Follow TV Tropes

Following

Context VideoGame / VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines

Go To

1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/1174331955_vampire__the_masquerade_bloodlines_4396.jpg]]
2[[caption-width-right:350:''"[[MsFanservice Hurry up,]] [[TheTease I can only amuse myself]] [[OptionalSexualEncounter for so long...]]"'']]
3
4->''"Life is a splendid thing to indulge in! A pity we're dead..."''
5-->-- '''Beckett'''
6
7''Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines'' is the final game made by Creator/TroikaGames, composed of the Creator/{{Black Isle|Studios}} exiles responsible for ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' and ''VideoGame/ArcanumOfSteamworksAndMagickObscura''. It was released on November 16th, 2004, the same day as ''VideoGame/HalfLife2''. An FPS/RPG hybrid, many consider it the worthiest successor to ''VideoGame/DeusEx''. A World of Darkness MMO was being developed by [[VideoGame/EVEOnline Crowd Control Productions]] based on the TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness which was to start out exclusively focused on ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade'', but this was, sadly, eventually cancelled.
8
9The game takes place in the TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness. In the Anarch-controlled city of Los Angeles, the player character is a newly-Embraced vampire... and it would seem an illicitly-Embraced one, as well. After their sire gets offed for Embracing a mortal without the permission of [=LaCroix=], the newly instated Camarilla Prince of Los Angeles, the PC finds themselves trying to prove their worth by becoming [=LaCroix=]'s errand runner. They become embroiled in local vampire politics and meet a wide cast of characters in their quest to track down an ancient sarcophagus.
10
11''Bloodlines'' was also the first game to make use of the licensed Source engine from Creator/ValveSoftware and was technically the first Source engine game completed, but part of their licensing agreement prohibited the game from being released before ''VideoGame/HalfLife2''.
12
13Thanks to a ''very'' TroubledProduction, the game had the makings of an unfinished game when it was released, suffering from numerous critical bugs and other problems, and although quite a few were fixed by patches, Troika went under shortly after the release, resulting in many of them remaining unaddressed (though some employees did stay on, unpaid, to put out a single official patch to squash some of them). Luckily, a small dedicated modding community around the game has fixed most of these over the years through [[https://www.moddb.com/mods/vtmb-unofficial-patch Unofficial Patches]].
14
15Despite the unpolished aspects, many consider the game to be an incredibly fun, deeply rewarding experience that any fan of PC-RPG's like Videogame/DeusEx would enjoy. So much so that the games community is still active to this day, and is always embracing new players who display an interest in the game.
16
17''Bloodlines'' received a true SpiritualSuccessor in ''VideoGame/VampireTheMasqueradeNightRoad'' in 2020. If you're looking for a similar, non-''Vampire'' game, look at ''VideoGame/AlphaProtocol''.
18
19In 2015, Creator/ParadoxInteractive bought out White Wolf, thereby obtaining the rights to the ''World of Darkness'' universe. In 2017, Paradox acknowledged that they are well aware of ''Bloodlines''[='s=] popularity, and stated that making a sequel of sorts at some point was definitely not out of the question. In March of 2019, it was revealed that development on ''VideoGame/VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines2'' is underway, but it has no set release date.
20----
21!!This game contains examples of:
22
23[[foldercontrol]]
24
25[[folder:A-D]]
26* AbandonedHospital: The decrepit building in the Downtown area. Not ''entirely'' abandoned, as some unfortunate [[ParanormalInvestigation ghost hunters]] find out.
27* AbominableAuditorium:
28** The Nocturne Theater in Downtown Los Angeles appears functional enough, but it's actually an official meeting ground for the local vampires and the decidedly unsympathetic Prince Sebastian [=LaCroix=]; in the game's introduction, he has your sire executed on stage and is only prevented from doing the same to you because of public outcry. Later in the game, you can end up planting hidden cameras in the Nocturne on behalf of the Nosferatu hacker Mitnick.
29** In Hollywood, Isaac Abrams' Asian Theater has been taken over by a Tremere Gargoyle. With the creature too tough for most vampires to dare challenge, the complex has been left derelict and most of the local mortals believe it to be haunted; Abrams wants the place up and running again, and tasks you with evicting the gargoyle - either by killing it in a tricky boss battle or by talking it into working for Abrams.
30* AbortedArc: In Alistair Grout's final audio recording, he mentions having struck what he fears to be a "Faustian bargain" to ensure his safety, but [[spoiler:his corpse is supposedly discovered in the very next room. We never learn the details of this sinister deal, or with whom it was made.]]
31* AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: Nosferatu use them in lieu of sidewalks and taxicabs. There are also a few plot points down there.
32* AcceptableBreaksFromReality: Instead of requiring to you regularly drop everything and seek refuge from daylight in your haven, the game world is cast in permanent night while the occasional bit of dialogue suggests the passing of time and days happens off-screen.
33* AccidentalInnuendo: The first task you must perform in the game that requires your skills is lockpicking a door to an office. [[ButThouMust The only option you have, really, is to accept the task]] (like you'd refuse to do it if you were trying to escape homicidal Sabbat nutjobs and had a lockpick handy, anyway). The innuendo comes, [[InvokedTrope sure enough]], if you're playing Malkavian:
34--> I shall invade this orifice.
35* ActionBasedMission: The end of the game is a string of really strong bosses one after another, which disappointed players who were playing stealthy or using social skills. Many sidequests meet this description too. Thankfully, stealth and social based builds usually accrue more skill points to be spent on combat skills in preparation for those last missions.
36* ActorAllusion: When you get the briefcase for Fat Larry, he examines its contents and calls them [[Film/PulpFiction "Beautiful."]] Larry is voiced by Creator/PhilLamarr, who played [[IJustShotMarvinInTheFace Marvin]] in ''Pulp Fiction'', and was connected to the briefcase arc of that movie.
37* AdamSmithHatesYourGuts: Justified in that the humans don't actually know the issues in Kindred society. Except for Vandal, the ghoul at the blood bank, but he's got ulterior motives.
38* AdaptationDistillation: Of the TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness in general.
39* AdaptationalHeroism:
40** The Toreador clan. In the tabletop game, the Toreador are artistic and sophisticated, but no more or less virtuous than the other six Camarilla clans (if any stands out as nicer than the others, it's the Nosferatu). In this game, the Toreador are kinder and gentler than the other clans - [=NPC=] Toreador lean more towards being [[FriendlyNeighborhoodVampire Friendly Neighborhood Vampires]] than the other clans, and PC Toreador even have a more sensitive KarmaMeter, so are encouraged to avoid cruel acts. Makes sense when you meet Sabbat Toreador, who are a mix between Saw and Hostel with perverted pleasures from displaying artworks where humans are being flayed alive.
41** The Tremere as well, mostly due to InformedAttribute. Whenever they get mentioned by other characters, they are described exactly as the treacherous TokenEvilTeammate Clan they are in the tabletop game, but in practice, the only two fleshed out Tremere characters you get to see are the Tremere Fledgling (who, being the PlayerCharacter, is just as evil or kind as the player wishes to be), and Maximilian Strauss, whose skeletons in the closet are [[VillainyDiscretionShot mostly implied]] and is otherwise [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure one of the nicest, most reasonable characters in the game]]. You won't even fight Tremere vampires in the Blood Hunt, of all clans, suggesting that Strauss didn't believe the accusations against you and either paid lip-service by only deploying Tremeres in places where you would not fight them or withdrew altogether (though it's also implied that there just aren't that many of them in LA).
42* AdvertisedExtra: Jeanette Voerman is featured on the cover and promotional material despite her minor role in the game.
43* AIIsACrapshoot: In the sewer level, a blue screen of death texture on the computer that controls the entrance to the Nosferatu Warrens states that computers will take over the world and that the user should send it money. Although that was probably just Mitnick's attempt at a joke.
44* AintTooProudToBeg: [[spoiler: Sebastian [=LaCroix=],]] in all but one of the endings.
45* AirVentPassageway: Though vents are more of an alternate way of getting places rather than required paths. They are often a means for the hideously deformed Nosferatu to get into places that more human-looking vampires would enter through the front door.
46* AKA47: Here is a list of all fictionalized (or not) firearms in the game and their RealLife counterparts. Some of the names were changed to those of their real life counterparts in patches:
47** Pistols:
48*** Thirty-Eight -- Colt Police Positive
49*** Brokk 17C -- Glock 17C
50*** Colt Anaconda -- Colt Anaconda
51*** [=McLusky=] .50 Caliber -- IMI Desert Eagle
52** SMG:
53*** Braddock 9mm -- MAC-10
54*** Lassiter Killmatic -- Uzi
55** Shotguns:
56*** Utica M37 -- Ithaca 37
57*** Jaegerspas XV -- Franchi SPAS-15
58** Rifles:
59*** Jaime Sue -- Remington Model 700
60*** Steyr Aug -- Steyr AUG
61* AllForNothing: Canonically, it doesn't really matter ''what'' you do, as [[spoiler:the world is about to end anyway, and there's nothing you can do about it.]] Note that White Wolf's stance on their own canon is "ignore what you don't like," and so many ''Bloodlines'' players implicitly ignore it. More than a decade later that particular bit of canon received a {{Rewrite}}, so this trope no longer applies.
62** In the scope of the game, this is pretty much what [[spoiler:[=LaCroix=]'s whole story amounts to. He gambled ''everything'' on the Ankharan Sarcophagus, turned the Anarchs, the Kuei-jin, and his own feuding Camarilla against him, all in the hope of diablerizing an ancient vampire. Not only was the Sarcophagus empty save for some C4 explosives rigged to blow up whoever opened it, but the body inside was just an ordinary mummified corpse that wouldn't have given him any power. [=LaCroix=]'s plan was doomed before it began.]]
63* AlliterativeName: Velvet Velour.[[note]]Who owns the strip club Vesuvius, no less.[[/note]]
64** Club Confession and the Hallowbrook Hotel are location examples.
65** There's also RealLife band Die My Darling, who can be found advertised on various posters in-game.
66* AllThereInTheManual:
67** Despite the game taking liberties in a lot of ways, the amount of research of the setting that went into this game is just juicy for any ''World of Darkness'' fan. One of the subtlest references was during the Society of Leopold level, wherein the EnemyChatter we hear a reference to the Gladius Dei, a subsect of the organization that was mentioned in a single, older book.
68** The reason why the Tremere are disliked is only vaguely explained in the game. In ''World of Darkness'' lore, Tremere himself was a power-hungry wizard who desired immortality. He and his followers used forcefully stolen vampire blood from Tzimisce elders and dark magic to turn themselves into vampires - making them immortal, and as they were not directly Embraced, they had no inherent clan related weakness. Later, wishing to be recognized as a proper Clan, Tremere committed the ultimate vampire taboo and diablerized the Antediluvian Saulot, thereby becoming an Antediluvian himself, and thus elevating the Tremere to Clan status. The Tremere ran a smear campaign against Saulot and his descendants, Clan Salubri, claiming them to be soul-stealers in order to justify diablerizing Saulot, and hunting them into near extinction. Unfortunately, these deeds made other vampires view the Tremere as evil usurpers who basically cheated and muscled their way into power.
69** Only those who played the pen-and-paper RPG would know the player is an 8th generation vampire (15 blood points to spend). This means the player is a more powerful vampire than Smiling Jack, who is 10th. Or at least, they're more powerful than he was when he started out. Several centuries of being active and developing his powers have probably evened things out on his part by now.
70* AlwaysNight: Unless the story calls for it, the sun never rises, ever. It is implied to happen off screen, however.
71* AmazingTechnicolorPopulation: The Tremere's arcane powers appears to affect their tone. The Male Tremere merely looks pale, like any vampire, but the Female has a pale lavender skin tone and her eyes appears to be yellow and Strauss looks blue at times and his eyes appears to be orange.
72* AmbiguouslyJewish: Isaac, the Baron of Hollywood. He doesn't look or talk like a Jewish stereotype, but his full name is Isaac Abrams, he owns a jewelry store, and he's been a financier for a number of Hollywood movies.
73* AmbushingEnemy: Some of the Temple Guardians in the Kuei-jin haven hide in wait behind the paper wall screens and attack when you walk past. The initial jump through the wall is scripted, leaving them standing around in confusion if you happen to be [[PerceptionFilter cloaked with Obfuscate]] at the time.
74* AndIMustScream:
75** The Odious Chalice, a living artifact created with Vicissitude that essentially serves as a replenishable blood bag. It seems sentient enough to be aware of its sorry state.
76** Should you choose to ally with the Kuei-jin, [[spoiler: Ming Xiao will chain you to the Sarcophagus and throw it in the ocean. Since vampires cannot drown and the blood will prevent decomposition, your best hope is to be eaten by sea creatures ([[RewardedAsATraitorDeserves good luck, you traitor]]).]]
77* AnomalousArt: Gallery Noir's exhibition on Caine has four paintings that can only be damaged by slashing them in a specific order and that [[SummonMagic summon up]] a monster made out of animated blood when destroyed.
78* AntiFrustrationFeature:
79** The game automatically saves at useful places, namely [[spoiler: right before the final confrontation with [=LaCroix=]. Meaning, if you chose to open the sarcophagus in the Independent/Anarch ends, you can easily return without having to fight the Sheriff again and get the better endings (provided your humanity isn't too low).]]
80** When choosing a side in the endgame, you're given ample opportunity to change your mind. Even once dropped off at your destination, you can go back to the cab and choose someplace else, provided you haven't spoken to the sect leader yet.
81** Most dialogue exchanges allow you to leave the conversation between every [=NPC=]'s line to avoid locking players into long dialogue trees, or otherwise allow players to get to point quicker by allowing them to bypass lore and world-building dialogue.
82** You can skip a majority of the tutorial by telling Jack to just give you a quick rundown of vampire laws, after which it will take you directly to Santa Monica.
83*** And if you've played the game already[[note]]or even if you haven't, but this is an especially dumb idea in that case[[/note]], you can skip to Santa Monica even faster by telling Jack you don't want his help at all. [[SubvertedTrope Unfortunately]], this leaves you without the lockpick you're supposed to gain during the tutorial, meaning you'll have to buy one yourself from Trip's Pawnshop before you can properly utilize your Lockpicking skill. You also miss out on the 2 XP gained for completing the tutorial.
84* AntiGrinding: You get experience solely for completing quests, and in fact will obtain ''less'' experience in some missions or even fail them outright for killing people unnecessarily.
85* ApatheticClerk: Slater works the night shift at a convenience store and therefore thinks nothing of promoting his GarageBand on the clock or of [[FriendInTheBlackMarket selling you weapons on the side]] -- in fact, you can't buy his nominal employer's products from him.
86** Trip, who you meet much earlier in the game, seems like he's even more bored with his job than Slater is.
87* AppleOfDiscord: The Ankharan Sarcophagus. The appearance of some artifact that just might hold the body of an [[MonsterProgenitor Antediluvian]] is enough to shatter the tenuous peace in L.A. and make every vampire faction fall all over themselves in an effort to secure it. [[spoiler:As it turns out, this was its express purpose; Jack and the cab driver used it precisely to throw the vampire underworld out of balance just to undermine and be rid of the prince.]]
88* ApocalypticLog:
89** The recordings of Dr. Grout, the L.A. Malkavian Primogen. Hey, he's a Malkavian. They ''all'' go insane. Though he is ''somewhat'' more lucid than expected of a Malkavian. He cites his own experience as a psychiatrist as help, though he's still a bit of a {{Cloudcuckoolander}}.
90** There're also less logical examples (Grout wasn't in any direct danger when he recorded his last audio log) found in the Ocean House Hotel and the L.A. sewers, with people's diaries lying around where they've been writing down things like "aaaaah!" ''while they were being assaulted''.
91* ArcWords: "Don't open it." and "Where to?"
92* ArtifactOfDoom: The Ankharan Sarcophagus. There's a lot of concern all over the city that opening it will awaken an Antediluvian and invoke [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Gehenna]]. [[spoiler:Turns out that while it's nowhere near as apocalyptic as everyone fears, it ''will'' doom the poor sucker that cracks it open.]]
93* ArtificialAtmosphericActions: Done rather well; the [=NPCs=] move around in a way that is, if not entirely realistic, a much closer facsimile than those of most games. Many of the random citizens walking around the city hubs can be seen chatting to each other, smoking, using cellphones, using payphones, and being victim to muggings. Some male [=NPCs=] can be seen occasionally urinating in back alleys or bathroom stalls, and it's possible at several points to walk in on a woman giving a man a blowjob in an out-of-the-way location. However, the [=NPCs=] will knock over any objects in their path, causing more than a few trashcans and debris to roll around and get in the way of the player.
94* ArtificialInsolence: The fledgling has a chance, inversely proportional to their [[KarmaMeter Humanity]], of going into a frenzy when hurt in combat. The controls are suspended while they try to eat and/or kill everything around them.
95* ArtificialStupidity: As long as an [=NPC=] doesn't spot you, disturbances will put them alert but not raise an alarm, and they will eventually go back to their usual patrolling rest state. Even if the "disturbance" is finding a comrade's dead body.
96** This extends to the Nosferatu's supposed inability to walk the street; in order to freak any of the civilian [=NPCs=] out and cause a Masquerade Violation, you have to either bump into them on accident or try to talk to them directly. Otherwise, their AI flat-out ignores you.
97* AscendedMeme: The goofy dance that the player can do in clubs has been fully recreated and reanimated as is, NarmCharm and all, for [[VideoGame/VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines2 the game's sequel]] just because the development team knew it was often joked about within the fandom.
98* AsianSpeekeeEngrish: Zig-zagged in the Chinatown level. Most speaks with realistic accents, but a few comical characters speaks with stereotypical accents.
99* AssholeVictim: Show of hands: who felt any pity for the [[SnuffFilm Death Mask Productions]] crew when they were all brutally slaughtered [[KarmicDeath by the Tzimisce creations]]?
100** To a certain degree, [[spoiler: Grout. One look at the state of his ghouls is enough reason to think he maybe kinda deserved his death.]]
101** [[spoiler:The Serial Killer's victims turned out to be the murderers of an entire family (children included), and probably deserved their grisly ends.]]
102** [[spoiler:[=LaCroix=] meets his Final Death in every single ending in the game, and by that point, it's been made clear that he's earned it. Bonus points for the fact that every last one of his deaths in those endings is a direct result of his own actions.]]
103** [[spoiler:You, as well, will either die or meet a FateWorseThanDeath in three of the endings if you've made the wrong choices up to that point. And two of those endings involve you allying yourself with either one of the two most corrupt characters in the game, so in those instances especially, you'll only have yourself to blame.]]
104* AttackOfThePoliticalAd: ''Vote Republican Senator Robert Thorne! A candidate NOT accused of being a murderous child pornographer!''
105* AwesomeButImpractical:
106** Some of the maxed out Disciplines can wind up being this due to simple economy. While it's awesome to use Dominate to [[PsychicAssistedSuicide cause an entire group of people to kill themselves]] or use Thaumaturgy to turn an enemy into an [[LudicrousGibs unwilling suicide bomb]], they cost 20 XP to unlock each, and use over a quarter of the player's blood pool with every use.
107** The Protean War Form deals amazing damage, and when combined with Fortitude makes the Fledgling almost unkillable, but they also move slightly slower than enemies can run, and the player also can't lockpick or use guns while it's on. It's only thanks to Animalism and its low blood cost-per-use that it arguably avoids this trope.
108* BackStab: The player character can approach most anthropomorphic enemies from behind in stealth mode and, if they are undetected, kill them with a single blow. Backstabbing with a sword weapon has your character impale them through the chest [[RuleOfFunny while a Japanese chord sounds off in the background]].
109* BadassBiker: Though you never see them actually ''ride'' any motorcycles, Nines and especially Jack heavily play into this aesthetic. The Brujah [=PCs=] also seem to favor this look to the point where the Female Brujah heavy armor is a fullon kickass biker suit...[[{{Fanservice}} and nothing else.]]
110** The Female Malkavian heavy armor also consists of badass leather biker gear. For some reason.
111* BadassBoast: If you believe their constant smacktalking, every single vampire you meet is the biggest badass around and all other kindred are completely insignificant compared to them and their clan. They all need your help, though, so most of it is hot air.
112** Ask Jeanette what her name is, go ahead. Her response is one of the highlights of the game.
113** When speaking to Nines [[spoiler: (who is actually Ming Xiao shapeshifted into his image)]] outside of Grout's manor, he'll warn you not to go in because it's messed up inside. A female [=PC=] can assure him that she's too much of a "badass bitch" to need to worry about it.
114* BadassBookworm: Most Tremere. A pair of [[SpecsOfAwesome smart glasses]] is pretty much mandatory for females of the clan, both in this game and fan art.
115* BadassLongcoat: Most of the player clans have at least one armour set that features one. Strauss and Beckett wear pretty classy ones.
116* TheBartender: The barman of The Asylum club lives to avert the typical bartender tropes. The man is '''not''' friendly, he does '''not''' provide you with any rumours and information, pointedly refusing to answer any of your questions. and he is '''not''' happy to listen to whatever sob stories you might have. He's there only to serve you drinks. Interestingly, if you do decide to complain to him about your woes (at which moment he will immediately and openly go into "Not this shit again" mode), none of the dialogue options you get describe your real situation or even allude to it, instead being a generic sob stories. This most likely means that your character is just trolling the man over his grumpy attitude.
117* BatPeople: The player, if they've chosen the appropriate clan and have levelled up their Protean discipline enough, can morph into a bat-like humanoid warform.
118* BeautyEqualsGoodness: Averted by the Nosferatu -- their outward appearances are hideous, but they are easily one of the friendliest of all the clans. Suffering from immense prejudice themselves, they are the least prejudiced of the clans, and are the most readily accepting of a PC of their own kind.
119** Subverted by [=LaCroix=] and Ming Xiao, who are both very attractive but easily some of the vilest, most manipulative characters in the game.
120** Played straight with the Toreador clan, who is mostly represented by [[FriendlyNeighbourhoodVampire some of the nicest/most harmless npcs in the game]] like VV and Issac, while also being the "prettiest" clan.
121** Played literally with the Gangrel Clan; low humanity and frequent frenzies lead to very visible animalistic mutations that make them look distinctly inhuman--Sabbat Gangrels are even more of a walking masquerade violation than any given Nosferatu. As such, the friendly Gangrels met in-game (Beckett and Skelter) have few to no visible mutations.
122* BedlamHouse: Grout has turned his mansion into one of these for the sake of "research," and also appears to have been the head of one in the pre-Freudian days of psychology.
123* BetterThanSex: Jack describes drinking blood as better than having sex and taking drugs, although TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness vampires can't do the first (unless they are ''really'' weak vampires or use their blood to fuel the bodily act, but they're usually not interested anyway) and require roundabout methods for the second (they have to drink the blood of someone ''on'' the drug, which requires feeding).
124* BeingGoodSucks: By all means, be a FriendlyNeighborhoodVampire, keep your Humanity stat maxed out, NeverHurtAnInnocent. It can be done. But you'll have a hard time upholding the Masquerade, vampire hunter attacks will make your life very difficult, and too many violations will end your game. Being good is not easy in the World of Darkness. On the other hand, having a low Humanity removes some dialog options and makes you more likely to lose control of your character in a frenzy.
125** It does become easier to play as a good person if you're playing as a socially-inclined character with high persuasion, and/or have Dominate, Presence or Dementation. These will often allow you to talk your way out of a lot of unsavoury situations and allows more non-lethal alternatives to certain quests. However, if you aren't, it is pretty difficult to maintain a 10 in humanity.
126* {{BFS}}: One of the many reasons no one messes with the Sheriff.
127* BlackAndGrayMorality: As fitting for the World of Darkness. The Camarilla is mostly made of manipulative schemers who try to use you as pawns for their own benefit, and the Anarchs, while depicted in a slightly better light, can come across as needlessly aggressive, self-destructive and averse to cooperation. Both are, however, overall better people than the [[SuperSupremacist Sabbat]] and [[YellowPeril Kuei-jin]]. It's worth mentioning that the closest thing we have to a good guy in the Camarilla is Maximilian Strauss, a ''[[TokenEvilTeammate Tremere]]''.
128* BlackComedy[=/=]GallowsHumour: Jack loves joking about death and murder.
129--> '''Jack:''' [Describing the Sabbat] They're like Film/TheThreeStooges with chainsaws.
130** Other minor characters like Arthur and Flynn demonstrate shades of this, especially in the private notes of their personal computers.
131** Almost all of the radio commercials are BlackComedy goldmines. And if your character is a [[FunnySchizophrenia Malkavian]], so are half of the televised news reports.
132* BlackEyesOfCrazy: The Sabbat sport these.
133* BlamedForBeingRailroaded: There's no option for you but to report seeing [[spoiler: Nines outside of Grout's manor]], even if you're Anarch-aligned and/or noticed that he was NotHimself at the time--the best you can do is act unsure about it. Skelter doesn't hesitate to chew you out for it if you speak to him afterward, and will basically remain pissed off at you until the final two missions (if you chose the Anarch ending).
134** Surprisingly, it's averted for everyone else in the Anarchs; Damsel has no comment on the subject and continues to take your intel on [=LaCroix=], Jack acknowledges you only did what you needed to do and doesn't blame you for it, and even Nines doesn't really seem angry at you for it once you meet with him at Griffith Park.
135*** Damsel will also have her foot firmly in the "mad at you" camp if you side with the Camarilla up to that point, but by then, being irritated with you is just business as usual for her. That said, if you try and assert what you saw, her reaction is ''not'' pretty.
136* BlessedWithSuck:
137** While most vampires take [[CursedWithAwesome a different view]], some see their condition this way, and some of them are justified. Of particular note is Clan Malkavian, who have eternal life, kickass powers, and debilitating mental illness, and Clan Nosferatu, who have eternal life, kickass powers, and ugliness so horrific that they have to get around via sewer, because being seen would violate the Masquerade.
138** Malkavian Thin-blood Rosa got hit by this pretty hard, she got all the madness of a malkavian, and the vampire's thirst, but almost no benefits of actually being a vampire (Though, she can still see the sun and eat and drink mortal food, for all it's worth).
139** Ash Rivers feels like this VERY much.[[spoiler: Especially the second time you see him.]]
140** Also, all vampires in this setting have to constantly deal with "the Beast", said Beast being a metaphor for their [[EnemyWithin uncontrollable animal sides]], so in order to keep the Beast back, they have to avoid doing things like killing innocent people (people trying to take a tire iron to your skull are fair game, though). This is the in-universe justification for why the player has to keep their "Humanity" stat high, or else the player will "frenzy", which means they will go on a violent rampage with increased combat stats but no control over their movements.
141* BloodyHandprint: Quite a lot along the local GhostShip, as well as [[spoiler:in the monster-infested snuff film studio]].
142* BodyArmorAsHitPoints: Averted, body armor is merely a factor in damage calculation.
143* BodyOfBodies: The Tzimisce spider-creatures in the sewer; they're actually mashups of [[spoiler:multiple human women. One of which was pregnant. ''Was.'']]
144* BodyHorror: Headrunners. Spider Creations. Belials. Andrei the Tzimisce. Andrei's furniture... just file everything related to Clan Tzimisce under this category, courtesy of their "fleshcrafting" discipline.
145* BoringButPractical: Creative melee combos with the directional keys look flashy, but the wind-up required leaves you open to attack and the hitbox on these moves isn't that generous. A simple one-two melee attack will often leave your foe standing, staggered, and open for you to continue pummelling ad nauseam.
146** In the late game, guns qualify. With a few points in the Firearms stats, nothing will be more efficent in combat than just pulling out the Steyr AUG and mowing down enemies in a storm of bullets.
147** In terms of Disciplines, Fortitude, Presence and Auspex are much less flashy than blood magic, mind control or turning into a giant animal, but all of them offer solid defensive buffs while Auspex also improves firearms damage. And at one blood point per activation, they're not expensive to use, either.
148** Clan wise: Brujah have almost no unique dialogue compared to most clans, and no unique or targeted attack Disciplines. But their powers enhance their strength, speed and can debuff enemies, effectively making them melee gods. This makes for a solid, if rather plain choice for a first playthrough.
149** Similarly, Ventrue in combat can combine Fortitude and Presence to make themselves a defensive powerhouse. While nowhere near as interesting as some other clans, a well-built Ventrue can easily steamroll most enemies.
150** The starting Thaumaturgy Blood Strike ability does mediocre damage, but it only costs one point of blood to use while refunding two, it has decent range and great homing ability, and since the player starts with one point in all three Clan disciplines it doesn't cost any XP. Higher levels of the discipline are more powerful and spectacular, but they're also hard to aim and expensive in both blood and XP. Blood Strike is useful from the start of the game to the very end.
151* BreakTheHaughty:
152** Many Nosferatu love to do this by transforming vain, attractive people into members of their hideous clan. One of their members is a former supermodel and is decidedly bitter about her new looks.
153** Also, by most of the game's endings [[spoiler:Prince [=LaCroix=], courtesy of a crushing HumiliationConga]].
154* BreakingTheFourthWall:
155** A Sabbat thug preparing to deliver a thrashing to your character (as soon as you go Downtown for the first time) looks over his shoulder into the camera and warns, "Those of you sitting in the first few rows ''will'' get wet..."
156** The Malkavian, when advised not to enter a dangerous hideout, can say, "I don't want to, but try telling the guy playing me that!"
157** If you stick around in the Convenience store in Hollywood long enough, the stoner will mention a "what if" scenario about being in a video game.
158** At the very end of the game, if you're friends with Mercurio, [[spoiler: You can ask him about information on Troika Games. (The company that made ''Bloodlines'') Goes even further when he implies that the Camarilla were the reason the company went under shortly after releasing the game, because [[KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade they knew too much about Kindred society.]]]]
159** You can ask a seer a number of questions about the future, including whether you will win the game. She will reply it doesn't matter if you win the game, just that you bought it.
160** If you use a mod or something to jazz up your starting stats, in your first conversation Jack will call you a cheater and give you the option of starting a new game.
161* BrushOffWalkOff: In [[MultipleEndings the Lone Wolf ending]], the player character [[spoiler:executes {{Decapitation Strike}}s against]] the Camarilla and Kuei-Jin leaders, then leaves the city for parts unknown, brushing past the Anarch leader with nothing more than [[FlippingTheBird a middle finger]] over the shoulder as he tries to recruit them.
162* ButThouMust: [[JustifiedTrope Justified]]: If the player character refuses to accept one of the main story quests from Prince [=LaCroix=], he will use his powers to Dominate them into doing it. Which is actually rather sporting of him considering the usual punishment for insubordination against the Camarilla Prince is to be nailed to an east-facing wall and left out for the sunrise. It also makes [[spoiler: resisting his final Dominate attempt in the ending]] that extra-bit satisfying.
163** At the beginning of the museum mission, if you give him a hard time and refuse to accept it, he will just have the Sheriff throw you out of his office. If you go back up to the penthouse, he will just tell you that the car is waiting and everything resumes like you never made a fuss about it.
164** Following the mission to contact Alistair Grout, you are left with no option but to tell [=LaCroix=] that you saw Nines at Grout's mansion and that [[spoiler:Nines might have played some part in Grout's death]]. This is especially egregious, because Nines has personally saved your unlife twice at this point, but you're not given any option to return the favor by leaving him out of your report or otherwise cover for him and are forced to land him in hot water.
165* CameraPerspectiveSwitch: The player can switch between first and third-person views at any time, although certain contexts force one or the other.
166* CatScare: Used several times in the HellHotel level and the Natural History Museum level.
167** The raptor statue in the museum. You'll just be wandering through the empty building, likely moving stealthily in anticipation for you inevitable attack from some unseen enemy, when all of a sudden you enter a door and there's a big snarling dinosaur ready to eat you! It's not real, but it will likely make you jump. Later, you find a note confirming that someone placed the statue there as a prank.
168* CharacterLevel: Averted, XP is spent directly on attributes.
169* ChekhovsArmy: The opening cutscene showcases all the major Camarilla and Anarch players the [[PlayerCharacter Fledgling]] will encounter, including Nines, Strauss, Therese, Velvet, Gary Golden, Jack, and Isaac. Skelter, Damsel and Ash also make appearances, though the camera doesn't give them as much focus.
170* ChekhovsGun: A few more literal examples than usual: there's a knife on the Prince's table the whole game. [[spoiler:It gets used in two of the endings, by you.]] Also, remember that grenade Nines showed off in his introductory cutscene? [[spoiler:It's implied that it's what he used to kill the werewolf.]]
171* ChekhovsGunman: [[spoiler: Jack, the vampire that mentors you in the tutorial turns out to be the orchestrator of the entire Ankharan Sarcophagus debacle.]]
172** The nondescript cab driver who's been driving you all over the city throughout the game [[spoiler: shows up to save you after the Blood Hunt is called on you, and is implied to have been assisting Jack in his plans this whole time.]]
173** On a smaller scale, the standoffish diner patron you'll see in the Diner in Santa Monica turns out to be [[spoiler: the serial killer at the centre of a long-spanning quest you'll complete over a sizable chunk of the game.]]
174** Julius, the Thinblood with the stuttering problem who you can talk to on the beach near the beginning of the game? A later mission [[spoiler: tasks you with [[KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade killing him to uphold the Masquerade]] after revealing that he's responsible for a TruthInTelevision movie script about vampire society.]]
175* TheChessmaster: Several of the [=NPCs=] are using the PC as a pawn in their own multi-layered schemes. The most notable would be "A Friend", who sends you chess analogies for what you're about to do next to you on your e-mail [[spoiler:and is heavily implied to be either Smiling Jack, or the Cabbie.]]
176* ChineseVampire: The Kuei-jin. [[BerserkButton Just don't call 'em that]]. Averted, in that they aren't Kindred ''or'' the Chinese Jiang Shi, just undead that sometimes drink blood.
177* CityOfAdventure: The whole game takes place in and around Los Angeles.
178* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}:
179** If the player chooses to be a Malkavian, they ''seem'' to be one of these.
180** As a Malkavian, different dialogue options are provided, some of which come close to LeaningOnTheFourthWall. Bizarre events can also occur. For example, it is possible to enter into an argument with a certain stop sign downtown ("No you stop!"); in addition, the newscaster in the in-game TV network will occasionally direct comments through his "fourth wall" at them, culminating in the Malkavian at one point being able to enter into a conversation with the newsreader.
181* CoffinContraband: A recently-discovered sarcophagus is the main MacGuffin. No one really knows what (or who) is in it, but the going theory is that it's an ancient slumbering vampire, which certain power-hungry modern vampires might want to use to increase their own power. [[spoiler: It was actually just a plain old mummy, which one character replaced with a large amount of explosives rigged to blow [[BoobyTrap when the lid is opened]].]]
182* CombatDiplomacyStealth: Generally affords the player all three options, although choosing the latter two usually rewards the player with more experience or other bonuses. The shift towards combat-centred gameplay in the endgame was one of the game's most poorly received features.
183* CompanionCube: Those stop signs. "You've made a powerful enemy today, sign!"
184* CompellingVoice:
185** Ventrue and Tremere player characters get the option to use Domination in dialogue, sidestepping the need for social skills.
186** Malkavians can do the same thing with Dementation, though their methods generally involve "convincing" the target the Malkavian is a T-Rex and they should run like hell.
187** With the patch, Toreador, Ventrue and Brujah players can use Presence in dialogue, which can be used to manipulate the emotions of the person they are speaking with and compel them to do whatever they want.
188* ConspicuouslyLightPatch: Only if you want it; you need high Inspection to make gettable items shine. If you don't they'll look like any other piece of the background.
189* ConspiracyTheorist: Gomez. Hilariously, one of his theories turns out to be [[CassandraTruth the plot of the game]].
190* ContinuityNod: A ''lot'' to the TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness in general.
191* ContractOnTheHitman: Happens near the end, right before the final bosses; [[spoiler:Prince [=LaCroix=] will call one on ''you.'']] The only way to get it called off is to get to the final boss fights.
192* ConvenientlyAnOrphan: Your sire is killed off right at the start. Under normal circumstances, a fledgling is supposed to be raised and cared for by their sire, who has some responsibility for them and their actions; with them gone, you're left to fend for yourself and learn as you go along. On the other hand, it also means you have full freedom over yourself without some other vampire constantly looking over your shoulder, which both [=LaCroix=] and Jack are keenly aware of.
193* CosmeticAward: A certain series of missions rewards the player with nothing but posters. Other quests also have effects minimal enough to bring their purpose into question.
194* CouncilOfVampires: The Primogen are the local leaders of each vampire Clan, representing the Clan's interests directly to the Prince. The most you see of them actually acting as a Council is a brief cutscene of them leaving [=LaCroix's=] office, but three of them are involved in quests, [[spoiler:one {{posthumous|Character}}ly]].
195* CoversAlwaysLie: Jeanette is purposeful for only a small portion of the game and, depending on [[spoiler:how you choose to deal with her and Therese]], she may become [[PermanentlyMissableContent lost]].
196* CrazyPrepared: The hunters in the Society of Leopold have stockpiles of guns and ammunition as part of their SurvivalistStash for fighting the forces of darkness during the end of days. This is fair enough, they are hunting deadly creatures of the night. But the boxes of ''tank shells''? That might be a bit overkill. Maybe they need them for the weresharks.
197* CriticalExistenceFailure: Anyone whose blood you suck will be perfectly fine afterwards if you stop just the last second before their blood bar is empty. This likely falls under AcceptableBreaksFromReality, since the actual rules for the Tabletop point out that taking more than 30% of someone's blood (roughly 3 blood points for a normal person) will result in them needing immediate treatment at a hospital, while taking more than 70% will result in their death. However, it would be difficult to keep track of this gameplay-wise and would make losing humanity too easy.
198* TheCuckooLanderWasRight: Gomez, a ConspiracyTheorist who is a regular caller to The Deb of Night radio show. In one of his calls he explains how there is a multi-faceted vampire power struggle going on in the Los Angeles region...
199* CulturalPosturing: Ming Xiao is rather un-subtle in posturing about just how much better Kuei-jin are to Kindred. If you play a Malkavian, you can throw her superiority about lacking "childish Caine superstitions" right back at her by name-dropping the big bad bogeymen of the [[AllThereInTheManual Kindred of the East]], like the Yama Kings and the Demon Emperor of the Sixth Age. Which freaks her out royally as, in their own worldview, the Fifth Age is about to end.
200* CursedWithAwesome: There's a few vampires that quite explicitly state they are very happy with their deal, noting that they have a shot at immortality complete with superpowers so long as they stay out of the sun.
201** Mitnick, the Nosferatu hacker, being the prime example. He states outright that his Embrace was the best thing that's ever happened to him, because he got all kinds of new toys and lives forever. Even the hideous disfigurement due to being a Nosferatu doesn't bother him, because he said that he wasn't too good looking anyway. Although one has to say that he is not that bad looking, by Nosferatu-standards.
202** Most ghouls feel basically the same way. They have weaker powers and have to rely on a long-term relationship with a vampire, but they tan.
203** You can roleplay your character as feeling this way, as you have the ability to remark to several [=NPCs=] that you're quite pleased with your unlife.
204* CutsceneIncompetence: The Kuei-jin ending. [[spoiler:Even with swords and guns pointed at them, a PC at this level could likely just tear Ming Xiao and her lackeys apart in an instant. Even so, they just submit and let themselves be thrown into the ocean.]]
205** To a much lesser degree, the cutscene that plays after going Downtown for the first time. Your character is taken out by a single good swing of a baseball bat to the head, when they've likely already faced such a blow and worse before from any given enemy faced during the Santa Monica quests.
206* DarkActionGirl: All female PC's. Brawl, melee, guns, PsychicPowers, BloodMagic: make your choice. They are all inevitably dark and capable of killing lots of things.
207* DarkWorld: Obviously. It ''is'' the [[TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness World of Darkness]]. Particularly effective is the sinister version of the famous Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.
208* DeaderThanDead: Like in the source material, vampires have a "Final Death", destroyed to the point where no regeneration is possible. Also what happens to you every time you suffer CriticalExistenceFailure, even when the final sliver of health is removed by something a vampire would be able to regenerate from normally.
209* DeadpanSnarker: In addition to [[WorldOfSnark a fair few characters]], the game itself tends towards this:
210--->'''Tire Iron''': "You could change a tire with it, sure."
211* DegradedBoss:
212** The first two Gangrel Sabbat you come across (Not counting the tutorial) are Mini-bosses and can be a tough fight, especially if your character focuses more on social skills than combat skills. In the Hallowbrook hotel stage, the Grangel are EliteMooks being no more difficult than a Brujah.
213** Not counting the vampires in the tutorial, this applies to Vampires in general. Before the hotel, any vampire the player has to face will be considered a boss or mini-boss, but the moment the player enters the Hallowbrook hotel, most enemy vampires will be considered Elite Mooks.
214** The Tzimisce spider is introduced as a boss, and even has a health bar. In the immediate next area, more spiders appear as normal enemies, unfortunately for the player, each one of them is as strong as the original.
215* DesperatePleaForHome: In "More Fun With Pestilence," you can find a teenage junkie trapped in the Plaguebearer cult's headquarters; though she's evidently a member of the cult, it soon becomes apparent that [[CrisisOfFaith she's starting to have doubts after]] [[ZombieApocalypse everything she's witnessed]], and the longer you talk to her, the more terrified she becomes. By the end, she's in tears, admitting that she just wants to go home.
216* DevelopersForesight: [[DevelopersForesight/VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines Has its own page.]]
217* DialogueTree: Standard for the rpg genre, but done extremely well regardless. Not only do you often have several ways of replying to [=NPCs=] and MultiplePersuasionModes on top of that, but your choice of clan can even score you some unique dialogue options as well as new lines from [=NPCs=] in response. The most famous and extensive example is, of course, Malkavians and their loopy PurpleProse, with Nosferatu and their inhuman appearance being a close second. But beyond that, all clans have occasional extra lines and responses; Gary sadistically taunts and threatens to disfigure a Toreador, Nines will mockingly ask a rude Ventrue if they're going to sue him, Strauss acts as a mentor for a Tremere, Bertram has a different snarky back and forth with each clan, etc.
218** You'll also get different dialogue depending on your disposition with [=NPCs=]. For example, being on good terms with [=LaCroix=] will have him slip in small compliments about how you're "going places" in the Camarilla, but being on bad terms will have him initially accuse you of stealing [[spoiler: the sarcophagus once you return from the museum.]] Most non-main quest-relevant [=NPCs=] will flat out refuse to speak to you anymore if you're rude enough, which can lock you out of many quests.
219** Moreover, you'll get more evil/good dialogue options, depending on how low or high your humanity is. With low humanity, you'll largely lose the ability to speak kindly to people and unlock new, particularly violent dialogue options. In the case of the Brotherhood of the Ninth Circle and your first interaction with Andrei, you're actually trying to ''join'' them. With high humanity, you'll have a full range of responses, though not the really sadistic ones.
220* DidWeJustHaveTeaWithCthulhu: [[spoiler: Were you just ferried around the city by Caine himself?]]
221* DiscOneNuke: Thanks to [[GameMod The Unofficial Patch Plus]] there are several examples of this:
222** The Fire-Axe usually has to be purchased from Fat Larry once the player reaches the second hub, Downtown. [[spoiler: The Plus Patch relocates it to the Ocean House Hotel, atop the falling elevator.]] Even in untrained hands it deals ''twice'' the base damage of the knife, and its only disadvantage is being somewhat slow. Finding it earlier means it can now be used against certain enemies who appeared before going to Downtown, [[spoiler: like the Blood Demon in Gallery Noir (who couldn't be fought with it at all in the basic version) and the Cathayan, who'd have to be put off until later.]]
223** The Plus Patch can also provide a seperate example in the Shin Gunto, a mass-produced, slightly depowered katana. While it does less damage than the Fire-Axe, it's noticably faster, allowing for quick three-hit ragdoll combos. Obtaining it can be somewhat tricky, [[spoiler: since it's only dropped by The Cathayan during his boss fight if he's meleeing the player, otherwise he drops a crossbow.]] But once it is, it can serve as an effective melee weapon all the way until Chinatown, half the game later.
224** The latest version of the Patch allows the player to unlock the [[RevolversAreJustBetter Colt Anaconda]] as early as Downtown. Given it does solid damage, is very accurate at long range, can be fan fired, and has a large ammo pool, it'll likely be a gunslinger's best friend during the [[ThatOneSidequest plaguebearer battles]] and any player's go-to gun in the SewerLevel.
225*** And this was actually '''toned down''' from an earlier version of the same version of the patch, where the sidequst unlocked the [[MoreDakka IMI Uzi]] instead. Also known as arguably the best firearm in the game.
226* DisposableSexWorker:
227** Downplayed in that prostitutes are one of the easiest sources of blood for the player, but actually killing one costs as much [[KarmaMeter Humanity]] as any other murder.
228** Played straight by the local ApocalypseCult, who purposely seek out prostitutes and street people to infect with ThePlague, one of whom is encountered on her deathbed.
229* DissensionRemorse: The Voerman twins are a CuteAndPsycho party girl and an IceQueen businesswoman whose mutual belittlement and sabotage ultimately escalates to an armed standoff. The PlayerCharacter can talk them into reconciling their differences [[spoiler:since they're both {{Split Personalit|y}}ies of the same person]], which leaves them deeply remorseful of how far they'd gone and inspires them to join forces.
230* TheDogWasTheMastermind: [[spoiler: Seriously, did the thought even pass your mind that Jack and the ''cab driver'' were the ones behind it all?]]
231** To a lesser extent, [[spoiler: would you have ever guessed that Ming Xiao of all people was the one posing as Nines at Grout's mansion?]]
232* DoorToBefore: After you finally get through [[ScrappyLevel the Sewers]] into the Nosferatu hideout, you find a door that leads you straight back to Hollywood. Sure would have been nice if you could have just kicked that open from the other side!
233** After you travel through the abandoned hospital in order to find [[spoiler: Pisha]], you find a vent that leads right back to the front of the level...which you can't open from the other side until you go through the hospital the long way.
234* DoubleAgent: Not only possible, but recommended, especially for the quest "Fun With Pestilence/A Plague for the Angels". That way, you get respect from both factions, double the experience, ''and'' an extremely useful magic item.
235* DownTheDrain: The lengthy, obnoxious sewer-level. Also, the majority of the game if the player chooses to be a Nosferatu, who have to stick to the sewers to avoid violating the Masquerade (although it's not really necessary gameplay-wise, as the streets are broad enough to walk around without bumping into anyone, and you only receive a violation if you stand literally face-to-face to a person; considering that the sewers are more difficult to orient in, since it's not self-evident which building you're approaching, it may be better to only use them to travel to another area, so a Nosferatu player may still not see much of them at all).
236* DragonLady: Ming Xiao, the leader of the [[ChineseVampire Chinatown vampires]].
237* TheDragon: The Sheriff, to Prince Sebastian [=LaCroix=].
238* DrivenToSuicide: Tawni Sessions, thanks to you and Imalia.
239* TheDriver: The taxi driver.
240* DualBoss: [[ChineseVampire A pair of Kuei-jin]], Claw Brother and Blade Brother.
241* DudeWheresMyRespect: Just because you're supremely competent and capable of defeating supernatural horrors centuries older than yourself, don't expect that every other vampire (and a good number of humans) in the city will think twice about considering you their personal errand boy/girl. Some of the dialogue options [[LampshadeHanging lampshade]] this.
242-->"Nobody tells me what to do! ...Actually, everyone tells me what to do. But this is my chance to get even!"
243** This eventually gets inverted later on, as the elders running the city start noticing how this days-old neonate manages to defeat things it should, by all rights, be insta-dusted by, and start treating you as someone they want on ''their'' side... or as someone they want ashed and out of the way before you can start biting the hands that feed you. Considering the ''modus operandi'' of the average elder, this is as close to a compliment as you're likely to get. And, to his credit, Maximillian Strauss recognizes your potential ''immediately''.
244* DumbwaiterRide: Climbing into the dumbwaiter in the kitchen of the Ocean House Hotel is the only way to get to its upper floors.
245* DumpStat:
246** Appearance is next to worthless to put your hard-earned experience into. The only ability it affects is seduction. In instances where you can convince people through seduction, there is always a persuasion option or another method that works just as well. The biggest exception is seducing women in clubs for an easy blood refill, but you can just as well grab someone in a dark alley for that.
247** Intimidation is even worse; like Appearance, there's almost always a persuasion option available that works just as well but it can't even be used to get blood from blood dolls. It's annoyingly necessary to save the life of a human for one single quest, but beyond that, you're hard-pressed to find any reason at all to spend your experience on it.
248** It is possible to use experience to regain lost humanity points. However, having humanity that low should never be a problem as long as you don't go out of your way to act monstrously and take the effort to perform small acts of kindness here and there.
249[[/folder]]
250
251[[folder:E-H]]
252* EarlyGameHell: Santa Monica's combat-only sections are rather rare and not usually that difficult, ''except'' if you decide to play as TheGunslinger, since the entire stage only has the weakest pistol in the game and the standard shotgun (which is picked up rather late in the stage with next to no ammo) as your options. It's only once the player arrives in Downtown that the guns can be picked up, so unless the player either puts off some sidequests, or puts a few hard-earned XP points into either melee or a combat discipline, Santa Monica will be a rough ride.
253** As of the latest version of the [[GameMod Plus Patch]] this has been adjusted. Doing Trip's mod-exclusive sidequest will convince him to sell a Brokk 17c/Glock 19 to the player. While it is overall nothing special, it's a significant step up from the .38 Revolver while still not being a DiscOneNuke. Unlike...
254** The Colt Anaconda can now be unlocked by completing Fat Larry's sidequest, meaning the player can get it as soon as they finish Santa Monica. Even in untrained hands [[RevolversAreJustBetter it deals twice the damage of the Glock and three times as much as the .38]], is more accurate than both and can be fan-fired to improve its firing speed at the cost of a slight decrease in accuracy.
255* EarnYourHappyEnding: There are five endings, but four of them require you to fulfill certain requirements such as completing certain missions in a certain way or being polite to certain [=NPC's=]. Also, there are two [[VeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon final dungeons]] in the game, each with a very tough boss at the end. Two of the endings allow you to skip one of them. [[spoiler:Both of those endings feature your character getting royally screwed over.]]
256* EasilyForgiven: Depending on your actions during the game, [[spoiler: you may be given a chance to side with [=LaCroix=] in the end. Despite all the evidence that he was trying to kill you and framed you. But it doesn't end well.]] The same goes for [[spoiler:Ming Xiao if you discover her true goal before the end of the game, although in this case, you may well be just TooDumbToLive.]]
257* EliteMook:
258** Sabbat vampires, being that they usually have Disciplines and unlike human mooks, the player character cannot drain their blood. Initially encounters with vampires are very rare, but on the Hallowbrook hotel stage, one finds a lot accompanying the ghouls.
259** Vampire hunters are usually well-equipped against vampires, although unlike Sabbat vampires, the player character can feed on them.
260** In the final stage of the game, [[spoiler: the vampires of the Camarilla will fulfill this role. Although luckily, one only finds them during the Blood Hunt, and in the final stages of the last level.]]
261* EmoTeen: Patty, the ghoul going cold turkey. An incredibly whiny character deliberately designed to be as annoying as possible. She needs to be executed for breaking the masquerade. You can off her in a dark corner or even [[spoiler: send her to Pisha to get eaten.]] Of course killing her [[YouBastard costs you humanity.]]
262* EndingTheme: "Swamped" by Music/LacunaCoil. Depending on who you ask, it either fits the game extremely well or not at all.
263* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: Through the course of the game, the news anchor on the television mentions various ominous things that imply the world is ending, such as a sea monster washing up in New England, freak sandstorms in the Middle East, statues of the Madonna crying blood, and more mundane events like the collapse of the European Union.
264** The vampires have their own apocalypse - Gehenna, when the ancient third generation of vampires, the Antediluvians, return to the world and enslave/devour their weaker descendants. The Ankaran Sarcophagus is believed by many to contain one of the dormant Antediluvians, which quickly makes it an AppleOfDiscord among the kindred of L.A.
265* EnemyMine:
266** The mindset [[spoiler: [=LaCroix=] and Ming Xiao took when forming an alliance in order to destroy the Anarchs.]] Of course, because it was such a tenuous alliance between bitter enemies in the first place, both of them basically turned on the other as soon as it was convenient.
267** [[spoiler: [=LaCroix=] eventually tries to appeal to the Anarchs this way, pinning Nines' supposed death and all his scheming against them on the Fledgling and the Kuei-jin. It works for about half a night, before Nines reappears alive and clears the Fledgling's name.]]
268%% Epilpetic Trees is a YMMV Trope. Add any examples to the YMMV tab.
269* EvenEvilHasStandards: While the porn dealer isn't exactly evil, he certainly is rather sleazy, but when you ask him about the group of people making hardcore snuff films that are a lot more than just films, he makes it very clear that he doesn't want anything to do with people who'd do something so awful.
270** Or so he says. Take a look at his computer, though, and you'll see that he's at least contemplating dealing with them. But they seem rather scary and best avoided.
271** One of the people who found the snuff tape and were distributing it claims something similar in an attempt to get the PC to stop him from being eaten. Apparently they were making their own snuff anyway, just without monsters.
272** While he suggests that [=LaCroix=] was the one to put the word out that you blew up the Sabbat werehouse, Jack specifies that he doesn't believe that even [=LaCroix=] would directly work with the Sabbat. [[spoiler: However, given that he definitely ''does'' work with the Kuei-jin, one has to wonder...]]
273** More [[GreyAndGreyMorality morally grey]] than outright evil, but [=LaCroix=] [[spoiler: working with the Kuei-jin, even to get rid of the Anarchs, is considered high treason to the Camarilla. Strauss is pretty appalled to find out about it, and it's grounds for arrest, dethronement and eventual execution. Even Nines and Damsel (who downright ''hate'' [=LaCroix=] to begin with) are surprised he'd go that far.]]
274** Vandal Cleaver, who is arguably an even worse human being than half of the vampires in the game, draws the line at [[ILoveTheDead having sex with dead people]]. Even if they're the living dead.
275-->'''Vandal:''' "I don't ''do'' dead chicks."
276* EveryoneIsBi: Applicable to any female [=NPCs=] who can be seduced. If a male player character can hit on them, so can a female player character. The reverse, however, is not true (aside from a gangster mook who can be put off by the attempt).
277* EverythingFades: Bodies fade, but bullet holes and blood spatters from fights remain.
278* EvilCannotComprehendGood: If the Fledgling's Humanity falls low enough, they'll lose access to some non-{{Jerkass}} dialogue options alongside their ability to relate to others. One standout is when they casually reveal that [[spoiler:Lily]] lost control of her HorrorHunger and killed a man; they're caught completely off-guard when [[spoiler:her love interest "E"]] shows her compassion rather than turn her away.
279* EvilIsEasy[=/=]BeingEvilSucks: In a game of BlackAndGrayMorality, [[spoiler: [=LaCroix=] and Ming Xiao]] are probably the biggest bastards around. If the player chooses to side with one of them in the last act, he will actually skip one of the two {{Very Definitely Final Dungeon}}s and also one of two difficult boss battles. Too bad that he will also [[spoiler: get one of two {{Downer Ending}}s so bleak that they're virtually {{Non Standard Game Over}}s.]]
280* EvilIsPetty: [[spoiler:Andrei the Sabbat Elder]] loses a few points on the badass meter when you realize he has little better to do one night than thumb his nose at the {{Masquerade}} by [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTkJSU9JQV4 calling up a radio show]] and ranting at the host about the end of the world.
281** A good number of the evil dialogue options unlocked with low humanity really just boil down to petty cruelty.
282* EvilTowerOfOminousness: The Venture Tower, which you can always see in the distance no matter which hub you're in.
283* EvilPaysBetter: Subverted with the Venus missions, Venus (the good one in this context) will pay you $ 250 to kill a Russian mobster, the mobster will instead pay you 4 times that amount to kill Venus. The subversion is that if you kill the mobster, you will become a co-owner of the club and you will get $ 250 every so often, so you will eventually end up with more money than the mobster offered. (Assuming you're not about to finish the game)
284* ExactWords: If you infiltrate the Giovanni party, you can introduce yourself by saying "the name on my invitation is..." or "my invitation says...". Which is, technically, true (unless you want to quibble over whether mind-whammying someone into handing over their invitation really makes it "yours" or not).
285* EyeScream: The Blood Dolls kept by the Sabbat have their eyes gouged out.
286* FactionSpecificEndings: The game has four faction endings (Camarilla, the Anarchs, [=LaCroix=], and Kuei-jin) plus the Lone Wolf ending. Although you only have to chose your final alliance in the endgame, several choices across the entire game limit your options.
287* FakedFoodContaminant: In a {{Sidequest}} to convince a CausticCritic to pan a specific restaurant, a Malkavian player character can use their clan's unique [[InfectiousInsanity Dementation]] power to make the critic hallucinate maggots in the food.
288* FanDisservice:
289** So why exactly is it that the Clan cursed with perpetual, horrific ugliness has one of the skimpiest wardrobes of all playable characters, their males even dressing in skintight leather gimp suits? Nosferatu ''love'' to freak out the norms. Fat Larry as refers to the character as a "freaky S an' M gremlin."
290** Not to mention when the elegant Ming Xiao becomes a tentacular blob monster.
291%% Fan Dumb is a YMMV Trope. Add any examples of Fan Dumb to the YMMV tab, not here.
292* FanSequel: Any unofficial patches or mods that change the original game, although ''The Final Nights'' mod is more in line as a sequel.
293* FanService: The "posters" quests, whose only purpose is to give players the pictures of four hot [=NPCs=] chicks on the wall of their haven.
294** The female [=PCs=] have several outfits they can choose from to wear. The female Malkavian, in particular, has access to very fanservicy costumes, which can be viewed in, ahem, detail when playing in third person view.
295** Some of Heather's optional outfits after she becomes a ghoul are fanservice personified.
296** Jeanette, Velvet -- really, virtually all of the major female [=NPCs=], even [[spoiler: the former model-turned-Nosferatu is kinda hot]]. Bonus points for Venus Dare's dropping of an f-bomb.
297** Female [=PCs=] when dancing at the various nightclubs.
298* FantasticRacism: Plenty, just like in the TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness:
299** Western vampires and Kuei-jin have a mutual loathing. Vampires consider the Kuei-jin to be untrustworthy "devils," while the Kuei-jin are disgusted by the blood-borne curse of the Kindred and would like nothing better than to exterminate them.
300** Werewolves won't have anything to do with vampires and will try to kill them on sight, [[AlwaysABiggerFish usually successfully]].
301** Camarilla vampires hold the Sabbat in contempt, calling them [[FantasticSlur shovelheads]] after an [[BuriedAlive initiation ritual]] they use. The Sabbat have just as much vitriol for the Camarilla, whom they consider puppets of the Antediluvians.
302*** Likewise, the Anarchs have absolutely no good feelings for either of the above two factions, and often distastefully refer to Camarilla vampires as "[[FantasticSlur Cammies]]".
303** Even the different clans have some bad blood between them:
304*** The Gangrel have a not entirely undeserved reputation for being savages, although the most visible one in the game is anything but.
305*** The Nosferatu are kept on the edges of vampire society for their freakish looks and have a particularly cool relationship with the aesthetically obsessed Toreador.
306*** Malkavians, or [[FantasticSlur "Malkies"]] get mixed reactions from the other clans due to their insight and the...[[CloudCuckoolander unique mindset]] that comes with it, from fascination to pity to outright dismissal as ineffectual raving lunatics.
307*** Some dialogue options with Bertram, the Gargoyle, and Andrei give hints of the Tremere's reputation as cultish, amoral {{Blood Mag|ic}}es who stole their power.
308*** Bertram's dialogue suggests Ventrue aren't particularly well-liked (at least, not in the Anarch Free State LA, they aren't), given their usual role as [[TheChainsOfCommanding leaders within the Camarilla]] and tendency to be [[RoyalBrat snooty]] and [[BlueBlood classist]]. Unsurprisingly, Ventrues tend to butt heads with HotBlooded and [[RebelliousSpirit rebellious]] Brujah clan.
309*** Everyone you can ask about the Giovanni will respond with nothing short of disgust.
310* FantasticUnderclass: As in [[TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade the tabletop game]], the Thin-Bloods are the youngest and [[SuperLoser weakest]] generation of vampires, barred from vampire society because of prophecies that identify them as omens of [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Gehenna]]. Lily and E's thin-blood group have been run out of several cities, hide out on the Santa Monica beach, and know almost nothing of what they are.
311* FatalMacGuffin: The Ankaran Sarcophagus that everyone is looking for is rumored to contain an [[EldritchAbomination Antediluvian]]. The more crazy vampires want it so they can steal the powers of the apocalyptic being inside, with a risk of accidentally waking it and causing it to go on a rampage; others want to keep it out of the hands of the former. You can open it yourself, but it's ''not'' a good idea...
312* FauxActionGirl: Not in the actual game, but part of an awful script mentioned on the radio. A female FBI agent is said to be competent (unlike her new partner the main character), then she gets kidnapped and has to be rescued by the (male) main character. [[MindScrew The main character then turns out to be the kidnapper]].
313* FieryRedhead: Damsel is this to a tee. Potentially the player is as well, provided they're Toreador and choose the snappier dialogue options.
314* FireForgedFriends: The player and the Downtown Anarchs, potentially. Your relationship with them will be generally a bit rocky at first, given the fact that you're an agent of the Prince. While you ''can'' declare yourself to their side early on and act as a spy, it's a tenuous declaration that you can turn your back on at any point and they don't seem to ''quite'' trust you yet... [[spoiler: especially not after you unwittingly implicate their leader for murder.]] If you've sided with them until the end, however, they all loosen up and treat you friendlier. Damsel's voice looses its aggressive edge while speaking with you in the Anarch ending, and she seems genuinely happy that you're alive after Griffith Park. Skelter also speaks much more fondly toward you and even takes to calling you "brother/sister".
315* FingerPokeOfDoom: Malkavians can kill enemies ''without even touching them'' if they've put enough points in Dementation to get Vision of Death. You just trigger it and the target drops dead in a second. Go one level higher, and the target will do you the favor of killing their own allies for you and ''then'' dropping dead.
316* FlatEarthAtheist: Grout is convinced that there's a perfectly scientific explanation for vampires and all the supernatural things they can do, despite actually being a vampire. It's implied this is a manifestation of his Malkavian insanity.
317** Beckett considers Caine and the Antediluvians (and by extension, Gehenna) to be nothing more than myths and fairy tales. [[spoiler:Except Caine and the Antediluvians are very much real, and very capable of destroying all Kindred if they awaken.]]
318* FlatWhat: Expect to be on the receiving end of this reaction every second minute during a Malkavian playthrough.
319* FoeRomanceSubtext: Surprisingly enough, the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o12oRJh4v8 Kuei-Jin ending]] practically ''oozes'' the one-sided version of subtext. [[spoiler: We finally see Lacroix and Ming Xiao interact as she gloats over his defeat in a downright creepy way. She touches his shoulder, gets up in his face, even ''touches'' his face - all while calling him [[TermsOfEndangerment "sweet prince"]] and referring to his "handsome head." Makes you wonder if this is similar to how all their offscreen interactions have gone.]]
320* {{Foil}}: Amongst specific characters holding this dynamic (see character pages), the playable clans tend to function as this to each other:
321** The most obvious is the Toreador vs the Nosferatu clan. One is a clan defined by love of art and beauty, closeness to humanity, seduction and manipulation. The other is defined by living in the shadows, hiding from society, and overall working indirectly and anonymously. Toreadors are known for being [[VampiresAreSexGods so beautiful]] they literally ''weaponize'' it, and Nosferatus are so [[LooksLikeOrlok inhuman-looking]] that they're a walking masquerade violations unable to mingle with humans without revealing themselves.
322** Then there's the Brujah vs the Ventrue clans. One is made up of HotBlooded rebels always looking to stand up against The Man, the other of haughty aristocrats who ''are'' The Man.
323** To a less obvious degree, the dynamic exists between the Tremere and the Gangrel clans. Tremere are notoriously tight-knit to the point where they are extremely choosy about who even ''becomes'' one and actively hunting down any ''antitribu'' to protect their clan secrets. Gangrel are generally nomadic by nature, highly disconnected from each other and other clans, and many of them (like Beckett) belong to no sect at all.
324* FoodChainOfEvil: Even Nines Rodriguez is terrified of werewolves.
325* ForcedAddiction: The fledgling vampire player character can feed a dying woman [[FantasticMedicinalBodilyProduct their blood]] to heal her. Trouble is, vampire blood is addictive. If they don't [[BreakHisHeartToSaveHim send her away]], she'll abandon her life to become a SatelliteCharacter to the fledgling, living with them and doing whatever they want for the chance to get more.
326* {{Foreshadowing}}:
327** If you ask the thin-blood seer on the beach to predict the future for you, she'll accurately predict the entire course of the game right up until the point where you have to make the choice that determines your ending. The way she describes it is so incredibly obtuse, however, that it sounds like gibberish unless you've already played through the game, in which case you can easily relate the vague imagery to important quests. She's less vague if you ask her who you can trust, her answers obviously meaning no one but Mercurio and Beckett. [[spoiler: Mercurio will support you through the end game if you've been decent to him, and Beckett warns you not to open the sarcophagus when he learns what's in it.]]
328*** Though amusingly, she refers to Mercurio as "the man on the couch", which can also be used to describe Romero the Ghoul when you first meet him. Even more amusing is that he ends up being just as honest and straightforward with you as Mercurio. They also ''know'' each other.
329** Playing a Malkavian after already finishing the games makes it clear that their dialogue option is full of these.
330---> The one who has the pawn will win the whole board. [[note]]You are the WildCard, and whoever gets you on their side will manage to win the game.[[/note]]
331*** The Malkavian even adds more foreshadowing to the first example above:
332----> '''Rosa''': "You chased it for the one at the top of the city... on the sea... oh, underground... ha, you found it... in the crypt, heh... it's open... hoh, he... it's open... oh god, oh god, run!"\
333'''Malk PC''': "Yes. The tomb will [[spoiler: light up the night sky]]."
334** In Hollywood, during a mission given by the local baron, you will find yourself in an internet cafe. In one of the corners of the cafe is a gaming rig which has a paused screenshot of a later area in the game, featuring a monster-miniboss you'll have to fight.
335*** The terminal you can log on to in that same internet café has some bios on notable Hollywood figures, and amongst those mentioned is [[spoiler: Classical Age Hollywood movie star [[ChekhovsGunman Gary Golden.]]]]
336** Possibly doubles as a StealthPun as well - in the very beginning of the game, when Jack is explaining the details of being a vampire to you, one line he can say to you is, "I'll tell you how jacked this whole situation is." [[spoiler:Jack is the direct cause of the Ankaran Sarcophagus madness, having brought it to California and started all the rumors surrounding it. The situation - i.e. the entire game - is literally Jacked.]]
337** Right before heading onto the Elizabeth Dane in order to investigate the Ankaran Sarcophagus, [[spoiler: a conversation with Damsel can tell you that Jack is rumored to have been a pirate prior to his unlife, subtly nodding to his hand in the disappearance of the crew.]]
338** If you speak to Jack before traveling to Grout's mansion, he remarks that a "Malk going AWOL" is something [=LaCroix=] should have seen coming. [[spoiler: It's later revealed that Grout is dead, and [=LaCroix=] killed him. With his overall involvement in the game's events, it's possible that Jack dropped this hint on purpose...]]
339** The Malkavian PC and Jeanette Voerman both have mismatched eyes. This is a clue to the fact [[spoiler:the Voerman sisters are Malkavians, but also to the fact that they're two different mental personalities in the same body. The fact that their room is split according to the left-right brain analogy or that you never see them at the same time also contribute, as well as the fact that they share a voice actress]].
340** The password to Carson the bounty hunter's computer is [[spoiler: Imalia, after a model whose pinup is placed prominently in his apartment. Come the Hollywood portion of the game, you actually get to meet her... [[{{Irony}} as a Nosferatu neonate.]]]]
341** When speaking to Beckett late in the game, the player has the option to tell him [[AxCrazy they don't know of any problem violence can't solve.]] Beckett replies that ''he'' does, [[DeadpanSnarker "it's called a werewolf."]] [[spoiler: Later on in Griffith Park, the PC does indeed encounter a werewolf who '''[[NoSell cannot]]''' be defeated. (At least, not without some swift lateral thinking skills... [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill and a set of thick metal doors)]]]]
342** One piece of Simon Milligan's hate mail scoffs at the idea of werewolves in Griffith Park, and expresses hope that Milligan get eaten by a flesh-eating monster. [[spoiler: One of the endings to Milligan's sidequest involves him being killed and eaten by Pisha, and... not to put too fine a point on it, there totally is a werewolf in Griffith Park.]]
343** A pretty subtle one comes from the thin-blood E if you manage to reunite him with Lily, although whether he is actually aware that he is foreshadowing the game's ending is somewhat ambiguous. Also doubles as a StealthPun.
344---> '''E:''' We're gonna be gettin' out of L.A. soon. Too dangerous here. Rosa told us something big's about to happen and I don't want to be here when [[spoiler: the Jack comes out of the box.]] [[LampshadeHanging Take that for what you will.]]
345** If you go into the diner in Santa Monica very early in the game (before getting the astrolite back for Mercurio), you can catch one of the patrons leaving a voicemail to a "Mr. Milton". Later, you can find the apartment of the recipient and can play back the very same voicemail you heard in the diner from his phone, which will lead you to his [[spoiler: gruesome murder scene]].
346** A very subtle one, but on the same computer where you can read about Gary and Imalia, you can read about another celebrity who had a large mansion up in the Hollywood Hills--which now sits empty after their death. [[spoiler: Later, Issac will identify it as the setting of the gruesome snuff film making its rounds in Hollywood, which you'll infiltrate and find it occupied by Andrei and his flesh creations.]]
347** You'll start to hear reports on the TV about the archeologist who found the sarcophagus quite a while before [[spoiler: you'll be tasked to go rescue him from the Society of Leopold.]]
348** Towards the end of the game, the Malkavian PC can have a direct conversation with the news anchor who appears on every television in the game. Keep the conversation going for long enough, and he'll tell you a long-winded joke about a fish that wins a game of chess against a butcher, only for the butcher to kill it afterwards. [[spoiler: This doubles as a metaphor for the entire plot of the game.]]
349** The very first cutscene in the game shows Jack standing in the shadows by himself, watching the gathering from outside of the assembly rather than standing with his fellow Anarchs. [[spoiler:This hints to his entire role within the game, both as an outside force watching the events transpire and as a man with his own agenda to fulfill while everyone else fights amongst themselves. It also serves as a [[BookEnds Book End]], since the end of the game has him separate himself from the Anarch group and take to watching the city from somewhere in the Hollywood hills.]]
350** You can provoke some from Therese. By being sufficiently threatening and antagonistic to her before agreeing to going to the hotel, the Ventrue-esque mask that she presents herself under will crack and she will lash out toward the player. Her outburst hints toward [[spoiler: her being Malkavian and her very traumatic childhood]], both of which won't be learned properly by the player until the final stretch of the Santa Monica questline.
351** When approaching the pier for the first time, you can hear two cops discussing a recent murder out on the pier. One of the cops jokingly speculates that it might be a vampire or a werewolf. [[spoiler: He turns out to be pretty much correct, as the murderer is a Gangrel Caitiff, ie. the closest midpoint between a vampire and a werewolf.]]
352** During the museum mission, Beckett conjectures that, rather than an Antediluvian, what the Ankaran sarcophagus actually contains is a mummified Mesopotamian king, a comparatively mundane explanation. [[spoiler: The ending reveals he is correct, the sarcophagus really did just contain the mummy of a king named Messerach, which Jack removed and replaced with plastic explosives as a gambit to take out [=LaCroix=] and Venture Tower.]]
353** Near the beginning if you ask [=LaCroix=] about Jack, he describes Jack as the physical manifestation of chaos, and that whenever he appears in a city "it is only a matter of time before calamity is attributed to his latest lark." [[spoiler: Jack ends up being responsible for all the chaos surrounding the Ankaran Sarcophagus, up to and including the destruction of the penthouse you're standing in when [=LaCroix=] tells you that.]]
354* FrameUp: [[spoiler: [=LaCroix=] pulls this twice]]:
355** First, [[spoiler: He allies himself with VoluntaryShapeshifter Ming Xiao and has her murder his problematic Malkavian Primogen [[MadOracle Grout]] (who was getting a little too close to figuring out his own treasonous ambitions) while masquerading as his political rival and overall threat to his authority, [[RebelliousSpirit Nines Rodriguez]]. ''Then'', he sends in the fledgling as an apolitical witness to catch "Nines" escaping the murder scene, and uses their testimony to call a blood hunt on the real Nines, forcing him into hiding.]] Talking to Jack before reporting back to [=LaCroix=] will have him directly predict all this, but he encourages the fledgling to do what they must to survive.
356** Later, once ''you'' begin to uncover his [[spoiler: little alliance, [=LaCroix=] will call off the blood hunt on Nines, claiming he now understands the true perpetrator was Ming Xiao and the Camarilla and the Anarchs must unite to destroy the greater evil of the Kuei-jin. He tasks the fledgling with forming the alliance, then has someone tail them to Griffith Park, where Nines is hiding. There, his agent sets a fire to royally piss off the local werewolves and drive them to kill both the fledgling and Nines. Afterward, [=LaCroix=] pins his alliance on the fledgling and calls a blood hunt on them for Nines' supposed murder--using the fledgling and the Kuei-jin as the common enemy to form his alliance with the Anarchs, while disposing of his political rival and [[HeKnowsTooMuch his dangerous new agent]] in the process.]] It would almost be a perfect plan; too bad [[spoiler: Nines survives to clear the fledgling's name, and the hyper-competent and now [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge VERY pissed off fledgling also survives to personally come for his throat.]]]]
357* FreakOut:
358** On the final cab ride as a Malkavian, the PC makes a very horrific realization: [[spoiler: The cab driver whose been driving you around all this time? He's '''Caine''', the first vampire and one of if not ''the'' most powerful ''things'' in the setting.]] Needless to say, they lose it.
359** The last time the PC encounters Beckett, [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness he's lost all the cool and calm composure and sardonic wit he's displayed over the entire course of the game]] and earnestly warns them ''not'' to open the Ankaran Sarcophagus.
360** While extremely easy to miss (especially if you're a player who avoids being outwardly cruel towards the [=NPCs=]), a low Humanity conversation with Therese prior to her sending you to the diner can result in a ''very'' heated argument that ends with your character threatening to burn her entire city to the ground and watch the flames eat her alive. This causes her to freak out ''so badly'' that she actually loses her grip on reality for a moment. This foreshadows her true clan affiliation and her DarkAndTroubledPast.
361-->'''Therese:''' "What?! You can't tell me what to do, ''Father/Mother!'' You'll never tell me what to do '''''EVER AGAIN!!'''''"
362* FreudianExcuse:
363** Discussed as Alastair Grout's logs dismiss it as unlikely to lie behind most people's psychological problems.
364** Several of the downtown Anarchs seem to have a distrust for authorities rooted in their experiences from when they were alive during times when regular people suffered while the rich and powerful kept on rolling: For Nines it was TheGreatDepression, for Skelter it was serving in UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar. Damsel is less clear, but she has a lot of mannerisms of a militant 60s-70s left-wing activist.
365* FreezeFrameBonus: Opting to go for the [[spoiler: truce ending]] of the [[spoiler: Sibling Rivalry]] quest will have one if you leave the subtitles on: [[spoiler: Therese and Jeanette's combined last spoken line is "kill you", but the subtitles read the speaker as "Tourette".]]
366* FriendlyNeighborhoodVampire:
367** Isaac, the baron of Hollywood, is a genial fellow who demands respect but gives it back in turn.
368%% ** VV in a more take-no-prisoners way.
369** It's also surprisingly easy to play as one. It tends to get you more experience, items and allies. However, even the nicest vamps sometimes have to [[KickTheDog euthanize a sick puppy]] to avoid breaking the masquerade.
370** The Thin Bloods certainly qualify. They just want to hang out on the beach and keep out of the way of the nastier creatures of the night.
371* FunnyBackgroundEvent: In addition to the ArtificialAtmosphericActions, the various computer terminals scattered throughout the game provide a lot of background information. This ranges from the entertaining (the corporate peon writing his manifesto) to the expository (Yukie got to America by pretending to be in a foreign-exchange program) to the useful (blackmail material).
372* GameBreakingBug:
373** It is possible to kill the final boss so hard it breaks the game. [[spoiler: Right after entering the first arena, it's possible (especially for a gunslinging Toreador) to unload an entire magazine's worth of Steyr AUG ammo on The Sheriff before he even has a chance to jump down and attack the player. Doing so causes him to finish his evil laugh... and then immediately drop dead. If done quickly enough, it fails to trigger the cutscene where he turns into the Chiropteran Behemoth, locking the player permanently in the room, unable to finish.]]
374* GameMod:
375** ''[[http://www.moddb.com/mods/vtmb-unofficial-patch The Unofficial Patch]]'' is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin an unofficial patch]] which fixes a lot of bugs left uncorrected after the end of Troika Games. It comes automatically bundled with the [[Website/GOGDotCom GOG]] release of the game.
376** If downloaded, the Unofficial Patch gives the option of installing "The Unofficial Patch +", which is a mod that overhauls weapons, disciplines, quest rewards, item placements, maps, and enemies. It also restores some content left in the data archives and adds a quest in a new location, as well as a pro-Sabbat ending.
377** ''[[http://camarillaedition.darkbb.com/c1-camarilla-edition-forum Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines: Camarilla Edition]]'' by Team Camarilla International is an overhaul of the gameplay mechanics, built on top of the ''Unofficial Patch''. The game now has a timer which progressively drains the player character's blood pool, the health regeneration rate has been toned down (and isn't buffed up anymore when feeding), being low on blood automatically triggers frenzy every 30 seconds, bloodheal and bloodbuff are now disciplines which can be increased in the character sheet, the skill books have been replaced by online college courses, the Masquerade violations system has been changed, there are new quests, etc.
378** ''[[http://camarillaedition.darkbb.com/c4-the-final-nights-forum Vampire: The Masquerade: The Final Nights]]'', also by Team Camarilla International, includes the ''Camarilla Edition'' changes. It also replaces the playable clans with seven brand new ones, adds new disciplines, new [=NPCs=], new quests, some items are now impossible to find if the inspection feat isn't high enough, a couple of boss fights have been remade, etc.
379** ''[[http://www.planetvampire.com/modules/Burgermeister/index.php The Clan Quest Mod]]'' offers a new quest for each Clan, a few new "evil" quests, and a "date" with a Kuei-jin lady. [[{{Fanservice}} Plus, VV will dance for you if she likes you enough.]] It also allows the player to install a number of other mods along with it, including versions of the Unofficial Patch and the Camarilla Edition, though it features a few changes and doesn't always have the absolute latest versions. A new version, featuring a quest where the player joins/infiltrates the Sabbat in a Latino barrio and can even [[YourSoulIsMine diablerize]] certain characters, was released in October 2018.
380** ''[[http://www.moddb.com/mods/vtmb-companion-mod Companion Mod]]'' allows to hire and be followed by [=NPCs=] (and to Embrace humans).
381* GameFavoredGender: The Seduction stat is much more useful to a female protagonist, who can seduce both male ''and'' female [=NPC=]s; she also has an easier time with some quests, such as Romero's. Male protagonists, in contrast, are mostly restricted to women.
382* GameplayAndStorySegregation: Playing a Nosferatu, you need to avoid being seen by humans because your monstrous appearance is a walking {{Masquerade}} violation... unless they're quest-relevant humans, in which case most of them are shaken but brush it off without consequence.
383* GayOption:
384** The PC, male or female, has the option of seducing a number of women into willingly giving up their blood. Additionally, regardless of gender, the player can have a sexual encounter with Jeanette Voerman. There is an opportunity for male [=PCs=] to seduce a stranded yuppie for his blood early on in Santa Monica.
385** It's possible to seduce the snobby restaurant critic Tommy Flayton in the ''A Dish Best Served Cold'' quest, regardless of gender, in order to complete to the quest. Afterward, when he offers to take the PC on a dinner date in West Hollywood, the (male) PC [[IHaveToWashMyHair takes a rain check and promises to call him.]]
386** The long-running fan-made patches have enabled an option for males to [[KissOfTheVampire offer their services]] to Romero in the graveyard just like females can. As well as allowing the PC to actually feed from the aforementioned food critic after seducing him, also regardless of gender.
387* GenghisGambit: [[spoiler:[=LaCroix=] makes it look like you set up Anarch figurehead Nines to get killed, allowing him to unify the Anarchs and Camarilla by making ''you'' a target.]]
388* GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere:
389** While almost all of the bosses might ''seem'' to be this, their forms are all actually [[AllThereInTheManual listed in the various books for [=VtM=]]] (with one or two exception, depending on what counts as a boss... and those are still straight from books, just from ''another'' World of Darkness line).
390** An {{Expy}} of ''Anime/DevilHunterYohko'' named Yukie asks for your help in hunting down the Hengeyokai that killed her master. So you're probably thinking it's a werewolf or a kitsune or something or whatever. Nope, it's a 12-foot tall wereshark with armored skin, claws, and razor sharp teeth. And you have to keep it from killing Yukie during the fight. But your reward is an enchanted katana. If you did not follow ''TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse'' closely, you would probably be going WTF at this point and the game itself never really explains what the weresharks are or where they come from.
391*** "[[LampshadeHanging Did I just fight a landshark?!]]"
392** The Sabbat Tremere in the Hallowbrook Hotel is a straight example. There is no backstory or exposition to his appearance and he is never mentioned again. What makes him so special, you may ask? First, the entirety of the Tremere ''antitribu'' were wiped out through the influence of Antediluvian Tremere himself in 1998. Second, Clan Tremere is now ''extremely'' careful about protecting their knowledge and hunting down traitors. Third, Andrei, the local Sabbat leader, has a passionate hatred of the Tremere.
393* GirlishPigtails: Jeanette, fitting her depraved-schoolgirl aesthetic.
394* GodWasMyCopilot: [[spoiler: That cab driver who's been ferrying you around all game is implied to be Caine. Especially fun if you play a [[MadOracle Malkavian]]; they actually put two and two together and [[OhCrap freak the hell out]].]]
395** God may be Smiling Jack's drinking buddy, it seems.
396* GoodGunsBadGuns: Given the setting, it is hard to determine which faction is good or bad, but a couple of guns commonly seen in antagonist's hands fit the trope (although some examples don't):
397** Steyr AUG are used by the Society of Leopold (HardCodedHostility faction), the Sabbat (idem), and a couple of Kuei-jin met if you didn't ally with them ([[spoiler:and who betray you if you do]]).
398** MAC-10 are used by mobsters, Sabbat, and the Society of Leopold.
399** Romero the friendly ghoul has a bolt action rifle as a weapon.
400** Among aversions, there are mobsters armed with revolvers, and Nines Rodriguez uses a Desert Eagle during the cutscene in which he saves the player character from an encounter with the Sabbat.
401* GratuitousFrench: Santa Monica art gallery, named "Gallery Noir" ("black gallery"). As French common names and adjectives have a gender, it should have been "Gallery Noir''e''". [[{{Pun}} It could also be noir as in film noir since the World of Darkness fits into that genre.]]
402* GratuitousItalian: Used incorrectly with the Giovanni book "Voce del Morte" (which should be "Voce ''della'' Morte").
403* GratuitousJapanese: Although Yukie's dialogue is intended to sound like PoirotSpeak from a native Japanese speaker, the voice acting wasn't quite up to the task; instead it's gratuitous Japanese snippets and Japanese pronunciation notes (like [[strike:"Los Angeles"]] ''Rozu Angerezu'') read in a thoroughly American accent.
404* GratuitousRussian: By mafiya goons. Voice actors are even worse than in Yukie's case. Boris is particularly awful at it, but all of the Russian voice acting is obviously done by people who never spoke Russian before.
405* GrievousHarmWithABody:
406** If the player goes to the heart of his sanctum, the insane prosthesis maker Dr. Gimble attacks them with a severed arm -- very possibly his own, since he admits he amputated his own arm. After defeating him, they can then equip it and use it as a weapon (and it's actually one of the better melee weapons in the early part of the game where you're likely to get it). [[GameplayAndStorySegregation No pedestrians will look twice at you for walking down the street with a severed arm in your hand.]]
407** Another severed arm can be found in the Hollywood sewers. [[spoiler:It belongs to an [=NPC=] that you talked to only moments before.]]
408** If you're a Tremere with level 5 Thaumaturgy, meaning Blood Boil, you can burst people into bloody piles of body pieces, and from some of those piles you can obtain a severed arm as well. Very neat indeed.
409** The closest thing the [[OneWingedAngel Hengeyokai]] can do is to throw huge, frozen tuna at you.
410** In the Nosferatu Warrens, the first "Tzimisce Spider Creation" encountered ''throws corpses at you'''.
411** The Chiropteran Behemoth picks up random [=NPCs=] off the street below and hurls them at you. ''That's'' going to be hard to explain without breaking TheMasquerade.
412* TheGuardsMustBeCrazy: The penalty for criminal trespassing? The police open fire on you on the streets of Los Angeles. {{Justified|Trope}} since in this CrapsackWorld, the cops who aren't corrupt have probably learned to shoot first and ask questions later.
413* GuestStarPartyMember:
414** Barabus fights alongside the fledgling after they rescue him from [[spoiler:the Fu Syndicate]].
415** Yukie fights alongside you to kill the Hengeyokai, and with the plus patch, shows up to offer to help wipe out the [[spoiler: Kuei-jin. [[VideoGameCaringPotential Though, accepting her help for the latter will likely end in her death, so there's an option to tell her to watch the door and make sure none escape as well.]]]]
416** There is a mod which allows to have more than half of the game [=NPCs=] (humans, ghouls, or vampires) as followers, although the number of those who can be followers on the same time is limited.
417* GuideDangIt:
418** It is possible (and awards the most experience) to save both [[spoiler:Therese and Jeanette]], but the requirements are truly obnoxious. You need a moderate Persuasion score, but the trolling is that you also need to have exactly the same number of hidden relationship points with them each. Too nice to [[spoiler:Therese]] when you first met her? Fail! Friendly instead of flirty to [[spoiler:Jeanette]]? Fail! The mechanics seem to be bugged as well, so often you'll not be able to get the good ending to the quest no matter what you do.
419** The player has a very small window of opportunity for receiving the body armor, the best clothing item in the game, from Heather. There is no indication in the game that Heather has it (until the player talks to her, which he probably won't since there is no obvious reason to go back and do so) and the window of opportunity is right before [[spoiler:she is killed, making the body armor permanently unavailable]].
420** The [[spoiler:Griffith Park werewolf]] can be killed, but only by doing a series of non-intuitive actions in the correct order while running like hell from an AdvancingBossOfDoom.
421** Getting the second haven from [=LaCroix=] is a huge pain in the butt. Not only are you given no indication that there even ''is'' another, better haven you can get in the first place, but the steps to get it are pretty annoying. You have to treat the notoriously petulant and condescending [=LaCroix=] with the utmost respect, referring to him as sir and never snarking at him even once. You have to make sure to ask him about himself and his clan and react with the same unfailing politeness, tell him what Nines said about the Camarilla, and you must have done the werewolf blood quest in Santa Monica to full completion--that includes reading the follow-up email and retrieving your money, or it won't count. You also cannot have declared yourself for the Anarchs before going to the Elizabeth Dane, and cannot kill a single security guard on the ship. Then, and only then, will [=LaCroix=] give you the key. If you mess up any of the above mentioned steps, you'll lose out on the apartment (which includes a useful magical object) and will be stuck with the craphole apartment in Santa Monica for the whole game.
422** When doing the quest to track down the plaguebearers, after talking to Tin Can Bill, you'll be told that the creature that took him is in "the sewers" nearby. Up until this point you've been in the sewer network, so the obvious next action is to go into Downtown's sewers, especially since there's a manhole very close by. What the game doesn't tell you is that there's another manhole cover further down the alley leading to the sewer where you're actually supposed to go. There's a good chance that a player will be wandering around the main sewer system for a while trying to figure out where they're supposed to go.
423* GunFu: Toreador have a natural talent for this since all their disciplines enhance gunplay nicely. And since combat becomes more prominent as the game progresses, it's highly recommended not to ignore your gun skills for too long.
424* {{Hammerspace}}: It's unknown where the character can store pistols, shotguns, swords and fire axes on their person even when wearing just a sweatshirt and pants, and in some cases, less than that. It gets particularly ridiculous when Chastity, a vampire hunter posing as a stripper, manages to pull a katana out of her underwear.
425* HappinessInSlavery: Your ghoul, Heather. Although her "happiness" is purely artificial and beyond her control. The Blood Bond is a quasi-mystical connection forged from the moment she took her first drink of your blood, and is akin to passive mind control. This is why you'll notice her "loyalty" is almost pathological in nature, and gets more and more obsessive the more blood you feed her over time.
426* HardCodedHostility: Of the four vampire factions, the Camarilla, the Anarchs, the Kuei-jin and the Sabbat, only the latter cannot be negotiated with, and one of the endgame missions requires the player character to eradicate them entirely from LA.
427** The Society Of Leopold is also this. Given that they're hardcore [[VampireHunter vampire hunters]] and you're a vampire, it's pretty obvious why.
428* HarmlessFreezing: The quest with the Wereshark contains large tanks of (presumably) coolant that can be shot, freezing the monster if it is close enough. The freezing itself is harmless and the Wereshark thaws off quickly, but you can unload on it while it's frozen.
429** Justified in that were-creatures of most types in the World of Darkness are [[MadeOfIron obscenely resilient to damage]], healing just as quickly as they get hurt. The only thing they can't immediately shrug off are wounds caused by fire, silver (or gold in two cases), or the teeth and claws of other supernatural creatures. Freezing a were-creature solid would be a momentary inconvenience at best.
430* HardLevelsEasyBosses: Missions that involve killing a human boss are usually this. The boss alone does not usually pose a great challenge and they are only slightly stronger than the average mob. But the real challenge is to kill their guards and / or avoid their traps.
431* HateSink:
432** [=LaCroix=]. He's superficially polite, condescending, and demands the utmost respect from the Fledgling despite earning absolutely zilch of it. He's hated/not respected by just about every (vampiric) character in the game, and is so generally unpleasant it's not hard to parse why. Then there's the little detail of him actively trying to kill you via sending you out on constant, not-so-subtle suicide missions and then having the gall to be appalled when TheDogBitesBack. Needless to say, his [[spoiler:inevitable humilating defeat and fiery death]] is nothing short of cathartic.
433** Ming Xiao is a passive-aggressive, condescending bitch from the very first meeting you have with her, and it only gets worse from there. It turns out she seeks to exterminate the entire Cainite race and is [[spoiler: behind Barabus's kidnapping, having her lackey the Mandarin torture him to find out the most efficient ways of killing the Kindred.]] She commits several other naked immoralities throughout the game, such as [[spoiler: trying to do the same thing to the Fledgling, murdering Alistair Grout and framing Nines Rodriguez for it, betraying the Fledgling and giving them an AndIMustScream fate [[UngratefulBitch after they basically hand her L.A. on a silver platter in the ending where the player sides with her,]] kidnapping Wong Ho's daughter Kiki and trying to have him assassinated, or giving the Tong money, weapons, and drugs to destabilize Chinatown with.]] She looks down her nose at 'Cainite superstitions' [[{{Hypocrite}} while simultaneously believing in her own race's dogma.]] She looks down on the Kindred, but she's easily just as heinous as even the very worst of them.
434* HealItWithBlood:
435** The PlayerCharacter, a fledgling vampire, replenishes their LifeMeter and Blood Pool (which acts as a ManaMeter) simultaneously by consuming blood.
436** [[FantasticMedicinalBodilyProduct Vampire blood]] can heal even mortal wounds in humans. The fledgling can feed Heather Poe some of their blood to save her from death... in which case they learn that it's also [[FantasticDrug hideously addictive]].
437** {{Discussed|Trope}} when a {{Muggle|s}} archaeologist claims that some vampire legends can be attributed to aristocrats afflicted with porphyria, who would consume human blood to relieve their symptoms.[[note]](The same theory has been posed in real life, though porphyria can't be treated with blood-drinking and doesn't cause cravings for blood, so this has been contested.)[[/note]] The fledgling can claim to have the same condition, in which case the archaeologist dryly states that there are proper medications nowadays.
438* HearingVoices: [[spoiler:One of the ghosts in the Ocean House Hotel]] tries to be helpful, but mostly comes across as creepy. Also, the entire game can be ''filled'' with cryptic spoiler whispers if you pick Malkavian, though [[http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/914819-vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines/answers?qid=184545 they're really easy to miss]] due to their comparatively low volume and infrequent timing.
439* HellHotel: The Santa Monica Ocean House Hotel was the site of the violent murder of a family by their father, and is still haunted by his and his terrorized wife's ghosts. [[spoiler: The whole level is a SpiritualSequel to ''Film/TheShining''.]]
440** Hallowbrook Hotel counts too. [[spoiler: It's hallowed out and crumbling, filled with hostile and creepy Sabbat mooks. The bottom floor is basically Andrei's personal killing grounds, and consists of his fleshy creations and literal ''pools'' of blood. To make things worse, there are several human blood dolls scattered around with their ''eyes gouged out''.]]
441* HellishPupils: Beckett has these, but subverts the common intent of them by not being ''nasty'' per se so much as snarky. "Gleam of the Red Eyes," or "Eyes of the Beast" as the tabletop names it, is Gangrel night-vision, so it has a practical purpose, too. In Beckett's case, he actually ''can't'' shut it off; it's an animalistic trait that became permanent because of a frenzy he once succumbed to.
442* HemoErotic: The feeding animation the player uses when feeding from a seduced character is pretty suggestive of heavy neck kissing, meanwhile Jack says outright that feeding is BetterThanSex. Moreover, having the vampiric equivalent of sex with Jeanette costs a blood point, suggesting that some sort of blood play/blood drinking was involved.
443* HesitationEqualsDishonesty: Quite a few of the lead characters are actually accomplished enough liars to avert this. Played straight with one of the callers to The Deb of Night, who hemms and haws over every detail of his reply about the "yacht club" he's at and his "two... actually, three!" yachts. Averted to a ''remarkable'' degree by [[spoiler: [=LaCroix=], when accused of being in league with the Kuei Jin. He doesn't miss a single beat. He may not be an inspiring leader, but he sure can lie convincingly.]]
444* HeroOfAnotherStory: Beckett. He indeed is a prominent character in old-[=VtM=] backstory, participating in many high-profile events. In the game, he shows up from time to time to give player an occasional quest or piece of advice [[spoiler: including a critical one towards the end]], but is mostly absent on those other adventures of his.
445* HiddenInPlainSight: In Downtown, a sidequest (given both by the Tremere Maximilian Strauss and by the Anarchs) requires to put an end to an epidemic plaguing the district (especially against the homeless people). Where can we find the ones who triggered this plague? [[spoiler:In the building standing directly across from the Tremere Chantry.]]
446* HitboxDissonance: Not usually too egregious, but the temple basement at the endgame has several [[BoobyTrap spinning blade traps]] that kill you unless you cross the hallway while crouching beneath them -- which makes it look like the blades are hitting you in the face rather than spinning overhead.
447* HorribleHousing:
448** The first haven you get in the game is a one-room apartment above a pawn shop in a particularly grungy part of Santa Monica. The room is filthy, the bathroom's worse, there's no sheets on the bed, and there's nothing to cover the windows with - indicating that you'd be fried in the sun if you were crazy enough to actually sleep here.
449** The Nosferatu haven. A gift from Primogen Gary Golden to Nosferatu players, it's hidden in the sewers of downtown Los Angeles, and most of it consists of bare concrete except for the bits covered by collected decorations. As dank as it is, this is actually an improvement over the first haven, given that it's much more spacious and better protected.
450* HotBlooded: Every single Brujah. The ones who appear calm at first are inevitably [[HairTriggerTemper easy to piss off]] with the right [[BerserkButton trigger.]] Even Jack, who generally projects a chill and jovial demeanor, will go on rants about things that piss him off if you humor him and his patience with you will wear very thin if you continue posturing in favor of the Camarilla.
451-->'''Jack:''' Why don't you go run back to the Prince, before I show you what they do to Cammy bitches downtown...?
452* HubUnderAttack: During the climax, you end up back in the starting hub level of since Santa Monica; normally safe unless you get on the bad side of the police, the place has been declared a combat zone [[spoiler: because you've been framed for the murder of Nines Rodriguez and Prince Lacroix has called a Blood Hunt on you]]. The streets are now patrolled by hostile vampires and the only way you can escape them is by making it to the cab waiting for you on the other side of the level. Worse still, the alleys and sewers that would normally allow you a shortcut to the cab have been blocked off.
453* HyperactiveMetabolism: Of the vampire variety, with the added caveat that killing innocent (non-hostile) [=NPCs=] by draining them dry is a hit to your [[KarmaMeter Humanity]].
454* HypocriticalHumor: When you're in Hollywood, you can visit an Internet cafe. There's an 'Employees Only' door in there, next to which is a list of rules on the usage of the computers, with a prominent rule being 'No pornography'. Behind the door? An entrance to a pornography studio upstairs. [[spoiler: Takes a very dark turn as it's not just a studio, it's a a base of operations for producers of [[NauseaFuel extreme snuff movies]].]]
455[[/folder]]
456
457[[folder:I-L]]
458* IdleAnimation: As a nice little touch, the idle animation for the [=PC=] changes to reflect their clan. Toreadors idly fix their hair, Tremeres hold their chins in a thinking stance, etc.
459* IDoNotDrinkWine: Vampires cannot consume any kind of food, only gain sustenance from blood, and this point is frequently brought up, such as how a recently-sired thinblood once stayed in a diner all night looking hungry but didn't order anything. [[Film/Dracula1931 The original line]] even gets a nod when you say to the Asylum bartender: "I don't drink...alcohol."
460* InfallibleBabble: Played with:
461** The many characters one meets in the game regularly omit information, outright lie, or simply have their facts wrong. Any given [=NPC=], even a relatively friendly one, has their own angle on the situation, and very few have any qualms about misleading you even about minor things, if it influences your opinions or behavior correctly. Even many clues that may very well be true aren't guaranteed to ever even come up in the plot. [[spoiler:There's a good reason the thin-blooded seer on the Santa Monica beach implies only two characters are trustworthy.]]
462** Played absolutely straight with the Malkavians. Malkavians in this game are very rarely clear enough to understand, but they are ''never'' outright wrong. You can usually spot what they are talking about on your next playthrough, but good luck figuring out what they are talking about before it actually happens.
463* IHateYouVampireDad: Ash greatly resents his sire, who rescued him after he almost died of a drug overdose, but this action rendered him unable to act, leaving him unfulfilled. It's extra heartstring-tugging because his sire, Isaac, is a kind, sentimental man who refuses to give up on Ash's well being.
464* ImplacableMan: The Werewolf. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead... er. Or escape. [[spoiler:Or [[GuideDangIt crush it in the Observatory door.]]]]
465* ImprobablePowerDiscrepancy: In a few nights, the player is able to gain sufficient experience to overpower vampires ''hundreds'' of years their senior. Justified by the player's character being an 8th generation Kindred, which would explain great inherent power--there's also heavy implications that ''someone'' [[spoiler:possibly Caine]] is cheating where the player character is concerned.
466** If [=LaCroix=]'s failure to Dominate you isn't simply narrative convenience, then one interpretation is that your generation has dropped sharply since you saw him last. Even Andrei thinks something's up with you: [[spoiler: "I recognized the smell of your blood, young Cainite--very potent, greater than our last meeting. I could smell it, even over the flood of my fallen brethren. Doesn't that make you wonder?"]]
467** It's also possible that [=LaCroix=] [[SlidingScaleOfGameplayAndStoryIntegration botched his Dominate roll and made you immune his powers]] due to his severe agitation at the time.
468* IncendiaryExponent: At one point in the story, you can get set on fire repeatedly. Doing so drains your health bar rapidly (vampires are especially susceptible to fire), but touching human enemies while ablaze kills them immediately. Also, the image of a crazed Malkavian wielding a fire axe, while on fire, bursting out of an upstairs mansion window is [[RuleOfCool absolutely awesome]].
469* InfinityPlusOneSword: The Tal'mahe'ra Blade, a mystical katana which deals aggravated damage. Can be found [[PermanentlyMissableContent once]] in the "Hell at the Hotel Hallowbrook" quest, along with her gun equivalent, the Flamethrower.
470* InevitableMutualBetrayal: [[spoiler: Neither Ming Xiao nor [=LaCroix=] seem remotely surprised when the other turns on them and both simply respond by trying to screw the other over even worse.]]
471* InformedAbility: Within the first few minutes of the game, Jack mentions that vampires can do things like "jugglin' dumpsters and outrunnin' the 8-15 from Sacramento", that their bodies can take more of a beating than any human, and that handguns are mostly useless against them. Despite this, your character needs upgraded stats just to lift a table and a special Discipline just to run faster than normal people, and a cutscene shows you getting laid out with a single swing of a baseball bat (albeit from another vampire) and Nines killing a Sabbat thug by shooting him once in the chest with a Desert Eagle.
472* InformedFlaw:
473** It is actually quite hard to violate the Masquerade by running around the streets as a Nosferatu so long as you watch where you're going. People don't seem to notice anything until you're close enough for them to smell your breath.
474** Brujah are usually described as hot-headed, and you do see this at play with Damsel (and to a far lesser degree, Nines and Jack), but the Brujah player rarely shows a temper that is any worse than the other clan players. The Irony is that [=LaCroix=], a member of the Ventrue clan, Brujah's rival, is actually one of the most temperamental characters in the game, with him prone to ranting furiously when things don't go his way.
475* InitiationQuest: Having been Embraced without official permission, you're technically outside Camarilla membership and granted legitimacy only as long as you continue to impress [[VampireMonarch Prince Lacroix]]. Consequently, most of the game is spent looking for a group to belong to, with the Camarilla and the Anarchs both making overtures and giving you opportunities to impress them. However, the finale kicks this into overdrive by framing you for murder and forcing you to pick one of the factions: the Camarilla, the Anarchs, Lacroix's rogue faction, the Kuei-Jin... or screw all four factions and strike out on your own.
476* InjuredSelfDrag: [[VampireHunter Grunfeld Bach]] turns out to be [[AlmostDeadGuy clinging to life]] after his BossBattle, dragging himself over to [[DyingCurse taunt you]] and activate a [[LoadBearingBoss self-destruct]] just as you're ready to leave his lair. This can require him to drag himself through a large cavern and up a long set of stairs, so he must ''really'' want to smack-talk you to your face.
477* InkSuitActor: Sort of. If you explore the Empire Hotel downtown, in one of the rooms you encounter a party where a woman on stage is singing the song "Smaller God" by the goth band Darling Violetta; the [=NPC=] resembles the band's lead singer on the recording, Cami Elen.
478* InterfaceSpoiler. It's best not to play Malkavian for your first run-through. Partly because the jokes are funnier when you know the subtext, but also because Malkavians know the answer before the question is even given. For instance, playing as a Malkavian when dealing with the Voerman twins, he'll flat out tell Jeannette [[spoiler: that he knows she and her sister are two sides of a multiple personality]]... though he'll do it with a weird metaphor about Roman gods.
479** There's also the loading-screen tips, which change with each chapter. Many of them have implied spoilers. You've gone through 4/5 of the game without ever seeing a werewolf, and now the loading screen is telling you how fearsome they are? Not too subtle.
480** Somewhat more subtle, however, is [[spoiler:the appearance of Caine's backstory when you're getting ready to drive around Los Angeles during the Endgame sequence. This does not make ANY sense, whatsoever, but the game otherwise implies that the Cab Driver is Caine himself. Ignoring later retcons, of course.]]
481* InvulnerableCivilians: Possibly the only one in the game is Kiki. If you snuck your way into the Tong massage parlor without killing anyone, it's near-impossible to sneak out again after rescuing her because she won't sneak. However, if you hide while the Tong rush to attack her, you'll be treated to the comical sight of her standing stoically while blood spurts from her body as she's showered with machine-gun fire. It's necessary for her to be invulnerable because you have to rescue her to complete a non-optional quest.
482* IronicEcho: [[spoiler:The last living member of the snuff film producers in Hollywood claim they only killed junkies and runaways, the runoff of society. The maker of the creatures that killed them claims he made the creatures out of the exact same thing.]]
483** Also, near the end, Ming Xiao tells the player that [=LaCroix=] sees the player as a liability, and warns that [=LaCroix=] will dispose of the player once he finds the right moment. [[spoiler:''She's'' the one who disposes of you in her ending once your usefulness is at an end, while in [=LaCroix=]'s ending, he offers you a place at his side, but the both of you are disposed of for other reasons.]]
484* {{Irony}}: Downtown has a very gothic-styled highrise building sitting prominently in the centre of the hub, complete with high wrought-iron fences and gargoyle statues. Seems like the perfect building to house a vampire den, right? Apparently not. The vampire dens in the area are a [[LocalHangout small innocuous dive bar]], a random apartment in one of many buildings in the area (if you got the second Haven from [=LaCroix=]), a modest boarding house tucked between several larger buildings, and a very sleek and modern office building. The gothic building sitting in the middle of downtown is never used for any quests, you cannot enter it, and nobody ever comments on it. It seems to exist for the pure irony of sitting right across the street from the ''actual'' high-ranking vampire den.
485* IrrelevantSidequest: "Sorry Prince, I can't go look for the SealedEvilInACan right now. Some creepy shopkeeper wants me to steal the eyes off a corpse." Can be somewhat justified by the fact that, well... your character is unlikely to actually be loyal to [=LaCroix=] (it is, after all, entirely possible that you're already working as a spy for his political rival), thus probably doesn't feel any remorse for dawdling on his missions. Most of them ''do'' give you useful cash or items, after all.
486* ItsAllUpstairsFromHere: [[spoiler: Most of the endings have the player character fighting their way up Venture Tower.]]
487* InstantRunes: Appear on a victim whenever a Tremere character uses [[BloodMagic Thaumaturgy]].
488* ItsUpToYou: Justified in some cases, lampshaded and/or subverted in others.
489** You, a naive fledgling with little knowledge of your powers and the world of darkness as a whole, are Prince [=LaCroix=]'s main errand girl/boy throughout the game. It is, however, justified because [=LaCroix=] is A) not at all well-liked or respected within L.A. (just imagine him trying to order Gary or Strauss around the way he does the player character; you can't, can you?), and B) ''actively trying to kill you''. He wants to avoid provoking Nines and the Anarchs, but views the PC as an affront to his authority, and thus sends you out on missions that ''should'' be way above your skill grade so that he can get rid of you indirectly.
490** Also justified in that, as a fledgling, you are at the bottom of the social ladder in vampiric society. As such, you'll often be used by Elders in whatever schemes they may have brewing, as your naiveté and eagerness to find a place for yourself make you particularly easy to manipulate. Jack and Bertram lampshade this directly.
491** Subverted mildly with the Downtown Anarchs. During the plague quest, Damsel says that she and some other Anarchs apparently killed another plaguebearer somewhere else in the city while you took out Brother Kanker and Jezebel Locke. In the Anarch endgame, [[spoiler: Nines mentions that his forces are out on the streets fighting against [=LaCroix=]'s, while you take on Ming Xiao and [=LaCroix=] personally.]]
492** As the game goes on, you start getting dialogue options that lampshade/snark about this state of affairs. When you get the "Hell at the Hallowbrook Hotel" quest, you can straight-out say the Sheriff would be a better choice, to which [=LaCroix=] will reply that he needs the Sheriff to guard the sarcophagus.
493* IWasQuiteALooker: Gary, formerly a famously handsome movie star, and Imalia, once a model, are now Nosferatu, hideously disfigured by their vampiric condition.
494** Imalia is understandably bitter about this. Gary seems oddly unbothered (though he's had at least a few decades to adjust).
495** Averted with a Nosferatu PC, who doesn't seem at all bothered by how they look. Some dialog options even imply that they actually ''enjoy'' it.
496* JigglePhysics: The game has numerous female models for the player to control, depending on what type of vampire they chooses. Oddly, only some of these have jiggle physics - others appear to have breasts made of solid metal.
497** Any character with breasts of the "jiggling" type can have her breast size adjusted with a console command. Which can be very confusing for those who type in "money 1000" expecting to receive 1000 dollars, only to find that all the women suddenly have ridiculously large polygons protruding from their chests.
498* JiveTurkey: Fat Larry, who would like you to know that that's 'fat' with an F-A-T because he knows he has a weight problem, but just doesn't give a fuck. Or, if you're a female player character, he knows he has a weight problem but there's more of him to love.
499* JustifiedTutorial: The PC is turned into a vampire, has their sire killed in front of them, is nearly killed themself, and is summarily dumped into the street with a "Don't call us, we'll email you." Luckily Jack is waiting outside. He kindly deigns to teach you how to maul pedestrians for their bodily fluids, as well as how to beat things to death with a tire iron when the Sabbat crash the tutorial.
500* KarmaHoudini:
501** Ming Xiao, if you side with her. [[spoiler:By the end she'll have killed Grout, successfully framed Nines for the murder, attempted to kill the Fledgling over and over again, and double-crossed her co-conspirator. To top it off, she managed to convince the WildCard Fledgling to side with her, only to chain them to the sarcophagus and leave them to AFateWorseThanDeath under the ocean.]] Fortunately, she gets her KarmicDeath at your hands, no less, in every other ending.
502** The security guard in Skyline Apartments who spies on, records and sells the footage of the building's occupants. He even admits in his computer log that he plans to [[PantyThief steal one of the occupants' underwear while she's not home]]. Despite all this, you can't report him or get him fired, or even inform any of the occupants that they're being watched. While you can kill who is presumably the security guard standing in the building foyer, doing so nets you a loss of humanity even if you've found his camera set up and computer.
503** Vandal. [[spoiler: He gets the blood he sells from someone he ''kidnapped'' and is holding in a locked room. When you free her, he gets pissed off at you and refuses to sell you any more blood unless you tell him a violent enough story (which is only available to lower-humanity players in the first place). Worse yet, to be able to buy blood again, if you don't have the right Disciplines to get you of it,you'll have to pay him a good chunk of cash or send him a new unwitting victim, as he is the ''only'' way to buy bloodpacks in the entire game.]] While the game provides the occasional free pack here and there, it's not really enough to last you the game and the final few missions are likely to get pretty tough without some way to get more. Until you reach Chinatown, you've got basically no choice but fork over your cash to this monster, even while knowing full and well where the blood comes from.
504* KarmaMeter: Two -- your humanity rating and your masquerade rating. Sometimes they conflict.
505** Your Humanity Rating depends on how good or evil you are. The lower your Humanity Rating is, the higher chance that your character will go into a Frenzy that will mean a Masquerade Violation and a criminal act if it happens in the open.
506** Your Masquerade Rating is based on how well you manage to blend in with humans and keeping your vampirism a secret. Low Masquerade Rating will make you a target of hunters and losing all points will make your boss execute you, game over. Performing acts to cover up yours or other vampires existence will grant you Masquerade Points but they're sometimes done by killing a innocent schmuck for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. And that's an evil thing to do, meaning that you'll lose Humanity. Letting them go is the morally right thing to do, at the cost of compromising the masquerade. [[SadisticChoice Pick your poison]].
507* KarmicDeath:
508** Phil, The ButtMonkey assistant at the blood bank [[spoiler: gets drained of blood by the female vampire Vandal was using as a blood source.]] Then there is the snuff-film maker who [[spoiler: gets torn apart by one of Andrei's creatures. A dialogue option can even point out the karmic justice of it.]] And last, but by no means least, [[spoiler: [=LaCroix=] opening the box.]]
509** This is very likely to be your character's fate if you are too much of a bastard, since you [[spoiler: cannot resist the temptation to open the sarcophagus if your humanity is too low.]]
510** Boris, should you decide to help Venus with her problems and choose to kill him. [[spoiler: Given that he's been sexually extorting her for who-knows-how-long under threat of taking away her club, he definitely deserves it.]] Sure you ''can'' dominate or persuade him to let her off, but even then, he'll state that it's only for that month and he'll presumably go right back to what he was doing after that.
511* KatanasAreJustBetter: One of the best melee weapons in game. [[spoiler: You can find a superpowerful one during the quest Hell at the Hotel Hallowbrook, at the end of the abandoned hotel filled to the brim with Sabbat vampires, ghouls and Andrei.]]
512* KickTheDog: The fate of your ghoul if they remain with you late in the game - [[spoiler: the Sabbat kidnaps and murders Heather during Hell at the Hotel Hallowbrook]].
513* KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade:
514** Several characters get too close to the truth or threaten to reveal the existence of vampires, and it's up to you to take care of the problem. Some of them you can let go; others have to die. [[spoiler:Bizarrely, and in an extremely meta moment, Mercurio also suggests this is the reason for Troika's closing.]]
515** You can end up [[OffWithHisHead sharing your sire's fate]] if you gain too many Masquerade violations, courtesy of your reckless Masquerade-breaking marking you as a threat to all Kindred.
516* KillItWithFire: The flamethrower is the absolute highest damage weapon in the game. Pity you get it so late, and its ammo is so rare, expensive, and limited.
517** Fire is also one of your main weaknesses. Will be used against you from time to time.
518* KnightTemplar: Bach and the Society of Leopold as a whole.
519* LargeHam: ''Beckett'' has a habit of making ''everything'' sound like he's...''OVERLY''...sarcastic. ''Eveeeeeen'' when he's ''not''.
520** Gary, possibly justified since he used to be a movie star capable of drawing the attention of vampires.
521** Grünfeld Bach, that guy is about as subtle as a tactical nuke.
522** Andrei makes it a point to turn every single line he speaks into a work of fine art.
523** [=LaCroix=] tends to get pretty melodramatic whenever he contemplates the burdens of leadership. Non-Malkavian players even have the option to directly call him on it.
524* LateToTheTragedy:
525** Grout's mansion is like this: As the main character begins exploring the MalevolentArchitecture of the mansion in search of Dr. Grout, they come across [[ApocalypticLog tape recordings by the Malkavian Primogen]], discussing his condition and history. The further into the mansion you go, the less sane these recordings begin to sound, finally climaxing into some truly epic paranoid rantings [[spoiler:that not only turns out to be [[ProperlyParanoid utterly true, but utterly justified]] -- by the time you get to the inner sanctum, you find his obviously murdered corpse inside]].
526** And if that's not creepy enough, wait until you see what he meant by "precautions to protect my beloved wife"--[[spoiler:her corpse is sealed inside a huge Victorian belljar, surrounded by objects from her childhood and their courtship.]]
527** You know Patty's missing domiter? [[spoiler: Yeah, he's at Grout's mansion too... or rather, his skeleton, ashes and identifying driver's license is.]]
528* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: In the Asp Hole club, there is a [=NPC=] complaining that the club always plays the same music. Ingame, each area has one looping musical ambient track (two if you take the combat music in account), including the night clubs and the Last Round bar, which use real songs for the musical ambiance of the areas.[[note]]"Isolated" by Chiasm in The Asylum, "Bloodlines" by Music/{{Ministry}} in Club Confession, "Lecher Bitch" by Genitorturers in The Last Round, "Smaller God" by Darling Violetta in the Empire Hotel and from the radio on the beach, "Cain" by Music/{{Tiamat}} in the Asp Hole, and "Pound" by Aerial in the Glaze Club[[/note]]
529* LesbianVampire: Jeanette can even sleep with a female player character (if you have enough seduction) while Velvet will even go as far as sending you e-mails with hammy love poems all the time. Also the female player character (non-Nosferatu only) can seduce women in clubs, and in fact will likely be seducing mostly women due to there being overwhelmingly more female blood dolls available over males.
530* LightningBruiser:
531** Bishop Vick, a Toreador with Celerity and a hefty shotgun. Jack (and the player, should you choose to play as one) is the only one we see in action, but any Brujah counts, as they're equipped with both Potence ''and'' Celerity.
532** The werewolf boss. It runs faster than you, is immune to all of your weapons, and can kill you in only a few hits. Lore treats werewolves as being this compared to vampires, as well.
533%%(ZCE)* LimpAndLivid: Gangrel when using Protean.
534%%(ZCE)* Barabus, the Nosferatu you have to rescue late into the game, also moves like this during combat.
535%%(ZCE)** Any time you Frenzy, your character starts moving and fighting like this until they can regain their senses.
536%%(ZCE)* LooksLikeOrlok: The members of the Nosferatu clan.
537* LudicrousGibs: The final Thaumaturgy power, Blood Boil, does this. It turns a single enemy into an unwilling suicide bomb, which can take out an entire area in an explosion of gore that completely stains the walls and floor red, leaving severed arms and ribcages lying about.
538[[/folder]]
539
540[[folder:M-P]]
541* MacGuffin: The Ankharan Sarcophagus. While no-one's quite sure what's inside, ''everyone'' wants it for one reason or another and they're more than willing to go to war over it. [[spoiler:Averted in a most hilarious manner in any ending that involves someone opening the thing: it's nothing but a MockGuffin full of explosives and rigged to blow and take out the person opening it.]]
542* TheMadHatter: Malkavians know they're insane, which leads to some amusing dialogue options if the player chooses that clan. For example, instead of telling someone they're crazy, you can say, "Your insanity surpasses my own!"* Usually the alternate dialogue is quite amusing/interesting, but sometimes it can make it hard to tell the difference between the "sure I'll help" and "screw you" dialogue options. Which can be a bit awkward at times. It's best to play through the game as a sane clan first. Interestingly, the Malkavian seems to get more coherent over the course of the game.
543* MadOracle:
544** Inspect the Malkavian dialogue options after running through the game, and realize that you're actually guessing at what's going on... ''and you are almost always right''. To drive the trope even further, Pisha and Strauss more or less outright state that the Malkavian themself doesn't even know what's going on: They start seeing things and babble about their visions [[AchievementsInIgnorance without comprehending their context or what they mean]]. Given that a Malkavian PC is just as surprised by all the plot twists as all the other characters, ''despite having spoiled several of them in advance with their visions'', they're probably right. Choose the right babbling dialog option with Jack and he'll casually mention that the fact he knows you don't understand it is the only reason he doesn't kill you on the spot to keep that particular secret quiet.
545** Rosa dabbles into this -- mostly she's just a bit uncertain because she ''knows'' her visions make her a bit weird and she can't always control when they happen, but when she does get visions she's... more or less the Malkavian PC with less agency.
546* TheMafia: The Giovanni, a vampire mob that dabbles in necromancy.
547-->'''Gary Golden''': Spaghetti and corpses, boss.
548* TheMafiya: Dangerous to Venus, easy for you to kill.
549* MagikarpPower: The firearm skills, at the beginning of the game the weapons that are obtained are not very good so in most fights it is more practical to use a Melee weapon, the more the game progresses you can buy better weapons, which end you turning your character into a killing machine.
550* {{Malaproper}}: The Malkavian PC.
551* ManChild:
552-->'''Malkavian''': "It was stolen. But there were lots of dinosaurs, so I had fun."
553* MarathonLevel: The Warrens. Luckily, the most recent unofficial patch restores a DummiedOut shortcut to bypass the lower three levels (which are standard [[DungeonCrawling dungeon crawls]] that contain absolutely nothing of importance, so you don't miss anything by skipping them).
554* {{Masquerade}}: A game mechanic. You gain Masquerade violations when a human sees you feeding or using some Disciplines, and can only remove them through some quests. Violations draw in Society of Leopold hunters, and if you push it too far, you get a NonStandardGameOver and [[KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade an execution]].
555* TheMaze:
556** To a small extent, the sewers on the way to the Nosferatu hideout. They look very similar and are easy to get turned around in if you lose track of the numbers on the walls, especially the final floor.
557** There's a section of Grout's Manor that is very much the MalevolentArchitecture version of this, though it's quite short.
558* MercyKill: During the final raid on the Sabbat HQ, you can find human cattle who have been tortured by them (including [[EyeScream having their eyes eaten]]). The game treats draining them dry or killing them in general to be a mercy kill, as you suffer no humanity loss at all. Though everything is normally fair game in a combat area anyway.
559* MirthlessLaughter: [=LaCroix=] starts laughing when the sarcophagus he opens [[spoiler:is full of dynamite instead of the Antideluvian he intended to diablize, and sees a mocking note from Smiling Jack and a timer reaching 0:00]]; crosses over with LaughingMad.
560* MistakenForDisease:
561** Primogen Alistair Grout seems to believe that vampirism is just a disease he can analyse and cure like any other illness, despite being a vampire himself for decades: as anyone who knows the setting and lore can tell you, vampirism is a biblical curse, and can't be cured by anything short of truly incredible circumstances. Then again, Grout ''is'' a Malkavian...
562** Also, thanks to the epidemic spreading throughout downtown Los Angeles, it's possible for a Nosferatu PC to be mistaken for a plague victim by a horrified desk clerk at the Empire Hotel. Of course, Nosferatu aren't diseased - just really, really ugly.
563* MockGuffin: [[spoiler: Once again, The Ankharan Sarcophagus. As it turns out, it only ever housed a regular human corpse, which Jack had swapped out for C4 before [=LaCroix=] even knew it existed.]]
564* MookHorrorShow: The PlayerCharacter gives them a hard time, but at least the Sabbat thugs, the Society of Leopold templars and the Golden Temple mooks know what they are facing and given their actions and the type of people they support, [[PayEvilUntoEvil it's hard to feel sorry for them]]. On the other hand, there are the simple security guards in the Santa Monica clinic, the Museum, or even Venture Tower, who are (from their point of view) just doing their normal security surveillance job, and can end up being slaughtered/ambushed/dominated/demented/fed upon by an immortal, almost bullet-proof, supernaturally gifted undead killer.
565* MuggingTheMonster: Quite literally with the beach drug dealer Dennis and Mercurio. He may just be a ghoul instead of a full-fledged vampire, but that doesn't mean mugging Mercurio and beating him nearly to death was a good idea. Dennis and his gang will end up paying for it either by your hand or Mercurio's, either way, they don't make it until the end of the game.
566* MultipleEndings: Depending on your choices, there can be several different endings:
567** [[spoiler:[=LaCroix=] ending: In [[TooDumbToLive one of the biggest examples of videogame protagonist stupidity ever]], you remain loyal to Prince [=LaCroix=], kill Ming Xiao for the sarcophagus key and return to [=LaCroix=], who promises to make you his top agent once he uses the sarcophagus' presumed power to become all powerful...only for both of you to be killed when the sarcophagus' C4 goes off.]]
568** [[spoiler: Kuei-jin ending: You decide to help Ming Xiao double cross [=LaCroix=] and help her take control over LA, but at the very end she decides that [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness you're no longer of any use to her]] and she won't tolerate any Cainites in her city anymore. She does decide to spare your life out of gratitude, but does so by [[FateWorseThanDeath nailing you to the sarcophagus before tossing it into the sea]], consigning you to a long, ''long'' torpor.]]
569** [[spoiler: Camarilla/Strauss ending: You expose [=LaCroix=] and Ming Xiao's plot to Maximilian Strauss, who then orders you to deal with them both. You kill Ming Xiao and the Sheriff, and [=LaCroix=] is arrested for his crimes. Strauss becomes the new leader of LA's Camarilla and appoints you as his right hand. As for the sarcophagus, Strauss decides its not worth the risk and orders it sealed away.]]
570** [[spoiler:Anarch ending: Comes in two flavors. At the end, you decide to ally with Nines and, at his behest, kill Ming Xiao and depose [=LaCroix=]. At the end, depending on your choices, you either leave the sarcophagus key with the dying [=LaCroix=], who is summarily incinerated by the C4 (good ending), or you decide to take the sarcophagus for yourself, and ''both'' of you are incinerated (bad ending). In the end, Nines takes control over LA, and TheStinger reveals that Jack and Caine orchestrated the entire thing.]]
571** [[spoiler:Lone Wolf/Independent ending: In a particularly ballsy move, you decide not to ally with ''anyone'', instead resolving to make your own path in (un)life. You kill Ming Xiao and the Sheriff, and the confrontation with [=LaCroix=] is nearly identical to the good and bad Anarch endings, depending on your choice. In the good ending, Nines offers you a place with the Anarch, but you decline [[FlippingTheBird most elegantly]] and leave the city for parts unknown.]]
572** [[spoiler:Joke Ending: After activating a dancing werewolf easter egg through a laptop in a hotel, you tell [=LaCroix=] that you've seen the werewolf once and want to see it again during the confrontation. The werewolf dances throughout the credits and [[DancePartyEnding you start joining it soon after]].]]
573* MultiplePersuasionModes: Three social skills can unlock additional dialogue tree options: Persuasion, Intimidation, and Seduction. Before the patches, good Intimidation opportunities were few and far in-between, so Persuasion was the main mode. Additionally, two vampiric Disciplines (magical spells, in essence), Malkavians' Dementation and Ventrue's Dominate, can be used in dialogue to persuade [=NPCs=]. The patch adds the ability for Toreadors to use their Presence discipline during dialogue in a similar way.
574* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: The Toreadors humanity shifts are always doubled. So they'll probably react like this if they kill an innocent or perform humanity-losing feats.
575* MyMasterRightOrWrong:
576** You have the option of treating [=LaCroix=] like this, defending him against his detractors despite everything he does to you.
577** Ghouls are incapable of ''not'' treating their domiter this way, even if, like Vandal and Mercurio, they don't particularly ''like'' said master.
578* MysticalHollywood: Hollywood is all but run by the vampires, particularly, of the Toreador clan, and is host to all manner of supernatural creepiness.
579* MythologyGag:
580** One of the passwords is "[[VideoGame/ArcanumOfSteamworksAndMagickObscura Gil Bates]]".
581** Venture Tower, [=LaCroix=]'s base of operations in Downtown L.A, as well as being close to being named Ventrue Tower, looks pretty much as the old V:TES card Ventrue Headquarters did.
582* TheNicknamer: The Malkavian almost refuses to call anybody by their real name.
583* NobleMaleRoguishMale: Played with visually between [=LaCroix=] and Nines. Being an Anarch Brujah who dresses like a biker and whose HQ is the [[LocalHangout local crappy dive bar]], Nines is the roguish male. However, personality-wise, he's much easier to get along with and generally treats the player with more respect. In contrast, [=LaCroix=] lives in a massive business office, wears his hair slicked back and a prim-and-proper suit at all times; but treats the player like a disposable pawn through the whole game.
584* NoCanonForTheWicked: Zig-zagged. The novel ''Gehenna: The Final Night'' loosely follows on from the game and the [[spoiler:Strauss/Camarilla]] ending is at odds with it. However, because it is canonical that [[spoiler: [=LaCroix=] met his end through the sarcophagus exploding, the Kuei-jin ending is also impossible, as [=LaCroix=] will be killed by Ming Xiao and the sarcophagus goes unopened in it.]] The [=LaCroix=], Anarch and Independent endings could still potentially be canon, as the issue of the PC's fate never comes up.
585* NoFairCheating:
586** If you cheated your stats higher than possible, before meeting Jack for the first time, he will comment on this and tells you to redo the character creation process fairly; however, you can tell him that it's part of a mod.
587** There's a cheat code that allows you to use [[{{BFS}} the Sheriff's Sword]], an item only available by cheating. The item description is "[[DevelopersForesight You shouldn't have this]]."
588** On the other hand, in some locations if a "no clipping" cheat code is entered, and the player enters into the area where the TV newscaster is located, quite often a small amount of money can actually be found in the room for pick-up.
589* NonStandardGameOver: Breaking the Masquerade too many times in a row will get the Fledgling executed by the Sheriff on [=LaCroix's=] orders, due to their frequent Masquerade breaches making them a risk to all Kindred.
590* NonResidentialResidence:
591** If the player character is from [[VampireVarietyPack Clan Nosferatu]], their clanmates give them "living quarters" in the form of a repurposed maintenance room in downtown Los Angeles' AbsurdlySpaciousSewer. But hey: quiet neighborhood, central location, plenty of nutritious rats right outside your door...
592** The itinerant vampire Pisha squats in the basement of an AbandonedHospital and has given it a reputation as a dangerously haunted location. One {{Paranormal Investigat|ion}}or sees her and needs to be KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade.
593* NonstandardSkillLearning:
594** There are a couple of instance when completing a quest grants a free point in a specific skill (financial if you convince Fat Larry to give you a discount before accepting the "Traffik" quest, computer if you bring back the CD to Bertram, firearms from Romero if you complete either "You Only Die Once a Night" or "Pimpin' For Romero", etc). Nines will also give you a free point in Brawl if you ask him for pointers on self-defense.
595** In the mods ''Camarilla Edition'' and ''The Final Nights'', the [=NPC=] Akeem adds a new discipline (normally not accessible to your clan) in your character sheet as a quest reward.
596* NothingIsScarier: A very good example. There are two levels where you just can't help thinking about dangers you've never seen before that ''must'' wait around the corner. Which never appear. The first one is [[spoiler:Ocean House Hotel, a HauntedHouse which actually poses no danger except some "environmental hazards" (like tableware jumping at you, DeadlyGas or falling elevator)]], though you can actually see the ghost of the killer stalking you if you look carefully (but he never does anything), and the second is [[spoiler:the AbandonedHospital, where all the strange events turn out to be the work of a flesh-eating vampire, who is not hostile towards the player]].
597** Though, the second example can be a fairly challenging boss if you happen to be inclined to attack.
598** There's ''something'' down in the Hollywood sewers, other than vampires and their work, judging by the abandoned logs of the supervisors. What is it? [[NothingIsScarier You never find out.]]
599* NoticeThis: The main function of the Inspection feat is to highlight collectible items nearby with a particle effect. For this reason, many players consider it useless, since it does nothing that an observant or familiar player can't manage without it. ''The Final Nights'' adds some importance to the Inspection feat by making the ''spawning'' of items lying in the outside areas depending on the feat's level.
600* NotSoDifferentRemark: You can imply that Nines is the same as [=LaCroix=], calling him "the Prince of the Anarchs". [[BerserkButton He... doesn't take it too kindly]], but lets you off the hook for it on account of being new. Ironically, it's actually the ''right'' thing to say even though it annoys him, as you won't be able to ask him to teach you how to fight until after you do.
601* NPCRandomEncounterImmunity: {{Inverted|Trope}} in downtown LA, where random street thugs harass passers-by but ''not'' the Fledgling.
602* ObfuscatingStupidity:
603** [[spoiler: Knox can play you like a fiddle.]] That is, unless you can perceive his bullshit (read: Your Perception must be three or higher.) With enough stats, you can call him on it.
604** The Malkavian PC can be a lot more sly than he leads on for his gibbering, sometimes childlike demeanor and as mentioned above, seems to get a bit more lucid as the story get farther in (though the latter may be due to the rush for release).
605* OddlyNamedSequel2ElectricBoogaloo: If you listen long enough to the radio while in Hollywood, an ad comes on for a movie about a terrorist plot to blow up a dam, titled ''Hoover 2: Hydroelectric Boogaloo''.
606* OlderThanTheyLook: Most kindred [=NPCs=], as is standard for vampire lore. They all look the age they were when they were Embraced, even if that was decades or even ''centuries'' ago. Averted with Ash and the player, as they are both fledglings and thus look relatively accurate to their ages. Potentially also averted with VV, as she's implied to be quite a young vampire, but offers no hint toward exactly how young.
607* OmnicidalManiac: The plaguebearers. All three of them are good examples of what happens when a vampires humanity is completely abandoned.
608* OmnicidalNeutral: Downplayed. At the end you have to choose whether to side with [=LaCroix=], Strauss, Nines, or Ming Xiao; which choices are available depends on their actions up to that point. However, they always have the option of siding with nobody and taking out both the Camarilla and Kuei-jin by themselves. This is functionally identical to siding with Nines, the only difference being you didn't go to the Anarch Stronghold before going after Xiao and [=LaCroix=], and you get an extra scene at the very end where you reject Nines' offer to join the Anarchs. None of these endings see you wiping out the Anarchs or Strauss.
609* OnesieArmor: Attacks don't target specific body parts, so the various armors are full-body outfits with static benefits. Each outfit morphs according to the PlayerCharacter's [[VampireVarietyPack Clan]], which can get a bit ridiculous -- heavy leathers on a Malkavian male appear as an [[NoShirtLongJacket open pimp coat with no shirt]].
610* OneStatToRuleThemAll: Scholarship, of all things. It is tied to what are probably the two most important abilities in the game - persuade and research. Persuade lets you get much better outcomes story-wise and gameplay-wise than you could without, and research is incredibly useful because it lets you raise your other stats. The icing on the cake is that it is in the category of cheaper traits to raise and there are two opportunities to get a free point in scholarship during the game.
611* OneWingedAngel: [[spoiler:The Hengeyoukai, Andrei's War Form, Ming Xiao's evil blob form, the Gangrel serial killer and The Sheriff's Chiropteran Behemoth.]]
612** Protean disciplines allow the player to do this.
613* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname:
614** Nines Rodriguez. Despite "Nines" clearly being an informal nickname, his birth name is never once used or revealed in the game. Even the most prim-and-proper members of the Camarilla, like Strauss and [=LaCroix=], and the ever elegant Ming Xiao refer to him with the nickname, seemingly not even aware what his actual first name is. It's established in [[AllThereInTheManual supplementary novels]] to be Armando, but otherwise, you'll find no mention of it anywhere.
615** ''Likely'' the case for Skelter and Damsel, given their lack of a last name and strange first names, but not confirmed so.
616** Averted by Velvet, as much as she wishes otherwise. [[spoiler: She prefers to be referred to as Velvet Velour (or VV, to those she's close to), which likely started out as her stage name, but the Malkavian PC will reveal that her name is actually "Susan". For [[DarkAndTroubledPast an unknown reason]], she actively hides every last hint toward her human identity, and gets upset when called by her original name.]]
617** The Southland Slasher is never referred to by name. He never introduces himself in the few direct interactions you have with him, nor can you find his name out anywhere else.
618* OnlySaneMan: Compared to much of her caller base, radio hostess [[ShowWithinAShow "The Deb of Night"]] combines this with a DeadpanSnarker approach; even when [[CassandraTruth unknowingly interacting with actual elements of the World of Darkness.]]
619* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: When the Malkavian PC drops the whimsical speech patterns and talks straight, it's a sign that they're either very angry or very unsettled.
620--> '''Malkavian PC:''' ''[after having been taunted by Gary for a while]'' [[PunctuatedForEmphasis "Where. Are. You."]]
621** Nines is shown to be nothing if not an unshakable badass for almost the entirety of the game, so when he [[spoiler: gets nervous about a distant fire while at Griffith Park, you just ''know'' something is very, very wrong.]]
622* OptionalSexualEncounter: Both male and female players can have one with Jeanette, if you complete the Santa Monica quests in her favor. Later, a female (non-Nosferatu) player can also have one with Romero, netting a nice experience reward and bypassing one of the most infamously frustrating quests in the game. A player who has slept with him can also return at any time and use him as a blood doll. The patch has since opened the ability for a male player to do the same.
623* OptionalStealth: You're free to solve any kind of situation in the way you're most comfortable with, but a stealth approach will always grant you more points.
624* OrganizedCrimeSidequest:
625** In Downtown LA, buying enough merchandise from [[FriendInTheBlackMarket Fat Larry]] results in you being given a mission to retrieve a briefcase from a gang meeting in a nearby parking garage so Larry can sell it to one of his more important clients... and in an unusual twist, this has absolutely nothing to do with any of the city's Kindred politics, the Ankaran Sarcophagus, or vampires at all.
626** Also in Downtown LA, club owner Venus Dare can hire you as a hitman to get rid of the [[TheMafiya Russian Mob boss]] that [[KillTheCreditor she's indebted to]], if only so she isn't forced to continue paying the rent as his glorified SexSlave... or, if you can negotiate with said boss, you can eliminate Venus on his behalf in exchange for a bigger payoff. Once again, this is so divorced from the usual goings-on in the World of Darkness that it might as well belong to a different game.
627** In Chinatown, "The Hitman Impasse" mission results in you getting caught in a tug-of-war between two retired assassins who want access to a major cash reward that they agreed to share in [[WeUsedToBeFriends their friendlier days]]. You're hired to kill one of the two and bring the survivor the victim's key in exchange for a cut of the money; as such, the bulk of the mission is spent on a hilarious game of back-and-forth as each of the two ex-Triad hitmen try to turn you against the other. However, [[VideogameCaringPotential if you feel like earning some humanity points]], you can convince the two of them to reconcile and share the money.
628* OurVampiresAreDifferent: Goes with being part of ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade''. Jack fills you in on the details over the course of the tutorial.
629-->'''Jack:''' Forget the books and the movies. [[VampiresHateGarlic Garlic?]] Worthless. [[HolyBurnsEvil A cross?]] Pff, shove it right up their ass. A stake? Only if it catches you in the heart and then it just paralyzes you. [[CannotCrossRunningWater Running water?]] Eh, it's no problem. I bathe. [[ThePigpen Occasionally]]. Now, [[BoomHeadshot a shotgun blast to the head]]? Oh, that's trouble. [[KillItWithFire Fire?]] That's ''real'' trouble. [[WeakenedByTheLight Sunlight?]] Well, you catch a sunrise and [[DeaderThanDead it's all over]], kiddo.
630* OverlyPrePreparedGag: One lasting the entire game. [[spoiler: The entire Ankharan Sarcophagus plot turns out to be an elaborate knock-knock joke by Jack and the Cabbie.]]
631* OverlyNarrowSuperlative: A dialog option allows the player to say that Therese is "the most powerful Kindred in all of Santa Monica". Although it sounds impressive at first, as far as the playable character knows, there are only 4 Kindred in Santa Monica.
632* ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish: In every computer you hack, you find them. So much, in fact, that if you have a password list handy, you don't even need to spend points to raise your Hacking feat[[note]]There is at least one mod (''Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines: Camarilla Edition'') which changes some of the passwords, among other gameplay modifications[[/note]]. Also, the password is most of the time an existing word (instead of a random string of digits and letters), which is often related to the place where you find the computer, like [[spoiler:"optometry" to disable cameras in the hospital, "sinner" to read some files in the computer of the peep-show owner, or "autopsy" to access (and delete) the results of experiments on vampires in the Fu Syndicate building]].
633** The trope is lampshaded in an office of Kamikaze Zen, where there is a mail of a programmer complaining that his boss password is the man's surname written backwards.
634* PathOfMostResistance: Siding with either half of the BigBadDuumvirate against the other will cut the end game in half, [[spoiler:but reward with you a BadEnding. For the better ones, you need to put the work in.]]
635* PermanentlyMissableContent: There are several areas which can be accessed only one time (the Museum, the Giovannis Mansion, the Hollowbrook Hostel, the Monastery, etc), and most of them feature unique items which give stat boosts, tomes permanently increasing stats/skills, or sidequest-related items.
636** It's within your best interest to be at least ''a little'' cordial with [=NPCs=], as being too rude will actually piss a good number of them off enough to directly cut you off from several quests and might even end in a fight. Being sufficently antagonistic to Knox, E, Damsel, Arthur Kilpatrik, and Velvet in particular can cost you your ability to complete some quite lengthy and rewarding questlines. Thankfully, the game is quite lenient with this mechanic and you'd have to be directly ''trying'' to anger them in order to trigger it.
637* PineappleSurprise: Nines Rodriguez saves the PC from a gang of Sabbat shovelheads by threatening them with a grenade.
638* PointAndClickMap: The taxi / sewer map which serves to leave the current district.
639* PointOfNoReturn: The game lets you wander freely through unlocked areas right up until [[spoiler:Griffith Park]]. Once you head off for that quest, you're locked into a sequence of three to four endgame missions. The game does allow you to buy blood, weapons and so on in between stops.
640* PolarOppositeTwins: Jeanette (the nymphomaniac party-girl) and Therese (the strait-laced businesswoman) Voerman. Jeanette comes across as an overly-stereotypical Toreador (flirty, hedonistic, outgoing), while Therese comes across as an overly-stereotypical Ventrue (cool, collected, and controlling). [[spoiler: The player later learns they are actually the same vampire; Jeanette is a SplitPersonality, the manifestation of Therese's Malkavian insanity and the result of her disassociation from being molested by her father as a child.]]
641** Interestingly enough, [[spoiler:Therese always stands on the left side of the room's screen, as in left-brain, and Jeanette always stands on the right. When she's having her FreakOut, she stands in the middle.]]
642** There's a [[{{Foreshadowing}} subtle warning]] - for anyone who's paid close attention or knows the setting - that there's more than mere sibling rivalry at play, because [[spoiler:one of the sisters mentions having Embraced the other, which means they can't be of different clans (although Therese never claims to be Ventrue, just behaves like one, so the player might think that's just her manifestation of Malkavian Psychosis).]]
643** If you are a Malkavian [[spoiler:you know from the spot that they are the same person]], though it is cleverly hidden in the very colorful speech and almost impossible to get during your first playthrough. The Malkavian [[spoiler:calls Jeanette and Therese the white and black daughter of Janus respectivly. Janus is a roman god with two faces.]]
644* PosthumousCharacter: Technically applies to all Kindred if you want to be cheeky about it, but joking aside, Alistair Grout. One can learn much about him from his audio diaries, but he is already ash by the time the PlayerCharacter arrives at his mansion.
645* PowerBornOfMadness: Malkavians, obviously. Their powers range from seeing bits from the past and future to being able to induce their insane thoughts into anyone they choose, provided it's not a very powerful or strong willed individual.
646* PrecisionFStrike: Venus uses one to underscore a moment of TranquilFury where she asks you to kill the man who's been [[SexualExtortion sexually extorting]] her:
647-->'''Venus:''' I refuse to... ''fuck'' that fat, misogynistic old man one more time to hold on to the club. So I need someone to eliminate him.
648* ProperlyParanoid: You can overhear some EnemyChatter at the beach house between the goons who beat up Mercurio. One is disquieted by Merc's apparent HealingFactor and thinks they should've outright killed him, as someone like that may come back to get revenge... or have powerful friends exact it for him. They are slaughtered either by your hand or Merurio's, after he convalesces.
649* PropheciesAreAlwaysRight: Shortly after you place the Bad Luck Charm in the target's locker, said target promptly appears and gets into an argument that likely forces you to kill him -- exactly as Ox intended. A clever player can get out of the encounter non-lethally, in which case Ox is [[DevelopersForesight disappointed]] that his ploy went OffTheRails.
650* ProtectiveCharm: [[spoiler:Strauss]] can be convinced to give the fledgling the Rune of the Third Eye, a token that reduces the damage they suffer from [[spoiler:the Gargoyle]]'s blows.
651* PsychicAssistedSuicide: The Suicide and Mass Suicide powers of the Dominate discipline force their targets to strangle themselves to death.[[note]](This is a considerable power bump from the tabletop game, where only a master of the Discipline can force people to harm themselves directly.)[[/note]]
652* PsychoticSmirk: Jeanette Voerman, a Malkavian seductress, favours this look.
653* PurpleProse: Malkavian speech has plenty of this.
654* PuzzleBoss: The werewolf in Griffith Park is completely invincible, so you can either evade it until the tram returns (thankfully it's not very smart, although it can tear doors to pieces, leading to hilarious OhCrap moments) or you can find another way to deal with it... [[spoiler: If you're curious, you can smash him between a particular door. Subverted: Killing the Werewolf one-on-one can actually be achieved (in Unofficial Patch only) by using a combination of maxed-out attributes, artifacts, disciplines, and the Tal'Mahe'Ra Blade (or Protean if the PC in question is a gangrel) to buff your stats up to eleven, which is only possible through the use of the console or possibly NewGamePlus. It's still a very difficult fight. If you want to try this, prepare for a WorthyOpponent.]]
655[[/folder]]
656
657[[folder:Q-T]]
658* RagDollPhysics: So much so that enemies go flying at even a single hit and you'll often have to wait for them to get up just to hit them again.
659* RapeAsBackstory: [[spoiler: Jeanette and Therese were sexually abused by their father as children, which is the root of their Malkavian psychosis. When you talk to them during their attempt to "kill" each other, Jeanette taunts Therese with the knowledge that [[RapeAndRevenge Therese was the one who killed their father]]... because she caught him in bed ''with Jeanette.'' It's unclear if she did it to protect her sister, or out of a twisted sense of jealousy.]]
660** Also a possible Background for the PC, if you have a patch that restores the DummiedOut Background system.
661* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Humorously, this can be done by the player; depending on who they sides with at the end of the game. Should one decide to [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere go it alone,]] you even get to do it to all the major factions who have tried to use you throughout; [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge and]] [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu it]] [[EarthShatteringKaboom is]] ''[[FlippingTheBird glorious.]]''
662* RegeneratingHealth: The player character's health regenerates (very, very slowly) over time, and takes even longer after receiving aggravated damage. Feeding will accelerate the process dramatically. Several of the patches restore a DummiedOut discipline called "Blood Heal", which briefly accelerates the process also.
663* ResourceReimbursement: Two Thaumaturgy powers fire [[BloodyMurder blood projectiles]] that return to the player character after striking an enemy, replenishing their casting cost with stolen blood.
664* RevengePornBlackmail: {{Implied|Trope}} at the Lotus Blossom massage parlor. It's a front for the [[TheTriadsAndTheTongs Tongs]], and the second-floor rooms have [[HappyEndingMassage scantily-clad masseuses]] and peepholes with hidden recording equipment.
665* RevolversAreJustBetter: Subverted. The .38 revolver has very poor accuracy and does low damage, though this could possibly be attributed to the game engine. Played straight with the Colt Anaconda.
666* RewardedAsATraitorDeserves: If you [[spoiler: side with Ming Xiao, she decides [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness you've served your purpose]] once [=LaCroix=] is out of the way. Though she spares the Fledgling's life for their service, her 'mercy' involves chaining them to the Sarcophagus and throwing it into the sea.]]
667* RewatchBonus: Very shortly before the endgame [[spoiler: Becket seemingly loses his nerve, abandons his attempt to open the Sarcophagus, and warns the Fledgling to not open it under any circumstances. At the time it comes off like him concluding there really is an Antediluvian inside, but on later playthroughs it's clear that he's figured out exactly [[SomebodySetUsUpTheBomb what's inside]] but doesn't want to make powerful enemies by telling you outright.]]
668** Your encounter with "Nines" outside of Grout's mansion reads very differently once you've already played through the game once. In a first playthrough, you might view his odd behaviour as him being nervous or shifty because of guilt. But in a second playthrough, his behaviour points out some very noticeable hints toward [[spoiler:who you're ''really'' speaking to. Not only is Ming Xiao unable to properly replicate Nines' casual-but-gruff way of speaking (it sounds very forced and unnatural when she attempts it, and her inflections are all wrong), but she accidentally slips back into her own speaking patterns near the end. Suffice to say, Nines is not the kind of person who would say "Pardon me" to excuse himself, but Ming Xiao absolutely is.]]
669* RiddleForTheAges:
670** The game never answers ''why'' the Fledgling was sired, why their sire did it, nor why [=LaCroix=] was eager to kill them.
671** Kent Alan Ryan. [[spoiler: His remains and driver's license can be found deep into an entirely optional labyrinthian wing of Grout's mansion, so finding out what happened to him at all is, in itself, easy to miss. Skelter seems to have no clue what happened to Kent and worries about making enemies by taking care of Patty, so it's unlikely that he was doing some sort of mission for the Anarchs that went south. So what ''was'' an Anarch doing so far within the mansion of the Malkavian Primogen? The game doesn't even hint towards an answer.]]
672** Grout's so-called "Faustian bargain" to save his own life. What was it? Who did he strike it with? We never find out.
673* RightForTheWrongReasons: Alastair Grout's logs initially paint him as surprisingly lucid for his dismissal of much outdated Freudian theory - only for him to express his longing for the days when phrenology was all the rage.
674* RomanceSidequest: Played with. Velvet's quests, if done with no unneeded violence and if she's spoken to respectfully/flirtily, are essentially the closest thing the game has to this. There's no kissing nor any indication you're in a committed relationship, but she will send the PC love letters and openly states you've "stolen her heart", as well as allowing you to use her AffectionateNickname "VV".
675* RoomFullOfCrazy: The prosthetics lab. Pictures of extreme bondage on the walls with the eyes and mouths crossed out (It's research for torque, apparently), huge bloodstains, torture tools in neat little rows all over the place, and it's such a long area with so many downward staircases and down ramps and side rooms that by the time you fight the guy you're totally freaked out. Which makes him kind of a letdown in the end.
676** It's really an interesting bit of meta-horror; the only reason we're not terrified out of our wits by Gimble is that he's bitten off ''way'' more than he can chew.
677* RuleThirtyFour: InUniverse. Gary Golden is the quest giver of a minor sidequest which allows you to exchange some trinkets against sexy posters of most of the female vampire [=NPCs=] of the game (usually when they were still alive), which are then used to decorate the walls of your haven.
678* SchmuckBait: At the end of the game, you can open the Sarcophagus, after nearly everyone you've ever met has told you that it's a bad idea. [[spoiler:And it is, though not in the way you'd expect.]]
679* SealedEvilInACan: What everyone believes the Ankaran Sarcophagus to be. [[spoiler: Majorly and hilariously subverted at the end.]]
680* SecretAIMoves: Characters who use Protean will cause its users to instead adopt a hobbling, ape like walk that is slightly slower than running. Unlike the player character, enemies who use Protean have a forward lunging attack which allows them to almost instantly close the distance, and land a surprise hit. Given how Protean users deal huge amounts of damage and the player can't ever learn the same move, it's almost a case of TheComputerIsACheatingBastard.
681* SecretKeeper:
682** Pressing Bertram about Jeanette after you have your final (story relevant) encounter with her and Therese will reveal he's well aware that [[spoiler: the two of them are the same person, to the point where he'll even compliment the clever nickname given to them by the Malkavian player.]] For whatever reason, he generally keeps it to himself and continues to let Jeanette think she's pulling one over on him.
683*** You'll also become this for Jeanette and Therese, but you can subvert it somewhat by telling Beckett about their secret. Granted, he doesn't seem to tell anybody about it and [[spoiler: Therese and/or Jeanette]] never seem to find out you did so.
684** You can be this for [=LaCroix=] about his alliance with [[spoiler: the Kuei-jin]]. While you ''can'' tell Damsel, Nines (Anarch end only) and Strauss (Camarilla end only) about it, you don't ''have'' to. You even have the option to justify it to [=LaCroix=], [[YesMan saying he only did what was necessary]], which is the only way to get him to admit to it directly.
685** You can do this for Strauss regarding [[spoiler: the Gargoyle, even while Anarch aligned. While it's perfectly possible to tell Issac about Strauss' connection to it, it's actually more rewarding not to. Keeping the secret will earn you a reward from both Issac ''and'' Strauss, while telling Issac will not earn you anything extra and will leave you locked out of the Tremere Chantry for the rest of the game... Of course, [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential there's always the option to go to Strauss first, get your reward, ''then'' go to Issac for his reward and rat Strauss out anyways.]]]]
686** Subverted with Samantha, your human friend who recognizes you in Hollywood. Try as you might, there's simply no way to convince her not to make the masquerade-violating phone call if you admit who you are. You're stuck either taking the violation, convincing (whether through persuasion or brainwashing) her you aren't her missing friend, or [[KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade killing her]].
687* SerialKiller:
688** Throughout a large portion of the game, there's a destructive serial killer covered by the news. The player eventually has the opportunity to deal with him.
689** Dr. Gimble is one of these, but little does he know that the player character is ''far'' more dangerous.
690* SeveredHeadSports: An easter egg is to be found by picking up the severed head of a serial killer's victim and throwing it through a nearby basketball hoop.
691* SexSells: Presumably the reason [[MsFanservice Jeanette]] is leering at you on the cover instead of a more plot-relevant character.[[note]]Although, while it's not immediately obvious, the man in the distance whose shadow is casting the Camarilla ankh is Prince [=LaCroix=].[[/note]]
692* ShootTheDog: In order to uphold TheMasquerade, you'll sometimes be forced to do unsavory things to innocent people that will cost you your [[KarmaMeter Humanity]]. With the right skills, you might be able to find more peaceful solutions, but good luck getting all of them in a single playthrough.
693* SharpDressedMan: The male player Ventrue, Toreador and Tremere potentially, doubling as a BadassInANiceSuit. There's also [=LaCroix=] and Issac, who spend the entire game decked out in a full business suits. Contrary to the rest of his clan, Gary dresses in a classy bowtie and vest, perhaps to represent his time as a former star.
694** One of the generic npcs, usually used to represent blue bloods, wears a nice suit.
695* ShopFodder:
696** Watches, jewelry, pills, and car stereos have no use beside being sold to merchants for cash.
697** Zig-zagged with Morphine vials. You can give one to Mercurio early on for experience points. After that, they have no other use than selling them.
698* ShortRangeShotgun: [[ExaggeratedTrope Exaggerated]] by the Utica/Ithaca shotgun that can be found early in the game. At point-blank range it deals large amounts of damage, even with no skills in firearms, and sends anyone hit by it [[RagdollPhysics flying across the room]]. At "long" range (about twenty feet, given the game's level design) it will struggle to even scratch enemies, sometimes only dealing '''one''' hit-point's worth of damage.
699* ShoutOut: [[ShoutOut/VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines a page of them.]]
700* ShownTheirWork: With an [[RuleOfFun Experience system that makes you as powerful as an Elder vampire in a matter of days (not really days, as it's implied that at least several months pass, which is still a short amount of time, but nonetheless makes more sense) aside]], ''Bloodlines'' is amazingly faithful to its parent setting and contains more {{Continuity Nod}}s than you can shake a stick at.
701** Some people speculate that [[spoiler: Caine]] has been lowering your generation to help you out, so they believe the experience and discipline system is explained within the plot. Although going by your blood pool you start out at generation 8, already a lot more powerful than the tabletop standard of 13.
702** Beyond that, one of the designers mentioned in an interview how [[spoiler:Jeanette/Therese developing an alternate personality as a way to cope with childhood sexual abuse is based on the known mechanic of how Dissociative Identity Disorder develops in real life.]]
703** Dr. Ingvar Johansen has a stereotypical, yet realistic Norwegian accent often heard by politicians and public speakers.
704* SideEffectsInclude: '''WARNING:''' The Surgeon General Has Determined That Cigarette Smoking Can Cause Cancer, Lung Disease, Emphysema, Diarrhea, Jock Itch, VD, Alien Invasion, Swamp Foot, and May Lead to the Death of Cute Little Puppies.
705* SignsOfTheEndTimes: This game runneth over with all kinds of approaching apocalypse signs. [[spoiler:Turns out, most of them are fake or just misinterpreted.]]
706* SlidingScaleOfGameplayAndStoryIntegration:
707** A number of npcs give you free experience points, justified in-universe as them teaching you and giving you tips relevant to that skill. Nines can teach you the brawl and melee skill (Brawl before the Elizabeth Dane quest, Melee afterward, but only if you are below level 3), if you have a good relationship with him. Romero will teach you marksmanship if you're lacking the skill points, but only after you help him out with the graveyard. Beckett is the most significant one: if you ask him to teach you about something, you'll get a number of relevant stat bonuses--a bonus to Research by talking about possible origins of vampires, an extra point to a discipline if you're playing a Gangrel, etc.
708-->'''Beckett:''' Try not to think about how much it's going to hurt. Remember, you're already dead. (+1 Fortitude)
709** The Masquerade is actually important, if the player has several Masquerade Violations, hostile vampire hunters will spawn in the hubs who will attack on sight which normally only appear during certain missions.
710* SinisterNudity:
711** During the mission to Gallery Noir, you encounter a series of paintings depicting [[MonsterProgenitor Caine]]'s biblical origins. Following his murder of Abel and his transformation into the first vampire, Caine is always seen naked and streaked in blood, as is Lilith; for good measure, both have been made to look as creepy as possible.
712** Andrei the Tzimisce's fleshcrafted creations are all naked, which becomes especially noticeable in the case of the ''Vozhd'', an entity made of three human beings fused together to form one monster - all three of them naked and still possessing enough of their anatomy to look ''really'' disturbing.
713* SlobsVersusSnobs: The preoccupied-with-beauty Toreador versus the clobbered-with-an-ugly-stick Nosferatu. Also, the Ventrue "blue bloods" versus the Brujah "rabble."
714** If you're playing a Toreador or Ventrue, the first thing out of your mouth upon first seeing Gary is "you are the most obscene creature I've ever seen", despite him being downright ''handsome'' by Nosferatu standards. This comes after Gary informs you that:
715--->I want to stick your lovely face in a piranha tank; I want to apply an acid glaze to your sculptured body; I want to throw your pocket mirror under a thresher and watch you fetch it.
716* SmugSnake: [[spoiler: [=LaCroix=] ]] is a perfect example of this trope - a powerful, cunning, self-satisfied individual who is clearly a MagnificentBastard wannabe... but somehow doesn't appear to be really up for the role, often losing his cool and being generally distrusted or despised by pretty much every other [=NPC=] in the game, good or evil. It's worth noting that in spite of being the BigBad in almost every ending, he is not even worth a boss fight - you face his [[TheDragon Dragon]] instead.
717* SortingAlgorithmOfEvil: The attack on Venture Tower in the climax follows a conventional formula.
718** On the first floor, you deal with harmless FatIdiot Chunk and a small group of mortal guards. A PC who's paid a modicum of attention to their combat stats will probably cut through both obstacles like a knife through butter.
719** As you ascend the tower, the grunts are replaced by special ops with more powerful weapons, clad head to toe in heavy equipment that prevents you from feeding on them.
720** Near the apex, you start encountering [=LaCroix=]'s best: Ventrue loyalists with heavy weapons and access to vampiric disciplines.
721** Finally, you face off with [[TheDragon the Sheriff]] in a sprawling two-part battle that ends with you coming face-to-face with our NonActionBigBad himself, whose fate is decided outside of combat.
722* SourceMusic: A lot of the game's music is actually heard over in-game radios or being played in clubs.
723* SpiritualSuccessor: As noted above, both in gameplay and the general feel and atmosphere of the world, the game is strongly modeled on ''VideoGame/DeusEx''.
724* SplitPersonalityMerge:[[spoiler:Therese and Jeanette. If you're nice to both of them and have more Persuasion points, you can convince them to work together. [[TalkingToThemself Weird]] future [[FinishingEachOthersSentences conversations]] will follow.]]
725* SplitPersonalityTakeover: [[spoiler:One of the ways the Voerman sisters' problem can be solved - have either Therese or Jeanette shoot the other and kill her, so only one personality is left.]]
726* ASpyAtTheSpa: The Lotus Blossom spa and massage parlour is a front for the local [[TheTriadsAndTheTongs Tong]] gang (and, therefore, for [[spoiler:the [[ChineseVampire Kuei-jin vampire]] cabal]]). Given the peepholes and [[CaughtOnTape hidden recording equipment]] in some of the rooms, it's implied that the Tongs engineer [[HappyEndingMassage compromising situations]] to use as {{Blackmail}} material.
727* StaticRoleExchangeableCharacter: It's implied that all of the vampires in the creation screen exist in the game world, regardless of whether they are picked or not. Most notably, your sire will always be the opposite gender version of your character, and the vampires that capture you will always be some of the vampires that you don't pick. The handful of vampires [[spoiler:stalking the streets of Santa Monica after the Blood Hunt is called on you]] also use the PC vampire models from the playable clans, and [=LaCroix=]'s loyalists on the higher floors of Venture Tower use the Ventrue model.
728* StealingFromThieves:
729** The {{Starter Villain}}s are gangsters who robbed and beat your FriendInTheBlackMarket rather than deliver on a deal. You can choose to steal the money and supplies back, or [[PayEvilUntoEvil take them off their dead bodies]].
730** If you question your orders to sabotage and rob a charity art exhibit, the quest-giver reassures you that it's a FakeCharity going to line a vampire's pockets. This information [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration lets you]] steal the "charity" money without penalty to the KarmaMeter.
731* StealthPun:
732** Did you ever notice that the name of the building you know as "The Ventrue tower" is actually spelled "Venture tower"?
733** Delacroix means "[[Webcomic/EerieCuties of the cross]]" in French. An ironic name for a vampire.
734** The thin-blood E's comment that he doesn't want to be in L.A. when [[spoiler: "the Jack comes out of the box"]]. See {{Foreshadowing}} above.
735* StrawCritic: The Toreador, as ever. "Who's going to organize art shows without the Camarilla? You? Free mud wrestling for everyone!"
736* {{Stripperiffic}}: The female Malkavian's armor graphics are all literally stripper outfits. Somehow this manages to be [[FanDisservice more disturbing than erotic]] (though many would say the opposite). There's nothing quite like beating somebody into submission with a fire axe while wearing a sexy cop outfit and giggling maniacally the whole time.
737* StupidityIsTheOnlyOption: At Griffith Park you're forced to either babble out questions or obliviously tease Nines for being worried about the [[spoiler: werewolves]] instead of just listening to him, as there's no way of cutting your dialogue short. Either way, because of the PC's stalling, the lift leaves without you and you both end up [[spoiler: nearly being killed by werewolves. The fight, Nines' near-death, as well as the bloodhunt that will be subsequently called on the player for said believed-death, could have all been avoided if they had simply listened to Nines when he first said they needed to leave.]]
738* SuicideMission: [[spoiler:Prince [=LaCroix=] keeps sending the player on Suicide Missions to get rid of you without sparking a civil war with the Anarchs.]]
739* SunGlassesAtNight: Most notably Beckett wears his shades ''always''. Justified in that he uses it to hide permanent inhuman-looking eyes and can see perfectly well in the dark. Some others apply too, including certain clan/gender/clothing combinations of the player character.
740* SuperNotDrowningSkills: Vampires don't need to breathe, though there are only a few parts with swimmable water anyway.
741** It is enough to turn the [[spoiler: Kuei-jin ending]] from a FamilyUnfriendlyDeath to a FateWorseThanDeath though.
742* SuperpowerLottery: Downplayed but present with the Auspex discipline of all things. The basic idea is that it lets you see better. Sounds pretty unimpressive, but it provides ''six'' different bonuses at once - [[InnateNightVision night vision]], the ability to see enemies [[XRayVision through walls]], [[ImprobableAimingSkills excellent aim]], [[BoomHeadshot increased gun damage]], [[NoSell drastically increased resistance to everything]], and greatly improved [[HollywoodHacking hacking]] ability.
743* SupportingLeader: Nines and [[spoiler: Strauss]], if you sided with one of them in the end. Moreso Nines, as he will directly mention that he has his soldiers fighting off [[BigBad LaCroix's]] soldiers while you personally storm Venture tower.
744* TakeThat:
745** When asked to confess their darkest secret, one of the confessions the player can choose is having "voted Republican".
746-->'''Venus:''' "Oh, I don't think I have anything that can wash that particular kind of sin."
747** Velvet tells you of a human she knows writing a movie script about "secret societies" of things that go bump in the night and powerful elders ruling the world from behind closed doors. It's blatantly obvious that what she's really saying is "this human is being fed information on our society and is writing a movie about it." One of your possible responses is, "What? He's writing a movie about the [[UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush Bush Administration]]?"
748** The television news also mentioned a Senator Limperman being outraged at [[VideoGame/{{Postal}} at a game]] [[LampshadeHanging taking unsubtle shots at him]], referencing [[MoralGuardians Senator Joe Lieberman]].
749** After scamming one of the thin-bloods, you have the option of telling him that the President of the United States is the [[Film/TheLostBoys head vampire]].
750** Two to Valve Software, who requested the game be delayed so that ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'' would be the first game on the market using the Source engine, as computer passwords in the museum: valveleaks, steamblows. Kinda ironic given that it's now sold on Steam, but hey.
751** It is possible to try buying a nuke from Mercurio. Here is his answer:
752--> Only a lunatic'd want that kind of ordnance. That's why they got'em in Washington.
753** If you lack the requirements to read a skill book, there are two of the descriptions for it:
754--> As you are a product of the American public education system, this tome is beyond your comprehension.\
755In the game of life your reading skills are [[VideoGame/ETTheExtraTerrestrial ET for the 2600.]]
756* TalkativeLoon: The Malkavian PC's dialog, sadly unvoiced as they're the best lines in the game.
757* [[ThatManIsDead That Woman Is Dead]]: Talking to Velvet Velour as a Malkavian lets you ask her why she doesn't use her real name [[spoiler:Susan]]. Velvet reacts by speaking coldly about [[spoiler:Susan]] in the third person as a "weak woman who died".
758** You can also invoke it literally when attempting to convince Samantha (a friend from your living days) that you're not...you.
759* TallDarkAndHandsome: The male Tremere [=PC=], Nines and Ash are all dark-haired and conventionally handsome. Especially fitting for Ash, being a former-actor-turned-[[VampiresAreSexGods Toreador]].
760* ThereAreNoGirlsOnTheInternet: The Ground Zero Internet café in Hollywood has a men's bathroom, but no ladies'.
761* ThereIsNoCure: One of the [[SuperLoser Thin-Bloods]] holds out hope that he can cure his vampirism with a [[SuperhumanTransfusion blood transfusion]] or by [[NoOntologicalInertia killing an imaginary "head vampire"]]. You can tell him the truth gently or [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential sell him bogus equipment]] for the "cure," potentially getting him killed.
762* ToBeLawfulOrGood: Comes up sometimes when someone has [[HeKnowsTooMuch seen behind the masquerade]], and the player must choose to kill an otherwise innocent to uphold the masquerade (sacrificing humanity to uphold Kindred law) or let them go and risk a masquerade violation (violating Kindred laws but being more humane.) The penalties for either are defused somewhat by the fact the game offers many opportunities to regain lost humanity or masquerade points.
763* TokenEvilTeammate: From a Camarilla perspective, the Ventrue seem to be this: While every Camarilla clan has its positive or at least morally ambiguous representatives (the Brujah have Nines, Damsel and Jack; the Gangrel have Beckett and Skelter; the Nosferatu have Bertram and all the other non-villains in the Warrens; the Tremere have Strauss; the Toreador have Isaac, VV and Ash; and the Malkavians have Grout and the Voermann sisters), the only named Ventrue you run into is [[BigBad LaCroix]], [[SmugSnake the Prince]].
764* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Damsel and Velvet, respectively.
765* TooDumbToLive:
766** There's a thin-blood on the beach at Santa Monica who can be talked into handing over his money in exchange for 'special gum for vampire teeth', 'unicorn blood' (i.e. ordinary blood packs) for a blood transfusion and the 'holy stake' (i.e. a random piece of debris on the beach) to kill the "head vampire." Once you've sold him all this with a minimal persuasion check, he'll cheerfully run off on a suicide mission against either [=LaCroix=], Nine Rodriguez, or the President of the United States, depending on who you've pegged as the "head vampire." Even if you hadn't come along and conned him, it's hard to imagine his life expectancy among the undead would have been very long.
767** Helping the [[spoiler:Kuei-jin]]. Of course, you can't die so you just end up living forever [[spoiler:chained to a box beneath the ocean]].
768** Prince [=LaCroix=], as well, for planning to open the Sarcophagus and [[spoiler:try to diablerize the [[PhysicalGod Antediluvian]] believed to be sleeping within]].
769** None of the factions can really match the utter foolishness of the Society of Leopold. Their 'field agents' dress like your typical cliche [[TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness oWoD]] character, making them stand out like sore thumbs; their base is littered with ammo crates for the benefit of invaders; the actions of the hunters are so stupid, it gets lampshaded; and their laser trip-wires, instead of simply setting off alarms, detonate rigged explosives inside their own quarters - and are comically easy to turn against them.
770* TransformationDiscretionShot: Most transformation scenes in the game occur with a visible transition, from Gangrel player characters to [=NPCs=] like Beckett and Andrei. However, when [[DragonLady Ming Xiao]] reveals that [[spoiler: she was the one who framed Nines Rodriguez for the murder of Alistair Grout]], the moment where she shapeshifts to demonstrate the fact is concealed by a bright flash of light; when the light fades, her new form (that of [[spoiler: Nines himself]]) is just standing there in front of you.
771* TrapIsTheOnlyOption: At one point, the main quest requires you to go to the headquarters of a MadScientist whom you know has already captured one vampire, then to walk into a small dead-end room at his direction. You need not act surprised when you are also captured, though you might wonder why the LockedDoor on the ''other'' side of the lobby is impervious to your powers until you need to break ''out''.
772* TheTriadsAndTheTongs: The Tongs are antagonists in a couple of quests.
773* {{Troll}}:
774** Andrei, of all people, calls into ''The Deb of Night'' and trolls the host in one of the late-game broadcasts. He does this by speaking entirely truthfully (or at least the truth as he sees it) about current events the regular humans don't see, mostly signs of Gehenna.
775** Gorgeous Gary hasn't evolved beyond the joys of trolling either, boss.
776** The museum employee who placed a huge Velociraptor figure next to a door, scaring the crap out fellow employees, and likely you too when you break into the museum.
777** The PC gets a few opportunities here and there, sometimes depending on the clan. For example, an exchange the Toreador PC can have with Imalia:
778-->'''Toerador PC:''' "Who's Tawni Sessions?"
779-->'''Imalia:''' "Tawni Sessions is a wannabe face-girl with no talent and cabby little knees. Did you know she got Model of the Year? Before I got here, she would have had a hard time making the catalogue for 'Jacque Penney'."
780-->'''Toreador PC:''' "OH! ''That'' Tawni Sessions. She's so hot right now..."
781* {{Tsundere}}: She's no one's LoveInterest by any means, but Damsel is a cute example of this trope that consists of 97% tsuntsun and 3% deredere. [[spoiler:If you go anarch in the finale and Damsel sees you survived the werewolf attack she honestly sounds like she wants to hug you...for a fraction of a second.]]
782* TwistEnding: [[spoiler:In the independent and Anarch endings, you hand [=LaCroix=] the key to the Ankharan Sarcophagus if your humanity's up to snuff (probably realizing that thing contains more trouble than it's worth). When he opens it to diablerize the ancient vampire within, the box contains... Half a ton of C4, a timer counting down from '5', and a note saying "BOOM! :) Love, Jack". Cue maddened laughter from [=LaCroix=], and likely from the player too. The actual occupant of the sarcophagus, a perfectly inert and ordinary mummy, is seen "hanging" with Jack on a hill outside of town.]]
783[[/folder]]
784
785[[folder:U-Z]]
786* UltimateFinalExam: Having been illegally Embraced and only spared execution due to public outcry, you're given a number of jobs in Santa Monica to prove yourself worthy of a place in the Camarilla (including the removal of werewolf blood from a local clinic); the final task requires you to destroy a Sabbat warehouse - alone and with minimal resources apart from the bomb.
787* UndeathlyPallor:
788** Most vampires are gray, largely since the standard Caucasian mortal model is pretty pale already.
789** The female Malkavian PC's so white, it looks like she powders her face with flour.
790** The female Tremere PC has a pale purplish hue.
791** The Male Brujah, Skelter and the Sheriff are pale brown, as they're originally black.
792** The monstrous-looking male and female Nosferatu are fleshy and green-tinted respectively.
793** Strauss looks downright ''blue'' in most lights.
794* UnderestimatingBadassery: Most human mooks, aside from the Society of Leopold, don't know the random guy or gal who just strolled into their sights is, in fact, a bloodsucking monster and will attack without realizing just how outmatched they really are. Many [[CurbStompBattle curb-stomp battles ensue]].
795** Dennis and his crew on the beach treat you like any other customer, making sure to intimidate you before laying the groundwork for any sort of deal--Dennis will even try to hit on a non-nosferatu female character. Little does he know, however, that you're a vampire sent to kill him in revenge for that guy he just robbed.
796** [[spoiler: Gimble]] is a human serial killer who tries to lure who he thinks is an unsuspecting wannabe bounty hunter into being his next victim, only to find he's invited an actual supernatural monster into his lair.
797** When you burst into his office in Glaze, local mob boss Johnny immediately starts rattling off threats and insults... only to realize his intruder isn't exactly human too late.
798** Subverted by the Mandarin, who is ''extremely'' prepared for your inhuman strength. He hides himself behind thick concrete walls and bulletproof glass, only speaking to you indirectly through web cams and intercoms. You likely wouldn't have ever gotten to him if he hadn't made the mistake of putting pressurized gas canisters near one of his windows, allowing you access into his lab with the blast.
799*** Unfortunately [[spoiler: his masters, the Kuei-jin,]] are not so clever, giving the vampire clans insulting names and dismissing the power they have, seemingly unaware that Prince [=LaCroix=] is a low ranking Prince in a very [[ReassignedToAntarctica unprestigious position]], and the big powers are [[PhysicalGod much, much more dangerous.]]
800* UndergroundLevel: The Nosferatu hideout, after the sewers, though it is not so much a level as it is a town.
801* UndyingLoyalty: Should you choose not to report his failure, [[spoiler: Mercurio]] shall be your most solid ally throughout the entire game, setting you up even for elite weapons and armor near the endgame [[spoiler:even if you betray the Camarilla]].
802* UngratefulBastard:
803** Kiki, a girl that got kidnapped by the Tong crime gang; as you brave gunfire to reach her prison which is a boarded up closet, all she does is scream at you and call you all sorts of names even after finding out you're not part of the Tong. It gets to the point where you can basically tell her "Shut up or I'll shove your ass back in that closet." She is frightened by the prospect, but goes back to this behavior once safely back at her daddy's place, which is a non-combat area.
804** [[spoiler: Ming Xiao. Hand L.A. to her on a silver platter by siding with her, and she'll respond by giving the Fledgling a FateWorseThanDeath while mocking your belief that you and the Kuei-jin could ever coexist.]]
805* TheUnintelligible: Various CDC types in hazmat suits are standing around Downtown, presumably to deal with the local epidemic. They have lines but they just sound like muffled noises. The Clan Quest Mod adds a quest that involves talking to one of them. The fan voice acting provided only reinforces the trope - thank God for subtitles!
806* UnnaturallyLoopingLocation: The Tremere chantry seems to have some sort of enchantment on it that only allows the player to visit Strauss' office or a small reading room. Trying to go anywhere else will lead to spending several minutes walking in circles.
807* UnusuallyUninterestingSight:
808** Most quest-givers don't give much thought to the appearance of a Nosferatu, beyond an initial surprise, even those who are human without any kind of relationship with the supernatural.
809** You can run with a gun, and no one will be alerted or run away.
810* UriahGambit: There are several characters who would quite like to kill you, but can't for political reasons; so they send you on suicide missions instead. Most notably, Ming Xiao (it's not personal; [[FantasticRacism she just hates your species]]) and [[spoiler:Prince [=LaCroix=], whose pride was hurt when Nines interrupted your execution.]]
811* VampiresAreSexGods: With the Toreador clan it's a given, but generally (save for Nosferatu) the vampires you'll meet in the game fall into the good-looking department. [[spoiler: Even Pisha, despite that her kind is considered a flesh-eating monstrosity amongst vampire society.]] Ironically, despite this, its part of the game's lore that vampires do not generally have sex; Jeanette and her partners (which can include the player) are the exceptions.
812* VampiresHateGarlic: Averted. Jack confirms this is bullshit.
813* VampiresOwnNightClubs: "The Asylum," owned by Therese and Jeanette Voerman, "[[StealthPun Asp Hole]]," owned by Ash, "Vesuvius," (a strip club) owned by Velvet Velour, and "Confession," which can be co-owned by the Player Character.
814* VampireVarietyPack: As part of the Old World of Darkness. There are seven playable vampire breeds ([[LooksLikeOrlok Nosferatu]], [[BeastMan Gangrel]], [[VampiresAreSexGods Toreador]], [[EvilSorcerer Tremere]], [[AristocratsAreEvil Ventrue]], {{Ma|dOracle}}lkavian and [[HotBlooded Brujah]]), and several breeds that appear as antagonists ([[MadScientist Tzimisce]], [[BlackKnight Lasombra]], [[TheMafia Giovanni]], and, should you choose to fight them, [[ImAHumanitarian Nagaraja]], a clanless Caitiff and thin-bloods, not to mention the ''antitribu'' Sabbat clans and the [[ChineseVampire Kuei-jin]]).
815* VampireVords: Only two characters speaks with such an accent. One is ancient, the other is probably ''unfathomably'' ancient.
816* VideoGameCaringPotential:
817** [[spoiler: Jeanette and/or Therese. The way to save them both is difficult to figure out on your own and requires very specific dialogue choices and social skills (Seduction for Jeanette, Persuasion for Therese). If you were unable to convince them to work together again, both of them do seem genuinely sad after killing the other - Jeanette in particular seems to be just about choking back tears.]]
818** Heather. Not only is she TheCutie who positively adores the PC (Blood Bond not withstanding), but if you do take her in, it'll eventually become clear that her proximity to you is putting her in danger. Not only that, but she slowly becomes more and more consumed by you until she changes her entire appearance, drops out of school and gives you all her money. [[spoiler: Should you not release her before the end of the game, by the time the Sabbat attacks [=LaCroix=]'s tower, she'll be murdered.]] It really may just be best for the girl if you turn her away right when she first approaches you outside Venture Tower.
819** Yukie. While fighting the Hengeyokai, she very well ''can'' die, but most players will feel inclined to make sure she doesn't. If she survives, she'll request that you continue to defy your nature and remain good, and you'll part ways on fairly pleasant terms considering she's a HunterOfMonsters and you're... well, a monster. [[spoiler:With the patch installed, she'll show up to help you take down the Kuei-jin in the penultimate level. You have the option to tell her to wait by the front and stop anyone from fleeing instead, as taking her up on this offer will almost certainly lead to her death.]]
820** Zhao. He's likely to end up dead after [[spoiler: revealing to you where Barabus is, however, he ''can'' actually be saved. Doing so is very, very difficult and requires you to basically distract all the Tong mooks yourself, which could get ''you'' killed.]] But, considering he's a [[TheAtoner good man trying to move on from a checkered past]], and a close friend of [[NiceGuy Wong Ho]], the effort to save him is worth it.
821** Wong Ho. [[spoiler: A little digging around Chinatown reveals Ming Xiao is plotting his death, and considering he's one of the nicest people you'll meet in the game, it's likely you'll want to stop that from happening. You can warn him about it and convince him to skip town with his daughter, provided you found the Mardarin's computer and have a high enough persuasion skill.]]
822** Hannah. [[spoiler: Unlike every other example, Hannah is tragically doomed to die no matter what. However, you can decide not to tell her that her boyfriend Paul is dead, and instead LetThemDieHappy by lying and saying he sent you to check up on her.]]
823** The Southland Slasher. [[spoiler: As it turns out, he was a victim of a botched home robbery that ended in the robbers murdering his entire family (children included) pointlessly. After the fact, the perpetrators got off on very light sentencing, and were free again after an unspecified but much too short amount of jailtime. After being Embraced, he'd decided to enact his own justice by savagely murdering [[AssholeVictim his family's killers]]. When you confront him, he'll tell you all this and imply he plans to continue his vigilante ways with other criminals. Typically, you'll have to choose between killing him or leaving him. However, with a persuasion of 8, you can convince him away from vigilantism and can even send him over to join the Anarchs if you're aligned with them.]] Given his sympathetic backstory, you'll ''really'' feel inclined to wait until you have the persuasion before confronting him, because the neither of the other endings will feel remotely as satisfying and heartwarming.
824** The friendly Nosferatu that can be found in the last level of the sewers who rushes to engage [[spoiler: two of the Tzimisce bloated monsters, presumably dying in the process. Saving him is doable, if tricky, but he thanks you afterwards before disappearing, which is just plain heartwarming.]]
825* ViewerFriendlyInterface: Inverted. All the accessible computers in the game work by command line interface.
826* VillainousBreakdown: [=LaCroix=] has a [[spoiler: particularly brief one]].
827** Ming Xiao also [[spoiler:suffers one prior to her BossFight, dropping her usual condescending behavior to lash out at the Fledgling and threatening to send them to be devoured by worms and diseases in the "hell of burrowing maggots" for a thousand years]].
828* VillainousEthicsDecay: The {{retired|Monster}} ProfessionalKiller Lu Fang gripes about how {{the T|riadsAndTheTongs}}ong these days are too disorganized and murder-happy, whereas in his era, they were [[DoWrongRight at least better-organized]]. It's eventually revealed that gang violence in Chinatown really is getting worse, thanks to [[spoiler:the recently arrived vampire Ming Xiao, who's indirectly sponsoring the Tong and exploiting the chaos to build her power base]].
829* ViolationOfCommonSense: So, when was the last time a game gave you one of the best possible endings for handing the BigBad the MacGuffin he needs for his ArtifactOfDoom and then just leaving? [[note]]Yeah, the PC had been warned by that point that the sarcophagus would be bad news for anyone opening it, but they still could not know that it wouldn't involve a pissed-off ancient tearing said opener apart and then going on a bloody rampage around the city, so it was still quite a risk to take.[[/note]]
830* ViolenceIsTheOnlyOption: For the ScrappyLevel, unsurprisingly.
831** For all final levels too. There is a plethora of ways to get through first quests, including talking your way through half of them. But the final quests are always a massacre and if you can't fight, you are screwed. Although there are quests early on that give you a taste of what's to come (see WakeUpCallBoss below), and many missions involve stealth, which is still applicable to these last sections, so you should be prepared anyway.
832* {{Wangst}}: [[invoked]]Mocked; when switching from the Camarilla to the Anarchs, you can tell Damsel, "[[EmoTeen I hate my parents and I want a divorce.]]"
833* WakeUpCallBoss: The "Cathayan" ([[AllThereInTheManual a Kindred-coined term for the Kuei-jin]], in the Santa Monica warehouse side-quest qualifies. If your character is combat-oriented, however, he is fairly easy to kill without giving it much thought; in this case, the WakeUpCallBoss would be [[SinisterMinister Bishop Vick]].
834* WeCanRuleTogether: In the endgame, the player can possibly get this offer from [[spoiler:[=LaCroix=], Ming Xiao and Strauss. Strauss, however, is the only one who has both the will and opportunity to stay true to his word, and names the player his second-in-command. Allying with [=LaCroix=] will lead to both the player and him getting killed, and Ming Xiao will subject the player to a FateWorseThanDeath.]]
835* WeDoTheImpossible: The reason [=LaCroix=] uses the PlayerCharacter.
836* WeirdMoon: In the World of Darkness, the moon's craters resemble not so much a [[TheManInTheMoon face]] or a [[MoonRabbit rabbit]], but a skull.
837* WelcomedToTheMasquerade: In one of the most unpleasant way possible. What was supposed to be a one-night stand results in the player character turning a newly-Embraced vampire... and an illicitly-Embraced one. After their sire gets offed for Embracing a mortal without permission, the PC finds themselves trying to prove their worth by becoming [=LaCroix=]'s errand boy, and has to learn how to survive as quickly as possible.
838* WhiteDwarfStarlet:
839** Gary Golden is a male version of this. His career was abruptly ended by his transformation into a hideous Nosferatu and now he lives in the sewers, dressed in a tuxedo and surrounded by decaying relics of his GloryDays, including two corpses stuffed into costumes.
840** And Ash, who used to be an actor but now can't act as he's a vampire. He's become a club owner and minor celebrity. Not as bad as Gary perhaps, but a lot more Angst.
841* WholePlotReference:
842** Replace "seaside resort" with "mountain resort" and the BackStory of the Ocean House Hotel is basically the same BackStory with Grady in ''Literature/TheShining''.
843** The story focuses around a mysterious item multiple people are after, the ship it arrives on is devastated, seeking it can lead to the ruin of at least one of the more villainous characters, and ultimately [[spoiler: it turns out to be a fake intended to trick the villain]]. Are we talking about this game or [[Film/TheMalteseFalcon1941 the Maltese Falcon]]?
844* WorkplaceHorror: Romero is the caretaker of the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, where the corpses [[RiseFromYourGrave don't tend to stay dead]]. Every night, he has to put down any reanimated zombies to prevent them from spilling out into Hollywood Boulevard. One mission has the Fledgling take over for a few minutes (and take out a zombie horde) while Romero does some personal business.
845* WorthlessTreasureTwist: [[spoiler: The Ankaran Sarcophagus never contained an elder vampire. It contained the perfectly natural mummy of an Assyrian king with porphyria, who was later replaced with a large quantity of C4.]]
846* WhyDontYaJustShootHim: Inverted, averted, subverted, justified ''and'' played straight in the scene with the Mandarin. The player is trapped in a nigh-impregnable test facility by the Mandarin, with the aim of finding out the limits of vampire powers and resilience. [[InvertedTrope To get out, you do shoot/eat him]]. [[AvertedTrope A squad of mooks ''do'' attempt to shoot you in one of the tests]]. [[SubvertedTrope To progress, you do have to shoot parts of the environment]]. [[JustifiedTrope Shooting you wouldn't be nearly as informative as testing the character's resilience to UV, flame, spinning blades,]] [[DoubleSubversion bullets]] [[JustifiedTrope and some more flame]]. Finally, when you escape, the [[SmugSnake Mandarin]] does attempt to shoot you. Revenge is delicious.
847** [[IncrediblyLamePun As is the Mandarin]].
848* WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity: Malkavians. Not helped by the fact that they tend to Embrace people who ''already'' have mental health issues. Some are less extreme than others, but all inevitably have at least one mental illness. Of course, some might not even seem insane, but the player is one of the worst cases. Which, considering the dialogue you get, is [[HilarityEnsues pretty funny]].
849* WorldOfSnark: Damn near ''everyone'' has a snarky comment to make. Anarch, Camarilla, Independent, Kine; doesn't matter, everyone has some word-play up their sleeve. The player character is no exception to this either, especially when having to periodically report to living snark bait like [=LaCroix=].
850* WorldWearyWaitress: Doris is the elderly, sarcastic, {{Smoky Voice}}d waitress and owner of an all-night diner. Though she has a jibe for everyone and a [[LethalEatery regular bribe for the health inspector]], she [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold shows her soft side]] when she speaks kindly of a girl who was the "first decent human being I've seen in here for years".
851-->''"I get to live the dream for another exciting month. Yay."''
852* XanatosGambit: There is literally no possible ending to the game that does not [[spoiler: benefit Jack and Caine. [=LaCroix=] ''will'' die, whether by C4 or by execution. The mildest fate [=LaCroix=] can possibly suffer is getting arrested in the Camarilla ending, and even then it is implied that he will most likely be sentenced to death.]]
853* YouAllLookFamiliar: The game reuses quite a bit of character models. The player models in particular are pallet-swapped, slightly altered and reused all over the place.
854** Most player models are relatively unique in that no other character will have the ''exact'' same model, with the opposite gender version serving as the player's sire. However, for both the Nosferatu and Tremere, the opposite-gender model will show up as another, minor character: [[spoiler:The friendly Nosferatu in the sewers and the Tremere ''antitribu'' in the Hallowbrook Hotel, respectively.]]
855** Playing as a Ventrue can be even stranger, since in the level just before the FinalBoss, the player fights a group of Ventrue... [[MindScrew who all share the exact same model and clothing with the player models, leading to a battle with clones of the player and their (still dead) sire.]]
856* YouBastard: Some quest log entries will chew you out, for instance, if you let the Serial Killer go without talking him out of it first, the quest log will ask if you're feeling proud of yourself now.
857* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: [[spoiler:The Kuei-jin ending.]]
858* YouKillItYouBoughtIt: Dialogue implies that [[spoiler:you will become the new Sheriff if you side with the Camarilla and defeat [=LaCroix=].]]
859* YouNoTakeCandle: The fortune-teller in Chinatown speaks like this.
860-->You going to get a visitor at your door next week - DON'T OPEN DOOR! It Jehovah Witness. They so annoying!
861* YourVampiresSuck: Smiling Jack gives you a crash course on vampires at the beginning of the game, and uses this trope a few times.
862** Although subverted by the fact that you later do [[spoiler:encounter a vampire hunter who ''does'' hurt you with his crucifix — but he is one of perhaps no more than a few dozen humans on the planet Earth that possesses True Faith, [[AllThereInTheManual which does hurt vampires]].]]
863** It is further proven that an average human can't hurt you with a crucifix when [[spoiler:you have to get through the Mandarin's testing grounds. One of the tests involves a man in an environmental suit, who will point a crucifix towards you. You're free to kill him for being ignorant in whatever gruesome fashion you like.]]
864* ZombieApocalypse: Averted: the CDC has the outbreak pretty firmly locked down by the time you show up. The only reason you care, in fact, is not that the zombies might get out and spread, but rather that the CDC might do ''such a good job dealing with the zombies'' that they could figure out who - or rather what - is really behind it.
865** There is another one in the cemetery that one ghoul is containing by himself. If you agree to cover for him the task is almost impossible as their numbers increase exponentially trying to break down two separate gates it takes time to travel between. Makes you wonder how Romero was able to hold the line all by himself, night after night.
866[[/folder]]
867
868----
869->''"Remember, wherever we go, it is the blood of Caine which makes our fate. Farewell, vampire."''

Top