Revisiting VtM: Bloodlines

[makiavelli747]

I don't know whether or not such a project would be worth it,

It is really easy to implement, but somebody have to write that first.

 

[Gord]

Anyone else having the problem that after taking a ride in the cab, your char executes an attack when arriving at the destination?
Had several Criminal Violations now due to this.

I'm switching to fists now before taking a ride, since punching thin air is not causing the police to show up, at least.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Anyone else having the problem that after taking a ride in the cab, your char executes an attack when arriving at the destination?
Had several Criminal Violations now due to this.

I'm switching to fists now before taking a ride, since punching thin air is not causing the police to show up, at least.

Yeah, had that happen regularly. Still, as you said, easily solved by switching to fists before taking a ride.

 

[Gord]

Yeah, strange though, don't remember it from my older playthroughs.

 

[Jaesun]

That happens to me EVERY TIME I play. Always freaks me out.

Never once, at all, have I gotten the tutorial door bug though.

 

[Broseph]

Never once, at all, have I gotten the tutorial door bug though.

My brother got it the first time he played the game and he never bothered to play it again. Sad.

 

[ghostdog]

Yeah, I've got that door bug a couple of times and that auto-attack bug some other times.


Bugs that come a go as they please...

 

[Wesp5]

The image above always reminds me of the Centauri from Babylon 5 ! But who is this for real and why has he such weird hair?

 

[ghostdog]

The image above always reminds me of the Centauri from Babylon 5 ! But who is this for real and why has he such weird hair?

Well, since he believes in the existence of ancient aliens he may very well be Londo Mollari's distant cousin:

Spoiler

 

[Wesp5]

Okay, I hope some of you PnP gurus still follow this thread . I was speaking with the guy who makes the prequel and we are still not sure how the low generation of the Bloodlines player can be explained. I see the following options, maybe you can comment on them:

1) Troika didn't care about the PnP stats, as with a lot of other things, and choose the number of blood points regardless of possible generation.
2) The blood points indicate that the player is 8th generation and thus the Sire must have been 7th. I see some serious issues with this setup:
a) Why should the Sire let himself be killed if he would be much more powerful than everyone else around?
b) Why should LaCroix let the player live when he knows that he is of lower generation than himself?
-> I think both options make no sense, so the vampire who dies at the beginning can't be the real Sire of the player. But why does this pawn
get himself executed? If he was Dominated or something wouldn't the other vampires be aware of it? Are there other possibilities?

A related question: How does diablerie work? What happens to the vampire who is diablerized? How easy can others detect such an act?

 

[Dayyālu]

A related question: How does diablerie work? What happens to the vampire who is diablerized? How easy can others detect such an act?

Going by the old memories that I have:

1) The aggressor drains the victim vampire of blood, and then devours the victim's soul. Always reminded me of Legacy of Cain, dunnow why. The generation of the aggressor then gets lowered by one.

2) He dies.

3) Quite easily, as the act causes a "stain" on the aura of the individual guilty of diablerie. A stain that needs years to go away.

Maybe a more savvy Vampire player will give more details, but those are the basics.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Hi Wesp.

1) Troika didn't care about the PnP stats, as with a lot of other things, and choose the number of blood points regardless of possible generation.
2) The blood points indicate that the player is 8th generation and thus the Sire must have been 7th. I see some serious issues with this setup:
a) Why should the Sire let himself be killed if he would be much more powerful than everyone else around?
b) Why should LaCroix let the player live when he knows that he is of lower generation than himself?
-> I think both options make no sense, so the vampire who dies at the beginning can't be the real Sire of the player. But why does this pawn
get himself executed? If he was Dominated or something wouldn't the other vampires be aware of it? Are there other possibilities?

I think Troika simply went with the lowest generation allowed by PnP rules for new vamps - 8th. Somehow I doubt there was any other well thought our reason for this.

A related question: How does diablerie work? What happens to the vampire who is diablerized? How easy can others detect such an act?

By drinking a vampire dry and then beyond to suck out his soul. If the victim is lower gen, the perpetrator gets reduced generation. The diablerist also gets some extra memories and even skills from the victim. The victim is dead, usually, unless they were really powerful (very low gen, high willpower) as then there is a real danger of them simply taking over the diablerist body. Detecting it is easy with auspex power (it shows in aura as black veins and everyone knows what that means). These can last for years, even decades if the victim was powerful. And even when it fades it can still be detected with Tremere blood rituals and such.

 

[Jaesun]

 

[Prime Junta]

Okay, I hope some of you PnP gurus still follow this thread . I was speaking with the guy who makes the prequel and we are still not sure how the low generation of the Bloodlines player can be explained. I see the following options, maybe you can comment on them:

1) Troika didn't care about the PnP stats, as with a lot of other things, and choose the number of blood points regardless of possible generation.

Nope, they did care. A number of people in the game comment on this, notably the Tremere regent in his first letter to you ("so much power I sense in one so young") and Andrei the Tzimisce in the second encounter. Many others react more subtly, notably LaCroix gets increasingly unsettled as you make more and more mayhem way beyond your station.

2) The blood points indicate that the player is 8th generation and thus the Sire must have been 7th. I see some serious issues with this setup:

Correct.

a) Why should the Sire let himself be killed if he would be much more powerful than everyone else around?

Exactly.

b) Why should LaCroix let the player live when he knows that he is of lower generation than himself?

Because, clearly, he didn't. He's condescending to you like no tomorrow in the early part of the game.

-> I think both options make no sense, so the vampire who dies at the beginning can't be the real Sire of the player. But why does this pawn
get himself executed? If he was Dominated or something wouldn't the other vampires be aware of it? Are there other possibilities?

Perhaps he was blood bound to the real sire.

I really love this conspiracy theory, partly because I came up with it all by myself (although I'm sure I wasn't the first one to do so), mostly because it's really WoD-ey. We have a mysterious 7th-gen pulling the strings behind the scenes, making all of LA dance as his puppets, to inscrutable aims of his own. That's what WoD is all about.

But... there are pretty strong indications that this isn't the way Troika intended it. Notably, there's the taxi driver, and there's plenty of textual evidence that Troika intended him to be Caine, and him to be the one pulling the strings. Caine is a living god, basically, and lowering someone's generation to wherever he needs it would be trivial for him. So I think Troika's explanation would have been just that Caine, for reasons of his own, engineered the PC's Embrace and subsequent reprieve, and then lowered his generation to 8. The sire really was his sire, and everybody was Caine's pawn.

However, since White Wolf decreed that the taxi driver isn't Caine, but merely a Malkavian who believes he's Caine, that would bring us right back to the conspiracy theory. Clearly "Caine" can't be the sire unless PC is also Malkavian, which means he must be another of the mysterious real sire's pawns, or someone even more powerful pulling the real sire's strings.

A related question: How does diablerie work? What happens to the vampire who is diablerized? How easy can others detect such an act?

Suck him dry and eat his soul. He is permanently destroyed, unless his blood is strong enough to overcome the diablerizer's, in which case he un-lives again in the diablerizer's body, and the diablerizer is the one who's gone. Quite often the diablerizer takes on some of the victim's personality anyway, so it's a bit unclear actually who lives and who dies. Anyone with Auspex can detect it as the aura will show black veins.

 

[Gord]

I think that the ambiguity of the thing is one of the strengths of the game (supported by the setting).
Thus if I would try to make a prequel (first time I hear of that, btw), I'd probably try to preserve some of that ambiguity.
Is the cabby really Cain? Is he just a crazy old Malkavian? Or is there some other ancient vampire behind all the events? If the player is 8th gen, why can LaCroix dominate him early on (or can he really?). Who knows, but making up silly theories about it is already half the fun.

Alternatively, one can always go for the (somewhat boring) ordinary/mundane solution:
Troika didn't care about the PnP rules enough to follow them in every detail, thus the blood count of the player is just coincidence. At some point they decided that it's a good number for gameplay reasons.
The player is thus really supposed to be of typical generation for the setting, at most slightly lower (say ~11th)
The failed domination attempt of LaCroix in the end is really just the player getting lucky on a willpower throw
The player's rise to power is caused by his extraordinary deeds and experiences, rather than by his potent blood taking root
Ambiguous comments by various NPCs (Andrei, Strauss) are referring to the player's general vampire condition and meddling in LA, not his low generation

I prefer the more mysterious player-is-really-8th-gen approach, even though that raises more questions than it answers.
The mundane solution has mainly the blood count sticking out (and to a lower degree NPC-comments), which can be explained by gameplay/loose interpretation of the rules, but it's certainly less FUN.

 

[Wesp5]

Many others react more subtly, notably LaCroix gets increasingly unsettled as you make more and more mayhem way beyond your station.

Could this be the result of the player drinking a lot of elder blood during the game? This is mentioned in the text above too!

Perhaps he was blood bound to the real sire.

This sounds like a possible solution! The Cabbie or someone else could be the real Sire of the player and the pawn getting killed was blood bound to him to die. But how is this done? How would one explain it inside the game?

But... there are pretty strong indications that this isn't the way Troika intended it. Notably, there's the taxi driver, and there's plenty of textual evidence that Troika intended him to be Caine, and him to be the one pulling the strings.

This would still be possible using the solution above! Nobody needs to say who the Cabbie really is, he Sired the player and let the blood bound pawn take the fall. Maybe we could construct a reason why the pawn deserved it...

 

[Gord]

Could this be the result of the player drinking a lot of elder blood during the game? This is mentioned in the text above too!

As the text says, you could gain temporary powers from the consumption of elder blood.
With some "creativity" this could probably used for some additional explanation as to why the player is getting powerful so fast.
I'm not very firm in VtM lore and rules (played it in PnP only for a short time years ago), however, so others will probably have more to say about it.

 

[makiavelli747]

the blood count of the player is just coincidence. At some point they decided that it's a good number for gameplay reasons

exactly

 

[Prime Junta]

Many others react more subtly, notably LaCroix gets increasingly unsettled as you make more and more mayhem way beyond your station.

Could this be the result of the player drinking a lot of elder blood during the game? This is mentioned in the text above too!

Sure, if you drink a lot of elder vitae. I don't think it works that way mechanically though; you don't have to consume any of those elder vitae blood packs. I didn't in my last playthrough, and there isn't any forced event where you would do it.

Perhaps he was blood bound to the real sire.

This sounds like a possible solution! The Cabbie or someone else could be the real Sire of the player and the pawn getting killed was blood bound to him to die. But how is this done? How would one explain it inside the game?

A vampire becomes blood bound to another if she drinks his vitae three times or more. http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Blood_bond_(VTM)

Edit: or are you asking how Real Sire would accomplish the switch? He'd have to embrace the PC while, perhaps, changing his appearance to match Fake Sire's. Then he'd put Fake Sire on the scene, get someone to snitch on them to LaCroix, and wait. LaCroix's goons show up, stake PC and Fake Sire, and the trial is staged. Being blood bound, Fake Sire can't speak up because doing so would betray his regnant, so he has no choice but to submit to his fate.

Real Sire has made sure Nines is present, and is fairly confident that LaCroix will spare his childe because politics. He would certainly have some backup plan in place too of course, probably involving Jack, but we never find out what that is.

But... there are pretty strong indications that this isn't the way Troika intended it. Notably, there's the taxi driver, and there's plenty of textual evidence that Troika intended him to be Caine, and him to be the one pulling the strings.

This would still be possible using the solution above! Nobody needs to say who the Cabbie really is, he Sired the player and let the blood bound pawn take the fall. Maybe we could construct a reason why the pawn deserved it...

That's true, the driver doesn't have to be a Malk. He could be any clan or bloodline, we don't really know anything about him other than that he's clearly pulling strings somehow.

 

[Prime Junta]

the blood count of the player is just coincidence. At some point they decided that it's a good number for gameplay reasons

exactly

No doubt, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't invent a lore consistent explanation for it and work it into their writing. They certainly acknowledged it, even if they left the mystery itself open (which is a good thing IMO).

 

[Lambach]

With some "creativity" this could probably used for some additional explanation as to why the player is getting powerful so fast.

Other than Caine or some such Elder figure empowering the PC through whatever means, there really is no good PnP explanation as to why such a young Vampire is so powerful. Hell, it takes most Kindred a few years under their Sire's tutelage to properly develop basic powers, yet the PC can go from a level 1 Discipline to a level 5 in the span of weeks (or 2 months, judging by how often Heather begs you for her blood fix).

Having a low Generation doesn't guarantee power by itself. A 100-year-old Gen 12 Kindred could kill a freshly Embraced Gen 7 one as easily as a newborn kitten. Generation determines your maximum potential, but without a lot of time and practice to achieve it, potential in itself means nothing.

In other words, the only reason the PC is as powerful as he/she is, is because of gameplay reasons.

 

[Dreaad]

This is all interesting but..... why would any old vampire get involved in that story line? LaCroix is irrelevant, the Anarchs are also irrelevant, the Asian lady might be important I guess but it's a lot of hoops to jump through just to kill her with brute force anyway. The casket or whatever was inside it originally is clearly irrelevant, since it was already emptied (so.... presumably whomever wanted the contents got them anyway). I mean I guess someone could have pulled all these strings and created some elaborate web of events for the lols, but that doesn't seem likely.

My point is, there's no reasonable motivation for anyone actually powerful to get involved in what is essentially a low tier gang war. To me it just seems like a battle between Jack and LaCroix, both clearly tried to manipulate what's going on and don't really care who they have to involve to get rid of each other. Well more specifically I don't think LaCroix realizes the main threat is Jack and is just paranoid about the Anarchs in general. Meanwhile Jack has his hands in every little detail and seems to be playing with you, Nines, Ming and LaCroix at his leisure.

 

[Prime Junta]

With some "creativity" this could probably used for some additional explanation as to why the player is getting powerful so fast.

Other than Caine or some such Elder figure empowering the PC through whatever means, there really is no good PnP explanation as to why such a young Vampire is so powerful. Hell, it takes most Kindred a few years under their Sire's tutelage to properly develop basic powers, yet the PC can go from a level 1 Discipline to a level 5 in the span of weeks (or 2 months, judging by how often Heather begs you for her blood fix).

Having a low Generation doesn't guarantee power by itself. A 100-year-old Gen 12 Kindred could kill a freshly Embraced Gen 7 one as easily as a newborn kitten. Generation determines your maximum potential, but without a lot of time and practice to achieve it, potential in itself means nothing.

In other words, the only reason the PC is as powerful as he/she is, is because of gameplay reasons.

I don't know about you guys, but I find it much more interesting to take the events in VtM:B at face value and then try to figure out how it could have happened, given the rules that govern the World of Darkness, rather than simply go "Bah, Troika cheated."

The thing with the WoD is that there's always a way. The rules can be bent, if you find someone powerful and/or clever enough to bend them.

 

[Lambach]

I don't know about you guys, but I find it much more interesting to take the events in VtM:B at face value and then try to figure out how it could have happened, given the rules that govern the World of Darkness, rather than simply go "Bah, Troika cheated."

The thing with the WoD is that there's always a way. The rules can be bent, if you find someone powerful and/or clever enough to bend them.

Well then, that just brings us back to the "Caine is empowering the PC" or some such dumb, trivial explanation. If we're going strictly by PnP rules, there is no way someone can reach a level 5 mastery over a certain Discipline in a few weeks with 0 assistance and tutelage. In all of WoD's lore, it has never happened, not once. If you bend the rules that far, you're not bending them, you're outright breaking them.

 

[Gord]

Yeah, at some point it's pretty clear that gameplay trumps lore consistency here.
There's just no easy way to deliver a story like in Bloodlines and keep the reward-trigger-machine going without having the player gain power too quickly in comparison to PnP rules and/or plausibility.
That's pretty much a standard cRPG trope.

It's still fun to sperg a bit about it occasionally.