Vampire: The Masquerade 5E

Also... Re: Thaumaturgy being too game-breaking...

It really wasn't. This notion comes from Storytellers looking at the wide range of Paths and Rituals and going 'Well. This is ridiculous, Thaumaturgy can basically do anything!'.

And yeah, that's true. Thaumaturgy as a whole can do basically anything... But the average Tremere character in a Neonate game isn't going to know more than the first couple of powers in one single path, same as every other Discipline... And one or two rituals (which cost XP per dot well above Abilities and Merits of equal usefulness) And most of those are so ridiculously specific as to be entirely situational.

Even the vaunted Lure of Flames is, on the whole, less devastating as a combat Discipline than its reputation suggests and is vastly outdone by other combat-oriented Disciplines. All the Tremere players I know who use Lure of Flames use it mainly as a way to put out fires rather than to start them.

On the whole Thaumaturgy is like Batman's utility belt: It contains a lot of tools useful in a lot of different situations, but the majority of them are of the Bat-shark repellent variety.

That's part of what makes(/made) playing a Tremere so much fun: taking a bunch of utterly disappointing powers and rituals and still somehow turning them into a viable utility character.

Edited by Robrecht on Nov 21st 2018 at 7:18:29 PM

Robrecht, let me put it to you simply - tone it down.

I never said anyone should or shouldn't be upset. I'm explaining that the issues you're complaining about aren't ex nihilo or even sudden by any stretch. I'm also pointing out that even some of the niche that you are so fond of imagining for the Tremere wasn't nearly as unique as you present (we haven't even gotten into the Giovanni as "cartoonish caricature of the Tremere," something that's been baked in since the necromancers were first put into the game). Most of what you're complaining about strikes me as someone who finally had the scales ripped from their eyes to what's been happening to the Tremere as a whole for decades.

Also, I'm saying that you should get a better control over this. To be perfectly frank, if you act in-character like you're acting here, I'd wonder how you ever got to be Regent in the first place, because you seem very easy to provoke into the level of impolitic behavior that gets you locked out of any sort of status. I mean, I'll even readily admit that, on the face of it, some of your complaints have merit (particularly the one about giving the Gangrel the kind of internal power struggle that used to be more the bailiwick of the Tremere, the Ventrue, and the Lasombra - that reads as "completely misses the point of the Gangrel" above and beyond what it means for the other three). But when you go off half-cocked like that last post of yours, it makes others more inclined to be completely dismissive of you.

Need I remind you, it's just a game. Getting that worked up over it is not a wise idea.

I've been playing Vampire: the Masquerade for over 15 years. I made my first Tremere character fourteen years ago after absolutely devouring Clanbook: Tremere Revised and I've loved the Clan as a concept and as a narrative tool ever since then.

I got (a variant of) the Tremere Clan logo tattooed on my arm less than a week ago...

If I seem very upset, it's because V5 was going to be the true modern day update for Masquerade after the moderately well done, but ultimately lacklustre attempt that was V20... With all the pointless edginess and Kudzu Plot from the 90s excised and all the issues it created (which the steady screwing of Clan Tremere was part of) fixed.

And instead I buy it and find that the Clan I love the most out of all the Clans in the game got reduced to a generic blob of disappointment... When my writer's eye sees so many interesting things they could have done with the breaking of the Pyramid and the upheaval that would create within the Clan without robbing the Clan of it's very identity and place within the political dynamic of the Camarilla as a whole.

It doesn't help that, as a Tremere fan, I am also, by definition, not a fan of Clan Assamite or Clan Tzimisce (not because the two Clans are at odds with the Tremere within the setting, but because, to put it bluntly, Assamite and Tzimisce fanboying edgelords among the White Wolf staff and playtesters in the 90s are directly responsible for all the shit Clan Tremere as a narrative concept has had to endure over the years) and the breaking of the Pyramid almost feels like it was done mainly so that the Assamites could join the Camarilla in V5 without people going 'wouldn't the Tremere block that from happening?'.

Unfortunately, @Robrecht, I think your issue is primarily motivated by the fact you're suffering from a lack of information. You think the Tremere have been made more generic but they haven't been.

It's just I haven't put that information on the T Vtropes.org page and you can only find some of it in Beckett's Jyhad Diary and spread across multiple books.

WHAT IS THE CURRENT STATE OF THE TREMERE?

• The Tremere are presently divided into mutliple feuding houses.
• The three most powerful houses are House Carna, House Goratrix, and "House Tremere" which led by Karl Schrekt. There is a fourth House which was introduced the Anarch Sourcebook which is purely Anarch.
  • House Carna is all about feminism, sex, blood magic, and Lilith worship.
    • House Carna is notably possessed of a book which grants immunity to Dominate and Blood Bond which they've been using to "free" Tremere and cause them to actively want to murder their Elders for enslaving them.
  • House Goratrix is led by Tremere himself using Goratrix's identity and is setting up battle to the ancients.
  • House Tremere is led by Karl Schrekt and is all about rebuilding their power in the Camarilla and fighting th Second Inquisition.
  • The Anarch House, who I don't remember the name of, is believed to be Crowley-ists.

So you can still be a Tremere Pyramid head but you can compete to become one of the new Council of Seven which will be made of social power as well as magical power individuals. It's a Loresheet you can buy in the Camarilla sourcebook.

You can also be a sexy witch Tremere.

You can also be an Anarch fight the power crazy person.

You can also be a cackling evil wizard.

And all these Tremere fight for control over cities and factions.

Re: The Banu Haqim

Only a tiny number of Assamite Warriors defected to the Camarilla. I suggest you check out the Chicago by Night Assamite...err, Banu Haqim Signature Character. They're, uh, not what you'd think.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/chicago-by-night-for-vampire-the-masquerade-5th-ed/posts/2350276

The Banu Haqim's stick is they're rich African and Middle Eastern Kindred versus a murder cult. Basically, trying to make the Camarilla feel more international. They have killers for hire but they're not that much more than the Toreador. They also hate the Setites more than the Tremere these days.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Nov 21st 2018 at 2:31:09 AM

It's not so much that I lack information as it is that none of this is mentioned in the corebook.

Now, granted, I haven't read Jacob Burgess' Bookboyfriend, nor have I gotten my hands on the V5 Camarilla book yet, but even if I had, if I end up with an ST who hasn't, I'm still stuck with a Clan Tremere that's pretty much described as having disintegrated (rather than, say, being described as having fallen apart into several competing Houses with plenty of Tremere owing allegiance to none of them, which admittedly is faaaaar more to my liking).

And that still doesn't make Tremere somehow ending up with Quietus ok. (Even if Thaumturgy needed a rebalance, it's a huge slap in the face for Tremere fans to have their Clan's unique Discipline, which they developed through hard word, taken away and replaced with something they claim to have made when it's a canonically established fact that they didn't).

Yes, the complete lack of information on:

• The Second Inquisition
• The Sabbat
• The state of the Clans
• The Independent Clans
• What the hell the Beckoning is

and so on and so on is arguably the biggest flaw of 5E. Really, Chicago by Night (which I can read as a complete manuscript without art as a Backer of its Kickstarter) explains more about what the hell is going on than all three of the main sourcebooks.

Also, the short version is Tremere don't have Quietus. Quietus is what Assamites call "Blood Sorcery" (Thaumaturgy) which they always had.

The easiest way to describe what's happened to Disciplines is they're ALL Thaumaturgy now. Every discipline can and does have an Alternate Power Set and you can mix and match them. Blood Sorcery can be used to cast rituals but there might be a dozen Dominate 1 powers you could buy all of them for.

So, The Assamites have the "Path of Quietus" and the Tremere have the "Path of Thaumaturgy" which would make characters exactly like Classic V:TM but you could also...not. You could also have them learn both or combine their powers like a Tremere having Auspex 1, Blood Thaumaturgy to read people's blood to track them.

I think I said, "Suddenly, Disciplines work a lot like Mage Spheres. With every level being a Rote they learn."

It's a Requiem thing they've imported.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Nov 21st 2018 at 2:51:50 AM

Have you read the Loresheets in the back of the V 5 E main book?

That explains House Carna and House Tremere, I think.

"Assamite and Tzimisce fanboying edgelords among the White Wolf staff and playtesters in the 90s are directly responsible for all the shit Clan Tremere as a narrative concept has had to endure over the years"

Really? because I kinda find ergous how the tremere manage to piss off EVERYONE! and kinda go away with it: the decimate the salubri clan, manage to infect the assamite, piss off the tzimice....really, most of the lore of tremere is "we get away with it".

Especially for a clan with not blood clan flaw.

That requires this meme to be shared again.

https://www.reddit.com/r/WhiteWolfRPG/comments/9w5jcg/you_tremere_sure_are_a_contentious_clan/?st=joruwcty&sh=b8b708f0

Im kinda asking if tremre clan weakness is the compulsive need to be a dick toward everyone else.

In any case, for those who might feel inclined to back the Kickstarter, Chicago by Night 5E is really awesome.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/chicago-by-night-for-vampire-the-masquerade-5th-ed/description

• The Lasombra clan getting detailed.
• Their new discipline of Oblivion.
• 40 NPCs for Chicago and its surrounding areas
• A adventure hook generator with other forty story seeds.
• The new system for detailing NPCs that include current plots and hooks and roleplaying methods.
• A full-chronicle detailing whether the PCs will help the Lasombra join the Camarilla or prevent it from happening.
• A coterie guide
• An actual write-up of Chicago by Chicago natives
• New Loresheets

That's in addition to the two stretch goals which have been met but could always use more padding.

• THE CHICAGO FOLIO - A supplement of in-universe documents, letters, e-mails, and transcripts of the various characters interacting. Plus a whole new collection of NPCs and plot hooks.

• LET THE STREETS RUN RED - Milwaukee, Indianopolis, Chicago's suburbs, and rural Illinois get detailed in 3 (at present) new chronicles showing the rest of the Rust Belt and how it relates to the Windy City.

Fans had the chance to insert their own NPCs into canon (within reason), be used as art models, and determine the fate of certain NPCs.

I bought Prince Maxwell, 3 NPCs (I've okayed it that I can use two to bring back Allicia and Evelyn from FORGED IN STEEL), and a piece of art I'm going to use for myself as an Anarch.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Nov 21st 2018 at 5:14:06 AM

Yes, but that's because the writers for the metaplot were, frankly, bad at their job. They obviously did not read more than half of the Clanbooks, the Tremere one included.

I think we need to sort of separate Doylist and Watsonian interpretations here...

From a Watsonian perspective, in the metaplot, Clan Tremere are constantly screwing people over and making enemies... But from a Doylist perspective it's the one constantly getting screwed over. Generally by having everything in the Tremere Clanbooks, which are supposed to be the authoritative description of what the Tremere are actually like, get ignored in favour of having the Tremere trotted out to be cardboard cutout villains whenever the metaplot calls for a Camarilla person/Clan to go out and kick some puppies.

From a Watsonian perspective, the Banu Haqim have (suddenly) always had 'Blood Sorcery' they just used to call it Quietus. From a Doylist perspective the Assamites didn't have Blood Magic until Second edition and Revised introduced that 'Three Castes' nonsense and Quietus was a completely unrelated Discipline.

And from the other end of things, the Tremere have steadily had Thaumaturgy taken away from them. In First Edition, Thaumaturgy was Clan Tremere's own creation, from their effort to regain some semblance of magic in their new Vampiric form.
In Second Edition, suddenly the Assamites turned out to have their very own Thaumaturgy-by-another-name, which made Tremere Thaumaturgy less unique, but at least it was still something the Tremere arrived at on their own.
Then Revised rolled around and all of a sudden the Tzimisce were revealed to have 'always' had Thaumaturgy-by-another-name too and 'lol, the Tremere didn't create Thaumaturgy, they just stole it from the Tzimisce without knowing. The Tzimisce invented it instead.'
And by the time of V20, not only was Thaumaturgy-by-another-name something that all Vampires had 'always' had access to, but even the fucking Anarchs had Thaumaturgy-by-another-name that was older than Clan Tremere.

You'll note that I'm calling it Thaumaturgy-by-another-name, rather than Blood Magic. That's because the concept of other Clans or the Sects having some kind of Blood Magic of their own is fine. I'm not particularly bothered about Necromancy, for instance, because it's its own distinct thing and not, like Dur-an-Ki or Koldunic Sorcery, the Tremere's originally uniquely developed Thaumaturgy Discipline except renamed and retconned into supposedly pre-dating the existence of Clan Tremere.

Anyway, what V5 does is that it takes the pre-existing Tremere Thaumaturgy Path of Blood (the only Thaumaturgy Path that stayed more or less unique to the Tremere when the designers decided to spread Thaumaturgy around like candy) and the pre-existing Assamite Discipline Quietus and mashes them together and then gives the resulting single Discipline to both Clans. Now not only do they no longer have their on single wholly unique path of Blood Magic, but they're now a Clan that doesn't have a single unique Discipline that some Clan before them didn't already have.

You misunderstand me. I'm frankly pleased, rather than bothered, by Disciplines being brought mechanically closer to pre-V5 Thaumaturgy by V5 adopting Requiem's 'multiple options for powers per dot' system for Disciplines. I liked that system in Requiem and I'm pleased to see it in V5. What I dislike is that the Tremere used to have a thematically unique magical ability has been reduced to 'just another Discipline'. And it's not even their own unique or original Discipline.

Yeah, I legitimately love House Carna.

Sadly, I don't live in a country where Credit Cards are the main type of plastic currency (we use Debit Cards) and as such getting one requires both paying a significant fee and more savings to underwrite your credit than I, as a poor millennial, have. I mention this because I find Kickstarter (and many other similar US-based services) insisting on only being able to pay with a Credit Card and my inability to do so immensely frustrating.

You should be able to get a debit card from your bank that counts as a credit card for the purposes of online shopping. That's how I've done things for the last 9 years and I've been backing OPP kickstarters since they started.

I'm very frustrated with Kickstarter's entire model and to be perfectly frank, I'm not entirely happy with the reliance on Credit/Debit cards as well or the fact that donating to a project like this requires Kickstarter.

It's good for the company but frustrating when you're trying to support "art."

Toreador: YOU CALL THIS...GAME, ART!?

Yes.

If it helps, this isn't a KS to determine whether Chicago by Night exists - writing is already finished, art has been commissioned and so on, per the campaign tab for the KS. It's more to determine how much extra stuff they can produce as side projects to Chicago by Night.

Unlike a lot of the more indie-tier developers, for whom a kickstarter could be life or death, if you want an Onyx Path book but don't like Kickstarter, it'll be on DTRPG when it's done; it just might be a little more expensive, and you won't get access to the preview versions.

Edited by CountDorku on Nov 22nd 2018 at 9:56:10 PM

Yeah, honestly I'm not Kickstartering it to produce Chicago by Night, which I've already read 85% of as a backer.

(It's all done in manuscript form with no art)

No, I'm Kickstarting it to hopefully get the stretch goal supplements made. Because the number of V:TM products for 5th Edition have been really paltry. THE CHICAGO FOLIO and LET THE STREETS RUN RED are based on some of my favorite classic supplements and I want to see those succeed.

They're going to get made too but they could be smaller than the developers like and missing some content.

And no POD option either.

Edit:

Some major Lasombra information came out today. They're not all onboard with defecting but give the reasons why roughly half are and they're a fairly good argument. The Second Inquisition and HOLY SHIT OUR ANTEDILUVIAN ISN'T DEAD! WE NEED TO GET THE FUCK OUT OF THIS GROUP GOING AFTER HIM AND THE OTHERS NOW.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Nov 22nd 2018 at 7:22:50 AM

"Their new discipline of Oblivion."

And from the Shadowlands, all of wraiths scream, "NOOOOOO! Don't do it!"

(It's probably not related to actual Oblivion, but I can still wraiths being leery of the name alone.)

In fact, it is related.

It turns out Obternation and Necromancy are getting combined.

Obternation being revealed as drawing darkness from the Shadowlands and collapse between the two realms.

Edit:

http://booknest.eu/reviews/charles/1313-vampirethemasquerade5thedition?fbclid=IwAR2NktT53u4m6z9zdaidJ5BpL6WHuUC5KF5xslvymLksWRrBXg7HhXweMuk

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Nov 23rd 2018 at 1:14:09 AM

In some countries yes, in some countries no. In my particular country: no.

It depends on which company and which particular label of that company, operates in one's country.

In my particular country, the Netherlands, Mastercard and Visa both issue Debit Cards under their Debit Card-only subsidiaries (Maestro and V Pay respectively) depending on one's bank and because of that they can't do double duty as Credit Cards (or be accepted as such) the way that Debit Cards that are issued directly by Mastercard (Debit Mastercard) and Visa (Visa Debit) can.

So if you want something that works as a Credit Card, you need to get an actual Credit Card, which comes with both initial and monthly fees and is generally a massive bother. You also need an established credit rating based on monthly income and/or savings which I, as a Millennial on government disability, will not actually qualify for until, by my calculations, I'm 54. Barring any major expenses in my future which might bump it up to somewhere in my 60s.

It's annoying AF, but also off topic.

I think a problem here is that as a sort of general rule there is too many damn clans in masquarate, which eventually means they will step in each other ways.

Corrution user? but Followers of Set and Giovanni does the same, in fact but have this weird pseudo plan nobody knows about and they are decadent, you can also said the decadent vampire the giovanni have are from the Toerador.

Warriors? we have at least three of them, Gangrel, Brujah and Assamities which at least have distint flavours.

Born leader? you can said the same of Ventrue and Lasombra(In fact the idea of lasombra join the camarilla sound off for me), the diferent is that one is royalty based and the other a social darwanist, in fact I remenber some user saying that have ventrue form the sabbat then the lasombra would have join the camarilla, just to piss them off.

So we have the mysthic, which you have the Malkivans(At times), Tremere, tzimice, a problem here is tzimice already make experiment like the tremere and very close(again just like them), the tzimice have the advantage of being creepier and more amoral than the tremere(who are just dicks) so they clearly counter of each other.

No surprise here requiem deal this A LOT.

I think part of the problem is that, when V:tM first launched, we only had seven clans, and they generally fit with various vampire stereotypes (vampires as violent rage monsters for Brujah, vampires as beastmasters for Gangrel, vampires as alien intelligences for Malkavian, vampires as inhuman monsters for Nosferatu, vampires as sex gods for Toreador, vampires as supernatural boogeymen for Tremere, vampires as dark manipulators for Ventrue, with the caveat that you could always borrow a bit from the other concepts for characters). Between drift in the basic concepts, more clans being included that tended to step on those other concepts (I honestly always felt that, in particular, the initial write-ups for Lasombra and Tzimisce were "like the Ventrue and Tremere, but evil-er!"), bloodlines which really watered down concepts in the first place (I have my own "pet peeve" bloodline, but White Wolf all but killed off the Blood Brothers right before all the Time of Judgment books, so that one's moot), and (yes) some favoritism on the part of various writers, a lot of that has gotten muddy, and a good chunk of what makes each clan so distinct is lost.

For any accusations of Creator's Pet regarding clans as a whole... I mean, it's a little strange to hear someone complaining that the Tremere as a whole are being reduced due to other clans becoming a Creator's Pet when I remember plenty of complaints about Tremere being a Creator's Pet for a long time. I know a lot of players who complained about Tremere (both the progenitor vamp and his clan) having an outsized presence in the game (a good chunk of this was, honestly, lazy writing - Tremere was frequently depicted as being willing to experiment and being the most nakedly ambitious, which made it too easy when coming up with new elements to point and say "it's Tremere's fault"). I'll grant that I don't have the utmost confidence that the issue has been resolved such that it makes sense in the metaplot as a whole (in particular, I'm not fond of House Goriatrix making a comeback), but I overall kinda like where the Tremere are going based on what I've read.

For issues with the Assamites/Banu Haqim, well... they've probably had the most writing focused on evolution of them, but part of that was that they were the ones most in need of it. There were a metric fuckton of issues with all of the independent clans, to be honest (and, in fact, my least favorite of the main 13 has always been the Followers of Set - I'm most interested in seeing what was done with them), with the Assamites in particular being presented with a bunch of Unfortunate Implications in addition to being the most comically one-dimensional (the Ravnos were only mildly better in that you could build encounters with them that weren't just straight combat, and it's worth noting that the Ravnos were almost completely killed off in the Week of Nightmares for a reason). There was a lot of work that needed to be done to make them, honestly, not a huge mistake. It may be, admittedly, that 5e finally swung things too far and made them too prominent and awesome, but I'm not seeing any evidence of that so far.

As for the Tzimisce... they're not a case so much in my eyes as a clan that's a Creator's Pet. No, they're a case with a discipline that's a Creator's Pet - good ol' Vicissitude. I mean, the clan itself is a mix between "undead occult monster" and "old school fictional vampire" and always has been. But Vicissitude was easily the way to go for physical horror, and the fact that it was basically restricted to just one clan meant that the Tzimisce were dragged up by default. Now, the easiest way to rectify that would have been to make the discipline more widespread, but for various reasons, they specifically wrote themselves away from that (whether it be by, well, Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand, making the Tzimisce not want to ever play ball with the Camarilla at all, baking in an inherent radical aversion to the discipline by everyone who isn't Tzimisce, or making it force a literal connection to the Tzimisce antediluvian himself). The comical thing to me is that I think the Tzimisce are an interesting concept but underbaked because of the focus on the discipline. I think spreading out access to Vicissitude (and making it just like every other discipline instead of... well, anything else) and developing some of the other aspects of Tzimisce would rectify issues with the clan overall.

As for that bit about Oblivion... huh, I wonder if other disciplines besides Obtenebration and Necromancy (as well as, apparently, Quietus and Thaumaturgy) are going to be folded together, with paths available for different branches and each vamp having a default path. I guess the most obvious would be the physical disciplines, but I could also see Presence, Dominate, and Dementation all folded into one, and perhaps Protean and Vicissitude (see above) combined as well. I could potentially see it working (of course, I could also see it becoming a giant flaming mess, so YMMV).

"- Tremere was frequently depicted as being willing to experiment and being the most nakedly ambitious, which made it too easy when coming up with new elements to point and say "it's Tremere's fault""

In part because since thaumagy was exclusive of the Tremere and they were the magician, the tremere was pretty much white wolf version of "a wizard did it".

Like I said before, I feel hat white wolf kinda put in a corner by making the issue too much two sides: Sabbat and Camarilla, while some like Giovanni, follower of set and the Tremere and assamita should be their own set.

In fact, have you ever cross element of both requiem and masquarate?.

Quietus was folded into Blood Sorcery

Serpentus, Vicissitude, and Protean are now all Protean

Necromancy and Obternation are now Oblivion

Dementation and Dominate were folded into Dominate

Presence remains Presence

They haven't mentioned anything Chimestry but they've also said there's 12 Ravnos left in the world so there's talk it'll just be the "12 Clans" now.

Take note:

The Giovanni are now the Hecate with the statement the Cappadochians may have eaten the leadership and forced them all under their leadership as one clan with the Samedi. Because 3 Clans. They may be led by the Lamia.

The Lasombra are divided now between the Sabbat and Camarilla.

The Tzimisce have no information other than they're getting a massive power downgrade with some believing the Old Clan may go much more mainstream.

The Followers of Set are now the "Ministry" and they are serving as the Tremere for the Anarchs. I.e. the people much much smarter than everyone else who can tie their shoelaces but are completely sinister.

The Assamites are the Banu Haqim and are no longer warriors exclusively but more or less rivals of the Toreador and Ventrue for rich as fuck vampires. Adding a bit of color for African and Middle Eastern billionaires. They have Blood Sorcery that rivals the Tremere and have joined the Camarilla but seem to have given up their grudge against them (in part because the Council of Seven is gone).

The reasonable Sabbat are leaving as the Sabbat who survive the Gehenna Wars are going to diablerie addicted Humanity 0 monsters possessed by whatever the hell they ate.

More boogeyman than sect.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Nov 23rd 2018 at 4:00:40 AM

"The Giovanni are now the Hecate with the statement the Cappadochians may have eaten the leadership and forced them all under their leadership as one clan with the Samedi. Because 3 Clans. They may be led by the Lamia.

"

Wait what? why? isnt "I fucking hate you" the other stick of the giovanni? you know aside of "Undead mafia" and "being decadent" fucks?.

The Giovanni are nothing if not pragmatic and apparently the Second Inquisition hit them majorly hard.

So hard that they had to retreat back to Italy.

But yes, they've lost billions of dollars to frozen accounts and the people involved in the Cappadochias massacre have been tasty treats.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Nov 23rd 2018 at 5:51:00 AM