Interest Check: Vampire 20th Anniversary Edition

Hello all!

I'm new here. Used to play by post elsewhere, but have been out of the game for a few years and am returning here now.

I GM games usually, and I am checking if there would be interest on these forums to play some Vampire 20th Edition- with a twist.

Pitch The year is 12,000 BC and in Enoch in the Land of Nod, Vampires Rule. Journey to the earliest days of humanity & the Kindred and play as truly ancient creatures in a world occupied by Gods & Monsters-- the Great Nephilim that walk the Earth and Vampires of frightening power- the very children of Cain himself. As neophytes in the First City, you must navigate a world of titans, betrayal, and blood to survive.

This campaign will be weaving together the shadowy-est of Vampire setting myths with influences from The Earth Chronicles (Zecharia Sitchin) to begin before the Flood & track through the centuries of early antiquity.

Genre: Historical fantasy/horror

SystemVampire the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition with supporting material from Revised World of Darkness books

Posting Rate I prefer once/day excepting weekends

Game Duration: Ongoing-- for this concept the goal is a truly long spanning campaign that would cover literally thousands of years of historical time through a series of scenarios with some time jumps

Character Restrictions Since the game is starting so early in history, only the following clans are allowed-- True Brujah (not ordinary Brujah), Salubri, Aasamite, Gangrel, Cappadocian, Losambra, Toreador, Old Clan Tzimece (Again, not "normal" Tzaimece), Ventrue, Ravnos, Nosferatu, Malkavian,

Adult Content Vampire is a game that deals with mature themes & it will inevitably get bloody; that said sex & torture & extremes will be treated lightly & implied/happen "off screen" rather than being described in detail

Marginalized Groups I will neither discriminate against, nor give preference to anyone based on arbitrary characteristics

How To Apply-- If there are at least 5 people interested I will run this, and I will take up to 7 to start to allow for if people fall off without needing to refill. If there are more than that interested, I will set an official application deadline, then use a dice roll to determine who gets the spots.

Love me some WoD.

I haven't done anything with the 20th Anni stuff yet... that said, I'd be down to check out the revised system. Gangrel or True Brujah certainly appeal.

Chalk me up as an interested party.

I would love to learn how to play vampire the masquerade as I've never played before but if you are welcome to give those of us new to the game a beginners tutorial on how to play, that would be awesome. Def interested . Don't know what I would play though. I def post once a day too.

Yes-- I will definitely make sure that it's friendly for new players Amber.

MaJunior-- if you played 2nd ed/revised of any of them 20th Anniversary editions basically collected those systems and put them out as massive hardcovers but the mechanics were the same.

Also for those familiar with the lore-- we will be using the clans for character creation, but keep in mind since storyline we are actually starting before the flood the Curse of Cain does not yet exist, so for instance Nosferatu do not start with the hard set appearance penalty, but will gain the curse at the appropriate time.

Some of the wording in Temporis suggests they did away with the (optional) exclusion rule regarding Celerity... which is interesting.

Ooooh! At last! My Vampire 20th Edition leather hardcover book has been collecting dust for years now. I'd love to join. Especially on such an interesting premise. I never got to play one of the elders before. Let alone Methuselah.

What a neat premise. I’d love to give this a try. Played lots of Vampire, but never this far back in history,

Great!

That gives us four at least, so I am going to set the deadline-- I will roll off when I get up Wednesday morning (8 AM CST) if we are over 7 at that point.

I'm working on getting all the character creation information & building out the shell for the game threads.

Looking forward to running this!

Interested. Not used to historical stuff but willing to give ago especially with the time jumps. Have some knowledge of 20th anniversary

Awesome. Will stay patient. 😁 if you can give us a small bio on each of the vampire races we can be, that'll be awesome too.

I literally was just working on these this afternoon.

Keep in mind-- these groups are very close to their founding and so I'm mostly talking about the founders rather than the groups. There's tons of information about these on the World of Darkness Wiki, but again a lot of the information about the clans is from later times so this stuff won't have developed yet.

Also-- I tried to honor most of the stories from the existing lore when referencing these founders, but since many of those are presented as legends and fragmentary and or contradictory, I've had to fill in some, make some choices, and depart in a few spots. (As well as obvious ones such as Nosferatu who are the "hideous" vampires later on after the Curse of Cain which hasn't happened yet and are presented here as being the beautiful clan).

Clans

Aasamite Under the guidance of the Hierarchy, the Assassins sell their skills and the coin always goes to enrich their elusive founder Haqim.
Clan Disciplines: Celerity, Obfuscate, Quietus

Cappadocian Cappadocius rules the expansive Cappadocians from his Manor house in the outskirts of Enoch where they run the internment grounds, dealing with the mortal remains of the kine (human) stock of the city.
Clan Disciplines: Auspex, Fortitude, Necromancy

Followers of Set Set keeps a tight grip on the childer of his clan, ruling as a God on Earth from the Serpent Catacombs of Enoch's undercity.
Clan Disciplines: Obfuscate, Presence, Serpentis

Gangrel Ennoia has not been seen within Enoch for centuries. The founder of the Gangrel ventured forth into the world long ago, though each year more and more of her progeny appear-- wandering into town alone or in pairs, slowly peopling Enoch with their animalistic tribe.
Clan Disciplines: Animalism, Fortitude, Protean

Lasambra Known as the Wife of Cain, Lasambra has built a network of her kinder throughout Enoch, seeing that they are often in positions of trust as assistants, consorts, and seconds to the power players of the city much as she has placed herself beside Cain himself.
Clan Disciplines: Dominate, Obtenebration, Potence

Malkavian Malkov promises enlightenment. He leads his followers in deep meditations and guides their quests for perfection.
Clan Disciplines: Auspex, Dominate, Obfuscate

Nosferatu Nobody knows whether it was Lord or Lady Nosferas who founded the Nosferatu- already even now that secret is lost to the history of time. Likewise, no one can tell whether it is Lord or Lady Nosferas who is the most beautiful in all of Enoch, but surely it must be one of them. Drawn from the nobility of the burgeoning world, Clan Nosferas has a network of wealth & influence stretching throughout Enoch and beyond.
Clan Disciplines: Animalism, Obfuscate, Potence

Old Clan Tzimice Rumor is that Tzimic has learned secrets the the warren he occupies with his followers-- magic of the earth they say.
Disciplines: Animalism, Auspex, Dominate

Ravnos Ravnos the Builder they call him, because much of Enoch was built by his designs-- the buildings at least. Nothing is more important to Ravnos than home and the physical manifestation of security that drove their founder to building the city.
Clan Disciplines: Animalism, Chimerstry, Fortitude

Salubri There is no finer warrior in Enoch than Saulot, and it is to him that the organization and running of Enoch's military force is entrusted.
Clan Disciplines: Auspex, Fortitude, Valeran

Toreador Arikel, called the Bull Dancer and "Blossom of Caine" heads the projects to enrich Enoch with sculpture and art, and her childer serve in these endeavors themselves.
Clan Disciplines: Auspex, Celerity, Presence

True Brujah Noble Brujah! The quietest, gentlest of all Kinder is the librarian Brujah and his clan. Dedicated to studying and learning all that the world has to offer, Brujah and his clan built the first library-- the one that Alexandria would later be but a pale imitation of in Enoch.
Clan Disciplines: Potence, Presence, Temporis

Ventrue is called The First King because before his embrace he ruled among the mortals, and he has put down orders that his followers are only to embrace those of ruling stock even before Enoch's roots were built.
Clan Disciplines: Dominate, Fortitude, Presence

Might go True brujah then.

I really want to put my name in the hat for V20! And for such a setting, Enochian!!

Let us know when the recruitment and invite is up and I'll create a character.

Cappadocian or Lasombra could be lot of fun to play.

So, World of Darkness absolutely works better with collaborative character creation.

I also don't usually like recruitment processes that ask you to put in a ton of time for a character build and then not get chosen.

With those both in mind, I will use this thread as the recruitment and consider anyone showing interest as applied; Wednesday I will just determine who to add and send out invites, then we will move to the character creation thread and put together characters.

I currently have the following as applied:

1. MaJuinor
2. Amberthegirlgeekgamer87
3. Khulod
4. Thielindra
5. Light of Midnight
6. Bedzone II

am interested so def give me an invite

Sounds fantastic.

I'll admit, I'm curious how creation will work that far back. (No 13th gens here!)

So, yeah- I know this will disappoint some, but I AM starting the characters at 13th Generation.

Rather than starting at low generation and being super powered vampires from the start we are running it that the characters are the last generation born as Enoch is going into it's decadence phase and the real bottom rung of the society, and then slowly growing into being super powered from there.

That's... interesting... wasn't Enoch founded by 2nd and 3rd gens? 13th gen were new, and the thin-bloods in the middle ages.

I suppose it'll be interesting to see how this works out then.

So will True brujah be weak at 13th generation too? Just curious.

If we're truly 13th generation, yes. Arguably, everyone is weak at 13th gen.

I'm more curious about caps. This isn't NWoD, where VtR had Blood Potency instead of Generation. With blood potency, vampires got stronger over time. With generation, at least RAW, there are very few ways to lower your generation (and the most common way is considered to be the biggest sin possible by most vampires)... meaning you have a hard cap of 5 for everything.

Consequently, humans have a hard cap of 5 for everything (stats, skills, backgrounds, etc.) as well.

It'll take a moment for me to conceptualise 13th gen in the time of Enoch, but sure, if we imagine that vampires are freely begetting and begetting progeny in this era. In a revisionist way, lore-wise, these generations all died out didn't they? ;)

Daddy Caine probably wants to rush to the Time of Thin Blood to get it all over with. ;)

I would like to play a descendant of Haqim, a warrior-hunter who follows in his Antediluvian's footsteps of promoting neutrality among the kindred. He might be a judge too by the time the Second City comes abound. It will be interesting to play an Assamite without the middle-eastern influences and free of the Tremere curse.

I usually avoid diablerie in VtM/VtR games, but if we are truly 13th gens (and not, say, 5th-6th gens with the starting stats of a regular 13th gen character to allow for later growth over time) during the time of Enoch... I almost see it as a must for survival. Even though it puts you at risk for Final Death.

Hmm...

Yes- everyone is "weak" at 13th Gen, but not THAT weak. Just starting character level. You get 10 Blood Pool which you can freely use all of and use 1 per turn. It only really starts getting more/better than that at 9th Generation down to 4th Generation who have 50 max blood pool and can use 10 per turn. . . which is utterly insane when you consider some of the things you can do with blood pool (take an extra action, for instance- so a 4th Generation could act 11 times per round).

yes, it is a "change" to the lore- but the lore also never made any sense. If you take the core of Noddist lore literally and accept that it was "true" in universe then you are accepting both that there were exactly 17 Vampires (Cain, 3 2nd Gen, 13 3rd Gen) and that there were so many vampires that it caused literal God to wipe out the world with a flood-- both of those things can't be true. So I've chosen to go with the idea that the first isn't true and that Vampires had no limits on begetting and were making vast armies of the undead, and that it's just that most of these younger vampires don't survive the flood years & any that do don't talk about it.

As far as Diablerie-- yes, my expectation is that it will happen pretty regularly and that your generations WILL go down through that (and possibly some other) ways throughout the campaign. Remember-- while it is the biggest "sin" a Camarilla vampire can do in the late 1990s of the lore this is fully 14,000 years before than and 13,000 before the founding of the Camarilla, so like the Masquerade etc, none of the traditions exist yet.

Also-- there's a TON of character advancement that can be had with experience points. Don't worry for the power level of the game, you will feel truly epic on the long scale.

No no, don't get me wrong, I have no doubt you'll handle it with aplomb and I am absolutely along for the ride.

Everyone, naturally, has different takes on the lore... especially that far back. As an example, my IRL group always figured there had to be pre-flood methuselahs. It was the power of that level of Vampire and the fact they were beginning to actively spread the curse brought the floods -- not just the 13. (Fifth gens would have been the "thin bloods" back then, who only became able to sire as their blood thickened.) Always figured the main shackle on embracing was sustainable food suppy. Outside of Enoch, there weren't many cities.

I am curious of playing a nos before and after the curse. That could be interesting. (Especially if allowing for the nos 'ugliness' to be unique to the Nos than the bald and large ears.) The chance for clans like Salubri and Capodocian are also interesting.

Would the perk that lets you lower you gen at character generation be off the table I'm guessing then?

Yes, the background "Generation" will be banned-- just putting 5 points in it and starting 5 gens lower has always been absurd in character creation.

As for nos-- yes, they don't have the ugliness curse so you would start the game looking however you wanted, but yes they (and everyone else) will eventually acquire their clan curses as the game progresses so don't choose a clan whose curse you don't think you can un-live with.

For Saulibri-- remember this game is not only starting before they fell, it's starting before Saulot sojourn's in the east and gains enlightenment, so the original salubri are different still from how they are at the point where the clan falls.

Assamites still have Caine's curse* regardless of having the Tremere curse. It just isn't that relevant in modern games as player characters don't age enough for it to be a factor. Naturally, my character will be pissed at the Tremere when the time comes. :)

*(The curse of their skin slowly unnaturally blackening to onyx levels to display their inner wickedness as they age)

Yes- but we are starting BEFORE Caine's curse as well, since Caine's curse started at the downfall of the second city and we are starting in the FIRST city.

Right. And I'm aware that at this stage Haqim is still mostly a hunter-warrior. He doesn't become the kindred's judge until Saulot asks him to in the Second City. So my character's motivation and personality will develop with time.

Totally, that background has always been OP for me!

And kudos to Alordis for offering this game, I think it's gotten all of us thinking hard about our lore and head-canon.

I'm probably the odd man out (I often am) but I can't agree. There's nothing you can do with 5 dot caps that I'd qualify as OP. Maybe I can sort of see the claim if you're only comparing yourself to other 8-13 gen Kindred... but Kindred society as a whole, you're small fish.

With a lot of XP on your sheet you can certainly be relatively versatile and formidable... but the first sixth gen you piss off pastes you, because fuck you that's why.

That's the context of discussion though, that in chargen, looking at number of dots, this particular 5 dot is pretty much ahead of the others, for characters who would be around 8-13th. It's not like we make methuselahs on a regular basis in character creation.

I don't know quite enough about anniversary to join this discussion
8 do know the last character I made I put dots in generation, but that was mostly as the other backgrounds didn't fit her as she started as a bit of a recluse.

Not a problem with most oncepts for this game.

That was the idea with the nos. Thought it could be interesting to have a character suddenly forced to adapt tactics and way of living to the sudden appearence change.

Fair enough on Salubri. My clan lore on some is a bit shaky.

Right--

The problem with Generation isn't that it makes you OP compared to the rest of the world, it's that it's so unbalanced between characters so one person putting in high generation really drives others to feel like they HAVE to buy generation or be irrevocably behind.

It's kind of like in DND starting one character at level 1 and another at level 6 and how that makes them feel. Because of course, don't forget that mid-level lupines are just gonna shred even low gen vampires if given the chance.

Still don't really agree.

I don't think the extra blood per turn is that strong. You're a little more survivable in combat, because you can pump/heal more... but even with a slightly larger pool, it just means you run out faster. You can nova better, for what it's worth.

(And you resist higher gen Dominate, but Dominating other PCs crosses into PvP behaviors and is usually verboten.)

I've honestly felt Resources 5 is far more OP in game than being 8th Gen ever was.

The difference is that Resources 5 tends to grease the wheel for the entire party, whereas Generation is definitively singular.

Also, sorry for the long delay-- my gut tells me we have who we are going to get interested for this game and I wish I had said Tuesday instead of Wednesday morning, but I also know the cardinal rule of recruitment is don't change the rules in the middle so we have another 15 hours or so if anyone else expresses interest and then we can get rolling on char-gen and everything.

I dunno... I've see Gen benefit the whole party by providing a dedicated fighter to protect the otherwise largely non-combat oriented group (and in games where it was allowed, they help set their party up for diableries), and I've seen Resources only used selfishly.

In that regard, I feel like it really comes down to the player and how they play the character. Of.course, as always ymmv.

As for getting started... I agree, we should wait the full time. That said, if you want to put a post up detailing any pertinent info, we could start working on loose character creation.

(I might be kind of excited to get started. 🤣)

So, we're using basically standard character creation

https://gamersplane.com/forums/thread/28376/

Here's the thread I started for character creation discussion and I tried to post a bunch of the neccessary stuff at the top of it so that if anyone doesn't have ready access to the book we can walk them through.

Basics-- 13th Gen, 7/5/3 for Attributes, 13/9/5 for Abilities, 3 points in clan disciplines, 5 backgrounds, and 15 freebie points.

Roads will be allowed, but anyone whose new to Vampire should definitely stay with Humanity for their first time out, and which roads exactly will be on a case by case basis.

I mean you can always set up the forums etc and people can move the chatting to other there while waiting. And if anyone else ops along they can be added in and won't really have missed much.

The hunter must be patient.
-Something Haqim might say.

I always stumble at names. Lol

Edit: Just for clarification... Merits/Flaws, it says 7 points max. Is that a hard cap, or can points in flaws be used to balance out points in merits? (i.e., Can someone take 9 points in merits if they take 2 points of flaws?)

I’m definitely leaning toward Cappadocian, never tried that one before.

Okay, it's Wednesday morning-- I'm sening out the invites and if we can all move over to the game forum for char gen!

Looks like everyone invited as joined the game, but just bumping this one last time to say we have one spot left open which will fill first come first served if anyone else is still interested; we are just starting character creation.

I joined

We've lost a few and have some openings to add to this game, looking for at least one and will consider more.

I’m interested in joining. I’ve been looking for a story to hop into and I love learning about unfamiliar systems. I’ve gone back in the thread and the setting looks fantastic! Would love to join!

Great I will send an invite and you can jump into the ooc and start working your character.

Could still take 1-2 more.

Bumping for any additional interest to join here.

My gangrel would love to walk the streets of Enoch, and wander among its gardens. If there is still room for yet another Cainite.

Seeing your roster of players and clans, it seems that you could use a Lasombra or even a Ventrue too. ;)

We already have a Gangrel, but any of the others would be good-- I'll send the invite and with that I will again close recruiting on this one.

Perfect!! thanks!

Well, we have fallen back to three, so I have spots for one to two additional vampires to join us in the ancient past!

You will have just missed out on hunting unicorns, but can still join before a very major upcoming plot event that is growing ever nearer.

Any takers?

I might be interested although I still have a problem with the idea of 13th generation back then.
Can we get that down to the usually (for dark ages) 7th with Generation background?

Other question would be what clans are already taken and which spots open?

Let me phrase the first part slightly different. I don't care too much about starting with a lower generation, I would just not like to commit to the idea of being ok with diablerie - that might well depend on what character I ended up playing. I take the unicorn thread as "there's other means for lowering generation" - if there'll always be other opportunities my worries kinda dissolve.

I withdraw my request.