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[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

To respond to the OP...
It's my own desire
It's my own remorse
Help me to decide
Help me make the most Of freedom and of pleasure
Nothing ever lasts forever
Everybody wants to rule the world

There's a room where the light won't find you
Holding hands while the walls come tumbling down
When they do, I'll be right behind you

I am often struck by how people, both in real life and in terms of games, think a social or political status quo is the same thing as a natural order and that it will maintain itself. Neither is true....

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

He, and what he is doing, is discussed in Beckett's Jyhad Diary.

Calbullarshi, and what he is doing, is at least as big as Carna and probably bigger. He is the nominal prince of New Orleans, while Carna is not a prince. He also appears to have a working relationship with other clans and bloodlines, while at the moment what Carna is doing is apparently limited to the Tremere.



We will have to disagree. I find all the changes to be natural to the setting, logical, and interesting. I have no use for a rigid status quo that does not serve players after an interesting...

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

All this (digital) ink spilled, kvetching over Carna...

What do you think of Antonio Calbullarshi, who was already considered a rogue when Carna also went rogue? Carna apparently is part (probably the leadership) of a psuedo-pagan feminist clique of "Tremere." Well, Calbullarshi is part (and possibly a leader) of a voodoo clique of "Tremere." If the supposed rigid internal order of the Tremere would have prevented Carna, and her circle, from ever breaking away, then how did Calbullarshi manage the exact same thing before Carna did? If you are protesting the feminist...

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

First, that statement assumes the neonates, and recruits, are not keeping secrets from sires and others in a chantry. Which is nonsense. A signifigant portion of the game is about secrets and scheming behind other people's backs.

Second, someone who was not a feminist - and they don't have to be radical feminists either - might well become a feminist after 70 years of working for an entire clan of hidebound toerags....

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

You mention the PCs clowning around. Players are often clowning around. That doesn't mean the rules should be bent....

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

Players turning a game into a slapstick farce comedy is a part of all games. But VtM, and the larger WoD, is a horror and tragedy setting. How much of those themes should be compromised to allow the players to act like jackasses without meaningful consequence?



Prior to the collapse of the pyramid the Warlocks were a rather monochromatic organization. Each chantry was too similar to all the other chantries. They only practiced one form and style of magic. They were the only accepted magicians inside the Camarilla.

The fracturing of the Tremere presents...

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

Fiorenza Savona = Dolores Umbridge...

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

If you read between the lines, Hardestadt the Younger was something of a tragic figure; a man utterly torn down and rebuilt into someone he was not, a puppet, and a distraction for others. The Camarilla was largely the product of Raphael and Meerlinda. Hardestadt was just the face man, and probably a deliberate red herring.

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

The idea that it would be difficult (online) to tell some human basement dwelling redpill type from a Nosferatu is amusing.

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

The most common theory is it is just part of the lastest Gehenna cycle, with ancient vampires calling younger ones to them - so the elders can eat the younger. But other forces may be in play as well.

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

What are you talking about? I distinctly remember him having a head, not a smoking neck-stump. And I'm pretty sure he used to walk about, yelling at people, and not just lay on the carpet limply like that.

[Zoolander voice] I mean, how can he be the head of the Camarilla when he doesn't even have a head? [/Zoolander]...

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

70 years? I wonder if the PCs were supposed to have gone into torpor during the blitz. That will make for many, many interesting changes in perspective.

"What do you mean, we don't have an empire anymore?"

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

H had value as a front man, and a distraction, but that use got used up when Bell killed him. I doubt anyone else really wants to be front man now.

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

That... is not a good sign....

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

And which Hardestat would this be? Hardestat the Toddler? Hardestat the Embryo? Hardestat the Glint in the Milkman's Eye?...

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

There are several mentions of the city, and its situation, in Beckett's Jyhad Diary, but no direct visits. Apparently, Hurricane Ivan killed the last prince. There is a new sect forming, one devoted to voodoo style magic. The local head Tremere is trying to ally with these vampires. However, this will all shake out remains to be seen....

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

There is an idea that there are not Sabbat Nosfratu and Camarilla Nosferatu, that there are just Nosferatu. They are not as divided as the other clans between the major sects, and they are only in any sect for protection. Which sect they are in just depends on which city they are in.

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

I've often felt a problem with KotE is the complexity, mostly mechanical but partly thematic, held the game back. This complexity made it difficult to understand, to use, and to enjoy....

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

Expecting the decision, to kill Bell, have come down before the game begins and without some involvement of the PCs would be having it happen off stage.

It is reasonable for the question to come up in a game, but they should be answered in a game. The Camarilla book is mostly an in-character supplement, meaning that it has little writing from the third person omniscient perspective. The characters speaking either do not know what is going on with Bell, or they do and are lying and being silent on the subject. While an interesting approach narratively, it does limit background information....

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

Then have the PCs go after Bell. Or have them protect him, for a price. Or have them learn some members of the Inner Circle are covering for Bell, because they wanted the H-Man Dead. Or Hardestadt isn't dead and the PCs discover this first hand, somehow. Or Bell is dead, and the "Bell" among the Anarchs is an imposter of some kind, and the PCs discover this firsthand.

Whatever happens, it should directly involve the PCs, or at least permit the involvement of the PCs. The "death of H" is just what sets the plot in motion, but the plot should be all about the PCs....