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[Prometheas]

Thing is, we already have a mechanical drug metaphor. That's what the blood bonding and ghouling are for. Victims of the bond are literally mystically compelled to look for their next hit of back-alley vamp blood and Will ruin their lives over it if their supply is threatened.

Conversely, Blood dolls aren't compelled in any way to seek out the kiss and no one is likely to ruin their lives to get another(unless bonding/disciplines come in).

You also didn't seem to read the second part of my comment that clearified that the kiss is only bad If Forced. Someone consenting...

[Prometheas]

To play devils advocate.


Unless the person being extracted from is a willing blood doll. Then it would be a willing participant vs an unknowing donor. Their is an argument that blood donors generally don't know who their blood is going to, but it is being given with the understanding that it's being used to save lives. A vampire taking donated blood isn't having their life "Saved" in any real way(especially considering they're already dead) and they might be using that blood to Take lives, something the donors probably wouldn't approve of.

Also, If...

[Prometheas]

By author fiat...
Let's not kid ourselves here. None of thegod-entity examples should or would have lost if the author didn't intervene to purposefully engineer the situation to guarantee their loss. It's the "Good Story" problem raising it's ugly head, the author wouldn't have a story if the villain didn't Lose, so the villain Has to Lose.

WOD isn't as story where villains are expected to lose so the heroes can triumph, quite the opposite. WOD is a setting where the heroes are expected to Lose unless they become some similar or Worse than...

[Prometheas]

Gonna be honest, I've had a knee-jerk reaction to ignore the lore relating to "alien origins of Vicissitude" after what happened with the original black hand supplement. I've been avoiding anything that even Hints at the botched "Souleater" lore like the plague....

[Prometheas]

My point was that Protean does not only "imitate what already exists", it 100% has powers that allow the user to make something new with sufficient mastery....

[Prometheas]

I do not believe normal animals also have the ability to return shapeshifters to their natural forms, Shape-shift to immediately resist the last source of damage they just took, or fire impaled objects at projectile capacity. The power Inward Focus(temporarily optimize your body to get a bunch of extra actions, damage, and soak) is straight up something I'd expect to see in Vicissitude rather than protean....

[Prometheas]

That's last part isn't necessarily true. For example: Elder Protean has several odd power that can allow you to do things like crawl in torpor, which doesn't imitate anything so much as master your (im)mortal form.

Personally see it more as all are "Form Mastery" powers focused on perfecting one's form. Protean is focused on perfection in the natural world, Serpentis focused on the perfection of set/the gods, and Vicissitude is focused on perfection of life/evolution....

[Prometheas]

Isn't it also semi-canon(depending on book) that Serpentis and Viscisitude are offshoots of Protean? It'd kind of make sense that the discipline about becoming a mutable creature has a large number of variants and abilities....

[Prometheas]

That's a very reductionist take. Especially considering what you just described is laissez-faire, a sub-sect of capitalist ideology that is not capitalism as a whole for the same reason stalinism isn't communism as a whole.

Like any economic and political ideology, there is Waaay more nuance, differing perspectives, faction in-fighting, outside manipulation, straight-up lies/propaganda, and complicated historical context than can be put in a simple black-and-white Us-VS-Them summary(which are nearly always very wrong in any context anyway)....

[Prometheas]

Every one has different tables, but isn't one of WODs strengths the fact you can run nearly genre of game and have it fit the setting?

I think saying "X has no place in VTM" severely misses the point. Especially when many STs "X" are often things that have been with the game and loved by many players since 1st edition....