World Of Darkness General (VtM, WtO, MtA, etc.)

[Sascha Vykos]

Recently the conversation's within the Bloodlines 2 thread had shifted to WoD in general and Paradox's laughable SJW-centered re-boot of Vampire: The Masquerade. Other WoD IP's have also been getting some more attention with Werewolf getting it's own V5 in 2021 and Wraith is also about to get a VR game.

Prior to this there had been another general WoD thread, however, it's old and unused. So in an attempt to keep the Bloodlines 2 thread from becoming overrun with general WoD discussions, I present to you WoD General.

 

[Corn Flakes]

Oh, good thread.

Since this is the farms and we like to make fun of spergs, let me throw you guys an initial question: anyone got any fun stories about fishmalks? I was usually the Brujah/Ventrue at the table so my job was to make sure our resident imbeciles didn't do anything out of the ordinary (by word or by fist), so I mostly only heard the horror stories on the internet.

Actually, with the Current Year bullshit, I don't think fishmalks could have gotten any better. "lolsorandom" humor was already dumb 10-15 years ago, and things have only gone downhill since.

 

[Queen Elizabeth II]

Erm. Wasn't WoD always peak woke?

More than half the stock characters are some variation of LGBT, the sandniggers and ethnic sub-class vampire clans are some of the most OP vampires, there's literal canon shota pedo victim vampires written off as "normal" and all the plotlines seem to revolve around 2000's Evanescence members, furries or wiccans somehow giving it to "the man".

I'm not sure what's changed, other than some of the more radical elements of woke being toned down if anything.

 

[Corn Flakes]

Erm. Wasn't WoD always peak woke?

More than half the stock characters are some variation of LGBT, the sandniggers and ethnic sub-class vampire clans are some of the most OP vampires, there's literal canon shota pedo victim vampires written off as "normal" and all the plotlines seem to revolve around 2000's Evanescence members, furries or wiccans somehow giving it to "the man".

I'm not sure what's changed, other than some of the more radical elements of woke being toned down if anything.

The older WoD stuff was mostly self-aware and in on the joke.

Half the "ethnic" options were stereotypical as fuck (the Ahl-i-Batin literally flew on magic carpets and wore pointy upturned shoes, FFS), everybody's heads were stuffed so far up their own asses no one could ever get anything done, LGBT/POC or not everybody was a bunch of dicks, and canonically "The Man" was right and the Technocracy (as fucked as it was) was actually the best hope for mankind's survival.

The one "main" game that slid more uncomfortably close to woke was Werewolf the Apocalypse, but even that one had some of the protagonists being literal man-slaughtering bitches, or literal Nazis. The Werewolves only came off as "the good guys" because they were fighting against the living embodiment of corruption (when they should have been fighting the avatar of stasis itself, but that's a different story).

 

[XYZpdq]

I dug the setting a lot in the 90s, when they blew up everything for the reboot was when I got off the train.
I checked out the 00s reboot a bit, seemed okay but I figured it was as good a place to drop since irl got in the way of tabletop gaming.
Don't have any good fishmalk stories off the top of my head, did have somebody at the local larp who had a few times, threw fits when he didn't realize back door of Da Club wouldn't have a handle where he could just walk back in, another where he didn't know cars don't just spontaneously blow up when you shoot a handgun at it like movies.

 

[Syaoran Li]

I've been getting back into old Vampire stuff thanks to the Bloodlines 2 thread and re-reading a lot of the older books from the game's first edition on PDF. The 1E corebook, the original Chicago by Night, Ashes to Ashes, stuff like that.

It's honestly really interesting to see how different the game was back in 1991-1992 and not just in terms of the setting and metaplot changes but also in the tone and assumptions of the game and I'm not even talking about the drastic changes of V5 but even Revised and some of the Second Edition style.

Heck, even some of the other denizens of the WoD gave a very different impression from their one or two paragraphs descriptions in the 1e corebook's section on NPC's and antagonists. This was before Werewolf and Mage were written so the Lupines and Magi were kinda different. The Order of Hermes is actually mentioned by name but the paragraph that mentions it implies that the mages are more like the ones from Ars Magica than what we eventually saw in MTA. The Sabbat were implied to be more of an urban legend even among vampires and not much was described about them aside from a line about the shovel ritual and pack blood bonds.

IIRC, I think Mark Rein-Hagen wanted WoD to be the modern day sequel to Ars Magica and that there were only five games originally planned: Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Ghost, and Faerie. Ghost and Faerie eventually became Wraith and Changeling and by that point a lot of the original premises of the setting were falling by the wayside and Rein-Hagen was nearing the end of his tenure at White Wolf.

 

[Corn Flakes]

I've been getting back into old Vampire stuff thanks to the Bloodlines 2 thread and re-reading a lot of the older books from the game's first edition on PDF. The 1E corebook, the original Chicago by Night, Ashes to Ashes, stuff like that.

It's honestly really interesting to see how different the game was back in 1991-1992 and not just in terms of the setting and metaplot changes but also in the tone and assumptions of the game and I'm not even talking about the drastic changes of V5 but even Revised and some of the Second Edition style.

Heck, even some of the other denizens of the WoD gave a very different impression from their one or two paragraphs descriptions in the 1e corebook's section on NPC's and antagonists. This was before Werewolf and Mage were written so the Lupines and Magi were kinda different. The Order of Hermes is actually mentioned by name but the paragraph that mentions it implies that the mages are more like the ones from Ars Magica than what we eventually saw in MTA. The Sabbat were implied to be more of an urban legend even among vampires and not much was described about them aside from a line about the shovel ritual and pack blood bonds.

IIRC, I think Mark Rein-Hagen wanted WoD to be the modern day sequel to Ars Magica and that there were only five games originally planned: Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Ghost, and Faerie. Ghost and Faerie eventually became Wraith and Changeling and by that point a lot of the original premises of the setting were falling by the wayside and Rein-Hagen was nearing the end of his tenure at White Wolf.

I think that part of it is that early on the guys writing World of Darkness stuck to the design maxim that the World of Darkness wasn't the real world, but a distorted, extremely dystopic version of the real world. Everybody was shit, in the shit, and behaved like shit, and the few tiny oases of wholesomeness and goodness were under constant attack by an uncaring world. Yeah, it was edgy as fuck, but it was generally very self-consistent. No one was good. Yeah, there were plenty crooked security guards willing to turn a blind eye if the pretty girl in the group gave them a quick blowjob, but at the same time every single feminist in the setting was a screeching harpy demanding death to all men and every environmentalist was a closeted eco-terrorist. It was all crap, and it gave the players the freedom to be crap right along with it, to try to change that world (and invariably fail), or to try to get their characters to escape it.

That's why it worked, IMO. The Straight White Man wasn't the oppressor (even if the Native Tribes and the Black Furies in Werewolf seemed to think so). The system was. The world as a whole was. The Straight White Men in the setting all started out as drones working meaninglessly through the system, be it as soulless salarymen stuck in a cubicle 9-5 Monday-Friday, or as criminal cannon fodder. And they escaped the cycle when they entered the supernatural world, which results in the mundane world turning against them. Sounds familiar?

Unfortunately, as the writers slowly but steadily stuffed their heads up their own asses writing the metaplot, the World of Darkness steadily moved towards grand politics no one really cared about except the LARPers and the turbo-spergs. WoD was already a corpse when it was "revived" with V20, but V20 at least was just them tying ropes to the corpse and making it dance and it could be fun to watch. Vampire 5th Edition is the writers wearing its skin and pretending it's alive again so we can give them more money.

 

[ThatOneLurker]

Oh, good thread.

Since this is the farms and we like to make fun of spergs, let me throw you guys an initial question: anyone got any fun stories about fishmalks? I was usually the Brujah/Ventrue at the table so my job was to make sure our resident imbeciles didn't do anything out of the ordinary (by word or by fist), so I mostly only heard the horror stories on the internet.

Actually, with the Current Year bullshit, I don't think fishmalks could have gotten any better. "lolsorandom" humor was already dumb 10-15 years ago, and things have only gone downhill since.

No stories about fishmalks, but I've had players try so hard at not being a fishmalk that they become generally annoying and disrespectful to the entire group. So, I've got a friend group that largely consists of zoomers and millenials between 17-24. Obviously, very few of these friends even know what World of Darkness is. So anyway, a friend of mine is chatting me up one day when I tell him I've gotta go, because I'm DMing a game. He asks we what I play, I tell him Vampire, and I introduce him to the concepts and system.

Instantly taken to Malkavians, and after a week, he's wanting to join and play one. At first has a kind of fun idea for his character, though I jokingly call it a fishmalk for it's surface similarities to the Bloodlines Malk (who imo, is kind of Fishmalky). He takes offense to this, and decides to completely rewrite his character. The character he ends up with is this really dark and edgy as fuck Joker 2019 knock-off without the fun clown stuff. I'm just kind of like, "Okay. Sure. Sounds interesting."

We start playing, and almost as soon as he's introduced he makes the game about him and his "mental issues" as part of being a Malkavian. He's incredibly melodramatic all the time, and whenever he's chided by the other players he loses his shit and begins screaming at them about how they suck and would just prefer he play a fishmalk. He doesn't even really know what a fishmalk is, and he's holding it over them like a crudgle. So he shits up the game, and starts having his character do really long and awkward hunting bits where he just follows people around and cries bloody tears because he's so emo and edgy.

Tl;dr they made a vampire version of the Crow but without any of the super powers or cool aspects, but all of the edge and emo shit.

 

[Sascha Vykos]

I'm a Late Millennial who didn't get into WoD until like 2008 or so when I was in high school.

I'll admit, I love a lot of the early setting from before Revised and I like to incorporate a lot of the game's "early installment weirdness" from the first and second edition into the V20 one-shots I occasionally run.

I would technically be considered a Nu-WoD fan since I came late to the game as well (2010's). I look back at how I blissfully hoped that the series would get a re-boot and Bloodlines 2 would become a real thing. Unfortunately, the times have changed and no one can remove their political beliefs from the adult equivalent of playing pretend. In my opinion, the current social climate is WoD/VtM's biggest downfall.

No stories about fishmalks, but I've had players try so hard at not being a fishmalk that they become generally annoying and disrespectful to the entire group. So, I've got a friend group that largely consists of zoomers and millenials between 17-24. Obviously, very few of these friends even know what World of Darkness is. So anyway, a friend of mine is chatting me up one day when I tell him I've gotta go, because I'm DMing a game. He asks we what I play, I tell him Vampire, and I introduce him to the concepts and system.

Instantly taken to Malkavians, and after a week, he's wanting to join and play one. At first has a kind of fun idea for his character, though I jokingly call it a fishmalk for it's surface similarities to the Bloodlines Malk (who imo, is kind of Fishmalky). He takes offense to this, and decides to completely rewrite his character. The character he ends up with is this really dark and edgy as fuck Joker 2019 knock-off without the fun clown stuff. I'm just kind of like, "Okay. Sure. Sounds interesting."

We start playing, and almost as soon as he's introduced he makes the game about him and his "mental issues" as part of being a Malkavian. He's incredibly melodramatic all the time, and whenever he's chided by the other players he loses his shit and begins screaming at them about how they suck and would just prefer he play a fishmalk. He doesn't even really know what a fishmalk is, and he's holding it over them like a crudgle. So he shits up the game, and starts having his character do really long and awkward hunting bits where he just follows people around and cries bloody tears because he's so emo and edgy.

Tl;dr they made a vampire version of the Crow but without any of the super powers or cool aspects, but all of the edge and emo shit.

Call me prude, but I didn't let my players who were completely new to the setting play Malks. I love my players, but I don't trust them not to sperg out and turn into fishmalks. I remember going over the clans with my group, one of them who I distinctly knew would want to play a Malk (and turn into a fishmalk) got super excited when I explained the clan. I quickly informed him that they were off-limits for the time being, he wasn't too pleased, but I ended up suggesting he play a Nos and so far has enjoyed it.

Edit: This teaser trailer was just released today and all the WoD accounts are tweeting about it. Apparently, the trailer is in engine and will be releasing late 2021. Other than that there is no information on what this is. I suppose that's a marketing tactic, not a very good one but it's something.

 

[Emperor Julian]

Me and the boys (and girls) have been playing for years to the point where their are internal referances and in-jokes a mile long. I recently played a Ravnos gas station cashier who was accidently embraced during a total clusterfuck in the previous campaign by a particulary inept pc ductus. She's quite bitter about the whole thing since she was working night shifts to be a vet now she's stuck as an teenage goth with kleptomanical tendancies for all eternity.

 

[Lithos]

I got no stories of fishmalks outright. Having run with the LARP crowds in the 90s, most any and all Malkavians in my neighborhood were what we called Teddybears. They all thought acting like children and carrying teddybears was the be all, end all of derangements. So the local goth club had a bunch of people in pajamas, carrying around stuffed animals. For four years.

But now, everything is getting touched by the Twitter crowd, huh?

Spoiler: Why is this even necessary?

I would love to see a faction of Black Furies called "The Fangs of Rowling", or something.

 

[Dom Cruise]

Erm. Wasn't WoD always peak woke?

More than half the stock characters are some variation of LGBT, the sandniggers and ethnic sub-class vampire clans are some of the most OP vampires, there's literal canon shota pedo victim vampires written off as "normal" and all the plotlines seem to revolve around 2000's Evanescence members, furries or wiccans somehow giving it to "the man".

I'm not sure what's changed, other than some of the more radical elements of woke being toned down if anything.

The difference between now and then though is that sort of thing has gotten really fucking lame over the last ten years.

LGBT culture for example used to be edgy shit like John Waters, now it's people getting angry if someone tells a joke.

I got no stories of fishmalks outright. Having run with the LARP crowds in the 90s, most any and all Malkavians in my neighborhood were what we called Teddybears. They all thought acting like children and carrying teddybears was the be all, end all of derangements. So the local goth club had a bunch of people in pajamas, carrying around stuffed animals. For four years.

lmao, what years specifically are we talking?

 

[Lithos]

lmao, what years specifically are we talking?

96-99. When gas was under a dollar and people would drive over 3 hours, from two different states, because we were the only LARP in town.

 

[Dom Cruise]

96-99. When gas was under a dollar and people would drive over 3 hours, from two different states, because we were the only LARP in town.

Those were the days.

 

[Next Task]

I have played a lot of WoD for someone who doesn't actually like it, because a lot of my friends do. Vampire, Werewolf, a lot of Fae stuff, a couple of free for all games, even that one friend who is obsessed with Wraith.

And I've concluded I don't like them. Especially not Vampire in any of its forms, but Changeling either, or most of Werewolf. I've had some fun in one-off games, but my inherent dislike of the world just makes me disinterested in anything more than that - and even then I'd rather play something else.

I never did Camarilla or anything like that - it always came with horror stories of assholes who drove anyone any good away. That might be part of it. I also don't generally do well with forced grimdark edge, or games where rules lawyers flourish.

I also haven't played any of the less common ones, like Mummy or Demon. Considering how the game and players make me feel, I suspect I'd like Hunter, but no one ever plays it.

I can handle games where everyone is an asshole. But my experience of things like Vampire is it encourages players to be fairly big assholes as well, and playing assholes with assholes in a world full of assholes isn't my idea of a good time.

I'm interested in hearing what other people like about it, though, especially specifics, which is why I'm reading the thread. Because it can't just be all about thinking vampires are cool...

 

[Lithos]

Those were the days.

The days when the Werewolf players had to insinuate themselves into everyone else's vampire games because no one would run a straight-up WtA game for them. All the Get of Fenris Ahroun characters running around, killing peoples' characters. It was entertaining in its own way. Made me hate Werewolf for the longest time, though.

I'm interested in hearing what other people like about it, though, especially specifics, which is why I'm reading the thread. Because it can't just be all about thinking vampires are cool...

Eh, I like the concepts of how Mages and Werewolves function. I dig the whole animism and consensus to it. I don't run my games where everone's an asshole. Just quite a few of them.

 

[Sascha Vykos]

I'm interested in hearing what other people like about it, though, especially specifics, which is why I'm reading the thread. Because it can't just be all about thinking vampires are cool...

Most of my experience with Vampire has been self-contained. For a while, Vampire was more of an interesting world to learn about rather than a game. I'm also a big fan of narrative, especially character-driven narrative. The idea of a secret society of Vampire's manipulating human society to fit their needs also intrigued me.

96-99. When gas was under a dollar and people would drive over 3 hours, from two different states, because we were the only LARP in town.

Honestly would love to hear any stories you have about the 90's LARP scene.

 

[Corn Flakes]

No stories about fishmalks, but I've had players try so hard at not being a fishmalk that they become generally annoying and disrespectful to the entire group. So, I've got a friend group that largely consists of zoomers and millenials between 17-24. Obviously, very few of these friends even know what World of Darkness is. So anyway, a friend of mine is chatting me up one day when I tell him I've gotta go, because I'm DMing a game. He asks we what I play, I tell him Vampire, and I introduce him to the concepts and system.

Instantly taken to Malkavians, and after a week, he's wanting to join and play one. At first has a kind of fun idea for his character, though I jokingly call it a fishmalk for it's surface similarities to the Bloodlines Malk (who imo, is kind of Fishmalky). He takes offense to this, and decides to completely rewrite his character. The character he ends up with is this really dark and edgy as fuck Joker 2019 knock-off without the fun clown stuff. I'm just kind of like, "Okay. Sure. Sounds interesting."

We start playing, and almost as soon as he's introduced he makes the game about him and his "mental issues" as part of being a Malkavian. He's incredibly melodramatic all the time, and whenever he's chided by the other players he loses his shit and begins screaming at them about how they suck and would just prefer he play a fishmalk. He doesn't even really know what a fishmalk is, and he's holding it over them like a crudgle. So he shits up the game, and starts having his character do really long and awkward hunting bits where he just follows people around and cries bloody tears because he's so emo and edgy.

Tl;dr they made a vampire version of the Crow but without any of the super powers or cool aspects, but all of the edge and emo shit.

Call me prude, but I didn't let my players who were completely new to the setting play Malks. I love my players, but I don't trust them not to sperg out and turn into fishmalks. I remember going over the clans with my group, one of them who I distinctly knew would want to play a Malk (and turn into a fishmalk) got super excited when I explained the clan. I quickly informed him that they were off-limits for the time being, he wasn't too pleased, but I ended up suggesting he play a Nos and so far has enjoyed it.

I've never GMed outside of a couple quick demo games at events, but I was usually one of the most experienced players in the groups I joined (always the bridesmaid, never the bride...) so I got to help a lot of newbies with their first characters. Malkavian was definitely one of the most popular clans for them, but I think I found a good way to keep a new player from going full fishmalk. When talking about the Clan, I pointed at "quirky" characters in TV series or games as examples. Like, a Malkavian with OCD and/or germophobia would be a more murderous version of Monk, anxiously scrubbing away any blood that got on them during feeding and lashing out violently at "dirty" people touching them. There could well be some humor in them, sure, but they're still supernatural predators and their insanity is dangerous. To themselves, to the people around them, or both.

It tended to work fairly well at setting the tone for the newbies. One of the best happened a few years ago when a new girl (an actual, honest-to-goodness double-X-chromosome girl, this was before the plague of troons) mentioned wanting to try a deluisional character. I pulled up the Meet the Pyro Team Fortress 2 short and... let's just say she patterned her character after that specific psychotic break and it was one of the best first characters I've ever seen. She certainly left a mark, and she didn't even mind that the utterly insane girl she made died (messily) just a few sessions in.

Edit: This teaser trailer was just released today and all the WoD accounts are tweeting about it. Apparently, the trailer is in engine and will be releasing late 2021. Other than that there is no information on what this is. I suppose that's a marketing tactic, not a very good one but it's something.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=FxKvO59q548

Honestly, something being "in engine" means fuck all these days. Specially when you're talking about a game that should be carried by its dialogue and story instead of graphics.

I have played a lot of WoD for someone who doesn't actually like it, because a lot of my friends do. Vampire, Werewolf, a lot of Fae stuff, a couple of free for all games, even that one friend who is obsessed with Wraith.

And I've concluded I don't like them. Especially not Vampire in any of its forms, but Changeling either, or most of Werewolf. I've had some fun in one-off games, but my inherent dislike of the world just makes me disinterested in anything more than that - and even then I'd rather play something else.

I never did Camarilla or anything like that - it always came with horror stories of assholes who drove anyone any good away. That might be part of it. I also don't generally do well with forced grimdark edge, or games where rules lawyers flourish.

[...] I can handle games where everyone is an asshole. But my experience of things like Vampire is it encourages players to be fairly big assholes as well, and playing assholes with assholes in a world full of assholes isn't my idea of a good time.

I'm interested in hearing what other people like about it, though, especially specifics, which is why I'm reading the thread. Because it can't just be all about thinking vampires are cool...

From experience, the best stories (read: the ones in which the players aren't all just being complete assholes) are the ones where the GM (I know it's Storyteller, don't @ me) actually has a story to tell and the players are engaged and willing to find reasons for their characters to interact with the world and the plot. The games where the GM was more laissez faire and ran a sandbox where people could do more or less whatever while the story played in the background tended to devolve into assholes being assholes to one another.

Anyway... what drew me into WoD was that while the edgy shit was just silly, the idea of this dark world full of mysteries and conspiracies was really cool to me at the time. It still is, even if the new version of WoD can go die in a fire. And the main archetypes are interesting. A tragic immortal predator, a dual-natured protector of the wilds, or someone whose will can literally shape the world. You can do a lot of interesting things with it, not just edgy goths with fangs, Get of Fenris Ahrouns, or fireball-slinging wizards.

I also haven't played any of the less common ones, like Mummy or Demon. Considering how the game and players make me feel, I suspect I'd like Hunter, but no one ever plays it.

I may be the only person in the universe who actually played (and enjoyed) Mummy. The poll seems to bear it out, too. I really liked it because it was the one subgame where the characters were outright stated to actually give a shit about the world. Even the werewolves didn't get that big a direct motivation. Unfortunately, the rules for the mummies was janky as hell, and even though we had fun our usual GM had to admit he was having trouble coming up with interesting, workable stories for us to play so we never went beyond a few sessions.

Hunter could have been a fun concept to me, but having knowledge of the metaplot and the other games spoiled it for me. So a good story for Hunter would rely a lot on the GM creating their own versions of supernatural things to keep the players on their toes.

 

[contradiction of terns]

Most of my experience with Vampire has been self-contained. For a while, Vampire was more of an interesting world to learn about rather than a game. I'm also a big fan of narrative, especially character-driven narrative. The idea of a secret society of Vampire's manipulating human society to fit their needs also intrigued me.

Honestly would love to hear any stories you have about the 90's LARP scene.

I bet there's some good stories. I LARPed Vampire a bit in the early 2000s and it was definitely an experience.

Someone's gonna have to explain to me WTF a fishmalk is, though. I had to give up playing WoD for the most part after graduating high school and when I saw the revisions in New WoD I stopped paying attention to the games.

Definitely gonna try to keep up with this thread, tho.

 

[Lithos]

The revisions are something to watch out for. With Werewolf next on the slab, players are fairly divided.

Onyx Path Discord is banning anyone who says "sjw" and "woke nonsense". There are those who want to purge anything potentially negative about the tribes. There are those that lurk to see if anyone spouts wrongthink. And then there's the above provided example of troonery being shoved into all the games.