World of Darkness Are World of Darkness vampires overpowered? Were they defeated too easily in V5 lore?

[rusty_shackleford]

So who says LaCroix died?

Canonically Lacroix is ded in LA By Night. This lets Vannevar Thomas to come take over from San Francisco.

It's not a confirmation of his death, it's the same assumption of his death.

 

[Harthwain]

A mortal has only one lifetime to attempt to outsmart and out-organize the immortal. The immortal has had several, if not several dozen, lifetimes to plan ahead, organize and make sure that doesn't happen.

While I agree with the general idea of vampires being smarter and having more experience than humans, there is something to be said about the overall implausibility of detailed long-term plans. In a state of flux you have to constantly change and adopt. And we're talking about vampires competing against among themselves. Under such circumstances it's not like someone is having the upper hand here. Rather, they are keeping each other in check throughout history. Because otherwise the conflict within the vampire race would be long over by now, which certainly isn't the case. But it's useful fasade for the top vampires to keep, so I imagine they would help to sustain such impression in the general vampire populace as much as possible.

 

[Jason Liang]

So who says LaCroix died?

Canonically Lacroix is ded in LA By Night. This lets Vannevar Thomas to come take over from San Francisco.

It's not a confirmation of his death, it's the same assumption of his death.

Lacroix doesn't have Methuselah levels of Obfuscate. High level Auspex would be able to locate him were he still out there.

 

[DeepOcean]

A mortal has only one lifetime to attempt to outsmart and out-organize the immortal. The immortal has had several, if not several dozen, lifetimes to plan ahead, organize and make sure that doesn't happen.

While I agree with the general idea of vampires being smarter and having more experience than humans, there is something to be said about the overall implausibility of detailed long-term plans. In a state of flux you have to constantly change and adopt. And we're talking about vampires competing against among themselves. Under such circumstances it's not like someone is having the upper hand here. Rather, they are keeping each other in check throughout history. Because otherwise the conflict within the vampire race would be long over by now, which certainly isn't the case. But it's useful fasade for the top vampires to keep, so I imagine they would help to sustain such impression in the general vampire populace as much as possible.

The problem isnt their plans failing, problem is Deus Ex Machina, you have a character that is depicted as a mastermind sort of character, out of sudden acting like a tard just to fit your story, that means you are a lazy writer, the story wouldnt proceed the way you wanted if you didnt bend it backwards to do it so, the hero would die if the gods didnt save him, those half assed tricks are transparent and break suspension of disbelief hard as you can easily see the hand of the writer covering his ass . Good stories have an internal logic and the writer cant destroy the logic he created under his convenience or you stop buying his crap.

If a 500 years old vampire is killed on a really well planned hit organized in such a way to deal with him on a way to neutralize his strengths is something nice to read, but just reading a guy acquiring a terminal case of retardation feels like reading half assed schlock. Unfortunately, making good stories is hard so you have convenient cases of terminal retardation everywhere.

 

[santino27]

A mortal has only one lifetime to attempt to outsmart and out-organize the immortal. The immortal has had several, if not several dozen, lifetimes to plan ahead, organize and make sure that doesn't happen.

While I agree with the general idea of vampires being smarter and having more experience than humans, there is something to be said about the overall implausibility of detailed long-term plans. In a state of flux you have to constantly change and adopt. And we're talking about vampires competing against among themselves. Under such circumstances it's not like someone is having the upper hand here. Rather, they are keeping each other in check throughout history. Because otherwise the conflict within the vampire race would be long over by now, which certainly isn't the case. But it's useful fasade for the top vampires to keep, so I imagine they would help to sustain such impression in the general vampire populace as much as possible.

The problem isnt their plans failing, problem is Deus Ex Machina, you have a character that is depicted as a mastermind sort of character, out of sudden acting like a tard just to fit your story, that means you are a lazy writer, the story wouldnt proceed the way you wanted if you didnt bend it backwards to do it so, the hero would die if the gods didnt save him, those half assed tricks are transparent and break suspension of disbelief hard as you can easily see the hand of the writer covering his ass . Good stories have an internal logic and the writer cant destroy the logic he created under his convenience or you stop buying his crap.

If a 500 years old vampire is killed on a really well planned hit organized in such a way to deal with him on a way to neutralize his strengths is something nice to read, but just reading a guy acquiring a terminal case of retardation feels like reading half assed schlock. Unfortunately, making good stories is hard so you have convenient cases of terminal retardation everywhere.

Agreed. I think it's very difficult to write genius level characters because writers themselves are rarely geniuses. So there ends up being a lot of smoke and mirrors (or deus ex machina-like occurrences) to try and give the semblance of genius to the reader. And of course, it's worse when the genius character is the purported antagonist who must be defeated.

 

[Storyfag]

ecause otherwise the conflict within the vampire race would be long over by now, which certainly isn't the case.

Ah, but it is in the cannibalistic nature of the Jyhad that it is self-perpetuating. Lonely Elders desire childer, then they start to hunger for their blood as that of mortals no longer nourishes them. In turn, the childer fear the elders and desire their power. In time, the childer become Elders and lonely.

 

[Wesp5]

If a 500 years old vampire is killed on a really well planned hit organized in such a way to deal with him on a way to neutralize his strengths is something nice to read...

Which is exactly what happened in Bloodlines. Cabbie and Jack knew all about the other vampires and orchestrated a situation in which they weakened each other by infighting until their powered-up pawn could off most of them and the last one would blew itself to bits!

 

[Nano]

Lmao @ people upset about Troika being based and making the Anarchs the best faction in the game.

 

[vota DC]

So who says LaCroix died?

Canonically Lacroix is ded in LA By Night. This lets Vannevar Thomas to come take over from San Francisco.

It's not a confirmation of his death, it's the same assumption of his death.

Lacroix doesn't have Methuselah levels of Obfuscate. High level Auspex would be able to locate him were he still out there.

But without his bodyguard he Is useless, why would someone even bother to track him? For the sake of laughing about him wasting both his bodyguard and his new super henchman (MC would rebel against him or die) for an explosive coffin?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Lmao @ people upset about Troika being based and making the Anarchs the best faction in the game.

A cursory glance at the Anarchs today shows this to be no small feat.

 

[Grunker]

people complaining that some plot point or other in bloodlines don't adhere to the logic of some particular discipline ability in the vtm ruleset for the p&p game make my eyes explode from overexposure to dorkiness

only thing worse are those muh tadpole lore-guys in the bg3-thread

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

IMHO unkillable Vampires without any weaknesses are essentially mary sues of monster world, it sounds like fantasy of edgy necrophiliac teen made up in dreams during fervor. It's fucking boring and illogical.
Also my next judgement maybe wrong, but isn't guys who advocate for omnipotent and unkillable (like they gods or something, lol) vampires are shitting on wizards at any chance?
Shows pretty heavy bias here: bunch of blood sucking corpses having insane powers cuz they was bitten are cool and not illogical at all, but nerds in robes that spend entire lifetime to gain their powers - nah they bad and overpowered.
I think I can't express how much this logic is flawed.
Want undead moster with cool powers in your fiction? Fine, but all powers should have limit and monster shall have weaknesses, known to their natural rivals. Otherwise any piece of media that contains such monster would be boring as fuck and example of bad writing.

 

[Delterius]

lacroix is dead because i fucked him up with his LIMITED EDITION VAMPIRE THE MASQUERADE MAIL CUTTER // SCISSORS before he blew up

 

[Delterius]

good luck smuggling when some dude controls the police and other relevant authorities

hows the war on drugs going again

 

[fantadomat]

good luck smuggling when some dude controls the police and other relevant authorities

hows the war on drugs going again

Great,if you are from south americas.

 

[Delterius]

good luck smuggling when some dude controls the police and other relevant authorities

hows the war on drugs going again

Great,if you are from south americas.

yea its pretty nice to live in the militarized frontline of the war on drugs

 

[ArchAngel]

IMHO unkillable Vampires without any weaknesses are essentially mary sues of monster world, it sounds like fantasy of edgy necrophiliac teen made up in dreams during fervor. It's fucking boring and illogical.
Also my next judgement maybe wrong, but isn't guys who advocate for omnipotent and unkillable (like they gods or something, lol) vampires are shitting on wizards at any chance?
Shows pretty heavy bias here: bunch of blood sucking corpses having insane powers cuz they was bitten are cool and not illogical at all, but nerds in robes that spend entire lifetime to gain their powers - nah they bad and overpowered.
I think I can't express how much this logic is flawed.
Want undead moster with cool powers in your fiction? Fine, but all powers should have limit and monster shall have weaknesses, known to their natural rivals. Otherwise any piece of media that contains such monster would be boring as fuck and example of bad writing.

You sound like one of them Lich lovers.

 

[Delterius]

Every other 'high level' monster being an omnipotent unkillable superman is the whole reason why the world of darkness settings collapse into themselves.

The problem with an overwhelming number of mortal special forces managing to destroy a tremere chantry isn't because vampires should be unkillable monsters, rather that the WoD writers were hacks and created the aforementioned issue in the first place.

Humans finding out about vampires was always supposed to be a problem for the latter. Its why there's a god damn masquerade. Dialing back the metusellahs as super saiyans bullshit is a requirement for any good version of Vampire, headcanon, homebrew or otherwise.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Heh, you remember Christopher Lee Dracula movies? Where Dracula was a complete retard and was killed in the most ridiculous ways? This hacks can site this as an inspiration

 

[rusty_shackleford]

the thing about vampires is that if humans find out where you live they can just set it on fire during the daytime and there's a really, really good chance you're fucked

 

[Saerain]

Essentially, that's what ghouls and thralls are for.

 

[Delterius]

Essentially, that's what ghouls and thralls are for.

imagine if this guy is everything that stands between you and about 4 dozen special forces of the united nation's red berets (kill all vampires general secretariat)

edit: fooken links

 

[normie]

oh man

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

You sound like one of them Lich lovers.

Nah, I find liches a bit boring. Not as boring as shitty fanfics about vampires being "all-powerful and omnipotent cuz blood and shit" though.

 

[DeepOcean]

I dont have a problem with 500 years old vampires dying, I have a problem with they waking up one day with accute retarditis and the protags having more plot armor than an Abrams tank. That shit is retarded and is a cancer on genre fiction. Please, make the protag worthy of killing the antagonist than just pulling "LoL, he got retarditis."

It isnt a case of unkillable vampires vs retardation, you can actually write good stories, you know.