User Profile

[Haquim]

The Book is finished and has been delievered. It looks good. And I mean really good.

Kudos to the authors!...

[Haquim]

I like Clan rivalries but I admit the Tremere have made far too many enemies (you forgot the Tzimisce/Tremere feud, and to a lesser degree Nosferatu and Gangrel that know about Gargoyles don't like Tremere very much...).

The Cappadocian vs Giovanni conflict is now resolved and apparently the Harbingers of Skulls are now a bloodline and didn't hate the Giovanni because they purged the Cappadocians but rather because they managed to kill (almost...) Cappadocius before they could......

[Haquim]

They failed killing all of them. They decimated them and drove the rest into hiding. They lost clan status while, thanks to careful politics, the Tremere were able to ingratiate themselves with the High clans (Ventrue especially) and eventually got themselves into the core of the Camarilla. During the final nights the Tremere were considered the most powerful Camarilla clan bar none and it took the destruction of the Vienna Chantry (and behind the scenes Tremere relinquishing his body and taking control of Goratrix) to cripple them.



True enough, although that was besides...

[Haquim]

Ooooook...

So in your esteemed opinion the whole morality system for V5 doesn't work because you think morality should only be an internal process and should never be confronted with outside ethics. To do otherwise is breaking the morality system beyond repair, apparently.

This is what makes or breakes a "working morality system" for you, if it doesn't conform "it doesn't work".

Seems to me you have a very narrow definition of what "works" and it's not compatible with V5, which makes the whole scope of this thread moot imo....

[Haquim]

I don't know. I only know you wrote this:



My answer is that being nomadic is basically the only thing the Ravnos share with the Gangrel (well, along with their second generation progenitor... probably) therefore their nomadism is not something that turns Ravnos into "Alt-Gangrel". This means the Ravnos (some of the Ravnos to be more precise) can keep their nomadic ways without endangering clan identity....

[Haquim]

On the matter of the Salubri. Originally the Salubri were just a clan the Tremere had to supplant to become vampires.

As a concept and as a "playable splat", the Tremere are older than the whole of VtM as they were one of the 12 houses of Hermes from Ars Magica. The Tremere and Tremere the mage in particular were also the brainchild of Mark Rein-Hagen. When MRH founded White Wolf he decided he wanted the Tremere to be part of V:tM. Since at the time Ars Magica was supposed to represent the past of the World of Vampire MRH needed a way to turn House Tremere into Clan Tremere....

[Haquim]

This is factually correct. The fact that, unlike most leeches, Gangrel and Ravnos both sometimes wander outside of the cities doesn't mean they are the same. There's an abundance of thematic differences between these clans making them very different indeed....

[Haquim]

Again: Chronicle Tenets ARE NOT "ST fiat Tenets" they are established values set by the whole troupe before the game begins. In V5 morality works differently than it did in previous editions and this does include Humanity. Does this mean Humanity doesn't work in V5? No. It's simply a different system. In V5 your core beliefs (your convictions) are tested against social expectations. If you follow a Path your convictions are no less internal but are tested externally. Again, the same is true for the "Path of Humanity".
So are Paths possible in V5? Sure they are, but OBVIOUSLY...

[Haquim]

The core of the Ravnos clan coming from India I don't mind. Making all of the Ravnos coming from India I'm opposed to. Their original "homeland" may be India and I'm glad we had places where things were done differently (one can only have so many Ventrue princes, Toreador harpies and Gangrel scurges/hounds before getting bored) but the clan expanded through the ages (Libellus Sanguinis 4 explained how) so I see no need to tie it to India overmuch.

From what was said about V5 Ravnos it seems like they'll have a compulsion to wander. I suspect it will be connected to the Week...

[Haquim]

In V5 morality works as follows:



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".



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"...

[Haquim]

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...

[Haquim]

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....

[Haquim]

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...

[Haquim]

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....

[Haquim]

Do I? Because from where I sit it's more like you ignore everything that's presented and doesn't validate your views (including actual quotes from books that contraddict those same views... we have done this you and I).

Also, don't try to saddle me with stuff I did not say: I'm not "deriding Path followers" I'm saying that Paths were often used by people as a cheap excuse do justify their poor behaviour and general disregard for other people sitting at the table and playing the game. In all my years of playing and storytelling this game I have had the grand amount of 3 players...

[Haquim]

I never mentioned any places, and I very much doubt the "rebel archetype" is somehow reflected in ancient greek culture or in phoenician culture. What I said is that all the clans were clumsily done when they were first conceived, often resorting to stereotypes. The Ravnos got the gypsy/rogue deal. Some people find that offensive. I don't care much for politically correctness. To me the way this was done was uninspired and simplistic though, a quick and dirty way to give clans a physiognomy instead of going deeper, building something interesting and unique. I was very glad when clans...

[Haquim]

1. You keep saying that, I don't see how that's true. But I can see nothing will change your mind, which begets the question of why opening a thread asking a question about something you have already decided that cannot be done.

2. Nope. Paths were introduced to give players different options for roleplaying but too often ended up being a thinily veiled excuse to justify abusive behaviour. Again: "The Path of what I was going to do anyway" is not some definition I invented it's an official warning against that kind of behaviour dating back to Revised. As for the usual "badwrongfun"...

[Haquim]

Let's be honest here, the original version of the clans were not very nuanced.

Brujah → Punk rebel vampires, first associated with the Phoenicians and later with the ancient Greeks, they also embody the D&D archetype.
Gangrel → Feral and animalistic vampires, first associated with nordic and romani people, they also embody the D&D barbarian archetype.
Tremere → Mage vampires (and direct port from the game Ars Magica), first associated with slavic cultures, they also embody (you guessed it...) the D&D Wizard archetype.

And so on. When Ravnos...

[Haquim]

1. Here's what the V5 says about Chronicle Tenets:



So it's not just up to the ST to decide about Tenets, the whole troupe does that. And that allows for the creation of a set of Tenets that may make playing a Path absolutely possible. For example I previously mentioned the "Creed of Justice" presented in the V5 CRB and said it could work well with the Path of Blood (IMO). As per the abovementioned text Chronicle Tenets are the values one is expected to uphold while convictions represent your personal creed. In this case I suggested that for V5 Paths should...

[Haquim]

1. Perhaps I didn't explain myself as well as I thought I did. I posted 3 convictions. When you sin against the Path following those convictions you can mitigate the stains. For example, if you kill someone who is abusing a mortal you mitigate the effect. If you frenzy and kill someone you obviously get more stains because that runs contrary to the ethics of the Path but if you do whatever you can to stay in control of yourself (means you spend willpower) that works as mitigating circumstance for the conviction. If while enforcing the traditions you break chronicle tenets that gives a chance to...