No one expects the Second Inquisition!

[CTPhipps]

Remember, everyone is allowed to have an opinion on what they like and don't like about the books. This includes flexible versus inflexible presentations.

[CTPhipps]

MarkK I think you actually missed a theme of the book that the SI has incredibly impressive resources but can't use any of them effectively because they're divided by ideology, country, and a dozen spread out groups.

You have groups that kick down doors but no resources and Firstlight (which doesn't kick down doors) but unlimited resources and no willingness to share them.

The whole point is the SI DOESNT EXIST.

The Coalition does.

But BARELY.

[MarkK]

Proving a framework and a toolset to adapt to fit the needs of a chronicle is more valuable to me than ensuring the SI is the same everywhere. Which it isn't anyway, as it is a lot of disparate agencies, as said in the book, with some internal conflict that limits them, explaining the differences between setting if you need it.

We really are going to have agree to disagree on that, and whether its not contradictory. Especially on the latter, I find that detailing the minutiae of the differences in setting just makes things them harder to work with.

If you find stuff like stating "the attempts by the Camarilla and Anarchs to not be uncovered by the SI will fail", and really all the rest of that stuff, to be the equivalent of minutiae as opposed to things that come together for a particular feel (and frankly the idea that whatever all segment of a book exists in apparent total isolation from any other segment of a book is how you get contradictory writing), and no contradiction in one section saying a thing can be resisted, and another going "nope", we are indeed going to have to agree to disagree.

...There is an entire paragraph after the "for now" you refer to, with a pointer to a whole other section.

The four sentence paragraph in question ends with a note about "waiting another night for the war to start". So again, "SOON". If you come away with that feeling that the suggested guideline doesn't come down to that the SI should ultimately become a far more pronounced thing in a city as far as, as you say, pointing to a whole other section where they are, we'll again unfortunately have to part ways.

It wouldn't particularly have killed the book to have gone there "hey, maybe sometimes the story here is that in the end they just take the L for trying to reach into a place beyond their strength and some cities repel them" there, particularly if indeed this is a book putting forward that the SI is not as powerful as previously emphasized.

[SetiteFriend]

My note is that sections of the book that present the SI as the full out unstoppable monolith that was griped about previously do not mesh well with takes in books that don't. They don't even mesh well with the sections in SI itself that don't present the SI that way. That's the entire point. The SI that can just throw a billion dollars at a problem, that is perfectly willing and able to blow up entire buildings to get at the vampires in them, that has a digital vampire hunting program that is noted as unstoppable, that has various gear and resources noted as not even plumbing its full depths of use, that still does the kick down the door and waste people thing, that has 100 off the books Navy Seals, that is noted as increasingly turning more and more cities into front line war zones as time passes, is the same SI that has been complained about previously. It means that the idea that they listened to the opinions on the SI as previously presented had some impact, and yet in other places, seeming none at all. When you present the SI doing something that "always wins", for example, that makes a hash of the idea that it isn't some all powerful monolith. I had a full previous post to this that went into depth about this, so it feels like you're doing fairly selective reading of what I am saying as far as responding to any of it.

You know that "you don't have to include everything" doesn't really excuse a book already short for what it is not operating within its own consistency? The shorter a book gets, the more "if you don't like it, don't use it" dings the usefulness of that book. It also doesn't really feel unreasonable to not want a book to go "the SI is not all powerful" but then go "the SI is pretty darn close to all powerful". The use of the word toolkit doesn't really excuse that.

As I said, it has different sections and perspectives for different chronicles, the SI throws more resources at certain cities sometimes, if you really need a justification they give one in the book.

If you feel that material that entirely contradicts other material and does not fit with takes on the setting in other books is not something that deserves to be criticized, that's going to be a perspective on writing for rpgs we're just not going to agree about.

Proving a framework and a toolset to adapt to fit the needs of a chronicle is more valuable to me than ensuring the SI is the same everywhere. Which it isn't anyway, as it is a lot of disparate agencies, as said in the book, with some internal conflict that limits them, explaining the differences between setting if you need it.

We really are going to have agree to disagree on that, and whether its not contradictory. Especially on the latter, I find that detailing the minutiae of the differences in setting just makes things them harder to work with.

When the idea for including them is basically just that "SOON" meme, that's not a particularly helpful idea.

...There is an entire paragraph after the "for now" you refer to, with a pointer to a whole other section.

[MarkK]

How doesn't it mesh well with more other V5 material? Even in the corebook it has a "SI isn't an all-powerful monolith" text. Sure, it focus on other things than the core one did, but that is expected from a different book, and it means they listened to what the opinions on their presentation in the corebook was.



You know you don't have to follow books as gospel and include everything? It's meant to provide a toolset for the ST to go more in depth with the SI, if your interest is not in the SI, you obviously don't need it. Seriously, what kind of criticism is this? I dislike that there are distinct ways to use the SI and would rather they present them in a singular way even though different STs have different needs?

Plus, it's a book about the SI, it's not going to go "hey if your city is X, this book is useless and the SI will never touch it". It'll give ideas for including them.

Pardon the tone, but this is such a bizarre take.

My note is that sections of the book that present the SI as the full out unstoppable monolith that was griped about previously do not mesh well with takes in books that don't. They don't even mesh well with the sections in SI itself that don't present the SI that way. That's the entire point of the complaint. The SI that can just throw a billion dollars at a problem, that is perfectly willing and able to blow up entire buildings to get at the vampires in them, that has a digital vampire hunting program that is noted as unstoppable, that has various gear and resources noted as not even plumbing its full depths of use, that still does the kick down the door and waste people thing, that has 100 off the books Navy Seals, that is noted as increasingly turning more and more cities into front line war zones as time passes, is the same SI that has been complained about previously. It means that the idea that they listened to the opinions on the SI as previously presented had some impact, and yet in other places, seeming none at all. When you present the SI doing something that "always wins", for example, that makes a hash of the idea that it isn't some all powerful effort, particularly when what it always wins against are sect wide countermeasure efforts. I had a full previous post to this that went into depth about this, so it feels like you're doing fairly selective reading of what I am saying as far as responding to any of it.

You know that "you don't have to include everything" doesn't really excuse a book already short for what it is not operating within its own consistency? The shorter a book gets, the more "if you don't like it, don't use it" dings the usefulness of that book. It also doesn't really feel unreasonable to not want a book to go "the SI is not all powerful" but then go "the SI is pretty darn close to all powerful". The use of the word toolkit doesn't really excuse that.

Seriously, what kind of criticism is this? I dislike that there are distinct ways to use the SI and would rather they present them in a singular way even though different STs have different needs?

If you feel that material that entirely contradicts other material and does not fit with takes on the setting in other books is not something that deserves to be criticized, that's going to be a perspective on writing for rpgs we're just not going to agree about at any point.

Plus, it's a book about the SI, it's not going to go "hey if your city is X, this book is useless and the SI will never touch it". It'll give ideas for including them.

When the idea for including them is basically just that "SOON" meme as far as a "even cities comparatively untouched soon will be", that's not a particularly helpful idea.

Pardon the tone, but this is such a bizarre take.

Any post that includes the words "pardon the tone" before going with being insulting that way, is a post putting a fig leaf on "so I'm going to insult your capacity to comprehend anything, but it's okay because I'm saying why you deserve it." Acknowledging you're about to insult someone, then insulting them, doesn't actually make that not have happened.

Can't quite pardon the tone there.

[CTPhipps]

Does the book explore tips on running an SI chronicle in a city from beginning to end in any kind of satisfactory way? Because it sounds like the world information ends on deliberate cliffhangers just because we're back to the Revised Edition days where serial metaplot developments are what sell the books.

There's a whole chapter on running Second Inquisition in your city, yes.

[SetiteFriend]

Not really from my own perspective. The at times glaring inconsistency in tone (is the SI invincible and unstoppable and all vampires are doomed or not? Because if not, several sections of this book shouldn't really exist), the various structural issues, continuing a suggested use of Touchstones that makes me either feel like no one reads the book that came before when they sit to write the most recent one for repetetiveness/laziness or in fact they do and this is just how they want Touchstones to be used, the bad art, it doesn't add up well. Some sections okay, other sections not at all isn't a glowing state of affairs.

The kindest thing that can be said here is this book needed far stronger editing than it got. I don't mean in a proofreading for grammar way, I mean in a make sure the book has a clear thing it wants to say and actually says it way, and meshes well with other at least somewhat positively received books.

How doesn't it mesh well with more other V5 material? Even in the corebook it has a "SI isn't an all-powerful monolith" text. Sure, it focus on other things than the core one did, but that is expected from a different book, and it means they listened to what the opinions on their presentation in the corebook was.

At times I carried away a vibe that for all that some sections of the book wanted to fit in with an idea that VtM 5th can indeed be about other things than street level scrabbling in fear from the SI (and if you look at stuff like Cults of the Blood Gods, or Chicago, and their related ancillary books, that is a VtM that, whether you like the directions or not, indeed goes in other directions), that it isn't omnipresent, so forth, at other times the book is outright angry at having to say that message, and angry at other books for suggesting that message (that smug "yet" thing on FIRSTLIGHT not even having begun to drop the most powerful of its stuff on vampires, the bits about how even "classic Vampire cities" are only steps away from eventually becoming SI contested, etc etc.).

You know you don't have to follow books as gospel and include everything? It's meant to provide a toolset for the ST to go more in depth with the SI, if your interest is not in the SI, you obviously don't need it. Seriously, what kind of criticism is this? I dislike that there are distinct ways to use the SI and would rather they present them in a singular way even though different STs have different needs?

Plus, it's a book about the SI, it's not going to go "hey if your city is X, this book is useless and the SI will never touch it". It'll give ideas for including them.

Pardon the tone, but this is such a bizarre take.

[SetiteFriend]

Does the book explore tips on running an SI chronicle in a city from beginning to end in any kind of satisfactory way? Because it sounds like the world information ends on deliberate cliffhangers just because we're back to the Revised Edition days where serial metaplot developments are what sell the books.

Yes, it helps a lot. It gives systems for involving them, different approaches to how they can be in a chronicle and plot hooks for involving them. The metaplot developments generally serve to provide inspiration and examples.

[monteparnas]

discussing topics the authors know little about

Lets be fair this isn't new to this edition. At all. It is worse because it is easier to avoid, more glaring and more demanded to avoid, so it is inexcusable. But isn't new to this edition.

kinda short in terms of exploratory depth, to be honest, but space is at a premium in this book (hey, maybe we didn't actually need the stats for predator drones and military attack helicopters and bragging about statless destruction military hardware plot devices and crap like that guys, if you only have so much space).

One possibility is that space wasn't at a premium, content was. I'm starting to picture a situation where they ended up with very little to go for it at the end of their schedule.

[MarkK]

Does the book explore tips on running an SI chronicle in a city from beginning to end in any kind of satisfactory way? Because it sounds like the world information ends on deliberate cliffhangers just because we're back to the Revised Edition days where metaplot developments are what sell the books.

Sometimes kinda, sometimes no, not at all. Ironically the most fleshed out "here's how to wrap up your SI campaign arc suggestion" in the book is the one that suggests a chronicle where the climax is taking out some SI superweapon.

There is an explicitly titled Chronicle Structures section to the book. It's.. kinda short in terms of exploratory depth, to be honest, but space is at a premium in this book (hey, maybe we didn't actually need the stats for predator drones and military attack helicopters and bragging about statless destruction military hardware plot devices and crap like that guys, if you only have so much space). Some of the structures suggest an endpoint, some of them instead basically outright end with noting that the players should feel like the SI will eventually just come back and try again.

[Reasor]

Does the book explore tips on running an SI chronicle in a city from beginning to end in any kind of satisfactory way? Because it sounds like the world information ends on deliberate cliffhangers just because we're back to the Revised Edition days where serial metaplot developments are what sell the books.

[MarkK]

So, other than what seems to be standard fare for the latest edition; discussing topics the authors know little about, the price being high for the short length... is this a decent book?

Not really from my own perspective. The at times glaring inconsistency in tone (is the SI invincible and unstoppable and all vampires are doomed or not? Because if not, several sections of this book shouldn't really exist), the various structural issues, continuing a suggested use of Touchstones that makes me either feel like no one reads the book that came before when they sit to write the most recent one for repetetiveness/laziness or in fact they do and this is just how they want Touchstones to be used, the bad art, it doesn't add up well. Some sections okay, other sections not at all isn't a glowing state of affairs.

The kindest thing that can be said here is this book needed far stronger editing than it got. I don't mean in a proofreading for grammar way, I mean in a make sure the book has a clear thing it wants to say and actually says it way, and meshes well with other at least somewhat positively received books.

At times I carried away a vibe that for all that some sections of the book wanted to fit in with an idea that VtM 5th can indeed be about other things than street level scrabbling in fear from the SI (and if you look at stuff like Cults of the Blood Gods, or Chicago, and their related ancillary books, that is a VtM that, whether you like the directions or not, indeed goes in other directions), that it isn't omnipresent, so forth, at other times the book is outright angry at having to say that message, and angry at other books for suggesting that message (that smug "yet" thing on FIRSTLIGHT not even having begun to drop the most powerful of its stuff on vampires, the bits about how even "classic Vampire cities" are only steps away from eventually becoming SI contested, etc etc.).

And the price and shortness do aggravate things as far as quality in an inescapable way. I think I could be a lot more forgiving of this book if there was at least more content to pick from in an "okay, I have to ignore this, but at least I can use this" sort of way. But there isn't.

It also makes the problem of "okay, aside from this bad stuff, is the book good?" a whole thing as a question. Because said bad stuff, it eats up space, in a book that doesn't have a lot of space to be eaten in the first place. When books become shorter, every time something questionable, contradictory, dodgy or just plain badly done takes up space, it becomes more of a problem. Perfect books are unheard of, and even good books will have an off note here and there, but an uneven book that is also short is pretty much just wasting space for your dollar (or other unit of currency, as it were).

[MyWifeIsScary]

So, other than what seems to be standard fare for the latest edition; discussing topics the authors know little about, the price being high for the short length... is this a decent book?

[CTPhipps]

Oddly, the Catholic Church seems to be the nicest element of the SI. It wants to wipe out all vampires everywhere but actively works on redeeming ghouls and keeping collateral damage down.

[AnubisXy]

But it isn't that. Where Catholicism is dominant it kind of just... is. Most people are Catholics, but not particularly prone to be conservative or not, no more than normal at least. The view that most Americans seem to have on Catholics is the same view most Brazilians have on Protestants, as they're usually the more prone to be traditionalist, ultra-conservative zealots around here.

It's kind of funny too because, at least in the United States, the Catholic Church is marginally more progressive than many Evangelical, Protestant and more typical Christian churches. For example, the Catholic Church doesn't believe that the Bible is the literal truth, it teaches evolution, the Catholic Church supports vaccinations, and overall, the organization (while it has a host of problems) is far less "anti-science" and fanatical than most of the churches of other denominations that you see in the United States. But you're right that many people in the US think of the Catholic church as more of an ultra-conservative, zealot organization, more so than US religious groups, and that frequently slips into the media that originates here.