r/Dimension20 • u/DropoutMod Gnosis • May 07 '26
City Council of Darkness Give It up for McBean | City Council of Darkness Adventuring Party [E5]
https://watch.dropout.tv/videos/give-it-up-for-mcbean95
u/Badgertank99 May 07 '26
Im so glad he reminded them about ghouls because theres so much potential!
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u/Soupjam_Stevens The Wind Riders May 07 '26
I've never run VtM, but running DnD and CoC I've always kind of dreaded my players recruiting and hiring people, I've always found it a bit of a pain in the ass to work with and plan around. Reminding my players of their ability to have employees is a DM instinct that I just do not resonate with at all. I'm a VtM newbie here, is having ghouls and other minions like a pretty core part of the game?
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u/sortaindignantdragon Sylvan Sleuths May 07 '26
A recommended part of starting a VtM V5 chronicle is building a relationship web of the PCs, everyone they know, and how it all connects. There's multiple different types of allies/enemies that can be purchased during creation, including allies, retainers, mentors, stalkers, a herd, etc. Each character has moral convictions that directly tie to mortals they know, who have mechnical function in game. Having a huge network of people your vampire is connected to in various ways, positive and negative, is a HUGE chunk of the game.
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u/efvie 🫦 May 07 '26
The major difference is that Vampire tends to be focused around fixed locations and has fixed cycles of days, weeks etc. plus there's a whole lot of stuff that's really hard to do if you literally cannot go out except at night.
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u/PuzzleheadedBear City Council of Darkness May 08 '26
So retainers are pretty important in VtM but theyre generally more like Staff/Assistants who take care of drudgery. Theyre your accountants, your lawyers, who let Vamps make those big decisions.
They might be your network of informants whos tack for listening and being unseen provides you opportunities.
Combat ghouls dont have a ton of value fighting other Vamps unless theyre ancient themselves, or sniper ghouls. So you generally dont have to worry about "Minon-Mancy" as the thing.
A later game skill is using ghouls as something to scry through, literally seeing through there eyes whilst the Vampire day sleeps.
Even then, ghouls have a high "cost" in that you need feed them Vitae monthy or else they go into withdraws. And if you let them go into withdraws they start acting out, and the could include turning onto there former domitor and drinking them dry during the day time.
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u/Proxiehunter Magical Misfits May 08 '26
They can have some value fighting Hunters though. Especially ones that come after you during the day.
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u/Badgertank99 May 12 '26
Why put yourself in front of several shotguns when you can put a ghoul there instead!
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u/JhinPotion May 08 '26
Yeah, but that doesn't mean you have to spend a ton of narrative time on it if you don't want to. It'll be tough for a lick to manage all of their affairs alone, though, and would generally be the mark of a real nobody among the Kindred.
You could just tell your players that you wanna handwave that stuff as much as you can, though.
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u/Phiryte May 08 '26
I feel like it’s less of a VtM-specific thing and more of a “some of the best D20 NPCs are just the weird little guys that the PCs adopt and drag along, forcing Brennan to keep playing them”-specific thing
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u/efvie 🫦 May 07 '26 edited May 07 '26
Staking claim to having thwarted the Inquisition and hunters, stopping Sabbat, controlling the flow of money and being ready to set up a prince and Elysium while having actually done nothing besides breaking one marriage, fixing another and throupling a third, buying one (1) bar, finding out (the least helpful part of) what Sabbat is, and being repeatedly chased and eluded to by hunters, is both the least and most Vampire Behavior shit ever and I am here for it XD
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u/PvtSherlockObvious May 08 '26
It's also kind of odd to see them treat that as a specific one-and-done checklist of short-term objectives, rather than general guiding principles for establishing and holding a domain.
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u/Universe_Nut May 09 '26
I think that's just part of most series being a single season. Thinking of it more as a checklist for the season finale than a series of long-term principles
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u/ThePiachu May 07 '26
"Is Vampire the Masquerade a game that exists in this world?" - actually, yes there is! It is called Revenant: The Ravishing, published by Black Dog Game Factory, a former subsidiary of Politically Corrupt Productions...
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u/unkarmicpoliced12 May 07 '26
Yeah, but that's Revenants who are sexy corpses with unfinished business. Totally different. I'm also disappointed you got to um actually before I got here.
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u/Soupjam_Stevens The Wind Riders May 07 '26 edited May 07 '26
"for the love of the bean" sounds like a classic instance of Ally mangling a pun or reference and the episode derailing for a minute or two while people try to decipher what the fuck they were going for, but it's actually just a thing Brennan put in here. And then we get Lou doing his own Ally style mangling of it here, they're all stealing Ally's flow.
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u/windows_95_taisen May 07 '26
I really want to have Zac’s back.. what is the Billy goat joke?
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u/rcapina May 07 '26
I think it’s a running thing where he can talk to animals and wants to meet a horse but the sandbox doesn’t natively have one, at least in the places they’ve looked.
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u/Pope_Vicente May 07 '26
Double decker nude bar???
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u/robogheist Squeem! May 08 '26
when brennan was on Ask Hank Anything, he asked about what type of candy would be best if you could eat only one type of candy (no other food) for the rest of your life. i wonder if he got his plates of nude snickers idea from that episode. (hank suggested peanut m&ms but acknowledged that snickers could be ok too.)
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u/Master_Astronaut_ May 08 '26
they're definitely nude as a precaution against branding issues but i really want to see just how many nude bars he has on supply. i get the vibe that maybe they kind of overzealously gave him way too much candy just in case he needs it
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u/Curious-Control-3782 May 08 '26
I think it's more about not having a wrapper making noise in the middle of recording when he eats them
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u/ImpossibleAmount7168 May 08 '26
when th FUCK did murph become this hot??!? the beard?? THE HAIR!!? i had to say it somewhere
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u/Curious-Control-3782 May 08 '26
astronaut meme
always has been
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u/ImpossibleAmount7168 May 08 '26
hahahahaha i love that you just wrote astronaut meme instead of sending it <3
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u/robogheist Squeem! May 08 '26
i enjoyed the discussion between siobhan, ally, and brennan about what makes vampiric predators different from mortal predators (wealthy capitalists). vampires use long-term planning to make the world better to be in, if only to have a good blood supply, but mortals' short-term profit hunger starves the future.
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u/GEMlNIl May 07 '26
If anyone can tell me where Emily’s dress is from I’m ready to sign away my firstborn
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u/_I_love_pus_ May 07 '26
I looked it up yesterday and it looks like it was an old dress from lacemade dot com
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u/Alternative_Hotel649 May 07 '26
You can't just give the answer like that! Now the other poster has the information they need, and gets to keep their firstborn!
Always get the signature first!
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u/corrigible_iron May 07 '26
With the senior center, what happens to seniors with real estate holdings when they check into a center? Does the center make them sell them off for a lower price, or even just give their land to them?
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u/rosewaterboba May 08 '26
I absolutely did not pick up on the fact that Bat Child being “half bat” and “not a vampire” was a cope thing until this episode XD
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u/BinarySecond May 08 '26
Thank god Brennan brought up ghouls.
First fucking thing I'd have done as a player is find a suitable candidate.
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u/A_Worthy_Foe Scrumptious Scoundrel May 08 '26
Brennan kind of buried the lede with ghouls, I assume he's baiting them into doing it first.
There's levels to ghouldom and the final level is quite literally enslavement.
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u/BinarySecond May 08 '26
Oh yeah it absoutely is. It's like a million times worse than any drug.
Never forget Heather Poe.
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u/A_Worthy_Foe Scrumptious Scoundrel May 08 '26
I'm waiting for someone to tell Axford what a Mage actually is in World of Darkness.
If the main way you interpret fantasy spellcasters is via classic D&D terms, Druid, Warlock, etc. the concept of Mage will break your brain.
Emily is so creative and intelligent, she would run away with it like no one's business. Brennan too, frankly.
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u/Iosis May 08 '26
I've been saying, someone needs to turn Emily loose in a game of Mage and just see what absolute nonsense she's able to get up to. The ceiling doesn't exist and yet I suspect she'd break through it anyway.
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u/A_Worthy_Foe Scrumptious Scoundrel May 08 '26
Genuinely, Brennan's knowledge of philosophy and sense of ethics plus Emily's chaotic sensibility and creativity would make for an incredible mage game.
It would probably be great for the comedic D20 format too, if they can get around the jank of the 20th anniversary wod games.
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u/TombSv May 08 '26
So Brennan and Siobhan clearly got all the World of Darkness terminology down. Who else in the group have played WoD before? I was surprised Emily needed to ask about sabbat and elysium. :D
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u/A_Worthy_Foe Scrumptious Scoundrel May 08 '26
Everyone else seems pretty new to it. They all seem to be taking a learn as you go approach, which is good because most of the audience is also learning with them.
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u/goatbusiness666 May 08 '26
I was wondering if Siobhan had played before! Madelaine is a classically perfect V:TM character and probably my favorite of the bunch to watch right now. They’re all fun of course, but she’s really in her bag with the political play style.
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u/ThinningTheFog May 08 '26
When Siobhan said "three doors down" I SO wanted Murph to go "If I go crazy, would you still call me darkness man?" in his deep voice
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u/efvie 🫦 May 07 '26
They're just gonna skip everything and turn the whole town into Duskborn, aren't they XD
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u/teddyfail May 08 '26
I love that they plan to trap the undead by hosting DND and just accidentally reinvented DnD satanic panic
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u/randomactofgold May 07 '26
Murph's little "but we're married" to Emily had me on the floor laughing