[Vampire: The Masquerade] The Reckoning of Seattle Continues
cj iwakura
The Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered User regular
The Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered User regular
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines brings White Wolf's famous pen-and-paper role playing game to the back to the PC . For the first time players can explore the World of Darkness from a first person perspective in a game which utilizes Valve's striking Source Engine.
Unlike third person role playing games, Bloodlines will put you in the shoes of the character you control. You will get up close and personal with the brilliantly animated characters that populate the game world and tangled in the web of intrigue that is the staple of Troika Games' roleplaying titles.
You begin your journey this time in modern day Los Angeles as a newly embraced vampire. By creating you without the consent of your clan's Elders, your sire has violated one of vampire society's most hallowed laws. As punishment for the crime he has been put to death. Normally you would be expected to share the same fate but the newly installed Prince of Los Angeles thinks you might have some merit: you're a newly embraced vampire with no sire to guide you; you are unfamiliar with the world of vampires and their laws and customs. You would be useful and expendable pawn in his grand scheme.
You will employ a variety of firearms and skills such as computer hacking and lock picking as well as your devastating array of vampiric powers called Disciplines. And what would a game about vampires be if there wasn't some blood drinking?
You choose to play as a member of one of seven diverse and specialized vampire clans and you'll need to employ all of your preternatural skills to survive. You'll need to charm, sneak, intimidate and fight your way through the dangerous world the vampires inhabit and along the way decide just who you really owe your allegiance to.
With many different clans, as many as 5 different endings and the ability pursue several avenues of specialization as you upgrade your character, Bloodlines provides a great deal of replayability.
Or, if preferable:
https://youtu.be/SYvWfDxhm_sSired in an act of vampire insurrection, your existence ignites the war for Seattle's blood trade. Enter uneasy alliances with the creatures who control the city and uncover the sprawling conspiracy which plunged Seattle into a bloody civil war between powerful vampire factions.
Immerse yourself in the World of Darkness and live out your vampire fantasy in a city filled with intriguing characters that react to your choices. You and your unique disciplines are a weapon in our forward-driving, fast-moving, melee-focussed combat system. Your power will grow as you advance, but remember to uphold the Masquerade and guard your humanity... or face the consequences.
Seattle has always been run by vampires. Hunt your prey across Seattle locations faithfully reimagined in the World of Darkness. Meet the old blood founders present since the city’s birth and the new blood steering the tech money redefining the city. Everyone has hidden agendas - so choose your allies wisely.
Choose a side among competing factions, each with their own unique traits and stories, in the war for Seattle’s blood trade. The world will judge you by the company you keep, but remember no one’s hands stay clean forever.
Written by the creative mind behind the original Bloodlines, Vampire: The Masquerade® - Bloodlines™ 2 brings the ambitions of the first game to life and sees the return of a few fan favorite characters.
Updates
Thinbloods
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xELjqNZjmaMIn Bloodlines 2, you will wake as a Thinblood - learning about the playable clans and political factions of Seattle - before joining one of the ancient clans.
Thinbloods are a recent, weaker strain of vampire who face a constant struggle to survive in the World of Darkness. While they are often treated as second-class citizens by full-blood Kindred, Seattle’s leadership has been uncharacteristically tolerant of Thinbloods. As Seattle has only relatively recently come under Camarilla control, it remains a city of opportunity where Thinbloods can navigate their way into the higher circles of vampire society; however, they are rarely shown the same respect or legal standing that full-blood clan members enjoy.
Chiropteran
This Thinblood discipline calls on the vampire’s strong affinity to bats, allowing her to move through the air and summon swarms.
Mentalism
This Thinblood discipline allows the vampire to manipulate objects through telekinesis - allowing them to even pull weapons from enemies’ hands.
Nebulation
This Thinblood discipline allow the vampire to call on her affinity to mist, allowing her to summon and command it.
To be updated as needed.
Sponsored in part by your local chantry, blood donations welcome.
cj iwakura on
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Is there a recommended guide for "These are the books and quests that give you skill points, so don't waste them on ..."?
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Diablarie is the way described in the books
I'll just go ahead and guess that whatever weird shit happens to you is all part of some scheme by a much older, much more powerful vampire.
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Alas, those times of debauchery died with LaCroix.
It looks theyre theyre merging some of the requiem mechanics. In that system thinbloods were more or less just clanless and they could be given clans. Though not sure how it works in v5. Either way its not a huge departure from what has come before
I honestly wouldn’t mind a straight up Requiem Crpg as a bloodlines spiritual successor. I don’t think this is that game though.
I bet they go with your character finding blood of an antediluvian somehow. There’s an artifact in some supplement for the old editons that is essentially a small vial of the blood of malkav, drinking it decreases gen by one at the cost of making you a Malkavian.
Since the game apparently deals with blood smuggling operations this would make sense, and the player could pick which antediluvian it came from without altering the story too much.
I'm not sure it would translate quite as well to a CRPG with the different factions and what not, but a strategy/city management game in that world would be fun. Alongside the aforementioned Ordo Dracul School Dating Sim.
I would be very surprised if it was something this exotic rather than “you eat a fella”
I kind of want something like that now, it would explain why you're a god at the end. Does not seem likely, though.
Yeah probably, just surprised they would have the pc just straight up diablerize someone ostensibly early in the game, given they usually build up how evil it is so they can use it to show how morally corrupt guys like LaCroix are.
Its kind of like if they sent you on some of the nastier daedric or dark brotherhood quests in skyrim right out of the gate.
Probably not since they got so freaked out about them using Caine in Bloodlines 1 and retconned it.
I liked the idea of caine being a wanderer though, watching things, largely too bored of existence and overcome with the burden of years to take any kind of active role in Jyhad or the world at large but still occasionally willing to take some small actions here and there to tip the scales as in the game. The gehenna books had him spending hundreds of years hanging around in a cave somewhere iirc, which would be fine for an antediluvian but doesn’t really fit Caine imho (he was cursed to wander, napping off somewhere is cheating).
The only thing that was strage about it was him hanging around with Jack at the end. If Jack had no clue who the driver was it would have worked a lot better(as him actually being Caine)
Since you're a thinblood and they are frequently on the outs of vampire society it could easily be the case that your player character doesn't fully understand the implications of diablerie and only finds out afterward. Perhaps by hearing the voice or thoughts of the Vampire you drink afterward.
And also this ingenious unofficial winner:
Edit - Oops forgot to untag the winners, my bad for the notifications!
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Seattle has really extreme seasons. Winter nights are long. The solstice has a sunrise/sunset of 8 AM to 4:20 PM. So a night of about 17 hours with 12 hours of that outside of astronomical twilight. Conversely in the summer the days peak at 16 hours long and there are two hours outside of astronomical twilight.
Seattle is more or less the northermost city (not point) in the continental US. Being at a latitude higher than Maine. Its not alaska days/nights but theyre still quite long
Would be interesting to have that dichotomy play a part in the plot
Oh so Shane Black is working on it?
It really is such a shame
In the 15 years I’ve had that book not once have I managed to get a game together
Meanwhile I’ve had like a half dozen masquerade games (though several used conversions of the v:tr rules)
And I really like the actual like, politics and clans and stuff in requiem much better
I get what they were going for with Requiem, but it felt like they just ripped all the soul and backstory out of the game. At least NMage still had a rich mythos to play with.
Honestly I'd recommend just playing it and not worrying.
Whereas I see it more as them having pared out all the metaplot cruft to leave something more adaptable and intriguing
They were in a weird situation where there was so much metaplot that it was hard for a newcomer to wrap their heads around but the veterans often loved that stuff and weren't going to try and convince their friends to try Requiem.
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You can still have the metaplot as a base, then just chuck all that out of the window if your campaign doesn't want it, but it should still at least be there.
Take New Mage, the whole foundation is about Atlantis, but most of the modern plot considers it silly and just ancient history(especially the Free Council).
Most people I know considered Requiem inferior because Malkavians were left out.
As an older chap I now look at Requiem as a pretty great font of ideas that solved a lot of VTM problems that people didn't realise were problems yet. At the time though, as someone who mostly wanted something to read, I found "hey just make something up" really uninspiring. The setting didn't feel filled out and lived in, it felt like a sandbox and a list of suggestions and that just didn't inspire me.
V5, for all the mistakes in its corebook, pretty much marries the best ideas of both settings.
I find that Requiem's Covenants are way more interesting than Masquerade's sects, and that it helps separate "family" (clan) from "politics" (covenant), and allows for more diverse regions than just Cam/Anarch/Sabbat city and the interplay therein.
2nd Eds introduction of Touchstones and Beats/Conditions, and introduction of Strix helped put some nice individualized sources of conflict that could be paired with the political sandbox and quickly introduce conflict. Even simple updates by making conflict and the resolution of it the source of XP helped reinforce that you wanted to seek out the conflicts that drive drama rather than always play it safe.
But at jump, Requiem was a toolbox in need of a story coming hot on the heels of a game that felt jam-packed to the gills of so much history, lore, and options that it felt like throwing the baby out with the bathwater for some fans, and they never gave Requiem a shot.
I liked the covenant vs clan thing, but never really got what bloodlines were supposed to be, because I figured they would just be like subclans you inherit from your sire because you were all descended from some badass vampire, but the game seems to treat them like mini-covenants within a clan you join willingly, in which case bloodlines seems a weird name for them.
I went back and looked at some of my old stuff, which was 1st ed of course, and one thing I get the feeling with in the nWOD books is that they seem to be big idea books without much direction to actually tie things together into a story. Like with the covenants and clans they thought “lets give players a lot of options to play” without going the next step into “this is how all these clans and factions fit together”. That was really the trend back then though.
Which is great if your gm is a master writer willing to put hours into developing a setting but if you are just trying to put together a halfway decent story without resorting to running premade modules it doesn’t give you a lot of hooks.