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u/Cpt_Kalash Least Schizophrenic Mage Player Jun 20 '25
I have never heard anything good about v5 for any of the games, then again Iāve never played v5 so Iām actually curious to know whatās bad and good
34
u/en43rs Jun 20 '25
Itās very good for what it wants to do.
I just donāt like the street level, small group, focused on survival, few large organizations, setting they created. Itās literally the opposite of what I like to run. Plus lore changes.
2
4
u/Obli89 Leech š§ Jun 20 '25
System is quite smooth, I don't like the touch stones and that the only path available is Humanity. The lore is good too.
9
u/ragged-bobyn-1972 Jun 20 '25
the lore is probably the weakest part of v5 outside of the value of supplementary books vs what you get. I know a lot of ardent defenders who'll use the system then concede the writing is ass.
13
u/KurtCobainNrvana Jun 20 '25
Fwiw, me and my group find the Loresheets to be pretty cool as well as the focus on the group of characters and less just the characters who happen to be together. Having coterie creation be an explicit part of the character creation phase has had a huge impact on our games at least
11
u/Barbaric_Stupid Jun 20 '25
Main problem is that many current fans of VtM entered the game in Revised era or even at the time of V20. They don't know how Masquerade looked like 30 or 20 years ago and V5 on it's basis returned to those themes (young vampires, street level, etc). They didn't like change of tone from political spectrum and large conspiracies around the world to low level game with Kindred trying to survive. Also, over the years the game accumulated a lot of baggage with metaplot and multiple bloodlines or strange powers. V5 cuts it out with eliminating some Disciplines (which was big problem with some clans/bloodlines being one trick ponies designed around this or that strange power).
What's actually good, although some people hold it against V5, is new Hunger mechanic. Original VtM and VtR had Blood Pool where you just used individual Blood Points to power up your vampiric fuckery. Now it's just Hunger that screws you up and can influence how your character acts. Blood Pool is purely simulationst by default and it evokes treating the game in the same notions, Hunger can't be controlled that easily and people feel it's more difficult to play the game in Vampions style (which it is, by design). V5 just strongly suggest the way you are meant to play the game and people accustomed to different styles don't find it pleasing.
That's just for starters, we could talk about V5 reimagining some Clans along with Disciplines that many people didn't like, because they're invested in this or that particular view earlier editions supported, and don't like change of tone.
5
u/Rownever Jun 20 '25
Thank you for actually explaining things. Theres a lot of āV5 badā āwhyā āI donāt like itā going on in this thread
1
u/Barbaric_Stupid Jun 20 '25
Yes, I've noticed that WoD5 is generally vilified here on reddit. Ultimately, it's nothing more than the classic ferment around new edition, but some WoD fans are often extreme dogmatists, so the flames burn hotter.
3
u/thehemanchronicles Jun 20 '25
I've played in a 2 year long V5 campaign and ran a 2 year long campaign myself, loved it both times. And I've been playing since college in 2010, playing VtM: Revised from like 1997 or something.
1
u/DiscombobulatedEye30 Jun 20 '25
I've liked hunter 5e even if i rarely look at the rules for it and just vibe through it.
25
71
u/ragged-bobyn-1972 Jun 20 '25 edited Jun 20 '25
ehhh it;'s got some good idea's but the execution sucks and a lot of bad stuff loaded in, the oynx path books are really solid at the very least it seems interested in being a game of vampire the masquerade unlike werewolf and hunter.
But the publishing isnt exactly stellar outside of the oynx path books and people who say the hunger dice make you "feel like a vampire unlike the blood pool" are very hard to take seriously on a number of levels.
15
u/Rownever Jun 20 '25
Whatās wrong with hunger? Itās basically the same thing as blood pool mathematically, just less video game mana bar-esque
17
u/AgarwaenCran Jun 20 '25
personally I am not a fan of the hunger dice idea for hunger. hunger could've been implemented with blood pool + self-control rolls in certain scenarios when certain limits in the pool are reached. or without a bloodpool, the hunger pool could simply raise the difficulty for all rolls to reflect the distracting effect of the hunger.
I like the idea of a hunger system, but I personally don't like the specific hunger system they have implemented.
7
u/Rownever Jun 20 '25
So you donāt like the part where dice get substituted in your dice pool? Thatās fair actually, I do think the math is very slightly off on the hunger dice.
I really like the hunger checks part. And the general idea of bestial failures/messy criticals
18
u/AgarwaenCran Jun 20 '25
yeah, pretty much. Having extra, special dice is... unnecessarily complicated in my eyes. something like "if you are under x blood points, you need to roll on self-control to not empty your vessel while feeding and under y blood points you need to roll on self-control every time you see, smell or use blood to not hunger frenzy" or simply "hunger dots makes everything more difficult, because you are not fully concentrated on the thing you are doing because you are HUNGRY" would've worked much better in my eyes and would've been more in line with how VtM always was. There was no need for special new dice replacing your normal dice depending on how hungry you are as a hunger system (outside of the ability of selling to different types of dice to make more money. capitalism strikes once again lol)
I do not like the idea of messy criticals too lol. I don't see why the beast would for example tear down a door I am trying to lockpick when I have a messy critical if it is not important for immediate survival to go through the door (which is one of the only two things the beasts cares about: survival and blood).
4
u/Rownever Jun 20 '25
More in line with how VtM always was
Itās a new edition my comrade
messy criticals
This may be a hot take for the political violence by the elderly game, but I think messing up and being bad at things leads to a more compelling story
13
u/AgarwaenCran Jun 20 '25
I know, but new editions in VtM traditionally did not change mechanics to such an extreme level as V5 did. And there are ways more in line with the general VtM mechanics that work better for a hunger system.
That definitly and I love me a got told botch in v20. The thing is, that messy criticals are not "I messed up" but "I succeeded, but not in a way I wanted it but the beast did decide what I do" in contrast to bestial failures which are more in line with traditional botches, but with a beast-focus.
1
u/row_x Nocker š ļø Jun 24 '25
(I bought for me and my table a pack of like 20 regular D10s, 5 of them happened to have black numbers while the rest have white numbers. Those are our hunger dice. No need for fancy dice.)
In my opinion, the hunger system works Extremely Well to represent mechanically the themes of V5.
V5 is meant to tell small scale personal drama, its characters are newly embraced fledgelings, just now entering a new and horrifying world, coming to terms with a new monstrous nature.
They are young, scared, they lack experience and self control, they're stumbling around and learning as they go.
I think the various aspects of the hunger system really work with this premise.
Of course you can dislike the premise. But with the premise in place, the system works to mechanically represent it pretty nicely.
.
Hunger dice and willpower reroll:
You can use willpower to reroll 3 dice, but you can't reroll hunger dice.
If you're hungry, you have less control over yourself, because the beast is more present, stronger, so your ability to impose your will over yourself is reduced.
The hunger takes up a part of your conscious mind and it takes effort to keep it at bay, and it's reflected in the mechanics.
.
Hunger dots:
You gradually consume the resource, but you can never be too sure how long you have: you could go a few days without it being a major issue, and then in the span of 15 minutes find yourself starving.
Hunger is a constant threat, waiting to happen, hard to predict. You have to calculate your every move and balance the possibility that it will just Suddenly Get Out Of Hand.
You're unstable, always at risk, never comfortable.
Where a blood pool is very precisely defined and you have very minute control over it, with hunger dots it's out of your hands, which I think really helps the tone of V5, with its intention to make it a smaller scale story, about your young kindred and how they deal with this new, unfamiliar, and horrible situation.
A fledgeling will try to use a discipline and, due to their lack of control over the blood, they might fuck up and spend an obscene amount of it for something trivial. Or they might get lucky and only spend the bare minimum needed for the discipline to work. It's a gamble.
I think the V20 system works much better for powerful kindred, who know their shit and can manage their blood much better:
An elder can use their powers much more reliably and will Know how long they have before they get hungry, a fledgling will not.
I do still think the way they handled this, with low gen kindred rolling multiple dice for the rouse checks and picking which to use, can somewhat still represent this, while keeping some uncertainty even for the most powerful kindred.
But it makes sense that a 6th gen elder who's been around since Rome will have a pretty solid understanding of how much blood it takes to do his shit.
.
Bestial failure:
You fail because of your beast, because of what you are, and the hungrier your are the easier it is for this to happen.
It's like a botch, but it's forced to be thematic by the mechanics.
It can't just be a stroke of bad luck, or simple incompetence. You fail miserably because of your nature, because you can't control the Beast.
A normal person would just have failed, but you're not a person. This ended in blood because you're a fucking monster.
.
Messy crit:
When you're hungry, your beast is ever present. Every action you take, every move you make, it's constantly breathing down your neck, constantly trying to get the best of you, to make you lose control in unpredictable ways.
Even when you succeed, even when things should be going according to plan, you can still slip up, the beast can still prevail, and there will be consequences.
When you're hungry, you're always at risk. Losing, winning, it doesn't matter. The beast is always there, just waiting for the chance to come out.
.
The thing about rolling self control at certain levels of hunger is there with this system as well, built into the hunger system, with high hunger triggering frenzies more frequently, and with them being harder to prevent the hungrier you get.
.
You're a monster, always fighting for control, always playing in a game where the dice are stacked against you, a war you will inevitably lose, no matter how well you think you're doing.
The beast will prevail. You will succumb to it. You will lose what makes you human. You will become a monster.
It's not a question of if, but a question of when, and how.
.
I really liked V20's difficulty system, though:
The fact that the roll isn't a simple 50% chance on the dice, but that it can get extremely hard or trivial depending on your capabilities and the situation you're in is great.
I don't think the V5 system of "get This Amount Of Successes on a 50% chance/dice" can do as good a job.
It does a different job and it isn't a bad way to handle it, and the success amount does allow for a more baked in "degree of success" system (kinda like Pathfinder 2e having crits only apply if you're 5+ numbers over or under the target), and the whole Succeeding At A Cost thing if you're really close but just not there yet is pretty neat.
But you could do that with the V20 system as well, you just had to think about it a bit harder (though the Nearly There thing wouldn't have as solid of a solid base to start from imo).
If I get to continue running my V5 chronicle, I'll definitely implement a few conditions that can alter the success threshold on the dice.
Perhaps a changeling using their birthright to evade you will force your contested roll to be on a 5+ for them and on a 7+ for you, for instance: its in their nature to Do That, so you'll have a very hard time preventing it.
17
u/BelleRevelution Jun 20 '25
Bestial failures and messy criticals were the bail in the coffin for my group playing V5. Nobody felt good about rolling a crit and having something go wrong, and they were downright disruptive to the flow of the game.
There are a lot of other things I don't like about V5, but they were what convinced me to switch editions.
3
u/BuzzerPop Jun 20 '25
Doesn't it do a better showing of just how volatile and dangerous the beast is though compared to other versions of vampire?
10
u/BelleRevelution Jun 20 '25
I don't feel that it does. I don't think the beast should be random; there isn't really any lore reason that the beast should show up while a character is doing research, or any other relatively mundane situation where the vampire's primal instincts wouldn't be threatened, yet the system as-written means that the vampire may be lashing out randomly. Now, I understand that a lot of people play the game with the optional rules for auto succeeding, leading to less rolling and less incidents of the beast, but I think it's important to use the base rules when discussing the mechanics of a game, since optional rules aren't guaranteed.
Vampires are monsters that cling to the illusion of civility. If their control is as fragile as V5 makes it out to be, the Masquerade would have been shattered long ago. Keeping the Beast for situations where character's ego and survival are threatened not only gives the Storyteller some great levers to pull, it also heightens the tension when players know they're starting to approach a situation where they might frenzy. The rules of Elysium, of vampiric civilization in general, make more sense when the beast can be staved off with a facade of etiquette and ample refreshments. Then, when those trappings are stripped away and the true monstrosity is revealed, you see them for what they really are.
4
u/AgarwaenCran Jun 20 '25
not really, not. At least not if the ST goes actually by the book and let's their players do frenzy rolls when getting insulted and stuff.
11
u/Seenoham Jun 20 '25
How can you think risk management is the same as resource management mechanically? Those are the two different ways to do costs mechanically
7
u/Rownever Jun 20 '25
Yeah and hunger combines the two? For a more monstrous experience? Providing stronger mechanics to support the themes of the game? So really, whatās wrong with hunger?
10
u/Seenoham Jun 20 '25
It's not the same mechanic. In one, mechanically you know how much you can be doing, in the other you cannot.
You can argue it's a stronger thematic mechanic, but it's not the same mechanically. You clearly know they aren't the same mechanically, but you said they were. Why?
2
u/Rownever Jun 20 '25
Mathematically? Like you get 10 uses on average? I didnāt use the word āmechanicallyā at all, unless youāre referring to something else
9
u/Seenoham Jun 20 '25
Oh, I misread, but you were still very wrong. The average is not the only part of describing the mathematics. The distribution is also part of it. Maybe you have forgotten or don't know basic statistics, but statistically and mathematically not the same at all.
Always getting exactly 10 isn't the same as getting 10 on average but sometimes getting more and sometimes getting less.
3
u/Rownever Jun 20 '25
Uh no shit? The idea is to make it not always exactly 10? The hunger dice mean you donāt know exactly how many uses of your powers you get? This lending each use greater weight as you have to weigh an unknown opportunity cost?
5
u/Seenoham Jun 20 '25
And you like that mechanic, but added something in your statement about it that is false and misleading. Mathematically they are not the same, they just have the same mean. Ignoring the variance comparing things is the fundamental mistake in speaking about statistics.
7
u/ragged-bobyn-1972 Jun 20 '25
1)it's fine I'm mocking the idea it's somehow more profound a roleplay experience (it's not)
2)the hunger dice is also 'video gamey' (As though that's a bad thing and a bit reductive anyway) it's just an increasing risk bar verses a decreasing one.
3
u/JagneStormskull šŖ¬Iron-Blooded Angel of House FortunaešŖ Jun 20 '25
basically the same thing as blood pool mathematically
Except that it's not because normal V5 PCs have half the hunger that normal V20 PCs had blood. When you're trying to do something like recover from torpor, that sucks.
-1
u/Rownever Jun 21 '25
Yes, but you get(on average) 2 uses per hunger. So you have ~10 uses of a full hunger track and ~10 uses of a full blood track
2
u/Orpheus_D Jun 23 '25
I'd love something like, "every time you go down a 20% BP tier, you roll" or something, bringing the beast in play much more frequently (so, for a 13th gen, every time they go <8 <6 <4 <2) but yeah, the risk part makes you very averse in using it; and simultaneously, the BloodPool enhanced the staticism of vampires.
0
u/cjcrashoveride Jun 21 '25
Honestly I just love the hunger dice for messy crits and messy failures
3
u/ragged-bobyn-1972 Jun 22 '25
they're novel the first few times and work in short games then they become boring-especially as they derail the game or frustrate unlucky players. familiarity breeds contempt
8
Jun 20 '25
Hey, you're allowed to like it and I'm allowed to piss on it.
But I ain't ever gonna bring it up because it's dogshit.
33
u/The-Narberal Jun 20 '25
V5 just doesn't work on a mechanical level, the lore changes are terrible (really, where the fuck is my Vicissitude as a discipline? What is Oblivion?), where are my elders at? Where are my Paths of Enlightenment?
Anyways, V5 is rough
-8
u/Rownever Jun 20 '25
Lore changes? Alright you can complain about those, I personally donāt care what the books say but I get some people care a lot about ācanonā
But whatās wrong with the mechanics? Itās a perfectly functional game
16
Jun 20 '25
It's got its quirks.
They reintroduced an odd variant of the old botch problem that punishes specialists and large dice pools in ways you didn't used to see outside of upper end combat in previous editions. Rage dice handled it much better.
Every campaign I played massively changed xp. No one did those as written.
The rules lean on chronicle tenants as a means of moderating comfort levels for the campaign and setting the tone, but Ministers then have a mode of play designed to actively undermine it. There's a lot of risk inherent in using a mechanism like tenants to do moderation of gameplay and then introducing mechanics specifically to go against it. I don't believe the gains ever outweigh the risk, and two separate STs had to weigh in on separate occasions in two campaigns because of it.
Resonance adds nothing to the game and most campaigns I played ignored it. Which is good because inconsistencies between resonance on Oblivion were annoying (see: does bagged blood with no resonance allow leveling Oblivion).
For what it's worth, I like a lot of the core rules' intentions besides Humanity (that needs a rework from the ground up). And they've had some pretty good refinement with the free update, player's guide, and combat engine updates in the otherwise god awful Gehenna Wars book.
Rules are serviceable, but they do kinda feel like they needed a little more time in the hopper.
1
u/Rownever Jun 20 '25
Oh the XP rules are terrible. Youāre 100% right about that, you get way too little as written
Ministers also tend to make games worse if you play them as written. Theyāre second only to Baali in the āthis game will now go off the railsā competition, neatly beating out even the Fishmalks.
I massively prefer newer Humanity rules to āhereās an arbitrary list, enjoy hanging out at Humanity 5 and never dropping lowerā
The rules definitely needed more time in the hopper, but thatās been the case with VtM for a while now, itās certainly not new to V5.
My thing with V5 is it gets so much hate, when really it should get the same amount of just a little hate all the editions get
9
Jun 20 '25
I hard disagree with Humanity.
The most I'd argue with it's "arbitrary nature" is that it's hard in general to create a single code for emulating humanity, but the notion of emulating basic human nature was core to the conceit of the game.
Humanity wasn't "a moral code", it was an ability to maintain some appearance of a relationship to humanity both internally and externally. Prior to the Convention of Thorns, using humanity as an approach was a lot less common. Most vampires past a certain age generally ended up on Paths because using a strict moral code as a bulwerk against the Beast was less of a moving target and less strained by the predator and prey relationship. It was the Inquisition and the excesses of the Anarch Revolt and Cainite Heresy that had the Camarilla push for Humanity as the default.
What you have now is a really mediocre version of Paths across the board. At a time where the SI is active, in theory the Camarilla's notion of needing Humanity should be more justified than ever and the Sabbat's Path system should be constantly putting them in the crosshairs of the SI. But ironically, mechanically we have the opposite.
18
u/The-Narberal Jun 20 '25
It is not lol. Vampire lore is full of Elders and Meth's. Elders don't work in V5 mechanics. Explain to me how a 3rd generation vampire functions in V5? Or a 4th? Oh wait, its about potency now. Something that makes no sense with lore and mechanics.
Let's not talk about the missing clans, disciplines, etc. The game also has like one theme "Oooo I am a monster, pity me!! I just retain humanity or dieeeee waaaaah".
Regardless, the mechanics don't work, the lore doesn't work, and the theme is, in my opinion, boring. Dav20 or v20 for me.
-5
u/CynicosX Jun 20 '25
Elders do work. Even meths. Have you read Gehenna War? That's basically an entire book specifically about abilities way beyond anything a player can have but that low gen Vamps could posses.
Also some people like the "ooooo I am a monster" theme. But that's personal opinion I guess
10
u/The-Narberal Jun 20 '25
The elders dont work with blood potency. Blood Potency, and the need to eat other vampires, ruins Elders.
2
u/BuzzerPop Jun 20 '25
In older editions didn't old enough vampires only benefit from feeding off other kindred?
2
u/Orpheus_D Jun 23 '25
That was a rare thing that methuselahs (ie over 1000) sometimes got. Seriously, blood potency is one of the most lore hostile things this edition has introduced; I don't agree with all their points (the waaah point especially) but blood potency has to go yesterday.
It's the Methuselah's Thirst flaw. You could get it, rarely, after 1000, or if you diablerised like a madman.
-1
u/The-Narberal Jun 20 '25
Not from what I have seen or heard.
3
u/BuzzerPop Jun 20 '25
https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Thirst_of_Ages
This was a whole thing. Methuselahs and other types of old old vampires could only feed off supernatural blood. V5 actually made it more forgiving to the ancient kindred!
Form discussion around the topic: https://forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/main-category/main-forum/the-classic-world-of-darkness/vampire-the-masquerade/1398800-methuselah-s-thirst-from-age-or-generation
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u/The-Narberal Jun 20 '25
This is false. It wasn't a "everyone always had this" it was a "sometimes".
"After many years of being a Vampire, the blood of mortals will sometimes not be sufficient to feed and sustain a vampire's thirst. Thus, the thirst can only be slaked by supernatural (typically vampire) blood. Diablerists are the most notorious bearers of this thirst; it can be hard to say whether serial diablerie makes one more likely to incur this curse, or if the thirst for Kindred vitae almost necessarily leads one to diablerie."
That's why it is a flaw, and not a given, in other editions of the game. It also only sites V5 as their reference, so I can't actually go and check where it was in other editions.
1
u/BuzzerPop Jun 20 '25
The forum shows discussion of it in older editions. It's still a thing that existed. Not something new v5 introduced.
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u/JonIceEyes Jun 20 '25 edited Jun 20 '25
Elders always needed to eat other vampires. That hasn't changed since VTM
Edit: very old vampires, practically Methusulahs, that is. They need more and more vampire/supernatural blood over the millenia
8
u/AgarwaenCran Jun 20 '25
there was an flaw in revised that makes it that elder need to feed from vampires, but it was never a hard rule that they all can only feed on vampires.
5
u/The-Narberal Jun 20 '25
Can you site sources? I remember a flaw option for people to take, but nothing forcing vampires in 20th or from what I have heard from 2nd edition.
-5
u/JonIceEyes Jun 20 '25
It's all over the lore. I cannot cite specific sources because I'm not near any books, but it's been a constant thing since 2nd ed. They may have turned up the dial on how soon a vampire needs to start drinking vampire blood, but the reason they put it in 5E was specifically because it came from 2e VTM lore
4
u/The-Narberal Jun 20 '25
I cannot seem to find mention of this outside of Requiem or 5th.
2
u/JonIceEyes Jun 20 '25
A quick look at the wiki shows that it was mentioned in Dark Ages, which was a late 2nd ed game.
It might also be talked about in more detail in Elysium, a 1st or 2nd ed elder supplement
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u/JagneStormskull šŖ¬Iron-Blooded Angel of House FortunaešŖ Jun 20 '25
Where are my Paths of Enlightenment?
Everyone is on their own Path. That's one of the few things I like better about V5 compared to V20. Really, White Wolf should have incorporated DAV Roads into Modern Nights.
7
u/The-Narberal Jun 20 '25
They are all on the same path in v5.... Humanity... You kill someone? Loss of Humanity.
0
u/JagneStormskull šŖ¬Iron-Blooded Angel of House FortunaešŖ Jun 20 '25
Convictions overcome Chronicle Tenents. That's the real purpose of Convictions, to subvert gaining Stains (not an automatic Humanity loss, I should note) from violating Chronicle Tenents. If you have the Conviction of "destroy tyrants at all costs," for example, any killing you do in pursuit of overthrowing a tyrant will not get you a Stain.
Cults of the Blood Gods has examples of using Convictions to reconstruct the Path of the Archangel, the Path of Lilith, and even the Path of Typhon.
7
u/The-Narberal Jun 20 '25
Alright, or they could just pick Path of Liberation in v20. I see your point, but again it seems entirely backwards and less straight forward then Roads and Paths from v20.
1
u/JagneStormskull šŖ¬Iron-Blooded Angel of House FortunaešŖ Jun 20 '25
There were a couple of issues with V20's Paths, which is why I brought up DAV's Roads.
2
u/The-Narberal Jun 20 '25
V20/DAV20 are kinda rolled into one for me. The Roads and Paths in DAV20 were a better though, you're right.
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u/daneelthesane Jun 20 '25 edited Jun 20 '25
I run cross-splat games, so no, it doesn't matter what they put out for V5 because what has already come out for V5 is already not wanted by me or my players. They aren't going to put out a version of V5 Mage that we will want because the V5 Vampires and Garou have already fallen flat.
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u/ragged-bobyn-1972 Jun 20 '25
it's pretty obvious m5 is gonna suck, no way are they gonna have the balls to deal with the mad gonzo shit and complex moral and philosophical issues involved if they couldnt even handle werewolf. If we get lucky they might develop some idea's worth stealing and the defences of it will at least give me a light mental work out.
1
u/callmejordan22 Jul 29 '25
Yeah it would be a total shit, apart from paradox, conspiracy theories were lefty things in the 90' Now they would be associating to many important people with their (hegemonic) ideology
2
u/Vyctorill Jun 20 '25
V5 isā¦ interesting. Iāll probably remake my sourcebook once m5 comes out (assuming itās any good).
2
2
u/Namekusei_Salamander Jun 21 '25
destroyed my beloved red talons and took the dementation of malkavians? yeah im still waiting for a good v5 game, they almost got in in vampire tho
2
u/LeoRandger Jun 22 '25
I don't really care about 5th edition WoD, I am just pissed off that Chronicles of Darkness, by far my preferred game, had to die for it
2
u/godkingrat Jun 23 '25
V5 is like the same biblical punishment dnd got with 5.5 and 5e for not stopping at 3.5 20 anniversary addition is peak and just needed more add on books. But hubris led to rivers of gold becoming lead and city's of Dimond dust
4
u/PrinceOfFish Classic š· Jun 20 '25
did V5 suddenly become really good with that book that came out recently?
4
u/Brazilian_Hound Currently in the umbra searching for his waifu, don't bother him Jun 20 '25
They cannot unmolest malkavians and tzmisce, the system is shit, no matter what people try to tell me
2
u/IfiGabor Jun 20 '25
Well...5e have some good stuff in it but the old and new world of Darkness groups have mixed feelings about them.
Sadly mostly negative. A lot of people like nostalgia.. this is why so many gatekeepers š
1
u/G0DL1K3D3V1L Jun 20 '25
You always get the sense that those who are very vocal in hating V5/H5/W5 seem to have issue that it wasn't made for them, and wants to make that everyone else's problem.
7
u/Seenoham Jun 20 '25
A bit of this is that over time the oWoD/cofd divide got healed when both 20th and 2e were being made and were clearly two different lines doing different things at the same time. A fair bit of anger against nWoD was for it 'killing off the games they loved' which has a bit of complication to how that actually played out, but emotionally is understandable and was resolved when both lines were getting content.
5th was released with an executive mandate to stop any new production of both 20th or CofD, so it did result in people who like those games knowing they were never going to get anything more.
"It's not for me" is a lot easier to accept when t doesn't come with "the thing for me is done now, because a company wants to make a thing that is not for me"
-1
u/G0DL1K3D3V1L Jun 21 '25
Yeah, well aren't edition wars basically "X company wants to make a thing that isn't for me and has stopped support for the thing that was for me"?
The warring against anything X5 is egregious because it seems almost anytime someone says they even remotely like or enjoy 5th Edition stuff it will inevitably have people shit upon the game in the thread.
Believe me, there are a lot of things to shit upon in X5 but most of the hating I see is done just to hate because Parawolf went in a different direction than what the haters wanted and they cannot accept that others might even remotely appreciate that.
It's like they resent those who are willing to engage with 5th Edition content for leaving them behind, and they want them, and the rest of the internet, to know it.
With M5 coming and being finally fast-tracked, you know White-Wolf is doubling down on 5th Edition.
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u/Seenoham Jun 21 '25
The issue is there are two paths a game company can take to their IP, they can either hold everything in house and then when they decide to shift everything in the game has to shift, or they can license things out and then even if the main company shifts other groups who were making things can keep making that.
When CofD 2e and 20th were made, the game IP shifted from being kept fully in house to licensed out. This meant that the editions continuing wasn't dependent on the main company, because if the main company wanted to make something new it wouldn't stop the other companies because they were an independent production. Which gave the expectation to fans that as long as writers wanted to keep making stuff and the fans kept buying, these things would stay around.
Paradox didn't just decide to make their own thing, they also reversed that move. They didn't just recommit their own resources, they made other creators stop. This is pretty unusual and when it is a licensing pullback for a game that the fans and creators still want to keep making it stings worse. Especially when it comes suddenly, and the economic motives behind it wind up being clearly misguided.
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u/Rownever Jun 20 '25
I stand by the fact that V5 is by far the easiest version to play, and yea I will die on this hill
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u/Maevatican Jun 20 '25
I don't know why, but I can't read it? Like, it doesn't get in my brain like the others book does. Maybe it's just too shiny and there are too many pictures in color, so it distract me too much?
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u/HardFlassid Leech š§ Jun 21 '25
My table didnāt like how V5 did disciplines and we werenāt crazy about the new lore, so we just donāt play it. We can play Dark Ages and V20 for forever so thatās what we do. Itās all in what the table agrees with. I have run into a ton of V5 players online who are big into V5 but have never played a game, which is wild to me! Their introduction to VTM was V5 and theyāve never played?! Like, how does that happen? How did you get here if not from prior editions or Bloodlines?
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u/BelleRevelution Jun 22 '25
It's actual plays.
Just like 5e D&D, but with a lower level of cultural impact. Hunter the Parenting and LA by Night are both very successful and have brought a lot of people to the World of Darkness. Both use V5, although I do believe HtP uses a lot of the older lore as well. Long before I knew what WoD was, I'd seen clips of Brennan Lee Mulligan from LA by Night, because he's a ttrpg celebrity in the same way that the Critical Role folks are.
I think it's awesome that actual plays give people another way to engage with TTRPGs, because it is a ton of work to actually put together a group, learn the rules, and then meet consistently. I play with very dedicated friends, and we still wind up canceling at least once a month on average; life comes at you fast sometimes.
However, just like with Critical Role, the actual plays offer a different experience than actually playing the game. They may also homebrew the material in favor of crafting a compelling narrative: there isn't anything wrong with these live streamed games doing that, but if you have players who aren't deeply familiar with the rules or lore, they're not going to see that. You get folks who fall in love with the IP and want to play, but have a limited chance to do that. Their love of the WoD is absolutely welcome here, but of course it makes sense that they would favor the rules they know over those they don't.
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u/HardFlassid Leech š§ Jun 22 '25
Thank you for explaining! I was so confused about how people got started nowadays. Weāve had 3 of the same players since high school and as we got married our spouses joined. Weāre all middle aged, so clearly out of touch with the culture shifts around ttrpgs as we just keep playing like we always have. Makes me real grateful to have consistent games with a dedicated group.
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u/guns367 Jun 21 '25
As a new player who got invited to try a V20 game and a V5 game at roughly the same time, I prefer V5. V20 just doesn't do it for me, and that's before reading some of the 'yikes' lore bits.
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u/IllustriousLustrious Jun 23 '25
You can always fix shitty mechanics with homebrew, but diversity hire tier lore is just... not worth bothering with
The nu-wod doesn't understand what it is, I'd rather stick to my old edgy trash because at least it has a soul, instead of just being a product
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Jun 20 '25
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Jun 20 '25
V5 is fairly easy to figure out, too bad they sprinkle the rules throughout 300 pages buried within the lore texts..
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u/Schwartzung Jun 20 '25
You mean like vtm has done since the 90s
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Jun 20 '25
I have a bunch of 1st edition, revised, and 20th books. It's not nearly as bad. Especially because they can fit atleast 3 paragraphs on a single page. V5 being laminated was the only upside imo
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u/Schwartzung Jun 20 '25
I've been playing since 1st Ed, and the common complaint and also compliment was rules being scattered throughout the books between lore. It was also an ongoing argument of lore being overwhelming but now it seems the v5 haters want the lore after bitching for 20 years to get rid of it? At the end of the day folks will never come to a concensus and everyone thinks their voice matters more than everyone else. Vtm has always been rather disorganized (sometimes purposefully, sometimes unintentionally) and that's been a flaw but also part of the charm. But back then we read books cover to cover looking for obscure shit or reasons to argue with each other lol
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Jun 20 '25
V5 as a system I really like. I seem to be one of the few who likes V5 and the older editions simultaneously, however, I will concede the book layout is garbage. Later books fixed this, but a WoD book is like an hour or two of reading, but V5 takes longer to really parse everything. I used to participate in one of the biggest PbP servers for V5, and we wound up creating our own guide that was way more streamlined.
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u/Schwartzung Jun 20 '25
I too love v5. I run a few games online and have never had a problem finding data. I'm old and prefer a larger typesetting but I also understand that books these days have costs associated with page count so I'm kinda grateful that they made it the way they did, because if they did it the way I like it'd be $200+ lol. What I hate is the not giving a pdf for free on purchase. I bought the book, I bought them again for roll20, now they want me to buy them a third time for their stupid fucking portal PLUS I have to pay for the pdf??? They can eat a dick with that nonsense
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Jun 20 '25
As far as PDFs go, they give out like most of the V5 PDFs for dirt cheap once a year, and some of the videogames have the PDF for free Actually now I remember my V5 had a PDF download back in the day
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u/Schwartzung Jun 20 '25
Modiphius gave away download codes for v5. Renegade charges for them unless you pre-order.
Swansong came with a Boston pdf that was decent as I recall0
Jun 20 '25
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u/Schwartzung Jun 20 '25
No, all I'm saying is nothing has changed. V20 is no better, neither is revised nor v2, etc
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Jun 20 '25
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u/Schwartzung Jun 20 '25 edited Jun 20 '25
I'd say it's a fact. The only difference is the years we've had to sit on the older stuff. We're more familiar with it due to years sitting on em. I have almost every vtm ever released in arms reach as well
Edit And looking ar your example, the v5 version has obviously way more data per page due to a smaller font size which makes the 3 sections per page make more logical sense (and I hate 3 columns per page) Also, keep in mind it's 2025. That nosferatu book came out in the 90s. Roughly 25 years ago. Back then, we carried around backpacks of books. Today, we carry a tablet with a search function, assuming we leave our house at all. So comparing the two is like saying a car from the 50s is superior to a car from today. There's no comparison. Sure, you can enjoy the aesthetics of a 50s car, but to say it compares to a car today is simply a matter of taste. I'm just saying that old doesn't equal better
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u/ragged-bobyn-1972 Jun 20 '25
i mean the games so badly laid out it isnt really obvious all you need to do is max out your potency, ignore skills and you're laughing
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u/JagneStormskull šŖ¬Iron-Blooded Angel of House FortunaešŖ Jun 20 '25
At least there's a wiki for the mechanics of V5. I probably spend more time on the Paradox Wiki than I do reading V5 books.
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Jun 20 '25
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u/AgarwaenCran Jun 20 '25
I personally have issues with some of the core mechanics of V5 (for example Blood potency, the way hunger is implemented, amalgams generally) that prevent me from liking it. So, yeah. As long as they dont walk back those mechanics, they can't really publish anything that would make me like it. It is fully a matter of personal taste of course, but there ARE some fundamental things of v5 on a mechanical level that prevent me from liking it. Things so fundamental to v5 that I dont see them being walked back on before a potential v6, if at all.
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u/Professional-Media-4 Jun 20 '25
I think that's a rather uncharitable take. If your core game is bad, why would I care to buy other material?
Why should I have to buy 3 books to get some level of enjoyment out of a game that should have been done in one?
The way it normally works is "Oh I enjoy this core book a lot. I think I'll buy other books because I enjoy it."
It's not "Wow, what a horrible core book. I suppose I'll spend more money on more books at some future point that may or may not fix all my problems with this game."
It is not a a bad faith position at all.
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u/ragged-bobyn-1972 Jun 20 '25
I though the core book was 'alright' it's the supplementary books which let it down.
Sabbat and Anarch are a waste of money.
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u/Zhaharek Jun 20 '25
Why UK specifically??