(V5) Do we really miss high-level Disciplines?

[CTPhipps]

I'm glad that half baked gnostic bullshit isn't being pushed on me at the gaming table. If I want that, I'll play Mage: The Awakening. I want Near Dark, not Focault's Pendulum or Nobilis, thanks. That struggle can take place in the streets where it belongs. And trust me, you got shit loads of inequality on the streets without fake super powers.

Editing warring. Leave the thread and take a warning.

[Kakost]

Whose thought process? The original development team from V1 is long, long gone.

Things like the blood bond, the Kiss, and the standard Disciplines work fine. There's no need for Vampire: The Masquerade to have demigod powers except by way of ST fiat. A game of antediluvian struggles isn't traditional VTM, it falls squarely into the realm of power games like Exalted portray. It sounds like you want Abyssal Exalted, not Kindred.

That has always been my view too. I always wanted my games to be about vampires - you know, feeding in the night, fighting others of your kind and dealing with mortal hunters, not about the Annunnaki Gods fighting in the heavens. Second edition did the mistake that plagues all HQs super heroes comics ever: power play. Heroe A needs a challenge, so now we introduce super villain X with all those amazing (and broken new powers). To overcome those however, Superheroe A now needs a "bust", so he gets new superpower Omega. Superhero A now however is too powerful, and to challenge him now you need Supervillain Y even more powerful and ridiculous than the previous one, and now our hero requires yet another buff... And on and on in a spiral of ridiculousness super powers that end up with the Flash doing ridiculous stuff such as moving faster than light, being faster than teleportation, going through walls and going back in time, or Thor blowing off Black Holes, or Goku blowing off the Universe with a punch.

That's not brilliant writting, it's just silly.

[Kakost]

Like, the power difference between an ancillae and someone like mithras in v5 is kinda like the difference between a fit exercises-three-times-a-week guy and an MMA champion: In a fair fight, a fluke could the underdog a victory, fighting 3 to 1 with weapons though and it'd be a fluke if Mithras won. Why then would Mithras get a cult who venerates him as a god when he's not much more strong, charismatic or intelligent in comparison to your average Ventrue Ancillae? Why do the Nosferatu fear the niktuku? Why do the Assamites venerate Haquim?

I would gladly thow Mithras and Haquim away - and all the rest of the Gehenna nonsense for the sake of a game where the answers were "I dunno". Where do vampires come from? Nobody knows. There are conspiracy theories about it, but no certanty. And, if there are god-like vamps, they are either legends or unkowable misteries.

[Algarik]

I personally have no interest in using vampires of low generation and I quite like that they have been nerfed in V5. Honestly, V5 is the first edition that brings changes bold enough to grab my interest back from Requiem. I like the reduced dice pool, hunger die and all of that.

That being said, I still sympathize with people that did like high-powered elders, low generation vampires and godlike entities from the previous edition. I’ve felt the pain of editions change enough through various editions of D&D that I know how much it sucks to have your favourite game goes through changes you don’t agree with in newer editions. It especially sucks because when a new edition arrives it most often than not marks the end of new content for the previous.

What I think V5 lacks for those who like elders as PC is exactly that; a Player guide to Elder PC. They could preface it has being entirely optional rules for those who like extra ‘’oomph’’ for their elder's disciplines. They could even design the book with multiple tool set to represent multiple ways of using elders for those who want blood gods and those who don’t.

While I quite like V5, the edition does seem to hold opinions on a right way to play. The Sabbat book probably book being the worst offender.

But Hey, maybe there’s a glimmer of hope, however, the edition is still kinda youngish, so we never know what might come out next.

[MyWifeIsScary]

I've never ran a game with an NPC under 6th gen, there was a game I played in with one such NPC, but that's it.

I don't give a shit about named NPCs. Mithras is stupid. I will happily go on the record for people who hate metaplot. However, it's incredibly underwhelming for the player coterie to be able to gank any vampire that comes their way without significant difficulty. It's also a lot less fun to have less ambitious players: I want my players to be ambitious and to take risks for big gain. I want them to grow and develop beyond characters that struggle with street level play. V5's system doesn't allow for this much natural character progression.

[Heavy Arms]

Youngish feel... off.

V5 turned four this month. To put that in perspective:

1e: 1991 to 1992 (1 year)
2e: 1992 to 1998 (6 years)
Rev: 1998 to 2004 (6 years)
V20: 2011 to 2018 (7 years)
VtR 1e: 2004 to 2012 (8 years)
VtR 2e: 2013 to 2020 (7 years, though potentially longer there hasn't been a new VtR book in that long)

Obviously 1e throws off the math here, but V5 is already middle-aged. It is half way to being the longest running VtM edition, and tied for the longest Vampire edition.

While it's easily fair to argue the WoD/CofD games have churned through editions too fast, V5 has very little content for how long it's already been around and the resources it has (compared to VtR 2e slowing down considerably after the sale of the CofD to Paradox after the already slow pace of CofD 2e as many 1e books are still functional supplements for 2e that aren't worth redoing). And multiple editions of VtM and VtR had elder focused books (both PC and ST oriented) on top of all the other content they had.

Sure, there's always some room for hope, but... that's a pretty dim glimmer.

[monteparnas]

Like, the power difference between an ancillae and someone like mithras in v5 is kinda like the difference between a fit exercises-three-times-a-week guy and an MMA champion: In a fair fight, a fluke could the underdog a victory, fighting 3 to 1 with weapons though and it'd be a fluke if Mithras won. Why then would Mithras get a cult who venerates him as a god when he's not much more strong, charismatic or intelligent in comparison to your average Ventrue Ancillae? Why do the Nosferatu fear the niktuku? Why do the Assamites venerate Haquim?

My only comment here is that cults and followings don't always need to be based on power. And this list does have a good example of a vampire that could stay in this place of veneration without the extra oomph, Haqim. While most other Meth/Ante cults are based on their fabled divinity, Haqim's is more based on his teachings. That way, in a version of the game where elders aren't feared for their power, his cult would still fit without any problem.

The other could still exist as fringe phenomena. A lot of such cults do exist irl and their divine leaders have no supernatural power to begin with, let alone to pretend to be gods. Yet, some people do think they're exactly that. But in the way it happens in VtM, yeah, I do agree that the theme is linked to their power and it is necessary to explain the proportion.

[Ragged Robin]

Youngish feel... off.

V5 turned four this month. To put that in perspective:

1e: 1991 to 1992 (1 year)
2e: 1992 to 1998 (6 years)
Rev: 1998 to 2004 (6 years)
V20: 2011 to 2018 (7 years)
VtR 1e: 2004 to 2012 (8 years)
VtR 2e: 2013 to 2020 (7 years, though potentially longer there hasn't been a new VtR book in that long)

Obviously 1e throws off the math here, but V5 is already middle-aged. It is half way to being the longest running VtM edition, and tied for the longest Vampire edition.

While it's easily fair to argue the WoD/CofD games have churned through editions too fast, V5 has very little content for how long it's already been around and the resources it has (compared to VtR 2e slowing down considerably after the sale of the CofD to Paradox after the already slow pace of CofD 2e as many 1e books are still functional supplements for 2e that aren't worth redoing). And multiple editions of VtM and VtR had elder focused books (both PC and ST oriented) on top of all the other content they had.

Sure, there's always some room for hope, but... that's a pretty dim glimmer.

It gets more severe when you consider the books like anarchs and Sabbat which had very little to offer established gm's or players and were of pretty limited utility to new players and are hovering around 80 quid.

Its pretty clear v5 has been a mess behind closed doors. I mean we're 4 years in and we have no path rules, can't really play sabbat, the game struggles replicating anything beyond early neonate and most of the discipline options are gone, it took about 2 years to get all the clans out. Compares the Revised which had most stuff out within a year its just plain embarrassing.

[Heavy Arms]

Comparing it to Revised is a bit unfair, as Revised wasn't a radical rules redesign, or a radical metaplot shift, and all that.

Of course, it's even worse if you compare it to VtM 1e, which in one year had:

Corebook
ST Handbook
Players Guide
Two city books (Chicago and Milwaukee), and a supplement expanding Chicago further
Hunters Hunted
Mummy
A World of Darkness that did some of the travelogue stuff V5 Cam and Anarch did.
6 adventure books (one came with the ST screen)

And you only needed three books to get all 13 Clans + the Salubri.(even if the Sabbat Clans are pretty minimal still).

[Ragged Robin]

Comparing it to Revised is a bit unfair, as Revised wasn't a radical rules redesign, or a radical metaplot shift, and all that.

Of course, it's even worse if you compare it to VtM 1e, which in one year had:

Corebook
ST Handbook
Players Guide
Two city books (Chicago and Milwaukee), and a supplement expanding Chicago further
Hunters Hunted
Mummy
A World of Darkness that did some of the travelogue stuff V5 Cam and Anarch did.
6 adventure books (one came with the ST screen)

And you only needed three books to get all 13 Clans + the Salubri.(even if the Sabbat Clans are pretty minimal still).

Bloody hell, that's just brutal. I was going to construct a counter arguement about the clans should have been available within 6 months but the 1st ed release schedule buries v5 worse than revised ever could and the game was still basically in proof of concept stage.

https://youtu.be/UcZzlPGnKdU

[Algarik]

Youngish feel... off.

V5 turned four this month. To put that in perspective:

1e: 1991 to 1992 (1 year)
2e: 1992 to 1998 (6 years)
Rev: 1998 to 2004 (6 years)
V20: 2011 to 2018 (7 years)
VtR 1e: 2004 to 2012 (8 years)
VtR 2e: 2013 to 2020 (7 years, though potentially longer there hasn't been a new VtR book in that long)

Obviously 1e throws off the math here, but V5 is already middle-aged. It is half way to being the longest running VtM edition, and tied for the longest Vampire edition.

While it's easily fair to argue the WoD/CofD games have churned through editions too fast, V5 has very little content for how long it's already been around and the resources it has (compared to VtR 2e slowing down considerably after the sale of the CofD to Paradox after the already slow pace of CofD 2e as many 1e books are still functional supplements for 2e that aren't worth redoing). And multiple editions of VtM and VtR had elder focused books (both PC and ST oriented) on top of all the other content they had.

Sure, there's always some room for hope, but... that's a pretty dim glimmer.

Fair enough, my assumption was entirely based on personal feeling and what i perceived from v5. I'm probably getting influced by the presence of N.Y by night and the few VTM products that got released lately.

Still, middle aged means it has rooms for new books.

If not, Storyteller Vault generally has some cool 3rd party stuff that could patch the base game.

[Heavy Arms]

While V5 still has about 3 years left as an "average" Vampire edition does mean there's room for more books, the problem is that if you look at those book lists, there's a reason why 6-8 years is so steady: They've hit most of the obvious book concepts well before year 4. The books tend to get more niche as time goes on because if it was an important and major topic, it would have gotten done already, or the books are just the tail end of longer projects like the Clanbooks.

Basically, there's two options, and neither is good: V5 is past its halfway point at has covered what it feels are the major topics and anything left is a niche project to fill out the book roster before they start on V6 (keeping in mind that new editions regularly start development 1-2 years before they're released back in the 90s, and that's generally slower now), or V5 is going to have a glacial release rate to try to spread itself over as long a period of time even if that means major topics don't get books for years. Ask any Exalted fan about how it feels to know it could be 4 years to see a book on the details of one of the core five Exalted types (Sidereals always getting stuck at the end of that cycle).

The STV is a good thing, but it isn't a replacement for a real edition development team. And you really want to avoid things like what happened with Sorcerer20 where there was a really popular STV fan made book and now an official M20 book competing for the same topic.

[DifferentJustin]

Youngish feel... off.

V5 turned four this month. To put that in perspective:

1e: 1991 to 1992 (1 year)
2e: 1992 to 1998 (6 years)
Rev: 1998 to 2004 (6 years)
V20: 2011 to 2018 (7 years)
VtR 1e: 2004 to 2012 (8 years)
VtR 2e: 2013 to 2020 (7 years, though potentially longer there hasn't been a new VtR book in that long)

Obviously 1e throws off the math here, but V5 is already middle-aged. It is half way to being the longest running VtM edition, and tied for the longest Vampire edition.

While it's easily fair to argue the WoD/CofD games have churned through editions too fast, V5 has very little content for how long it's already been around and the resources it has (compared to VtR 2e slowing down considerably after the sale of the CofD to Paradox after the already slow pace of CofD 2e as many 1e books are still functional supplements for 2e that aren't worth redoing). And multiple editions of VtM and VtR had elder focused books (both PC and ST oriented) on top of all the other content they had.

Sure, there's always some room for hope, but... that's a pretty dim glimmer.

This might sound weird, but I actually think we aren't in "V5" any more, but something resembling 5.3.

V5.1 (White Wolf) was isolated to just 2018, with their design philosophy ending in 2018 when Paradox pulled the game line from them. This mini-edition had 4 releases (Core Book, Camarilla, Anarchs, Fall of London) and 2 adventures (The Monsters, New Blood).

V5.2 (Onyx Path) ran from October 2018-November 2020, where older content was adapted and updated for the new system and mechanics like General Difficulties where introduced. This mini-edition had 7 releases (Chicago by Night, Chicago Folios, Let the Streets Run Red, Cults of the Blood Gods, Children of the Blood, Trails of Ash and Bone, Forbidden Religions).

V5.3 (Renegade Game Studios) started with the Paradox Design Team and the re-introduction of Justin Achilli to the game line in November 2020. Unfortunately there's been COVID-19 which I'm sure has effected their release calendar but this mini-edition has had 5 releases (Companion, Sabbat: The Black Hand, Second Inquisition, Auld Sanguine, Boston by Night) with 3 additional releases (Player's Guide in late 2022, Blood Sigils and a Miami book in development) planned.

[Heavy Arms]

While not invalid, there are similar things yo can point to in most of the other editions as well. Lead developer changes happened in other editions, V20 core book was literally made by a different company from the supplements, etc. WoD 2e was particularly prone to fluctuation around this. It might be bit less easy to bench mark early VtM 2e vs. mid vs. late, but those trends are still there.

Gamelines evolve even during one edition. Most new editions happen because the changes have built up so much is reaches a point where the developers want to start a new core book that incorporates the last few years of changes they've been doing instead of having it spread out over all that time (unless you're dealing with CoC, where they treat editions much more like traditional publishing and thus have lots of editions that are just a new printing with a few edits instead of the big 'event' editions most RPGs do)

[Mizu]

While V5 still has about 3 years left as an "average" Vampire edition does mean there's room for more books, the problem is that if you look at those book lists, there's a reason why 6-8 years is so steady: They've hit most of the obvious book concepts well before year 4. The books tend to get more niche as time goes on because if it was an important and major topic, it would have gotten done already, or the books are just the tail end of longer projects like the Clanbooks.

Basically, there's two options, and neither is good: V5 is past its halfway point at has covered what it feels are the major topics and anything left is a niche project to fill out the book roster before they start on V6 (keeping in mind that new editions regularly start development 1-2 years before they're released back in the 90s, and that's generally slower now), or V5 is going to have a glacial release rate to try to spread itself over as long a period of time even if that means major topics don't get books for years. Ask any Exalted fan about how it feels to know it could be 4 years to see a book on the details of one of the core five Exalted types (Sidereals always getting stuck at the end of that cycle).

The STV is a good thing, but it isn't a replacement for a real edition development team. And you really want to avoid things like what happened with Sorcerer20 where there was a really popular STV fan made book and now an official M20 book competing for the same topic.

Technically, this time the sidereal broke their curse and are getting released before abyssals. But yeah, the sheer amount of setting info they need to get out to make a complete 'core' experience can by agonizing as an exalted fan.