[V5] The Sabbat in V5

[Ragged Robin]

The Anarchs were always the ones fighting the war with the exception of Karsh and a handful of Archons.

The Anarchs defended their cities and loved ones.

The Camarilla threw Neonates at the Sabbat.

This is catagorically false. There are entire books in 3rd ed dedicated to the hot war between the Sabbat and the Carmarilla. Midnight siege alone takes you blow by blow through how the sect fights and conversly how the Anarchs fit into the Dynamic and to be frank they're not the Dunedain motorcyle riding rangers defending the Racist hobbits of Caramilla town.
and considering that book explores how scummy the Carmarilla can be that says a lot.

[MarkK]

The Anarchs were always the ones fighting the war with the exception of Karsh and a handful of Archons.

The Anarchs defended their cities and loved ones.

The Camarilla threw Neonates at the Sabbat.

That's not especially accurate to the Camarilla vs Sabbat sect war's portrayal in at minimum revised edition across a variety of supplements (and in second edition as well really, when the sect war between the two groups started gaining momentum as a thing that was focused on in the game material. Even the 20th Anniversary line has a few acknowledging nods in that direction). A considerable number of elders/ancillae/neonates in the Camarilla were engaged in fighting the Sabbat through various methods and practices. Things like the taking of New York for instance were a sect wide effort that involved figures from Justicars on down. There were otherwise coordinated efforts in a variety of other cities, both on attack and defense. To describe the Camarilla's efforts against the Sabbat as "throwing neonates at them while otherwise only Karsh and a handful of archons participated" doesn't really match up with the level of intricate involvement and engagement that it was portrayed with in any number of places.

Even V5 itself acknowledges this with the Sect War Veteran Loresheet as far as how it overall describes said conflict in terms of things like strong militant defense, multiple hit teams ranging back and forth across each other's domains, what is noted as many notable vampires on either side getting involved and otherwise dying, etc. etc.. And that's without 3rd ed/revised books like Midnight Siege that went full depth into things like how the Camarilla waged war with the Sabbat and vice versa.

I don't doubt you're getting your take from somewhere, book wise? But it requires setting aside/ignoring the various places where it worked nothing like the way you're talking about it.

[MyWifeIsScary]

I think part of the Issue is that a lot of players really, really like the Sabbat. Most of my friends actually prefered the Sabbat. half of them even went into the "Sabbat are actually the Good guys" nonsense. They're less newbie friendly, but they really attract the experienced crowd, and Packs make more sense than Coteries.

So the vocal players want more Sabbat cities for their own games
Now, quite wisely, the Sabbat have always been hamstrung. As any game designer will tell you, players often want things for their games that drive the fun out of the game for them. You can see this with V5 and the Anarchs winning, or the playing field being leveled by absent elders: These changes give more opportunities for players, but the opportunities take away from the core challenges of the game, and thus overall the game is weaker. The Sabbat "wining" presents an additional problem, in that it's much harder to get new players into the Sabbat; The Cam provides a much better training ground to familiarize oneself with the core setting and acclimatize players to all the jargon and weird concepts. Your first game as Vampires should always be a Camarilla game, or a similar custom sect/non-sect city that doesn't have much in the way of complications.

It's not a bad idea to try to roll-back the Sabbat. It's a good one. The execution of it in V5 is... an absolute joke that denies itself any goodwill, but the idea of rolling back the Sabbat to a shadowy organization? Not bad at all.

[Banu_Saulot]

It's not a bad idea to try to roll-back the Sabbat. It's a good one. The execution of it in V5 is... an absolute joke that denies itself any goodwill, but the idea of rolling back the Sabbat to a shadowy organization? Not bad at all.

How would you make the execution of this rolled back Sabbat? The problem was that is was too fast, too out of nowhere, too rough?
No sass, I'm interested in hearing (not only from MyWifeIsScary)

[CTPhipps]

I think part of the Issue is that a lot of players really, really like the Sabbat. Most of my friends actually prefered the Sabbat. half of them even went into the "Sabbat are actually the Good guys" nonsense. They're less newbie friendly, but they really attract the experienced crowd, and Packs make more sense than Coteries.

No edition warring. You may not like it but some of us do and either way, it is a product produced by the company whose forum you are now on.

[MyWifeIsScary]

How would you make the execution of this rolled back Sabbat? The problem was that is was too fast, too out of nowhere, too rough?
No sass, I'm interested in hearing (not only from MyWifeIsScary)

There's lots of innoffensive ways. Mix and match the following.
Doubt grows that the Lasombra/Tzmisce antes were killed. A rumour swirls that an Ante woke up and... did nothing. A powerful methuselah woke up and is Nituku'ing Sabbat, Templars go on a grand witch hunt, killing vampires most feel innocent and thus scaring a lot of Sabbat. The Black hand fights itself due to the TBH presence. It's revealed that a number of higher ups are really good friends with some Camarilla characters and people start suspecting their wars are just orchestrated hobbies for elders. The Lasombra Antitribu reveal themselves and Trounce their Sabbat counterparts.

Any combination of these reasons are good cause for large scale dissent and plenty of defections. You can then have purges just for disloyalty. Or you can have a Soviet-union style failure where someone tries to Liberalize the Sabbat and tell the truth and then they realize how things suck and the Sect goes to shit, with a few hardcore extremists staying on. Then you can have the Cam take advantage of any of this. Or you can just have the Cam... outplay the Sabbat.

Then this gets interesting because you've got the Cam with a bunch of new cities and a number of old Sabbat members who may still partake in the Vauldrie or hold onto old Sabbat beliefs. Many cam cities are going to be untouched, but some are going to be hotbeds of issues with a holdout or two. You may even have some cities where there's Cam and there's Sabbat and they both have functioning governments but they're hiding from one another and/or avoiding conflict... a peace, or a double masquerade if you will. Cities are big and you can do that. This gives plenty of oportunities for some cities to remain Completely Sabbat. You can have some cities that still hold the Sabbat structure but declare themselves Camarilla, while other Sabbat brand themselves TRUE SABBAT and attack the False Sabbat.

All the options. Basically.

[Shakanaka]

It's not a bad idea to try to roll-back the Sabbat. It's a good one. The execution of it in V5 is... an absolute joke that denies itself any goodwill, but the idea of rolling back the Sabbat to a shadowy organization? Not bad at all.

There is literally almost no margin where bringing the Sabbat back into "shadowy" status is a satisfying or good development for VTM at all. No amount of execution would make such a thing a good idea or halfway worthwhile. There are no interesting stories to tell or go into with the Sabbat being the "monster under the bed" trope, they are more interesting when they have territory and a whole different society from how the Camarilla and even Anarchs function, and fans of it.. can actually PLAY the Sabbat. The Sabbat was not even shadowy at all that much, it was been a staple of the game since V1 with their own books published for people to play as Sabbat.

Instead of the need to incessantly scale down things, they should have made NEW Sects to the game. The "Hecata" could have actually been a good start for a new Sect for VTM, but that has just been proven to be a meta-convenience to basically make a Giovanni 2.0 nu-Clan. If new Sects were added to the dynamic of the game, it would have been more interesting than what has taken place in V5 as of now. Now all you have is either Camarilla or Anarch; not even with the previous editions of having a choice of playing as either Camarilla, Anarch, or Sabbat.

[MyWifeIsScary]

Did you read my follow up post before you wrote that? it should satisfy you.

New sects, beyond small anarch startups, are dumb. The Cam is literally the Answer for everyone but the Tzmisce and Ravnos. The Cam is by design a globalist , monoplistic federation that presents itself as neccessary to modern survival. The more alternatives you have, the weaker each sect is by virtue of having alternatives. The sects we had in V20 worked because you knew damn well you didnt have a choice. That makes them compelling. don't water it down.


Also, like, from my perspective, the sects are roughly like this
Followers of Set>Ravnos >Cam>Sabbat>Assamites>Anarchs>Giovanni/hecata>Inconnu>TBH

But from a new player perspective you want to come into factions in roughly this order.
Cam>Autuarks and Anarchs and hunters> Indies and Sabbat>Bullshit elder sects.

The Sabbat get more exposure than they really should. They don't really work outside of the Americas, and their presence in the Americas is... questionable. Having them stateless makes them more believable. it would keep them at war too.

...the more I think about my False Sabbat/Real Sabbat idea, the more i want to use it.

[CTPhipps]

Did you read my follow up post before you wrote that? it should satisfy you.

New sects, beyond small anarch startups, are dumb. The Cam is literally the Answer for everyone but the Tzmisce and Ravnos. The Cam is by design a globalist , monoplistic federation that presents itself as neccessary to modern survival. The more alternatives you have, the weaker each sect is by virtue of having alternatives. The sects we had in V20 worked because you knew damn well you didnt have a choice. That makes them compelling. don't water it down.


Also, like, from my perspective, the sects are roughly like this
Followers of Set>Ravnos >Cam>Sabbat>Assamites>Anarchs>Giovanni/hecata>Inconnu>TBH

But from a new player perspective you want to come into factions in roughly this order.
Cam>Autuarks and Anarchs and hunters> Indies and Sabbat>Bullshit elder sects.

The Sabbat get more exposure than they really should. They don't really work outside of the Americas, and their presence in the Americas is... questionable. Having them stateless makes them more believable. it would keep them at war too.

...the more I think about my False Sabbat/Real Sabbat idea, the more i want to use it.

Weirdly enough, MWIS, you remind me a lot of a Trekkie I know over in the Star Trek BBS where I also haunt. The guy INSISTS that everyone should join the Federation, everyone loved it, and it was the most hyper-advanced perfect society ever. You kind of have that attitude with the Camarilla and Tremere I feel. The idea they're a lot smarter, savvy, and loved than they are. The Camarilla was depicted as the enemy for a good half of the player base from the very first Edition of V:TM and V20 showed just how crumbling it was in many places.

And even then in V20, a good huge chunk of the Vampire RaceTM chose not to be part of it. The Independents, Ashirra, Laibon, Sabbat, Anarchs, The Brujah Council [which is still around if Baba Yaga never comes up], and more.

If the Camarilla doesn't exist in RUSSIA then it really is just a European-North American thing.

[MarkK]

Weirdly enough, MWIS, you remind me a lot of a Trekkie I know over in the Star Trek BBS where I also haunt. The guy INSISTS that everyone should join the Federation, everyone loved it, and it was the most hyper-advanced perfect society ever. You kind of have that attitude with the Camarilla and Tremere I feel. The idea they're a lot smarter, savvy, and loved than they are. The Camarilla was depicted as the enemy for a good half of the player base from the very first Edition of V:TM and V20 showed just how crumbling it was in many places.

And even then in V20, a good huge chunk of the Vampire RaceTM chose not to be part of it. The Independents, Ashirra, Laibon, Sabbat, Anarchs, The Brujah Council [which is still around if Baba Yaga never comes up], and more.

If the Camarilla doesn't exist in RUSSIA then it really is just a European-North American thing.

V20 kept Baba Yaga having come up and wiped out the Brujah Council, with that being mentioned and alluded to in several places. Even something as early in the 20th gameline as Lore of the Clans kept that the Brujah Council was wiped out in 1991. The Brujah Council were a dead nonentity in V20. The Camarilla existed in Russia, even if they did so in St Petersburg as pawns of Baba Yaga until she was killed (they stopped being her pawns once she was dead, naturally).

One of the things V20 did dial back on was the Wan Kuei and their late 90s rampage over various things, which made for that the Camarilla for instance still otherwise held Macau in China, along with various places in countries like India. It's not just the Free State that got to still exist.

Otherwise, from second edition and even unto Beckett's Jyhad Diary, the Camarilla still had the significant presences it did in various editions in places like Turkey, various other Asia Minor/Middle Eastern locales, so forth. Various editions granted them a notable presence in South and Central America besides. Lore of the Bloodlines (another V20 product) presented the Ashirra as basically caving in to Camarilla expansion into the Middle East post WWI such that most of the salubri they had otherwise been sheltering till then had to flee or die.

Allcaps for emphasis notwithstanding, the idea of the Camarilla as an exclusively European/North American thing doesn't really bear out in the published material unless you otherwise again want to set aside a variety of sources across several editions of the gameline. The most you could have called it such would have been in revised edition when the Kuei Jin became a thing and basically rampaged Western originating vampires out of a big ol chunk of the world.

[Shakanaka]

They don't really work outside of the Americas, and their presence in the Americas is... questionable

Most of the supplements and By Night material thus far, has BEEN in the Americas and the Sabbat has had one of the most elaborated interactions with the Americas, even more beyond than what the Camarilla started with. This is especially more apparent with the entire Mexico region, where there is literally troves-upon-troves of Sabbat lore with it starting when they used their Spanish Conquistador pawns to stake out new Domains in the New World. I don't even know how you can say their presence in the Americas is "questionable", when literally most of their holdings (and MAIN ones as well) WERE in the Americas.

And yes, I did read your follow-up post. Its basically the route of how V5 had the Sabbat done, but with even worse gonzo scenarios to justify a sudden whole shutdown of the Sabbat, and even a part of it assimilated into the Camarilla. It makes no sense at all.

The reason why the Camarilla vs Sabbat dynamic works so well, is because they are radical opposites in the belief of how their Unlife should be dictated. The Camarilla wants to keep up a masquerade of Humanity; while the Sabbat seek exemplify their supernatural condition without any pretenses. Having the Sabbat be relegated to a similar set-up to how the Anarchs where kinda "neutral" but didn't play nice with the Cam, but still remained in their cities in some capacity... wouldn't work at all.

The Camarilla and Anarchs, despite steep ideological differences, could have that previous set-up because they had some moderate-to-marginal compatibility, where at least the best of what could happen would be a cold war or an occasional flare-up in violence. This would not work with the Sabbat AT ALL. They aren't just ideologically opposed to the Camarilla, they are paradigmatically opposed as well. Both the Anarchs and Camarilla most-likely take up the view of Humanity, while the Sabbat are on Paths. Anarchs and the Camarilla are less ritualistic and more secular in some sense, while the Sabbat take up motifs from the Catholic Church to supplement their overarching Vampiric faith of thought.

The Sabbat would always find an enmity against the Camarilla and vice versa. What you suggest for an assimilationist path would just be too "easy", which has been already been a characteristic staple of how this edition has been trudging things on as of late.

The more alternatives you have, the weaker each sect is by virtue of having alternatives. The sects we had in V20 worked because you knew damn well you didnt have a choice. That makes them compelling. don't water it down.

How exactly does having more Sects water down the setting? VTM works because of the Jyhad and the intrigue and shadow warfare that accompanies it, all in the midst of the personal horror of your character trying to survive in the deadly game. The more organized stakeholders that are in it, the more the Jyhad ramps up and nobody gets complacent. Having more competition wouldn't "water down" the existing Sects, but accentuate the decision-makers of each Sect in a bid to strategize ways to overcome all others in a seemingly unending war that has gone on for untold millennias. Growing alternatives would signal the potential for unique, fresh, stories to be told and entirely new outlooks from the 3 we've seen in the previous editions. It would have been a sensical evolution to the game.

Do you unironically think V5 devolving the setting to just the Camarilla and Anarchs.. is a good thing? And I can tell you're completely partial to the Camarilla beyond anything else, so I'll ask; do you think its interesting to just have the Camarilla just essentially be the sole Sect of VTM at all?

[CTPhipps]

I'm going to be honest, I know exactly what V5 will do with the set up. I'm willing to take bets now. $5 bucks to anyone who wants to take it on. What am I predicting?

A complete reset to status quo.

The supplement for the V5 Sabbat will depict the Sabbat pretty much as exactly as they always have. There will be Lasombra, Tzimisce. Antitribu, and a bunch of murderous arcane rites plus a focus on the Beast as well as inhumanity.

"Lasombra?"

Yeah, some of us defected. They were jerks. We don't like them.

"Gehenna War?"

Oh yeah, we did that. We're back now. Not all of us left in the first place.

"Losing Mexico City and Montreal?"

It happened. We still have lots of other cities

It'll be like how they blow up Coast City in DC comics and then rebuild it ten years later with no acknowledgement 10 million Americans died.

[CajunKhan]

There is literally almost no margin where bringing the Sabbat back into "shadowy" status is a satisfying or good development for VTM at all. No amount of execution would make such a thing a good idea or halfway worthwhile. There are no interesting stories to tell or go into with the Sabbat being the "monster under the bed" trope, they are more interesting when they have territory and a whole different society from how the Camarilla and even Anarchs function, and fans of it.. can actually PLAY the Sabbat. The Sabbat was not even shadowy at all that much, it was been a staple of the game since V1 with their own books published for people to play as Sabbat.

.

This^

I enjoy playing/running Sabbat games that largely ignore the Camarilla and Anarchs even exist. There is plenty to mine in their distinct culture of Paths of Enlightenment, and internal conflicts. That requires that they have their own cities. Us Sabbat players NEED our own cities to truly roleplay those internal social interactions and conflicts. It simply doesn't work if we're all scattered to the wind.

Moreover, you Cammy players don't need to destroy our viability as a playable sect if you want to use us as villains. Our viability as a sect doesn't even really effect you. Whether we rule the city next door and are occasionally raiding you, or we're just a small scattered group that can only raid, doesn't really impact your games at all, whatsoever. It's literally just a microscopic change in the wording when your ST sends Sabbat NPCs in for you to punch.

Destroying our viability as a playable sect only hurts us, without really helping you. You can punch Sabbat NPCs in the face every game session forever regardless. You're attacking the viability of other players preferred sect for nothing, nada, zero gain.

I prefer running/playing Sabbat games, but I've never felt the need to retcon the Camarilla gamelinewide into being non-viable. In the games I run, the Camarilla are fools attempting to emulate a former species, and therefore doomed to become wights eventually. Paths of Enlightenment are the correct, wise way to go in my games. But I'd never come here and demand that the Camarilla get retconned out of viablity gamelinewide for all players simply because my headcanon is Pro-Sabbat.

I would never do that because what do I gain from destroying your game, Cammarilla-fans? Nothing. I don't need to destroy your game in order to portray Cammies as doomed wights-in-progress in my own games. I can punch Cammy NPCs in my own games all day without having the slightest need to destroy your games. (Mind you, I don't actually have all that much Cammy-punching in my games, because I ignore that they even exist for months at a time.)

For some reason, many of you can't give me the same courtesy, and are happy to have my sect destroyed gamelinewide, even though you have zero need to do so in order to punch Sabbat npcs in your own games.

[Garygeneric]

The Sabbat was not even shadowy at all that much, it was been a staple of the game since V1 with their own books published for people to play as Sabbat.

Right. I think the timeline is often misremembered. Players Guide to the Sabbat came out in 92. V:tM 1st Edition was 91. We had, like, 30 years of Camarilla characters, 29 years of Sabbat characters. The longest the game has gone without a playable Sabbat faction is the last 3 years of V5.

I'm going to be honest, I know exactly what V5 will do with the set up. I'm willing to take bets now. $5 bucks to anyone who wants to take it on. What am I predicting?

A complete reset to status quo.

This wouldn't surprise me, but wouldn't that be V5 shooting itself in the foot, lorewise? Would feel like retconning the current edition while it's in progress. Seems strange.

[AnubisXy]

I'm going to be honest, I know exactly what V5 will do with the set up. I'm willing to take bets now. $5 bucks to anyone who wants to take it on. What am I predicting?

A complete reset to status quo.

If that includes resetting things to make the Sabbat a playable faction great. But if plan is still that they're intended to be an NPC only faction, I'm uncertain how much the status quo reset will help. At least as far as I'm concerned that still seems like an uncorrectable misstep in the wrong direction.

"Everything is basically just like it used to be, except that now you don't get to play Sabbat. Have fun!"