History YMMV / VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines

* EvilIsSexy:
** Sebastian [=LaCroix=] and Ming Xiao are attractive and well groomed, but absolutely awful individuals who manipulate and treat you like trash.
** Pisha, the lightly dressed South Asian vampire who is also a cannibal, although she's much more pleasant than [=LaCroix=] and Xiao.

* FoeRomanceSubtext: Surprisingly enough, the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o12oRJh4v8 Kuei-Jin ending]] practically ''oozes'' the one-sided version of this. [[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, huh?]]

* 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.

* 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.

** '''[[BonusBoss The Brotherhood of the Ninth Circle]]'''. As noted under ThatOneBoss, that entire questline can be a wake-up call for any clan that doesn't do well at combat, and even some clans that are will probably have some trouble.

** It is commonly suggested that Grout is alive. In particular: his corpse should have disintegrated completely considering how old he is, he can predict the future being a Malkavian and all, and the audio logs are scattered for someone to discover them by going through the front door, which [[spoiler:faux-]]Nines didn't do. Conversely, the Malkavian player, when talking about Grout will make reference to "that name not being here" and that they shouldn't go, so Grout would have to be hiding from the Malkavian Madness Network too, which is unlikely since that reaches even Malks in Torpor.

** The Malkavian [=PC=]. Are they as loopy as their dialogue suggests, or are they just messing with people? Given that the other Malkavians met in the game are [[spoiler: Therese/Janette (who are generally coherent outside of their final breakdown)]], Rosa (who, when not babbling about her visions, can hold a normal conversation) and Grout (who is ''notably'' very eloquent, even when his madness begins to creep in near the end of his recordings), it seems the strange way of speaking isn't a commonality of the clan. There's more than one moment in a Malkavian playthrough where they can seem pretty lucid, and Gary even manages to get them to drop their purple prose altogether. Or on the third hand, since the player character has been a vampire for about five minutes, are they just overwhelmed by their sudden transformation and new powers--not to mention the vicious onslaught of auditory hallucinations--that they can only wrangle clear communication out of their brain for a few minutes at a time, and will be better once they've had more time to adjust? Jeanette seems to suggest that you have the curse particularly bad, for whatever reason, and it is established fact that the way madness manifests is often different between each Malkavian; indeed, that is the only commonality between all four/three Malkavians shown in the game: each of them is mad in a different way.

** In his BadassBoast, Gary Golden states that neither Sebastian, Isaac nor Nines have any domain over him. He doesn't mention Strauss, despite both being Primogen. Did he simply not bother to mention him? Is Strauss that below him? Does he respect Strauss? Or is he ''that'' scared of him?

** The Malkavian [=PC=]. Are they as loopy as their dialogue suggests, or are they just messing with people? Given that the other Malkavians met in the game are [[spoiler: Therese/Janette (who are generally coherent outside of their final breakdown)]], Rosa (who, when not babbling about her visions, can hold a normal conversation) and Grout (who is ''notably'' very eloquent, even when his madness begins to creep in near the end of his recordings), it seems the strange way of speaking isn't a commonality of the clan. There's more than one moment in a Malkavian playthrough where they can seem pretty lucid, and Gary even manages to get them to drop their purple prose altogether. Or on the third hand, since the player character has been a vampire for about five minutes, are they just overwhelmed by their sudden transformation and new powers--not to mention the vicious onslaught of auditory hallucinations--that they can only wrangle clear communication out of their brain for a few minutes at a time, and will be better once they've had more time to adjust? Jeanette seems to suggest that you have the curse particularly bad, for whatever reason.

** Is VV a gentle vampire too kindhearted to resort to the occasional violence she knows is vital to preserving the Masquerade? Or is she, in true Toreador fashion, a {{Manipulative B|astard}}itch who emotionally manipulates young kindred into performing her dirty work for her? On the one hand, she does send you off to kill a hunter for her and later pushes you to both take a man's script and kill the vampire who was leaking him information, becoming cold to you if you try to make her do any of it. On the other, Toreador usually aren't great at fighting and they have a very deep love of art. She also flinches at your sire's execution in the intro sequence, lending credence to her genuineness.

** Mitnik tells you that he discovered vampires when he hacked into Schrecknet. The NSA would later stumble upon the same Network and that lead to the Second Inquisition.

** Ming-Xiao is more difficult than the other end-game bosses, with an enormous health bar, frustrating attacks; and unlike her counterpart the Sheriff, no boss arena gimmicks that allow the player to pull the rug out from under her. It's just one very long brawl against an oppressive bullet sponge.

** [[WickedCultured Andrei the Tzimisce]], as [[EvilOverlord Archbishop of the L.A. branch of the Sabbat]], takes the Sabbat's ideals of embracing their inner beast and renouncing their humanity to a whole new level. Andrei lives in a house that he has decorated with body parts in order to make it resemble his ancestral estate. The walls are coated with bloodied human flesh and the [[HumanArchitectureHorror furniture is made from bones and organs]]. Equal parts EvilSorcerer and MadScientist, Andrei uses live people and vampires as materials in his construction of the monstrous abominations that serve as his soldiers. He then tests the killing capacity of these monsters by unleashing them on defenseless mortals, with his ultimate goal being to use them to wage war against the Camarilla. In particular he plans on wiping out the Nosferatu in order to "gouge out the eyes of the Camarilla". Also, should the player not [[spoiler:send away their ghoul friend/lover, Heather Poe]], then, upon reaching the Sabbat's lair, the player will arrive just in time to see [[spoiler:Heather]] brutally murdered by Andrei's goons.

* TierInducedScrappy:
** The Brujah clan are usually considered to be the least interesting clan to play as because of this. While by no means weak overall, (they are all but unmatched at melee combat) they have no unique Disciplines and no targeted powers at all. Instead they wield two BoringButPractical powers and a GameBreaker, at the cost of low starting social skills and the worst stealth build of any clan. The Brujah fledgling also has ''much'' less clan-based dialogue than any other clan, possibly none, depending on the playthrough.
*** Doubly bad when compared to Toreador, who have two of the same powers, can fight almost identically, have more unique dialogue and can thrive in social situations from the start.
** The Ventrue also get some flak for similar reasons. Besides Bertram, who has unique banter with every clan, almost nobody else besides the Prince really treats the player differently. As a result, half of the Ventrue's clan bonus of "easier acceptance into Camarilla society" isn't really useful, at the cost of not being able to drink from rats. The fact their combat style is also BoringButPractical doesn't help either.
** While the Auspex and Presence disciplines provide decent buffs in combat, they're neither dramatic nor game-changing. They give you some bonus to offense and defense, but unlike other disciplines they don't give you bullet time, mind control, virtual immunity to bullets, or invisibility. They certainly don't have the same dramatic flair as boiling somebody's blood and making them explode hard enough to kill everyone around them. The fact that they're not identified specifically with any one clan makes them feel fairly generic as well.
** Protean is more interesting on the surface but unfortunately even less useful. The level 1 Protean power that all Gangrel get has the distinction of being the only discipline which is objectively inferior to Auspex level 1, as it also gives +1 Wits but breaks the Masquerade, has a shorter duration, and makes it hard to see. Once you level it up from there it starts to become a worse version of Potence - the description says it improves your unarmed attack, but what it actually does is replaces your brawl with a more damaging but far slower and very awkward attack and prevents you from using any kind of weapon. Tragically it also makes your character hop around like a chimp instead of running. To add insult to injury, the "terrifying war form" you get at level 5 stuns your character when it is activated or deactivated and looks like some kind of preposterous bat/monkey hybrid.
** The entire suite of stats relating to social skills other than Persuasion are awful. Manipulation and finance only raise one skill, haggle, which is useless since you have far more than enough money in the first place. Intimidation is completely eclipsed by the much more versatile and reliable Persuasion, and there is a grand total of one instance in the entire game where Intimidation solves a problem that Persuasion can't. Worst of all are Subterfuge and Appearance which do nothing except raise seduction, which has the dubious honor of being the only skill in the game that it is better not to have. To start, it is even less commonly able to solve a problem than Persuasion and there are zero missions where it provides a better outcome than Persuasion. The real kicker though is that using seduction can cause you to miss two opportunities to get free skills/disciplines, which together cost more than all the experience points you'll earn in the first quarter of the game. Seduction (and intimidate) otherwise function as a significantly weaker version of persuasion, and there is no benefit to having more than one of the three.
*** To put this in perspective, since most non-social attributes raise two skills rather than one, the social stat purchases give you half as much of a useless skill. You could either get a theoretically sexy/scary character with maximum seduction and intimidation to get some new hit-or-miss dialogue options, or you could max Perception, Firearms, Wits, and Dodge to become some kind of Sherlock Holmes/Rambo/Ninja/Technomancer hybrid capable of seeing everything, shooting everything, dodging everything, and hacking almost everything.

** Andrei is a scary looking Tzimisce Elder, but his design and voicework by Creator/StevenBlum makes him stand out in the crowd.
** Pisha combines this with CreepyCute. She's equally good looking and inhuman looking with her supernatural eyes and being splattered in blood, but her introduction (or rather build-up), voice and scholary mannerism makes her memorable.
** Brother Kanker