'm not saying all players did so. I know some Vampire players that were interested in playing only Anarch PCs or at least PCs that were sympathetic to the Anarchs. And the Brujah Anarch archetype was certainly a popular PC choice. But they were a distinct minority in most gaming groups, and had to adjust to most of their gaming group just wasn't interested in going down that route. I'm sure there were plenty of games where the players and STs were mostly interested on the Anarch side of things, but I don't think they were representative.

Likewise the LARPs I attended that were Anarch based were less well regarded than those that were Camarilla. Anarch LARPs quickly succumbed to the problem of no one knowing what to do with the setting. Things quickly became repetitive, especially if the Prince was gone and the setting was now a Free State. On the other hand, the Camarilla games have enough variety of aspects to them that more players found things to do.

I think one reason some players were really looking forward to LAbN originally was there was the hope that Anarch centric games could be just as interesting to explore as Camarilla games. We just needed to know what was in the secret sauce in the mysterious Anarch Free State! Then we found out it was bland and uninteresting. The main thing that made the Anarchs interesting to play was putting them in contrast to the rest of the vampire culture overseen by the Camarilla. Players might want their PCs to have feet in both worlds to a degree to explore as much of the setting as possible, but I didn't see most choosing to play Anarchs. It's a totally valid choice to do so, and I do want the game to have better toolkits to help STs run those kind of chronicles.

The Evolving Nature of the Anarchs, Traditions, and Rebellion

I have some theories about the larger societal context regarding the Anarchs in V:TM and Mage: The Ascension's Traditions. My view is the Anarchs were very popular in the early Nineties as a continuation of cyberpunk and its themes from the 80s. Reaganomics and Thatcherism leading to the creation of the counter-culture movement against the unchecked greed as well as rising authoritarianism of the period. However, V:TM's take was a supernatural themed Punk setting that came at the tail end of the cultural movement.

However, the Nineties was a time that had a backlash against the Punk and anti-authoritarianism of the Eighties. REALITY BITES and other works of the period emphasized that with the fall of the Soviet Union and triumph of capitalism as well as seemingly democracy, it was the "End of History" and seemingly nothing to worry about. Rebellion against "The Man" seemed adolescent and silly rather than a recognition of horrid inequalities in the system.

Hence the shift went from the Camarilla as the bad guys to the Sabbat who were a more overt and militant threat you could shoot in the face.

I attribute to this the general whitewashing and slow change of the Technocracy from an embodiment of the evils of capitalism and colonialism to the "one true champions" of the human race against the evil supernaturals. The Technocracy embodying Western hegemonic power and rampant techology was greeted by many aging players as, "Why the hell not?" That, of course, was before the War on Terror, Recession, and other elements that I think may be a major reason why Paradox has chosen to lean into the Anarchs HARD. A lot of the systemic corruption and abuses of power in the world are once more in the public mindset.

I'm also of the mind that Anarchs are something that is inherently better for tabletop gaming than LARP. Larp is very much about the pageantry and social combat element of the game and that is something that loud, angry, revolution-based games are not going to be able to do nearly as well. Same for why you don't see many cyberpunk LARPS.

[Chris24601]

Have you read Anarchs Unbound?

Since this was directed at me; yes, I own it.

Do you want to guess the number of times running or playing that anything from the book has come up? Zero times.

I’ve come across more Autarchs than I’ve ever seen Anarchs used. They’re literally the Scrappy Doo of vampires from my experiences; no one likes them, no one wants to play one, no one thinks about looking to find some even when they’re up to their eyeballs in trouble with the Camarilla (but I’ve players look to join up with the Sabbat in that circumstance).

It’s a big part of why a ton of V5’s lore felt utterly incomprehensible to the people I play and run with.

Frankly, if you’re going to be playing a bad guy (as vampires almost universally are) my experience is that players have more interest in playing a successful one like a feudal overlord or a crusading blood knight; not street gangs raging impotently against “the Man.”

But that’s just my anecdotal evidence… just as I’m sure your evidence of their popularity is anecdotal based on your experiences in your area. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about TTRPGs it’s that preferences therein are extremely varied from locality to locality.

So while I’m sure the Anarchs are quite popular in your circles, I don’t think that can be extended across the board any more than my observations of their lack of popularity can be extended.

[CTPhipps]

Since this was directed at me; yes, I own it.

Do you want to guess the number of times running or playing that anything from the book has come up? Zero times.

A shame. I'd be interested in what would have made the Anarchs more interesting to you as either protagonists or antagonists? I admit, I run very "street" level games as a general rule. Survival, feeding, and the omnipresent threat of being scooped up into Elder schemes or plots. I encourage my player characters to think of themselves as always being hunted and to never trust anyone, which works very well for the setting.

Note that I don't hate the Camarilla by any means even if they're the 3rd of my games and I think the Camarilla is absolutely necessary for Anarch games. If you don't have the Machine there's no point in raging against it.

And yes, I heavily suspect PARADOX was influenced by the Anarchs and playstyle their people did which is probably why the "canon" style is so direct.

[Damian May]

I mean anecdotes are what they are but in 1991 every single campaign that I was aware of was Camarilla, by the end of 92 about 40% of them were Sabbat and that ratio has continued on fairly unchanged for the last 30 years. How many of them were Anarch? Single figures from my recollection.

Hell, go back to the original White Wolf forums on the Wayback and see how many threads are about Camarilla and Sabbat versus how many are about the Anarchs, almost none.

While I'm sure that there were/are isolated pockets of ardent Anarchs fans, having been a member of dozens of gaming clubs in 6 different countries and online and active in the WW community from the beginning I've never run into any myself.

So it is kinda hard to get my head around them being the core experience of VtM....well, ever.

[Heavy Arms]

Well, to add to the anecdotes: Having a lot of experience with large player base formats? The Anarchs aren't unpopular, but there's never the primary Sect in larger games.

Now, large player format games have a number of specific pressures to them that influence this, but as noted previously, Anarchs are their best when you're in a Camarilla city fighting The Man. If everyone out of 100 players is playing a scrappy underdog rebel... then you get an Anarch Free State situation rather quickly instead. When it's 15-25 of those players, there's enough of them to be a meaningful power bloc, but there's at a clear disadvantage that's not going to be overcome quickly if ever.

[CTPhipps]

I mean anecdotes are what they are but in 1991 every single campaign that I was aware of was Camarilla, by the end of 92 about 40% of them were Sabbat and that ratio has continued on fairly unchanged for the last 30 years. How many of them were Anarch? Single figures from my recollection.

Hell, go back to the original White Wolf forums on the Wayback and see how many threads are about Camarilla and Sabbat versus how many are about the Anarchs, almost none.

While I'm sure that there were/are isolated pockets of ardent Anarchs fans, having been a member of dozens of gaming clubs in 6 different countries and online and active in the WW community from the beginning I've never run into any myself.

So it is kinda hard to get my head around them being the core experience of VtM....well, ever.

Yeah, it is the nature of anecdotal evidence.

It's always been Anarchs, Anarchs, Anarchs around me and all the clubs I've been involved in.

The Prince was always a bastard, which meant you were resisting him even if you were a Toreador.

I admit, I don't think I've ever played an Anarch city unless the players were the Anarch leaders themselves.