The Metaplot Cafe

Quietus and thaum blood sorcery

Protean claws dont do agg to vamps

Thin blooded alchemy mimics blood magic

Weapons: light damage is baseball bat or .22 pistol (+2damage)

Medium fireaxe ot 9mm (+3)
Heavy is steel beam or 357 (+4)

(This is relevant, but I need to unearth my 2nd Ed and Revised Ed core books for math reasons)

Memoriam- old vamps have to exert effort to recall back far at all.

V5 is meant for gen 10-16. That's not a typo. Thin blood, gen 16. Blood potency system resembles that of Requiem, with min/max potencies and requiem style torpor reducing BP stuff. Very much not sold on the BP scale for feeding, as book isn't geared for older than Ancillae, so elders are statted at having to drain and kill kine routinely to have lower than 3 hunger.

Note: VTES discipline symbols are used. Ironically comforting in a sea of change regarding many disciplines.

Discipline:

1dot:
Make an animal familiar

Sense “beast"(nature, hunger, hostility) in other beings.

2dot: feral whispers. Good old animals talking.
3dot: feeding on animals increases by 1 in the efficiency system, and you can take traits like feeding from mortals.

Quell the beast: its it's what you expect.

Living Hive: ghoul a colony of something inside part of you. Yea, apparently when you omit Tzimisce, you gotta up the gross in Nosferatu.

4 dots
Subsume the spirit: ye ol’ animal possession.

5dots
Animal dominion- command legions of animals.
Dotb- throws your beast into someone else


1dot
Sense the unseen- see supernaturally (detect or dormant rites)
Heightened Senses- see in dark, hear ultrasonic, etc.

2dot
Premonition-feeling urges vamp away from danger or toward something hidden. Very undetailed and imprecise feelings.

3dot
Scry the soul-glean basic emotion state, supernatural traits, etc bh concentration.
Share the senses-experience sensory input of target. Line of sight needed for strangers, miles possible if someone has their blood in them.
4dot
Spirits touch- not much changed in function.
5dot
Clairvoyance- meditate a few minutes and gather loads of information about surrounding area roughly as large and complex as a city block, including things out of ordinary happenings.
Combo 5 and 3: possession. Posses a mortal.

Telepathy-its telepathy.


1dot
Cats grace-impeccable balance like a world class acrobat, with slightest support.
Rapid reflexes- perceive things with superspeed.
2dot
Fleetness-adds rating to non combat dice pool, or a defense pool.
3dot
Blink-abruptly move 50 or less meters in a straight line toward a target almost instantly. Or away. Whatever.
Traversal-travel across liquid or walls by running really fast.
4dot
Draught of Elegance -give temporary when blood is drank.
Unerring aim-vampire can aim and shoot/throw as though target was standing still;target can't dodge or block.
5dot
Lightning Strike-strike with hands or melee weapon so quickly it cannot be blocked or evaded.
Split second-character supersedes storytellers narrative within reason, such as making it through a door before it closes, appearing behind an attacker as an ambush is triggered, etc. If someone asks you to grab 6 ketchup packets from the hot dog stand across the street, you’re handing them to the person as the last syllable of “street “ leaves their mouth. You get the idea.


Still needs eye contact, older vamps spend willpower to ignore its effects. Target must understand what's being said, etc.
1dot
Cloud memory make target forget last few minutes.
2dots
Mesmerize-issue complex commands to be carried out immediately. Cannot have “ifs" must be straight command.
Dementation-cause a breakdown in victim via subtle communication
3dots
Forgetful mind- make new memories replacing reality.
Submerged Directive- mesmerize but put on a trigger to happen later.
4dot
Rationalize- victims believe anything under dominate was their own free will
5dot
Mass manipulation-use on scores of targets
Terminal Decree- victims ignore self preservation and do anything told. Without this, they will not willingly kill themselves.


1dot
Resilience-add to health
Unswatable mind -add to rolls against mental influences
2dot
Toughness- subtract from non agg damage sources
Combo with:ani: 1 enduring beast, add in extra health to ghouled animals for a time.

3dot
Defy bane- convert Agg to superficial damage as its sustained X points a scene, where X is rating.

Fortify inner Facade- mind unreachable byninvaders, aura is flat.

4dot
Draught of endurance-give through blood drank

5dot
Flesh of Marble (omfg facepalm)- ignore the first source of damage dealt each turn. Works on fire, not sunlight.

Prowess from pain-take no wound penalties and increase stats temporarily for each health level damage taken.



1dot
Cloak of shadows-standstill in the dark and be invisible to eyes
Silence of death-(yup,that one) silences noises made by user.
2dot
Unseen passage-cloak but you can move
3dot
Ghost in the machine-power works on cameras, recording are blurred

Mask of 1000 faces-appear as random nondescript person

4dot
Conceal-hide inanimate objects
Vanish-use cloak under observation and move, etc

5dot

Cloak the gathering-what you think it is

Imposters guise- become something specific with mask of 1000 faces.



1dot
Lethal body-agg to mortals with unarmed attacks, ignore 1 armor per dot

Soaring leap-jump 3meters× vertically or 5meters × horizontally.

2dots
Prowess- add to unarmed attacks
3dots
Brutal feed- drain human In seconds, dealing agg. Can be used on kindred, but does non agg.

Combo 3 spark of rage-add to attempts to rile or incite ppl.

Uncanny grip-climb most surfaces that can support your weight.

4dot
Draught of might- give by letting others drink your vitae

5dots
Earthshock- its it's what you think

Fist of caine- inflict agg for a scene with your hands



1dot
Awe- individuals are drawn to and agree with user frequently

Daunt- repel version of awe

2dot
Lingering kiss-kine becomes addicted to vamp feeding on them

3dot
Dread gaze-instill fear in target

Entrancement-enraptures a single target into head over heels obsession.

4dot
Combo 1 irresistible voice- use dom through voice.

Summon-call to user anyone they're used majesty on or who's tastes their blood

5dots
Majesty-kinda like before.

Star magnatism-use over live feeds or phones.



1dot
Eyes of the beast -same

Weight of the feather-reduce weight/mass density.

2dot
Feral weapons-agg to mortals, make claws, etc.

3dots
Earthmeld- same as usual
Shapechange- turn into an animal roughly same size as vamp.

4dots
Metamorphosis-expanded shapechange for bats, etc.
5dots
Mist form-same as normal.
The unfettered heart- heart moves inside vamp, making them hard to stake and able to unstake themselves.

Blood Sorcery who knows what else

It does rituals. I'll run through as best as my patience allows:
1dot
Corrosive vitae-turn blood into acid.
Taste for blood- taste blood and gain details of its owner.
2dots
Extinguish vitae-make target increase in hunger
3dots
Blood of potency- temporarily increases blood potency by 1or2
Scorpions touch-yeah, the one.

4dot
Theft of vitae-kinda the same
5dot
Baals caress- suped up scorpions touch.
Couldron of blood-kinda the same.

Rituals…. Look, its path of blood and some quietus and a touch of assamite sorcery. Now, since seems to be absorbed into and I strongly wonder why there's no Assamites in the book. I guess having a whole index of “player boundaries “ and referencing similar junk at least once every 30 pages was more important than a full game or relevant backstory pieces.

Honestly, I was excited about V5, but I have mixed emotions with it. I heard alot of flak about generation not mattering, mechanics and over focus on feeding. I heard there was very little in the way of metaplot. I heard the art focus changed and nobody was ready to call it “good" all through.
They did too much at once, so removed the impact of most of it having meaning. This would have been one hell of a VtR book instead of VtR. But its not.not even as complete, since it openly still states there are 13 clans, but only worries about 7, while routinely mentioning one more(Assamites) and occasionally name dropping another (Tzimisce).
I feel like I have 400 pages and cant run a full game. I can run one where i limit players, and even an elder that 16th generation characters encounter cant tell them the answers to important questions about the Camarilla, half the clans in the game, or any history between the clan novels and now, because nobody will commit to a retcon.

So we changed discipline stuff, which I'm ecstatic about for the physical ones. But, inexplicably, , quietus and dementation never actually existed, and Protean switched what it does. It only makes you squishy and reareangable, you cant be hard to kill, instead you get a 5 dot power that feels like a drunk Tzimisce attempted Heart of darkness and dropped someone's ticker into their colin before passing out.

You can't play an elder. You got a character you had buried torpid under rubble in the lead up to a Gehenna chronicle youd like to dust off? Elaborate backstory for this 8th gen lick you drafted up for a victorian Chronicle ala London by Night? Not going to feel good playing it here.

Anarch-Cam tensions worked better when the Sabbat was around to play paper to anarch rock and Cam Scissors. Toned down sabbat and second inquisition feel like we’re playing “Rock, Scissors, Lizard ,Spock” which makes the cam look like weak and boring middle management to the Requiems Invictus, and the anarchs look like Militant Carthians who cant succeed.

Comparing revised to 20thAE, I was comparing a system that could be improved to a system that remedied some but not all issues but felt HUGE in the possibility of running things with no other sourcebooks (and frankly, my sourcebooks at the time I got 20AE were less than 6) . With V5, i feel like i did with Requiem, if Requiem hadn't provided rules for bloodlines or omitted Ordo Dracul, Belials Brood, VII, and the circle of crone, while name dropping them, and referencing powers of bloodlines not in the book.
But, unlike requiem and its fog of ages garbage, this has a system for running real Vampire chronicles with established, if shifting, background. Localized chronicles, younger vamps. Its It's a lazy way to discourage power gaming, I guess. But Blood potency makes crossovers cleaner, and focus on feeding over dots is probably good


I cant compare this to 20thAE. Ones a celebration of a legacy, ones an attempt to resurrect the same legacy. They intend 2 different things.

I held this off to last, but cant leave it out. I leave politics out of gaming. We all know terrorism is bad, fascism crushes souls, and everyone in the real world wants to brain-sodomize you into their way of seeing things. I dont need to argue with a book that says I can make a social roll to encourage gun rights lobbyists that will make gun violence skyrocket so I can hunt more discreetly. First off, I'm registered to that party on the Left, and will blatantly state this to be a fallacy. Second, by that logic random small towns in Florida where 80%+ of the population has a firearm in the home are OBVIOUSLY corpse littered ghost towns where everyone shoots each other instead of saying “hello, nice weather.” Also OBVIOUSLY, DC, LA, and Chicago with their strict gun control laws are idealistic Oasisies of incorruptible wisdom where the chances of gun violence are as low as an extra terrestrial appearing on the nightly news for an Interview.
An extra 4 bullets in a glock magazine and getting a license to carry via 10 hours of training and FBI employment level background checks aren't going to let me cause mass gun violence in a role playing game. But living in my real world where a government ignores the mental health problems of a country totally make brutal murders more common, with gun, machete, or whatever, seem to not be decreasing problems. I dont like a setting where the real world is less fairy tale idealism than the “world of darkness”.
Also, before and after I find these rules, I'm met every few pages with the ways of understanding someone's feelings in my playgroup as well as all these reminders that it's just a game, to handle it in a mature light. There's also sophomoric ejaculation humor in some of the 30 pages of opening fluff. (P14, opening fluff).
I started playing VtM in 2000/2001 ish I believe. I was less than 13 at the time, and we collectively understood that there was acceptable black humor but there was a line between that and messed up things beyond what made sense (on an effort to abridge, I removed examples of both my rpg group used) . I dont recall even as an impressionable (and less jaded) teen needing told so many times to remember I was a human being playing a game with other human beings. Because I was sitting there with humans and dice and paper, and we all knew when to call bullshit and stop.
This book dedicates too much space to trying to be politically correct and talk about feelings. I have psychology textbooks in my basement that do it less than this VAMPIRE game book.
Remember Spectres book from Black Dog? That shit got deep. The explanation in the beginning was ample warning to the hazards of playing these truly corrupt things, and wraith got alot more emotional by nature than a typical vampire session. If you cant play a game about monsters preying on mortals with a degree of tact instructed in the beginning of the book, why the hell are you reading the book?
Most brutal part to my inner being is knowing that its it's the world we live in prompting this nonsense. Paradox could have saved on cost by omitting all this, but felt it important to protect themselves from negativity or even lawsuits by including all this counteracting potential emotional damage stuff. Also, the deliberately include a part telling any fascists reading to put down the book and go figure out what went wrong in their lives. So yea, they appear to oppose fascism. (Because A.who doesn't that's relevant and B. Our excessively PC society accused them of something regarding a character or something…)[like the equivalent would be the artist for DI is politically out of the mind. So if you run DI you must be too. See, still doesn't make sense…]

References to Uber PC “feelings talks", ommiting less than 33% of a page instances:
Page0 (before p1) 1page.
Page 36, ⅔ of the page is “sidebar" about individual limits.
P172 lists using things that make someone uncomfortable being a Chronicle tenet, and stopping the game or penalizing the character for trying to do something.
P352 ⅓ page sidebar about not hurting players feelings in PvP situation
P421-425 an entire appendix on the subject.

Ten pages almost, skimming to find them, I didn't list the few sentences occurances.


I'm depressed that I have to say I count this political tyrade against society, and dont even blame Paradox, WW, or others involved. Our culture says that if you dont assume people are going to think they ARE vampires every few pages, they'll forget and its somehow your fault when they jump out a 12th story window. Also, sadly in American culture, you either agree with the left or you're a Trump supporter with an IQ of 12. So of course a game going for edgy and hints of counterculture HAS to have antigun propaganda, because otherwise SOMEONE accuses them of having conservative “no-rules" gun propaganda.
So we get an obligatory dose of this instead of what new or returning players could have used in the space.

In closing, V5 is a different game than VTM has been. You will be playing a young vampire, concerned with feeding and not getting killed by humans. Feeding is very important.
You will not have much fun trying to run a jet-setting mystery hunt across a hemisphere, because you will die. You wont have much fun fighting things for fun, because the system isn't rewarding and is more limited in ways to-you guessed it-not die.
You will not fear the prince, as my neonate characters once did. If my young gangrel breached the masquerade, the prince would clean it up, and my gangrel would get decapitated. In fact, my first game I asked “why not do whatever to mortals?” and was told the prince would have to clean up the mess, and my character would be snuffed just because. Fear, right? But now, there's no prince to fear. You become a target, other licks make you dead so the inquisition doesn't sniff them out. Or the inquisition just nails you. MAYBE the prince cares, but these outside threats are scarier than them, and why follow any tradition but the first one? Ignore a prince entering a city, make a progeny, if they screw up, leave them prone and run. The prince wont look for you, they do lose face. Easier to pin it all on the neonate and move on.
They can redeem the game, but they limited what you can do substantially, and I feel no allure of politics.

But I'm THRILLED they took the risk. The entire metaplot can be flipped. Within 3 years, solid writers can turn this into one hell of a game by implementing other parts. Dont believe me?

Karen Anatos is famous, and a vampire.
A Camarilla Alastor is a famous pop star frequently using ghouls to be a stand it.

It takes a half baked Chronicle in a sourcebook to have the Second Inquisition brutally murder Karen on the Red Carpet in front of cameras and snuff the Ghoul stand in of Christine Daae’ on stage. The Cam, anarchs, and BH all get wheels spinning to put a spotlight on the government side of this crazy conspiracy where people are “murdering innocent people they believe are fictional monsters" and the second inquisition gets put into a better role of separate but unknown cells of hunters. The world gets bigger, since vamps can travel, but there's always a chance the inquisition is gonna be there. Way better plot device, on par with Giovanni Chronicles in terms of playable and influencing metaplot.

Sabbat are introduced as BH, Tal’Mahe’Ra, Inquisition(may need renaming), and Gehenna Crusaders. The BH are boogeymen. The Tal'Mahe'Ra are even more mysterious, dangerous, and powerful boogeymen. The inquisition are less spooky but are zealots when they believe infernalist ot dark thaumaturgy is involved. The Gehenna crusaders are bound to return to the world eventually from the east. What have they found? Who'd they eat? Who's pulling the strings? This is also a sourcebook that advances metaplot .

The assamites officially get into the Cam, setites may be interested as well. The Giovanni are worse off than the post WoN Ravnos. As broken as the Camarilla is in V5, a council of 9 justicars may not be a bad idea. Except for the always scheming and corrupting Setites, the greatly weakened Tremere eying the Assamites and their magic suspiciously, the Gangrel not being back to typical numbers since Xavier left, and the unease the Brujah are probably regarded with after Bell snuffed Hardestadt. Not to mention SOMEONE is bound to notice the Malks have Dominate again. For fun, let's say the Ravnos are there too.
That's another metaplot moving sourcebook.

Then the Giovanni…. How awesome would it be if they're now just a bloodline and the other necromancer lines are competing to be the 13th real clan. Basically, Baron, or Lazarus eats Augustus and boom, new clan of death. The Samedi may be walking masquerade violations, but from New Orleans into the Caribbean, zombies are cool and the inquisition is too first world for much intervention.


Each of these could totally be 300-400 pages of awesome expansion. Followed by a series of books on more specific and not metaplot changing topics until V6.