World of Darkness Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 from Hardsuit Labs

[RaggleFraggle]

How many other games let you play vampire hunters?

According to Google:

How many of those games have you heard of, played, or have confirmed are about playing as vampire hunters?

 

[J1M]

Don't take this as an insult but if you really don't like what you see offered, then try your hand and make something you think is good. If it's good there's a very small chance you'll get noticed and if you're bad you'll get humbled very quickly. Though I have to be honest, most of the narrative people I've worked with were hacks and haven't had an original idea in their lives, so your competition isn't exactly elite. I'm not a narrative writer, but I like to describe good writing the way Justice Potter Stewart described pornography "I know it when I see it". Most of these writers today are checking boxes and writing stories around them and are following by the books styles and dialogue writing. None of them want to take risk or try something unorthodox, they just put unorthodox identities in as a substitute. If any of them had any balls at all they might get somewhere, but ultimately all the great writers tend to have things that can't be taught.

No offense taken. I'm currently trying that, thanks. Unfortunately, I don't have skills relevant to making video games so it's coming along very slowly. I wouldn't call myself an original or good writer, either. I just have the benefit of foresight from seeing a ton of other attempts and the market itself is unexploited. I just want to put something out there, to show people that it's possible if nothing else.

The problem isn't a lack of opportunity or skilled devs. There are plenty of games like Hunt the Night where you play a vampire in a dark fantasy setting. Devs who could make urban fantasy simply aren't choosing to.

This article claims:

Another possible reason could be the lack of an easy to reference template for less creative products. As previously mentioned, anyone who wants to phone in the story of a high fantasy game can easily crib notes from Tolkien, Warcraft and numerous others. Similarly, if writing a sci-fi game, Star Trek, Neuromancer and others provide straightforward baselines for each given branch of sci-fi. Urban fantasy, while a prolific genre, does not have what you might call an archetypical example of the genre that serves as a sort of ‘generic’ template for anyone wishing to do a story in that genre.

In truth, this might actually be a boon for any future urban fantasy games, insofar as said games are more likely to be individually creative, as opposed to simply taking elements from pre-existing properties to make an easily marketable game. Of course, by the same token, it may take until such a property impacts on the collective consciousness for urban fantasy to get its due in gaming.

Perhaps if that ever happened, urban fantasy might even suffer the same fate of other genres of becoming largely homogeneous near-identical releases with the occasional spark of uniqueness in the rough. But even so, at least there’d be even more types of identical games to choose from, making the game industry as a whole that little bit more varied.

This speculation isn't what I would call accurate. Urban fantasy is actually very easy to write (it's oversaturated in prose fiction) and has several templates to choose from. Harry Potter and Bloodlines, for example. HP inspired numerous clones on the YA scene. After Bloodlines almost all the few vampire crpgs that were made, like DARK or Vampyr, used the plot outline of "you become a newbie vamp, abandoned by your creator, manipulated by dark forces to cause the apocalypse, etc". At least one visual novel I tried was a shameless ripoff that copied several plot points verbatim, like "blowing up an enemy coven's warehouse full of weapons" or "a whole clique of vampires who are arbitrarily crazy because Bloodlines did it." The DARK manual includes a shoutout to Bloodlines by saying the minor NPCs April and June are sisters to Therese and Jeanette Voerman who run The Asylum in Santa Monica (this is completely irrelevant to the plot and isn't mentioned in the game itself).

I admit that my outlines included a general tone and some plot points inspired by Bloodlines, mostly because imitation is flattery and attracts fans of that game. But even then I want to do my own spin on the clichés and tropes.

Just off the top of my head, one way to change up is to give the vampire PC a relationship with his creator that persists throughout the game. The creator acts as an exposition fairy who teaches the PC about the magical world and orders him on various errands. Let's add some depth to the creator: what's the creator's reason for vampirizing the PC in the first place? Hmm... maybe it's been hibernating for a while due to immortal angst and isn't acquainted with the modern world, so it vampirizes the PC to learn about the modern world and offload some of its emotional baggage by transferring unneeded memories to the PC. Vampires magically feed on life via blood, so it stands to reason that they absorb the soul/memory of victims. You could use this as the basis for a PST-esque flashback mechanic where the PC can remember things about the master's past victims that can come in handy or add to the atmosphere.

Maybe take some cues from BloodRayne or Castlevania and make the PC some kind of half-vampire who doesn't suffer stereotypical weaknesses like sunlight, fire or running water as acutely as full-fledged vampires. Maybe add some lore where the magical people are racist against halfies and see them as slaves/pets barely above mere mortals on the totem pole, which colors interactions with different covens. The decadent high society coven sees the PC as simply an extension of his master's will, while the downtrodden social justice coven treats the PC as a peer.

Add some magicians and shapeshifters and whatever to the milieu of characters to make it look less like a clone of Bloodlines. Go wild and add characters like fallen angels, tall sexy leprechauns, dragons, demon clowns, elves, animated mummies, possessed puppets, etc.

Urban fantasy is not a genre lacking in inspiration.

Half vampires are always stupid. Pretty sure I made a thread that explains this in detail.

 

[J1M]

It's not easy to write anything good. Stating otherwise is naive at best. Really doesn't matter what the genre or niche is, there's a reason 99 percent of any medium trying to tell a story is forgotten by the wayside even if most of it can be boiled down to hacks who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a narrative department in the first place.

Anyone, I mean anyone, can make sweeping broad ideas about how to make a good story but unwritten stories are always good if they remain in your head. There's a reason writers consider"re-writing" the actual part of their work. The first ideas they come up with are always shitty or never work out the way they expected to in their head.

Execution is all that matters. Literally, it's all that matters. Good execution is what justifies the ideas. Insisting that high-concept ideas are in the same place of actually writing out a script that you expect people to experience will never turn you into a good writer. At best, you can expect to become just another shlock peddler who spends too much time on TV Tropes instead of analyzing good writing and why it works.

Maybe you missed it, but I just wrote a post saying that ideas are cheap and execution is what matters.

I never said it was easy to write anything good. Urban fantasy is oversaturated in prose fiction, but most of it is repetitive crap. What surprises me is that we don't see many attempts period in video games, much less ones that are good. I already expect that most of what we get will be bad due to Sturgeon's Law. I've tried out several that have turned out terrible.

I fully understand that any given story will need to be revised several times to get good and that TV tropes gives shit advice. As the adage goes: those who can, write; those who can't, teach; those who can't teach, criticize.

Writing is one of the most important elements in anything. If you treat it like a low priority, your shit is going to suffer. if you don't pay attention to the quality of writer you hire or cheap out, your writing is going to be bad.

p. much

Video games as a multimedia creation require good work in all departments, whether it's gameplay, visual design, music & sound (including VA where it applies) more broadly or writing. Whichever elements are to be emphasized depends on the game in question and the sort of experience it aims to provide to the player, but narrative design matters regardless of how storyfaggy a game is supposed to be.

Yeah. There's no shortage of games with shit writing that were wildly successful due to good gameplay. As that one dev said, "story in video games is like story in a porno."

I've had so many frustrating arguments with delusional idiots online who think badly written drek is amazing and that I'm a hater for not seeing the genius. I learned the hard way to avoid those sorts of people.

Anyway... Even if they'd be mostly crappy, I'm surprised there aren't more urban fantasy video games period. If nothing else, then it would be mildly entertaining to mock bad writing.

John Carmack said the story in video games is like story in a porno thing while developing DOOM to Tom Hall, so he was correct insofar as DOOM was concerned.

As far as there being a lack of urban fantasy, I don't really see how that's the case. Persona 5 is urban fantasy. Devil May Cry 5 is urban fantasy. Neo: The World Ends With You, Ghostwire Tokyo, Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children, these are all urban fantasy titles. Some of them are quite good but if your metric is just Bloodlines/World of Darkness and "Bloodlines is the only notable urban fantasy game", I can see how someone would think that in addition to not jiving with Japanese stuff.

Do you have any examples that aren't japanese? The East's dismissal of consistency and cause/effect in their storytelling makes their verbose entries invisible to Western audiences.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Don't take this as an insult but if you really don't like what you see offered, then try your hand and make something you think is good. If it's good there's a very small chance you'll get noticed and if you're bad you'll get humbled very quickly. Though I have to be honest, most of the narrative people I've worked with were hacks and haven't had an original idea in their lives, so your competition isn't exactly elite. I'm not a narrative writer, but I like to describe good writing the way Justice Potter Stewart described pornography "I know it when I see it". Most of these writers today are checking boxes and writing stories around them and are following by the books styles and dialogue writing. None of them want to take risk or try something unorthodox, they just put unorthodox identities in as a substitute. If any of them had any balls at all they might get somewhere, but ultimately all the great writers tend to have things that can't be taught.

No offense taken. I'm currently trying that, thanks. Unfortunately, I don't have skills relevant to making video games so it's coming along very slowly. I wouldn't call myself an original or good writer, either. I just have the benefit of foresight from seeing a ton of other attempts and the market itself is unexploited. I just want to put something out there, to show people that it's possible if nothing else.

The problem isn't a lack of opportunity or skilled devs. There are plenty of games like Hunt the Night where you play a vampire in a dark fantasy setting. Devs who could make urban fantasy simply aren't choosing to.

This article claims:

Another possible reason could be the lack of an easy to reference template for less creative products. As previously mentioned, anyone who wants to phone in the story of a high fantasy game can easily crib notes from Tolkien, Warcraft and numerous others. Similarly, if writing a sci-fi game, Star Trek, Neuromancer and others provide straightforward baselines for each given branch of sci-fi. Urban fantasy, while a prolific genre, does not have what you might call an archetypical example of the genre that serves as a sort of ‘generic’ template for anyone wishing to do a story in that genre.

In truth, this might actually be a boon for any future urban fantasy games, insofar as said games are more likely to be individually creative, as opposed to simply taking elements from pre-existing properties to make an easily marketable game. Of course, by the same token, it may take until such a property impacts on the collective consciousness for urban fantasy to get its due in gaming.

Perhaps if that ever happened, urban fantasy might even suffer the same fate of other genres of becoming largely homogeneous near-identical releases with the occasional spark of uniqueness in the rough. But even so, at least there’d be even more types of identical games to choose from, making the game industry as a whole that little bit more varied.

This speculation isn't what I would call accurate. Urban fantasy is actually very easy to write (it's oversaturated in prose fiction) and has several templates to choose from. Harry Potter and Bloodlines, for example. HP inspired numerous clones on the YA scene. After Bloodlines almost all the few vampire crpgs that were made, like DARK or Vampyr, used the plot outline of "you become a newbie vamp, abandoned by your creator, manipulated by dark forces to cause the apocalypse, etc". At least one visual novel I tried was a shameless ripoff that copied several plot points verbatim, like "blowing up an enemy coven's warehouse full of weapons" or "a whole clique of vampires who are arbitrarily crazy because Bloodlines did it." The DARK manual includes a shoutout to Bloodlines by saying the minor NPCs April and June are sisters to Therese and Jeanette Voerman who run The Asylum in Santa Monica (this is completely irrelevant to the plot and isn't mentioned in the game itself).

I admit that my outlines included a general tone and some plot points inspired by Bloodlines, mostly because imitation is flattery and attracts fans of that game. But even then I want to do my own spin on the clichés and tropes.

Just off the top of my head, one way to change up is to give the vampire PC a relationship with his creator that persists throughout the game. The creator acts as an exposition fairy who teaches the PC about the magical world and orders him on various errands. Let's add some depth to the creator: what's the creator's reason for vampirizing the PC in the first place? Hmm... maybe it's been hibernating for a while due to immortal angst and isn't acquainted with the modern world, so it vampirizes the PC to learn about the modern world and offload some of its emotional baggage by transferring unneeded memories to the PC. Vampires magically feed on life via blood, so it stands to reason that they absorb the soul/memory of victims. You could use this as the basis for a PST-esque flashback mechanic where the PC can remember things about the master's past victims that can come in handy or add to the atmosphere.

Maybe take some cues from BloodRayne or Castlevania and make the PC some kind of half-vampire who doesn't suffer stereotypical weaknesses like sunlight, fire or running water as acutely as full-fledged vampires. Maybe add some lore where the magical people are racist against halfies and see them as slaves/pets barely above mere mortals on the totem pole, which colors interactions with different covens. The decadent high society coven sees the PC as simply an extension of his master's will, while the downtrodden social justice coven treats the PC as a peer.

Add some magicians and shapeshifters and whatever to the milieu of characters to make it look less like a clone of Bloodlines. Go wild and add characters like fallen angels, tall sexy leprechauns, dragons, demon clowns, elves, animated mummies, possessed puppets, etc.

Urban fantasy is not a genre lacking in inspiration.

Half vampires are always stupid. Pretty sure I made a thread that explains this in detail.

An interesting opinion. Do you have a link? They’re just as fictional as vampires so their traits are just as variable, so I don’t understand why anyone would think the idea is inherently stupid. In some stories, half-vampires have all the traits that would qualify them as vampires in other stories (e.g. drinking blood, superpowers, transmitting vampirism). What is your reasoning for this?

 

[J1M]

The point is there are urban fantasy games. I don't see how that's that difficult to comprehend. There's a difference between "I don't like this" vs "this is not urban fantasy because I dont like it."

Ok. Those are urban fantasy. I cannot dispute that.

The only point you're actually making is that these games aren't Bloodlines because your only metric for "urban fantasy" is just World of Darkness and even then, it seems be Bloodlines. I'll give you that the other WoD games haven't been that good though I liked Night Road, I'm sure you have a problem with that because it's not Bloodlines. Not even Hogwarts Legacy is being brought up as an Urban Fantasy example so I imagine you don't care for that.

Ok. I’m looking for games like Bloodlines and I don’t give a flying fuck about anything else. Yes, Paradox’s official WoD games are shovelware that don’t interest me. No, if I was interested in Hogwarts then I would’ve played it already.

As a starving man you may find the recent Werewolf WoD game of some sustenance. It's best viewed as a 90's game found in a time capsule.

 

[J1M]

How many other games let you play vampire hunters?

According to Google:

Embarrassingly flawed list.

 

[J1M]

Don't take this as an insult but if you really don't like what you see offered, then try your hand and make something you think is good. If it's good there's a very small chance you'll get noticed and if you're bad you'll get humbled very quickly. Though I have to be honest, most of the narrative people I've worked with were hacks and haven't had an original idea in their lives, so your competition isn't exactly elite. I'm not a narrative writer, but I like to describe good writing the way Justice Potter Stewart described pornography "I know it when I see it". Most of these writers today are checking boxes and writing stories around them and are following by the books styles and dialogue writing. None of them want to take risk or try something unorthodox, they just put unorthodox identities in as a substitute. If any of them had any balls at all they might get somewhere, but ultimately all the great writers tend to have things that can't be taught.

No offense taken. I'm currently trying that, thanks. Unfortunately, I don't have skills relevant to making video games so it's coming along very slowly. I wouldn't call myself an original or good writer, either. I just have the benefit of foresight from seeing a ton of other attempts and the market itself is unexploited. I just want to put something out there, to show people that it's possible if nothing else.

The problem isn't a lack of opportunity or skilled devs. There are plenty of games like Hunt the Night where you play a vampire in a dark fantasy setting. Devs who could make urban fantasy simply aren't choosing to.

This article claims:

Another possible reason could be the lack of an easy to reference template for less creative products. As previously mentioned, anyone who wants to phone in the story of a high fantasy game can easily crib notes from Tolkien, Warcraft and numerous others. Similarly, if writing a sci-fi game, Star Trek, Neuromancer and others provide straightforward baselines for each given branch of sci-fi. Urban fantasy, while a prolific genre, does not have what you might call an archetypical example of the genre that serves as a sort of ‘generic’ template for anyone wishing to do a story in that genre.

In truth, this might actually be a boon for any future urban fantasy games, insofar as said games are more likely to be individually creative, as opposed to simply taking elements from pre-existing properties to make an easily marketable game. Of course, by the same token, it may take until such a property impacts on the collective consciousness for urban fantasy to get its due in gaming.

Perhaps if that ever happened, urban fantasy might even suffer the same fate of other genres of becoming largely homogeneous near-identical releases with the occasional spark of uniqueness in the rough. But even so, at least there’d be even more types of identical games to choose from, making the game industry as a whole that little bit more varied.

This speculation isn't what I would call accurate. Urban fantasy is actually very easy to write (it's oversaturated in prose fiction) and has several templates to choose from. Harry Potter and Bloodlines, for example. HP inspired numerous clones on the YA scene. After Bloodlines almost all the few vampire crpgs that were made, like DARK or Vampyr, used the plot outline of "you become a newbie vamp, abandoned by your creator, manipulated by dark forces to cause the apocalypse, etc". At least one visual novel I tried was a shameless ripoff that copied several plot points verbatim, like "blowing up an enemy coven's warehouse full of weapons" or "a whole clique of vampires who are arbitrarily crazy because Bloodlines did it." The DARK manual includes a shoutout to Bloodlines by saying the minor NPCs April and June are sisters to Therese and Jeanette Voerman who run The Asylum in Santa Monica (this is completely irrelevant to the plot and isn't mentioned in the game itself).

I admit that my outlines included a general tone and some plot points inspired by Bloodlines, mostly because imitation is flattery and attracts fans of that game. But even then I want to do my own spin on the clichés and tropes.

Just off the top of my head, one way to change up is to give the vampire PC a relationship with his creator that persists throughout the game. The creator acts as an exposition fairy who teaches the PC about the magical world and orders him on various errands. Let's add some depth to the creator: what's the creator's reason for vampirizing the PC in the first place? Hmm... maybe it's been hibernating for a while due to immortal angst and isn't acquainted with the modern world, so it vampirizes the PC to learn about the modern world and offload some of its emotional baggage by transferring unneeded memories to the PC. Vampires magically feed on life via blood, so it stands to reason that they absorb the soul/memory of victims. You could use this as the basis for a PST-esque flashback mechanic where the PC can remember things about the master's past victims that can come in handy or add to the atmosphere.

Maybe take some cues from BloodRayne or Castlevania and make the PC some kind of half-vampire who doesn't suffer stereotypical weaknesses like sunlight, fire or running water as acutely as full-fledged vampires. Maybe add some lore where the magical people are racist against halfies and see them as slaves/pets barely above mere mortals on the totem pole, which colors interactions with different covens. The decadent high society coven sees the PC as simply an extension of his master's will, while the downtrodden social justice coven treats the PC as a peer.

Add some magicians and shapeshifters and whatever to the milieu of characters to make it look less like a clone of Bloodlines. Go wild and add characters like fallen angels, tall sexy leprechauns, dragons, demon clowns, elves, animated mummies, possessed puppets, etc.

Urban fantasy is not a genre lacking in inspiration.

Half vampires are always stupid. Pretty sure I made a thread that explains this in detail.

An interesting opinion. Do you have a link? They’re just as fictional as vampires so their traits are just as variable, so I don’t understand why anyone would think the idea is inherently stupid. In some stories, half-vampires have all the traits that would qualify them as vampires in other stories (e.g. drinking blood, superpowers, transmitting vampirism). What is your reasoning for this?

Aside from opening the door to the retardation of 1/4 vamps and 3/16th vamps, here you go:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/vtm-thin-bloods-are-stupid.140859/

 

[RaggleFraggle]

As a starving man you may find the recent Werewolf WoD game of some sustenance. It's best viewed as a 90's game found in a time capsule.

Which one? There’s like two and they’re both terrible. Tying werewolves into anarcho-primitivist ecoterrorism was a shitty idea.

Aside from opening the door to the retardation of 1/4 vamps and 3/16th vamps, here you go:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/vtm-thin-bloods-are-stupid.140859/

Uh… Are you unfamiliar with Vampire Hunter D, Blade and BloodRayne?

 

[Vincente]

Tying werewolves into anarcho-primitivist ecoterrorism was a shitty idea.

What manner of man wouldn't want to roleplay as werewolf Unabomber?

 

[J1M]

As a starving man you may find the recent Werewolf WoD game of some sustenance. It's best viewed as a 90's game found in a time capsule.

Which one? There’s like two and they’re both terrible. Tying werewolves into anarcho-primitivist ecoterrorism was a shitty idea.

Aside from opening the door to the retardation of 1/4 vamps and 3/16th vamps, here you go:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/vtm-thin-bloods-are-stupid.140859/

Uh… Are you unfamiliar with Vampire Hunter D, Blade and BloodRayne?

Earthblood.

I don't think Blade is a better action movie because he is a half-breed. I think it would be less convoluted and less problematic to the setting if he was a full vampire that resisted turning evil for some reason.

 

[deuxhero]

Speaking of vampire-based urban fantasy, has anyone mentioned Redfall yet?

Looks bland and the gameplay they've shown so far looks like shit. Not to mention, I don't really care for the co-op aspect of the game or that you're playing as vampire hunters.

How many other games let you play vampire hunters?

 

[Zombra]

I don't think Blade is a better action movie because he is a half-breed. I think it would be less convoluted and less problematic to the setting if he was a full vampire that resisted turning evil for some reason.

Don't get it twisted. Blade isn't problematic to the setting. If anything's wrong it's that the setting can't rise to his level.

 

[Roguey]

Earthblood.

I don't think Blade is a better action movie because he is a half-breed. I think it would be less convoluted and less problematic to the setting if he was a full vampire that resisted turning evil for some reason.

But then he wouldn't be the DAYWALKER.

 

[Delterius]

blade can't be problematic to the setting it's even called THEBAS (the blade asskicking setting)

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I think we have the opposite problem. Half-vampire protagonists like D, Rayne and Blade are typically depicted as overpowered compared to full vampires.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

I think we have the opposite problem. Half-vampire protagonists like D, Rayne and Blade are typically depicted as overpowered compared to full vampires.

Can't speak about the others, but Blade isn't overpowered due to being a half-vampire. Full vampires are stronger than him, but he also employs tech, training and conventional weaponry to balance things out (and he makes good use of his daywalking ability which isn't a great tradeoff for weaker vampiric powers if judged by itself). Basically it's a case of a protagonist that makes good use of the hand that he's been dealt while the antagonists are resting on their laurels.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I think we have the opposite problem. Half-vampire protagonists like D, Rayne and Blade are typically depicted as overpowered compared to full vampires.

Can't speak about the others, but Blade isn't overpowered due to being a half-vampire. Full vampires are stronger than him, but he also employs tech, training and conventional weaponry to balance things out (and he makes good use of his daywalking ability which isn't a great tradeoff for weaker vampiric powers if judged by itself). Basically it's a case of a protagonist that makes good use of the hand that he's been dealt while the antagonists are resting on their laurels.

I’m mostly familiar with the movies where he easily mows down hordes of vampire mooks.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

I’m mostly familiar with the movies where he easily mows down hordes of vampire mooks.

Sure, but even the movies frame it as a matter of good tactics and cutting (/shooting) them down before they have time to react (from what I recall anyway, haven't watched the movies in a long time). Superior vamp powers don't mean jackshit if your enemy doesn't give you the time or opportunity to make good use of them.

 

[Roguey]

Vampires in fiction are like ninja, the greater the attacking number, the more easily disposed of they are regardless of who the protagonist is, while a lone figure will be extremely difficult for anyone.

 

[J1M]

I’m mostly familiar with the movies where he easily mows down hordes of vampire mooks.

Sure, but even the movies frame it as a matter of good tactics and cutting (/shooting) them down before they have time to react (from what I recall anyway, haven't watched the movies in a long time). Superior vamp powers don't mean jackshit if your enemy doesn't give you the time or opportunity to make good use of them.

Saying that a bullet is magic or silver and therefore can kill a vampire the way a regular bullet kills a human sucks a lot of the life out of vampire antagonists.

My plebeian understanding of Blade's nature is that he is basically not vulnerable to the things vampires or humans are vulnerable to while LARPing about wanting to drink blood.

 

[normie]

Earthblood.

I don't think Blade is a better action movie because he is a half-breed. I think it would be less convoluted and less problematic to the setting if he was a full vampire that resisted turning evil for some reason.

But then he wouldn't be the DAYWALKER.

dayjogger

 

[Bester]

I think we have the opposite problem. Half-vampire protagonists like D, Rayne and Blade are typically depicted as overpowered compared to full vampires.

Can't speak about the others, but Blade isn't overpowered due to being a half-vampire. Full vampires are stronger than him, but he also employs tech, training and conventional weaponry to balance things out (and he makes good use of his daywalking ability which isn't a great tradeoff for weaker vampiric powers if judged by itself). Basically it's a case of a protagonist that makes good use of the hand that he's been dealt while the antagonists are resting on their laurels.

And D is overpowered because he's the son of the vampire king, progenitor of the vampiric race.

No idea who Rayne is.

Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust is great if you're into vampires, an absolute must watch.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Saying that a bullet is magic or silver and therefore can kill a vampire the way a regular bullet kills a human sucks a lot of the life out of vampire antagonists.

Sure, but that's a common trope of the vamp genre for better or worse. And if we're talking about more action-focused franchises like Blade, is it really that different from a mundane action film in which our outnumbered hero defeats a shitload of enemies?

 

[Cricket McBangle]

As a starving man you may find the recent Werewolf WoD game of some sustenance. It's best viewed as a 90's game found in a time capsule.

Which one? There’s like two and they’re both terrible. Tying werewolves into anarcho-primitivist ecoterrorism was a shitty idea.

How the fuck is making werewolves violent territorial hippies a shitty idea? They are werewolves. It's the same shit as making vampires a secret organization sucking the life and controlling the strings wherever they reside.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

As a starving man you may find the recent Werewolf WoD game of some sustenance. It's best viewed as a 90's game found in a time capsule.

Which one? There’s like two and they’re both terrible. Tying werewolves into anarcho-primitivist ecoterrorism was a shitty idea.

How the fuck is making werewolves violent territorial hippies a shitty idea? They are werewolves. It's the same shit as making vampires a secret organization sucking the life and controlling the strings wherever they reside.

How familiar are you with the IP? Did you read the Children of Gaia splatbook that enshrines a gay furry sex ritual into the rules? The Book of the Weaver that says the Christian God is just “The Patriarch,” a mid-tier patsy for a cosmic spider, and that technology and science is inherently evil, uncreative, and will destroy the world with stagnation? Did you read the backstory where it was explained ancient werewolves practiced eugenics on mortals by periodically purging the “weak” and many still yearn for those days?

The plot of Earthblood consists of fighting a Satanic oil company that deliberately pollutes in order to cause the apocalypse. What about that doesn’t sound like a shitty idea to you?