Yeah, Requiem had a pretty good sense of being a toolbox for STs and players, but was less immediately approachable without someone wanting to do some lifting on creation. It was a fair criticism at Requiem launch, but it's built itself out well with 2nd ed and other sourcebooks. It seemed like they basically said "here are some covenants that have opposed viewpoints, the natural instinct is that conflict will occur" but targeted with taking a city level rather than global focus, it became a harder shift from Masquerade ongoing narrative to Requiem homebrew storytelling.
Bloodlines are an example of this. At launch, Bloodlines seemed mostly to be a solution to people concerned that they went from 13 clans to 5 - folks were worried that character repetition would exist, particularly in things like the LARP scene. Bloodlines were a way to provide some character/identity customization. But it could of course run the risk of homebrew stuff being lame ("clearly my bloodline needs Celerity/Vigor/Majesty/Protean"), but like any game, that came down to ST discretion and execution.
One of their first bloodline sourcebooks had some of the sillier bloodlines, which probably didn't help the case of bloodlines feeling like a way to just increase power creep. But they were still neat ideas, and later books had more diverse and interesting bloodlines that did range from like "mini-covenant" to "members of this bloodline generally hate each other" so like any other element of play, you could involve it as much or as little as possible.
So like most of Requiem, with the right group these things worked well. With the wrong group, they became problematic. But I'm not sure that wasn't the same with any tabletop game, ranging from Fishmalks to D&D super wonky characters breaking party cohesion or the like.
0
Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
I totally acknowledge VtM had a ton of problems, but for me personally, the lore and setting are like 99% of why I like Vampire. When they changed a lot of that for Requiem, I just wasn't interested.
Sales and cultural/market success pretty clearly shows that was a common response. Even as one of those people who enjoys Requiem more, Masquerade has plenty to love about it, and since it always comes down to the group anyway, most of the mechanical silliness of old-Masquerade could just be handled with being not being obnoxious. I remain unbelievably hype about Bloodlines 2, even if I wish Paradox also did a Crusader Kings style Requiem covenant war game.
Requiem should have been more successful because it's great. I kind of like that they are doing parallel product development so people can pursue whichever one they want. But it became pretty clear that if you're going to make a video game or go hard to market a new product, Masquerade is where your best shot is going to be.
Sales and cultural/market success pretty clearly shows that was a common response. Even as one of those people who enjoys Requiem more, Masquerade has plenty to love about it, and since it always comes down to the group anyway, most of the mechanical silliness of old-Masquerade could just be handled with being not being obnoxious. I remain unbelievably hype about Bloodlines 2, even if I wish Paradox also did a Crusader Kings style Requiem covenant war game.
Requiem should have been more successful because it's great. I kind of like that they are doing parallel product development so people can pursue whichever one they want. But it became pretty clear that if you're going to make a video game or go hard to market a new product, Masquerade is where your best shot is going to be.
Yeah, I always thought a open world game that was basically the dark brotherhood/theives guild/ vampire parts of skyrim expanded out to a full game would be a great rpg, and that is the kind of thing that requiem (or nwod in general if you wanted to go beyond vampire) would handle much better than masquerade.
Maybe if bloodlines 2 does well they can expand out a bit, though I can see the business reason for not wanting two very similar but unconnected lines of vampire video games.
DemonStaceyTTODewback's DaughterIn love with the TaySwayRegistered Userregular
Hmm. At first I was leaning hard into the idea of going more magicky.
But it looks like they are giving melee characters some really cool and fun tools too.
I do prefer the idea of a speedy punchpunch vampire I just didn't want to make the gameplay too simplistic but it may be cool here.
0
cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Potency
You're big, you're tough and your muscles have muscles.
Fist of Caine gives you a punch even the big daddy of the vamps would be proud of. Knock down walls and throw people far. It's upgradeable, too.
Beat up the ground with Earthshock, creating a shockwave and knocking down anyone that gets too close. Upgrading it will send out fissures that damage everyone nearby.
Celerity
You're the speedster of the vampire world.
Unseen Storm lets you dash in any direction so quickly that, to anyone looking, you disappear, giving you the chance to make a quick attack, reposition yourself and dodge attacks. It helps if you want to run away, too, and it can be upgraded.
With Accelerate, the world slows down around you, letting pull off fancy stunts and even avoid bullets. You can enhance it with an upgrade, too. You'll be wanting to grab some shades and a leather coat, obviously.
They said the rationale is: it keeps the number of abilities you can use down to a more manageable level, and it lets them differentiate clans from each other a bit more (as cj iwakura guessed).
According to the stream you get one Thinblood discipline and two clan disciplines.
Do you get to use all the Thinblood disciplines before joining a clan? Do you get points refunded when you join a clan? Is there a way to try out the disciplines before committing?
I was going back and forth getting ready to go, so may have missed context, but it sounds like you pick one thinblood discipline while playing as one. I couldn't say beyond that though.
DemonStaceyTTODewback's DaughterIn love with the TaySwayRegistered Userregular
edited May 2019
The tattoos are rad.
Brujah vs Tremere is gonna be a real hard choice.
Also, speaking of... Have they mentioned anything about how the character look will work? Because the images we've seen both have very strong class traits to them. How will that work with making your character as a thinblood before you have a clan aesthetic wise? Will you gain some physical traits on the character you already made? Will you remake the character entirely with specific clan choices(weird). Will you just get a whole new shot at the creator?
Also, speaking of... Have they mentioned anything about how the character look will work? Because the images we've seen both have very strong class traits to them. How will that work with making your character as a thinblood before you have a clan aesthetic wise? Will you gain some physical traits on the character you already made? Will you remake the character entirely with specific clan choices(weird). Will you just get a whole new shot at the creator?
I believe in the Brujah stream they said the image was just a themed example and you can make your character look however you want them to.
Also, speaking of... Have they mentioned anything about how the character look will work? Because the images we've seen both have very strong class traits to them. How will that work with making your character as a thinblood before you have a clan aesthetic wise? Will you gain some physical traits on the character you already made? Will you remake the character entirely with specific clan choices(weird). Will you just get a whole new shot at the creator?
I believe in the Brujah stream they said the image was just a themed example and you can make your character look however you want them to.
See that's also interesting because if you don't know what clan you are going with until you get to that part it may be hard to really know the look to go for. I wonder if there is still some physical changes you can make after picking a clan?
And then of course the whole Nosferatu thing makes it seem like there has to be some sort of modification(with particular limitations in that case) that would occur.
0
jmcdonaldI voted, did you?DC(ish)Registered Userregular
Also, speaking of... Have they mentioned anything about how the character look will work? Because the images we've seen both have very strong class traits to them. How will that work with making your character as a thinblood before you have a clan aesthetic wise? Will you gain some physical traits on the character you already made? Will you remake the character entirely with specific clan choices(weird). Will you just get a whole new shot at the creator?
I believe in the Brujah stream they said the image was just a themed example and you can make your character look however you want them to.
See that's also interesting because if you don't know what clan you are going with until you get to that part it may be hard to really know the look to go for. I wonder if there is still some physical changes you can make after picking a clan?
And then of course the whole Nosferatu thing makes it seem like there has to be some sort of modification(with particular limitations in that case) that would occur.
I think it’d be great if nosferatu had no choice in post transition model. Would make it a more realistic “choice”.
Also, speaking of... Have they mentioned anything about how the character look will work? Because the images we've seen both have very strong class traits to them. How will that work with making your character as a thinblood before you have a clan aesthetic wise? Will you gain some physical traits on the character you already made? Will you remake the character entirely with specific clan choices(weird). Will you just get a whole new shot at the creator?
I believe in the Brujah stream they said the image was just a themed example and you can make your character look however you want them to.
See that's also interesting because if you don't know what clan you are going with until you get to that part it may be hard to really know the look to go for. I wonder if there is still some physical changes you can make after picking a clan?
And then of course the whole Nosferatu thing makes it seem like there has to be some sort of modification(with particular limitations in that case) that would occur.
Maybe they just give you a chance to adjust your character's looks when you get "promoted"?
Also, speaking of... Have they mentioned anything about how the character look will work? Because the images we've seen both have very strong class traits to them. How will that work with making your character as a thinblood before you have a clan aesthetic wise? Will you gain some physical traits on the character you already made? Will you remake the character entirely with specific clan choices(weird). Will you just get a whole new shot at the creator?
I believe in the Brujah stream they said the image was just a themed example and you can make your character look however you want them to.
See that's also interesting because if you don't know what clan you are going with until you get to that part it may be hard to really know the look to go for. I wonder if there is still some physical changes you can make after picking a clan?
And then of course the whole Nosferatu thing makes it seem like there has to be some sort of modification(with particular limitations in that case) that would occur.
Maybe they just give you a chance to adjust your character's looks when you get "promoted"?
Yea that seems the most likely of the options. I am just curious to see how it all plays out.
I’m not familiar with the pnp game, but wouldn’t Nosferatu be the only one that would really need to change? In which case, the game could take the character you made and do stuff like give you pointy ears, sunken eyes, crooked teeth, and remove all hair.
The other thing is that the Brujah don't only embrace tatted-up bikers, the Tremer don't only embrace librarians. Certainly, if you feel like your vampire of a certain clan ought to look a certain way, there could be a disconnect - but if you're in that group, then you probably already know what clan you're going to pick, so you can design your character to match from the get-go.
I guess what I'm saying here is that I'm not sure I see a huge difference - functionally speaking - between picking a character's look and class/clan/etc at character creation and picking the look at character creation and then picking the class/clan/etc five hours later. You have control over both the look and the clan - pick the ones you think go well together.
+5
cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Also, speaking of... Have they mentioned anything about how the character look will work? Because the images we've seen both have very strong class traits to them. How will that work with making your character as a thinblood before you have a clan aesthetic wise? Will you gain some physical traits on the character you already made? Will you remake the character entirely with specific clan choices(weird). Will you just get a whole new shot at the creator?
I believe in the Brujah stream they said the image was just a themed example and you can make your character look however you want them to.
See that's also interesting because if you don't know what clan you are going with until you get to that part it may be hard to really know the look to go for. I wonder if there is still some physical changes you can make after picking a clan?
And then of course the whole Nosferatu thing makes it seem like there has to be some sort of modification(with particular limitations in that case) that would occur.
Maybe they just give you a chance to adjust your character's looks when you get "promoted"?
Maybe the Clan's local big-shot will offer you a new outfit. It's amazing how much the right clothes can alter someone's looks entirely.
Posts
Bloodlines are an example of this. At launch, Bloodlines seemed mostly to be a solution to people concerned that they went from 13 clans to 5 - folks were worried that character repetition would exist, particularly in things like the LARP scene. Bloodlines were a way to provide some character/identity customization. But it could of course run the risk of homebrew stuff being lame ("clearly my bloodline needs Celerity/Vigor/Majesty/Protean"), but like any game, that came down to ST discretion and execution.
One of their first bloodline sourcebooks had some of the sillier bloodlines, which probably didn't help the case of bloodlines feeling like a way to just increase power creep. But they were still neat ideas, and later books had more diverse and interesting bloodlines that did range from like "mini-covenant" to "members of this bloodline generally hate each other" so like any other element of play, you could involve it as much or as little as possible.
So like most of Requiem, with the right group these things worked well. With the wrong group, they became problematic. But I'm not sure that wasn't the same with any tabletop game, ranging from Fishmalks to D&D super wonky characters breaking party cohesion or the like.
Requiem should have been more successful because it's great. I kind of like that they are doing parallel product development so people can pursue whichever one they want. But it became pretty clear that if you're going to make a video game or go hard to market a new product, Masquerade is where your best shot is going to be.
Yeah, I always thought a open world game that was basically the dark brotherhood/theives guild/ vampire parts of skyrim expanded out to a full game would be a great rpg, and that is the kind of thing that requiem (or nwod in general if you wanted to go beyond vampire) would handle much better than masquerade.
Maybe if bloodlines 2 does well they can expand out a bit, though I can see the business reason for not wanting two very similar but unconnected lines of vampire video games.
But it looks like they are giving melee characters some really cool and fun tools too.
I do prefer the idea of a speedy punchpunch vampire I just didn't want to make the gameplay too simplistic but it may be cool here.
Do you get to use all the Thinblood disciplines before joining a clan? Do you get points refunded when you join a clan? Is there a way to try out the disciplines before committing?
Gamertag: PrimusD | Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Because that latter would be extra fun for customization.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
The clan disciplines are preset. The Brujah get Celerity and Potence, but have no access to Presence.
Apparently they do get to keep their original thin blood discipline so they get 3 total though, 3rd one is just player selected.
We don't know what all the clans available at launch will be yet.
Gamertag: PrimusD | Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
House and Clan in effect.
Brujah vs Tremere is gonna be a real hard choice.
Also, speaking of... Have they mentioned anything about how the character look will work? Because the images we've seen both have very strong class traits to them. How will that work with making your character as a thinblood before you have a clan aesthetic wise? Will you gain some physical traits on the character you already made? Will you remake the character entirely with specific clan choices(weird). Will you just get a whole new shot at the creator?
I believe in the Brujah stream they said the image was just a themed example and you can make your character look however you want them to.
See that's also interesting because if you don't know what clan you are going with until you get to that part it may be hard to really know the look to go for. I wonder if there is still some physical changes you can make after picking a clan?
And then of course the whole Nosferatu thing makes it seem like there has to be some sort of modification(with particular limitations in that case) that would occur.
I think it’d be great if nosferatu had no choice in post transition model. Would make it a more realistic “choice”.
Maybe they just give you a chance to adjust your character's looks when you get "promoted"?
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Yea that seems the most likely of the options. I am just curious to see how it all plays out.
Steam: MightyPotatoKing
I guess what I'm saying here is that I'm not sure I see a huge difference - functionally speaking - between picking a character's look and class/clan/etc at character creation and picking the look at character creation and then picking the class/clan/etc five hours later. You have control over both the look and the clan - pick the ones you think go well together.
Maybe the Clan's local big-shot will offer you a new outfit. It's amazing how much the right clothes can alter someone's looks entirely.