You've Been Playing Vampire The Masquerade WRONG
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 มี.ค. 2024
- Vampire: The Masquerade does not have to be a game of foppish politicking or brooding street samurai. If you follow the underlying structure of the game, you should be playing a dark supernatural version of The Sopranos. Vampire is about the Mob!
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#vampirethemasquerade #vamily #vampire #worldofdarkness - เกม
In all seriousness, this is the best advice I've ever seen for a vampire game.
Thanks!
Came to the comments section to say the same thing. Here after watching this channel’s video about Roleplaying instead of Performing. Amazing advice
@@Southpaw_Blue thanks for watching, we've got a lot more on the way. If you know any VtM fans that would find this interesting, feel free to share!
And the John Wick franchise is the perfect setting for Vampire, just replace "Assassin" with "Vampires"
Came to the comments to say the same thing.
I used to joke about that. They're a bunch of Gothy, overly-tattooed people in fancy suits that are weirdly pale and addicted to intrigue and political maneuvering.
@@lydiajevera4250 great minds think alike
Indeed, the coronation party was pure 90s vtm sheik.
there are no people in John wicks world. where are the normal humans? Everyone is a member of this secret cartel of assassins.
And they are all so polite.
Vampires
So Vampire Underworld = Criminal Underworld. This clears up a lot of focus problems.
Yep, and it allows all the other themes to fall into place under it
Absolutely 100%. I've been saying this for decades. A Camarilla game should feel like a mafia story (Godfather, Boardwalk Empire). An anarch game should feel like street crime (The Wire, Sons of Anarchy) and a Sabbat game... well, they're terror cells. Or like playing GTA!
BTW, you were fantastic as Nucky Thompson in Boardwalk Empire!
Haha oh god i was actually looking at him and thinking of Steve Buscemi 😂
Hes like a more handsome Buscemi
The Mafia parallel is truly perfect. You guys understand this game is more than gossiping in Elysium or hiding katanas under your trench in August. Great video guys, VtM was our main game for almost three years and it’s a blast.
while I agree with you, I am still hiding a sword in my coat. old habits die hard.
@@Majesticleper so did we, and for us, Elyssium was the place where you made threats without repercussions on the premises lol
Never go agianst the Vamily
I’m gonna guess the Sabbat is closer to a Cartel.
That or isis
@@blacklodgegamesour storyteller ran it like a cult. Fitting.
Yeah pretty much with a pinch of terrorism or feudal warlord.
Anarchs are hells angels
I accidentally made the association between the Camarilla and the Mafia while watching "Reservoir Dogs" one night, so I'm glad to see someone actually articulate that connection.
(and on a related matter, can we all agree that the erasure of Clan Giovanni is one of the biggest crimes of modern VtM?)
Now im just imagining a bunch of vampires going "OOOHHHH" when someone screws up
You want to see real monsters, look at the player base.
100% true
Yeah 'vamily' my a..s$
This is why the Giovanni Chronicles is my favorite intro for new players and why all clan Hecata stories work in a group session. Well done and I will be sharing. Please keep up this content. I would love to see a video for each clan viewed through this thematic lens of what the clan and camarilla expect of them.
Videos on the clans are in the works.
Actually, Werewolf 5th is the most Godfather game ever. What other game has made so many people say: "Look how they massacred my boy!"
i was a hardcore WoD player in the mid 90's, and had an exceptional crew of players and storyteller that followed this ethos to the letter, even back then. Sometimes it would get a tad silly, but generally speaking, if we had the right motivation, and the right understanding of our connection and purpose, it made for some magical stories that even 30 years later, I look back on with fondness. I really miss those games.
By far, this essay is one of The Best(( if not THE BEST ))overview of VTM and especially The Camarilla!! The parallels are shown in crystal clarity and with the elegance of a faultless mathematical formula... WELL DONE!!
That said, I'm looking forward to your subsequent explorations!!
seeing that thumbnail i can't help but to imagine Paulie Walnuts maneuvering in the camarilla and im losing my mind with how hilarious that sounds
OH!
Paulie is a fairly typical Brujah neonate who nobody expects to last more than few nights but somehow keeps slipping through the cracks until he becomes an ancillae.
everyone, once in his life tried to play vampire as a personal horror / drama, until a guy told me that the curse of the vampire is that he will never find peace because to become powerfull you have to bend and break vampiric society rules.
Correct
I think there's this horrible misunderstanding of what "personal" horror is by the Critical Role lot who see RPGs as Tv series that they star in. Personal Horror isn't some dramatic thing that you advertise to others. It's personal. Meaning specific to you. It's watching your family slowly age, move on, and die whilst you live on in a world you understand less and less. It isn't "big RPG moments" You don't role play a moment of personal horror to applause from your group. Your character just internalizes it
If I remember correctly they even mentioned that mob movies like Goodfellas, The Godfather, Casino etc. are great inspirations for VtM in every book in the early pages.
I remember Papa Louie, good times.
"you're clan will get you into trouble" reminds me of a section from the old Judges Guild module "Wilderlands of High Fantasy", on page 17:
"In any mixed crowd, NPCs can get you in hot water - 50% of all encounters are caused by NPCs, and they usually choose to insult 1-6 levels of hit dice higher than their own. The victim of the insult will usually have 2-12 'friends'... check Reaction of the group"
Everyone wants to have henchmen, goons, low-tier shitkickers beneath them who can do the dirty work for the PCs, but the sorts of guys willing to do this are generally going to be the sorts of guys you wouldn't trust as far as you can throw them. Thralls, children, etc. can and should absolutely get you in trouble and cause problems with people bigger and scarier than you. Very good stuff
I bet Young Steve runs a mean VTM game. His tolerance for cringe is definitely much better than mine if he can read the entire V5 core set.
He's a top tier GM
I'm still amazed some people actually managed to read the damn thing.
I think I learned the system entirely through videos 😂
Young Steve is the VTM storyteller of my fever dreams. His games must be amazing, and I'd never dare to play in one.
@@alicaljungberg3742 He is phenomenal
Great video by Yung Steve here, the 90's Kindred Vampire show had some of this Mafia feel, I think its an under appreciated gem
It was quite good
I had never been interested in vampire, but with this exhibition I feel interested for the first time....and in seeing the Godfather trilogy, thank you, great video!
Generation X-er and Vampire 1st ed. player here. We already played it like a mob game back then. It was pretty obvious even in the 1st edition. Mob culture with a veneer of punk, goth, occultism and corporate. The Sabbat is even more like a mob, an even nastier one...
I think the Sabbat is more like Isis or the cartels.
@@blacklodgegames
Well... when in Mexico. 😅
@@blacklodgegames tbh the sabbat makes not much sense, they have no real logic because the sabat lore was build by a lot of people, unlike the camarilla that the basics was built from the start.
the church hierarchy should be a mockery then they are true believers?
the clan alliance should be replaced by paths, but you still have clan play?
they revolted against elders and antideluvians, but this is not reflected on Big NPCs.
even the black hand had 2 or 3 versions
@@blacklodgegames Yeah, I'd completely agree on the cartels. I'm looking forward to your take on the sect. The Sabbat was a bunch of ideas from everywhere thrown together to make a wild and inconsistent mix if I'm honest. I liked it the most as an obscure idea of something dangerous and unknown when it was mentioned in the first core book before it was fleshed out.
Sabbat is more like Daesh or Al Quaeda.
Another great video.. I used the same descriptions of the mob from Goodfellas and the Godfather when we first started playing to help my players understand the dynamics between clans, ancilla, elders, etc. great analogy.
Yeah a lot of it is deliberate, but it doesn't have the focus by default
Absolutly the most distinct metaphore for vampire that I have seen. Great video.
Excellent video, thank you for pushing forward tabletop gaming for the next generation.
Thanks!
Yes, we played VtM Godfather style in late 90s and early 00s. If the game is treated seriously, then it slides into Mafia themes efortlessly and on it's own. I'm actually amazed people didn't do this on daily (nightly) basis, Mark Rein-Hagen constantly talked about influence of Godfather on Masquerade. It was basically equal to Anne Rice's.
Just finished a year-long VtM chronicle and this is making me realize I missed a lot of potential to use the structure of the Camarilla. It'd be great if you made a video about running an Anarch chronicle.
I have a feeling I know what you might say about the Anarchs and Sabbat, but I shall wait and see and hopefully be just as entertained and inspired to get back to playing a game I loved dearly in the 90s.
I think we missed an opportunity with Fear City. Should have introduced vampires!
There is still time!
@@blacklodgegames oh god help us, lol
The mob angle is exactly how Kindred: The Embraced played it as a television adaptation.
I love this series on the fundamentals of Vampire. By far, it's the best take on the game to be found on TH-cam. Looking forward to the video on the Sabbat.
1:23 : my Giovanni, staring blankly in shock...
Incredible video. I want to play vampire so bad now.
The first character I though about when I heard about the lore of Vampire the Mascarade and character creation the first though I had was about the cartel chainsaw beheading video.
Thanks for the input! This will help!
good to hear that animal tony blundetto is alive and well playing elf games in texas
Brilliantly done, gentlemen.
In general, the crime drama in its depth is underrated as inspiration for RPGs at micro scale.
For vampire games and factions, though, it's a perfect correlation.
Well done.
You've nailed the tension, intrigue and strife I yearn for when I play my first game of V5. Thank you.
im very happy with the vtm videos that are coming out . i have never heard these perspectives in my 15 years as a storyteller . please keep making vtm videos. you are actually making original content on the subject.
Thanks! Share it with anyone you think would find it interesting.
I can count on 1 hand the number of channels I have subbed to after one video in 20 years. But what you done here is perfect. You clearly understand this deeply and have found a way to communicate that understanding. Bravo.
Thanks! We've got a few more videos on vtm already and more on the way
👍👍, “foppish, political drama that goes nowhere”
As soon as you said that, my immediate thought was that that’s the current game I’m running holy shit! This… More please!
Yeah...so, I'm headcanoning Tony Soprano as a Brujah from now on, I guess. Spot on video as usual guys, I can tell your channel is by far the best to learn about Vampires.
Great video! Really brought me back the will to play VtM
Awesome! Trying to reach the old wod fanbase, so glad you found it!
Fantastic video. I'm so excited for every video you guys make.
More to come!
Im about to start a chronicle based out of Nawlins. Mafia is very much a part of it. Ive got Camarilla existing in a tentative peace with an Anarch Oil Baron and rouge Hecata voodoo practioners in the Bayou who never got the "we are reformed now" memo. All the factions are aware of each other and the power players at work, and are signatories to a peace pact. They are in basically a cold war, never open hostilities but all struggling to subvert each other through neonate proxie. All for the sake of becoming top dog and with their own motivations. Everything else is for flavor and that World of Darkness charm ❤
Very well put. I've been running my long term games like that for years. All you need to do to make these games are 1 sentence premises. We had a very an entire chain of events happen in a game because one kindred didn't shake another kindred hand.
This is the way.
Your videos on this game really cool, makes me want to try it now
Excellent video! You guys produce amazing stuff-it's a crime you don't have more viewers.
You can help rectify this injustice by sharing this video with other world of darkness fans!
While I may not agree with some your views and I will grant that you guys make some of the best content when it comes to running various games. You've helped me rethink my approach to Vampire and I feel more confident to try my hand at storytelling again with this new focus of thinking about the clans/sects as the mob. Brilliant.
Awesome to hear it, and we are 100% cool with people of different view points. There are no packaged deals: take the ideas you like from our content and discard what you don't.
Thanks for watching, really appreciate it.
Great video! Goes straight to the must-watch list of videos for new (and seasoned) storytellers.
Made me think about the scene in the series the strain where the vampire overlord bribes Sean Astins character with getting his terminal cancer patient wife into experimental treatment. Far more effective them threatening him into complying.
This pretty much sums up my personal experience with the game in the 90s. The greatest and most immersive RPG experience of my entire life. Damn.
This is great advice and is ideal for my upcoming campaign. Thank you!
Oh this is great! Looking forward to a video on the Sabbat.
what a potent draught of vitae! I feel almost alive with this knowledge. I of course will be sharing this with my coterie.
Thank you so much!
@@blacklodgegames When is the Sabbat one coming? What about the Anarch one?!? oh god I can't wait!!!
@@Majesticleper soon for sabbat, anarchs will be much later
@@blacklodgegames stoked.
I feel like I could listen to you talk VTM for hours and never get bored. Can't wait for future Vampire content!
This is something Ive always aimed to give my VtM players, some get it, some don't. Thank you for this video
Thanks for watching!
@@blacklodgegames thank you again for the VTM and V5 content; I particularly like your episode on safety tools. Couldn't agree more
Great video - you have peaked my interest.
If you haven't played VTM, where would you start?
The core rule book for vampire 5th edition is available now. We also have a review of that book on the channel.
What a fucking dope ass video. Great advice, expertly summarized and delivered so everyone can get something out of it.
Ill share this with my german roleplaying buddies because i couls not say this better
Thanks man!
Finally someone explained this game in a way that I could start running it. Thank you!
This is an excellent video. It helped me explain a lot of stuff to people in my LARP community. Please make more in this vein.
More to come!
Larp is great for vampire. More players and storyteller s should try playing a good vampire larp to get the feeling of all the plans within plans happening in the world of darkness
@@andersand6576 - Yeaup! Not a big fan of the official systems. They are often burdensome and don't accomplish what they want to. I think the playloop and simulation power of LARP is great for vampire though. Budget friendly too. You Can make a vampire location super cheap and look great. Not easy with fantasy.
@@blacklodgegames - Give me the Sabbat video, dang it, my Camarilla campaign is entering act 3.
Very interesting. I've never DMed a VtM game, and only played in 4 (including one which was VtDA). They all definitely served up "foppish political drama" and "tormented vigilante" to greater or lesser degrees, with a side dish of "standard D&D party which happens to be dressed in black," and they were all unsatisfying - perhaps for that reason.
Looking forward to the Sabbat video, especially because my characters were 2 Lasombras and a Tzimisce (plus a Malk who barely counts, because, y'know, Malk). I'd also like to hear something about what aspects might be different in a VtDA setting, since the one time I suggested a modern game to my players I was unanimously shot down.
Yeah Dark Ages is its own thing. Not sure when we are going to get to it, but we are definitely thinking about it
Absolutely genius video.
Glad you enjoyed it
With this perspective on VTM the Giovanni would have a slight edge at least to adapting to the life ( or unlife ) since they lived by these rules before their embrace. Great video.
So what you're saying here is...we got a little situation
Yung STEVE bringing the thunder!!!
Brilliant video! Two folklores that mesh perfectly. Of course, everyone knows both the mob and vampires are totally fictional.
Okay I'm definitely gonna need that Sabbat video.
All in good time
One of the clans ARE the Italian mafia
Yeah we were going to do a fight club style single frame subliminal message about the Giovanni but forgot :(
This is the video. Vampire finally clicked for me, I get it now
I'm so fucking down for this, would kill to play in this campaign!
Run it for your friends!
"The Bloodfather"... Heh. 🩸🦇
I still miss Heather, though.
This is fuckin sick!!!! BRILLIANT
Share it! Trying to reach the WoD people
@@blacklodgegames Sadly, those who most need to hear your advice are going screech, hiss, and run from this channel like - well, like vampires from sunlight. And probably the WoD people more than most. I've read KoDT comics which mocked male VTM players for wearing mascara in the '90s, long before tumblrinas even existed.
ive watched a little of the tv show and it definitely took this spin which i think was totally inspired
I haven't watched it in 20 years or so but Kindred the Embraced was pretty good from what I remember
This is brilliant
Love it. I'd totally dig seeing your take on Werewolf!
Imagine Blade at the Blood Rave being there as a soldier sent to silence it as it's an affront to the code of Omerta.
Is Young Steve just saying this cuz he is Italian 😜
I wonder if this same mentality can be extended to the other games. Werewolf: the Apocalypse is basically Eco-Terrorism and you're part of a 'Green Mujahadeen', with your pack being an individual cell and your Tribes representing the different terrorist organizations (Fianna are the PIRA, Get of Fenris are Red Army Brigade, etc). The same could be for the Traditions in Mage: the Ascension in that you play what are fundamentally members of weird mystery cults and the Technocracy are governmental departments (CIA, FBI, NSA, the US Army etc).
Great analysis.
I started my first character as a lasombra polish mobster, and it's so far avoided the issues in the first part of the video lol
I needed a crumb of Lamb Of God's Omerta to make this video complete.
Funny, I've always loved noir and detective stories, and was getting intrigued into watching the soprano's... I guess i've found my hook without realizing it.
World of Darkness: Mafia from revised era said all this outright and is why the book mostly focuses on vampires. Good video.
Thanks, will have to check that one out.
This is a great base for improving and focusing Vampire game-running, thanks. I want to say, though, there's an interesting wrinkle.
Vampires suffer supernatural, empirically-verifiable consequences for being too savage, too unremittingly shit-headed. That's wild in a way! There are human war criminals and serial killers who get away with far more than a Kindred could, and go home and have dinner with their families (for a media example, think of The Cleaner in Boondock Saints, but lots of real-life examples will do)... A vampire who acts like that will go permanently, terminally insane, and have to be put down by other Kindred... which in turn gives those Kindred a vivid, first-hand example of what awaits them if they have no brakes.
It's as if mobsters were the only humans on Earth with undeniable proof of Hell, and yet they cannot stop being mobsters. They have to be mobsters who know exactly how their souls are marked by what they do.
So I suspect that in vampire society, the threat of violence is everpresent, but the outbursts of it are rare. It's not hard to imagine that even fucking with another Kindred's touchstones, to the extent you could identify them, would be treated with... caution. For ye who fucks with the Beast may also be fucked with, and all of ye are suspended over a hungry and bottomless void.
when i was a teenager vampires where just superheroes with a blood battery
Subbed. Great vid.
I love this framework, but I have trouble figuring out what the "resource" is in this analogy.
In the mob, its' territory and money. You can always get more money, and use it to do things, such as get more territory and money (bribes, etc.)
In vampire, it seems like money is easy to get. And territories tend to be fairly fixed in cities (areas go to specific clans), and they don't typically fight over territory.
And once you have a territory, you have you're blood resource - but it doesn't really do anything for you. there's only so many people you need to feed from (particularly if people get one of those annoying background merits that gives you guaranteed feeding). But even if you don't, it's not like you can ship half of the population of a neighborhood block to another "clan" boss in some other city.
I think I'm missing something here.
I guess if you house ruled it so that (1) having ghouls/herds was risky, since they're essentially drug addicts who can never be trusted BUT now you've pulled them into your life so they have too much access to you and (2) feeding is always risky (e.g., you have something like a Gumshoe Nights Black Agent heat tracker, and the more feeding you do the higher the risk level is.
Money is only easy to get in vampire because it's been abstracted away into a resources background trait. I think introducing strict cash management with the need to collect from your sources (which could be mortal criminal orgs themselves) would be an improved system.
Using supernatural abilities to just use people as ATMs is a bad idea as those sorts of stories tend to grow and attract notice from hunters etc
It definitely needs more mechanical support. The thematics are in place but the systems are not. Excellent point about ghouls and herd being a risk too, this is often overlooked.
@@blacklodgegames i agree - I really think the gumeshoe heat tracker idea works well here - many things you or other vampires do creates a footprint and increases "heat" (the chance you'll be detected). Get a million $ and put it in a bank? Someone could notice that.
@@blacklodgegames Yes. I l always ruled that things like Majesty and Domination work like the dad's power in Stephen King's firestarter - dominating someone's mind is not good for them - it affects them in unpredictable ways. Sure, you can mind-wipe somone to forget something horrible, but when they randomly snap next week and do something horrific someone is going to notice.
@@GaryFurash exactly. Nothing is free
Great work, gents.
Thanks!
The price of being evil.
Great video - I would easily rank this video next to the Gentleman's Guide to Vampires with Matthew Dawkins (either version), and the Clan Lore series from Outstar. I walked away from this video inspired, and full of ideas, (and a new desire to re-watch the Godfather movies).
I would very much like to request that you create a video focusing on The Sabbat. The v5 changes have made what was (for me) a challenging sect to understand, even harder to work with within a story or chronicle. After watching this video, it is my hope that you will give the Sabbat a video that explains how this sect should be played.
Sabbat video is coming but we have a few others in the works before we get to it.
@@blacklodgegames Have to ask: would the Hecata follow the same rules as the mob, or would they be something unique in and of themselves?
Did you change thumbnails? Or am I going crazy?
Yep, iterating
This explanation is pure poetry.
Fucking brilliant video. It really cleared things up in my mind.
Thing is, so many players in VtM never ever want to show weakness vs others. But without moments of weakness, there is no drama. They just want to indulge their power fantasies, superheroes with fangs. I see this more with V20 than v5.
I think that I now understand the game.
My first ever campaign was literally set in 1980s Miami lol
YOU GOD DAMNED TEASE!
I was one of those GMs who was around with the original release and i always thought it looked cool but never could get the answer, what is this game really about. Kudos young man. Kudos. Now go home and get your fucking shine box
this is a great video. I really like Blade's Blood Rave but its definitely not what Elysium should be, if anything its a Sabbat party to recruit Anarchs. Blade's Elysium probably looks like the board room with the Vampire Elders that Frost kills
Haven't played VtM since ... oh, the 90s.
But yeah, you're right.