Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2!!

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

I think you're kinda contradicting yourself. Was the game prior this sort of "masculine" thing or was it well written by someone who understood how to treat sexual abuse stories without them actually being a feminist or what have you? If it was the latter, do you even gain anything by changing this up outside of ticking more boxes? It sounds to me the masculine fantasy handled things just right and it also gave you more options to play around with if you were so inclined.

I can't speak for the politics of the writers of Bloodlines, though since the sequel has the same writing team we can safely assume that they are pretty progressive today. More pertinently, my first paragraph was a hypothetical example of how a storyline can be written with two different focuses, the second paragraph was a discussion on the actual Voerman plotline in the first game. That's besides the point that someone who uses a highly masculine tone can still deliver a solid point (see Conan the Barbarian, Starship Troopers for examples) or write a good plotline, but that a hypermasculine tone might not be right for a setting like the WoD.

Would it be better to remove some options or what? What's the issue with it?

I'm always gonna be skeptical of "person of group X is by definition more topical" claims. In the end you just want a good story and if the good story is written by someone who isn't who you'd expect to write it that's an even greater accomplishment to rejoice over, not something to bemoaningly accept. If the story isn't good then similarly it wasn't good and it's not some type of failure at being this group of person that was the cause, the writer was just bad. I wouldn't absolve someone of the responsibility of their actions with the excuse of "of course you couldn't write this story, you aren't X".

I don't disagree with you. My point all along was that Here Comes Tomorrow is worried about the writers including the ability to choose the pronoun used to address the PC because he fears it is a sign that the writers will not be able to portray the gothic horror of WoD in a proper fashion because they will be too busy not offending anyone. I think it is an unfounded fear, based more on identity politics then the actual writing chops of the writing team. And what you just wrote here is pretty much my point, that just because you're a social progressive that doesn't mean you lack the ability to write engaging stories about dark content.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I don't disagree with you. My point all along was that Here Comes Tomorrow is worried about the writers including the ability to choose the pronoun used to address the PC because he fears it is a sign that the writers will not be able to portray the gothic horror of WoD in a proper fashion because they will be too busy not offending anyone. I think it is an unfounded fear, based more on identity politics then the actual writing chops of the writing team. And what you just wrote here is pretty much my point, that just because you're a social progressive that doesn't mean you lack the ability to write engaging stories about dark content.

Yeah, it may be favor for this lore but I don't see anything worrisome yet. I'm the type of person to focus on what I like about something and there's a ton to like about what I've seen in this game. I think people are hyper-sensitive about games trying to sell themselves on being progressive when they have nothing else to offer but if it's the same writers, even if their politics changed they still will be very talented.

Hell, who knows how many pronouns they'll let you use. Maybe they'll not just let you use the 50some ones on facebook but make up their own ones to poke fun at people or even just let you type in your own XD. (I still wanna use Dinosaur King as mine)

 

[Thaluikhain]

Eh, I don't have a problem with WoD stuff being a bit sanitised. I mean, it's canon that you have werewolfs having sex with normal dogs to keep up their numbers. Not going to mind if that is cut.

Less flippantly (though that is a thing werewolves (and others) in WoD do), dealing with issues respectfully isn't the same as not dealing with them.

Though, the game did state that sex workers and homeless people are objectively lesser people than middle or upper class, and LA (barring Chinatown) was very white for some reason.

 

[Schadrach]

I mean, Split and Crazy Jane from Doom Patrol say hi i guess.

Were those trying to be sensitive to today's political climate? They said that they felt the originals portrayals of sex work and mental illness were problematic and the need to "punch up", which would back the notion that something like the Voerman sisters wouldn't fly in Bloodlines 2.

I can't see them cutting the Malkavian as they were so essential to the original Bloodlines experience, so I think we'll be getting them, and I think the last tab marker either covers the Toreador or the Thinbloods, as the Gangrel would likely get an image representative of their wilder nature.

I'm not sure how clan is going to work in this game, unless you commit diablerie fairly early on (Camarilla *do* dangle diablerie of the target of a Bloodhunt as a special reward for thin bloods). The player is a thin blood created in a mass embrace.

Thin bloods (14th/15th generation) don't possess clan traits because the curse is so weak in them (meaning no becoming deformed as a Nos). 14th generation have trouble embracing, and 15th can't do it at all. Neither can make blood bonds (and thus can't ghoul anyone, like the girl from the original Bloodlines). Etc, etc.

If a thin blood commits diablerie and lowers their generation to 13, they gain the clan traits of whoever they ate, rather than who sired them.

Hell, custom pronouns, genders, and appearances is probably going to utterly piss off more people than whatever 'freaky' thing you're afraid they might scrub out (the original bloodlines is probably one of the most sanitary pieces of vampire media out there so I'm not entirely sure what you're afraid of). To the average member of the regressive gaming culture nothing is more ~unsanitary~ than acknowledging more than two genders. So it looks like the developers are on the right triggering track!!!1!

That depends, if Malkavians are playable I can certainly see "trans Malkavians" (you know, they're crazy because trans or "I identify as a Garou") becoming a meme, and people getting upset about it, and it becoming a whole *thing*. Besides, Malkavians as a whole aren't "woke" these days, and if appealing to "wokeness" is a goal...

5E has been a cluster fuck since day one, and Paradox more or less mercy-killed White Wolf outright over the Chechnya debacle.

That's the one where the setting that claims that most of history is just a cover for the actions of the Kindred suggested that the persecution of homosexuals in Chechnya was another example of exactly that, and the alphabet soup crowd got angry and White Wolf was essentially slain in sacrifice to them?

Though, the game did state that sex workers and homeless people are objectively lesser people than middle or upper class

...in terms of quality as a food source.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

That's the one where the setting that claims that most of history is just a cover for the actions of the Kindred suggested that the persecution of homosexuals in Chechnya was another example of exactly that, and the alphabet soup crowd got angry and White Wolf was essentially slain in sacrifice to them?

No, Chechnya was just round four or...five, maybe? and it was just the straw that broke the camel's back. The reality is this has been ongoing drama for five or six years now, including a direct byline (thanks to involved personalities that attached themselves to the drama for personal gain) through a certain event four and a half years ago that isn't an allowed topic of discussion here, so the less said about that part of it the better.

I won't be naming names, for obvious reasons, but I'm sure a bit of e-sleuthing can reveal the juicy details.

The short story is, it's a handful of disgruntled Onyx Path writers and their associates, who were either mad they weren't brought in to work on 5E (mostly this), or quit in protest of a certain artist being brought on to consult and do some freelance work (this is an excuse). Instead of be an adult about it and move on with their lives, they waited (often years) to push personal vendettas by exploiting contemporary political issues. Pretty much every personality involved, including Smith and his associates, is a drama monger of the highest caliber, known for strong defamatory streaks, and generally high quality lolcows all around.

They tried at first attacking WW via sock puppetry, but the actual identities were quickly discovered because they acted the damn fool, but that didn't stop allegations of doxxing let alone allegations waged against fairly popular and well-regarded members of the online VtM community, who ended up revenge doxxed. It's pretty well split the VtM community right down the middle between people who realize it's all down to garbage people behaving badly in public, and people who for some reason buy the bullshit and are being useful idiots.

Just imagine a pair of hobos arguing over who gets to put out a dumpster fire by pissing on it. The argument turns physical, and while the dumpster fire rages and grows out of control, the two hobos end up pissing on each other instead.

It had quieted down when WW bent the knee, and when VtM 5E released predictions it wouldn't be very good were vindicated, and most people went right back to Revised or V20. Then the Chechnya shit happened, and it's right back to square one.

 

[Callate]

No matter how storied the pedigree, it's difficult for me to get that excited about any game until they provide something more than a trailer of pretty pre-rendered concept art.

Vtm:B was a bit of a mess. Often a pretty, imaginative, interesting mess, a mess that was worth spending some time peeling apart, but those end bosses, that ending... I suppose one could say that it's authentically White Wolf in that it talks a good game about individuality and player choice and then expects you to be all enraptured as their stylishly crafted NPCs go on and more or less do the plot without you.

It's one better than a Kickstarter in that they're actually promising that you'll get a game out of it, but I would definitely wait for reviews before I shelled out for this one. (And possibly the GOTY with all the shiny DLC they're trying to massively overcharge you for right now.)