Saying Yes(and the problem with Vampire: The Masquerade)

"You wake up again. What do you do?"

"I read for 300 years."


I fucking love White Wolf. I have a lot of great memories of LARP despite how much really stupid stuff happened and really awful people I met. White Wolf has a way of injecting lore and feeling into their books and even systems that I don't think many other games can match. I was going to talk about one of our hobby's most controversial opinions, and using VtM as an example fits this so well that we're gonna talk about both of them. Today's topics are design problems prevalent to White Wolf games, and also the art of saying Yes.

You know, we have a pretty weird hobby where saying Yes is a controversial topic.

It starts, obviously, with the GM being an arbiter. Even though I've repeatedly told you that trying to delicately arbitrate balance is a fool's errand, he still has to make decisions constantly. Sometimes you have to say 'no' to things or add conditions for purposes of story, mechanics or even fitting something into the game world. Gunslinger in Pathfinder isn't even a very good class, and guns aren't even very good, but they're both frequently banned simply due to how they feel. I don't like doing that, but it just happens sometimes. From here, a lot of GMs start to think that "No" is their default answer and that "Yes" should be used sparingly.

I find a lot of people get overly obsessed, hung up on some problems that may or may not be very important in reality. Here the obsession is the idea that you should never spoil the players. This is true (and decent advice), since getting everything they want is gonna lead to growing disinterested in the game. For some reason, though, worry of this is bloated so far in their perception that it ends up getting applied to aspects of the game it absolutely doesn't apply to. Whole games end up being played with less than 1/2 of the source available because the GM is hyper-concerned with putting things into his game.

Other times game balance is the concern. You see this a lot in games like World of Darkness or Deadlands where not everything is intended to be played but everything feels like it can be. This is another fair point that a lot of people take to extremes. The only direct advice I have here(before we get to our mission statement) is to not mistake utility or variance of options for raw power. Sometimes playing a weird race, class, clan or whatever might feel very powerful because they get something nobody else gets. This doesn't automatically make it better, and VtM shows this in spades with its rare vampire bloodlines.

It is vitally important for you to understand that something is not powerful simply because it's rare or unique. 

That's good advice for White Wolf's games in general, but let's continue.  I want you to say "Yes" in the following two scenarios: When it's a primarily creative situation, and when it doesn't matter. In specific, I want to present the following method.

Whenever you get faced with allowing or disallowing something, seriously ask yourself what's going to happen if you say yes. Thoughtfully answer that question. 

This means you are gonna hit some "no"s, obviously, but a lot of the time you can easily allow something your first impulse says you shouldn't. A great example is the Lasombra Antitribu. Imagine someone asking to play one. Immediately, a lot of people would think to say "no" because they're rare. But let's go over the answers to our question above. What's going to happen if we let him?

He might get picked on or schemed against by people who don't understand his history.

He'll have to blow points on generation.

He will have a discipline nobody else has, Obtenebration.

He will not be able to use many of Obtenebration's powers without breaking the Masquerade.

You will likely have to use his sire in your plot some how, or at least have him and his machinations affect the player.

So basically our phantom player is gonna have a nice bargaining chip with offering to teach people Obtenebration, assuming it won't piss off his sire to do so(it probably will). He'll have utility that nobody else in the Camarilla has, but is a nice but balanced power in any other game. His sire will probably have to factor in to the game somehow. Really,  now that we've laid it out, this sounds a lot more playable than before we did this. He'll probably end up in a lot of trouble or have to be careful just for choosing this clan, so if you really think Obtenebration is that powerful in this instance, someone could argue that it's more than mitigated.

Other times you may have the impulse to say "no" to something simply because the book says it's rare. This is a LARP mentality creeping in: Obviously in a game with 20-50 people in it, you can't have like eight Harbingers of Skulls, ten Samedi, five Kiasyd, et cetera. In a tabletop game with 3 to 8 players, though? I don't see the point of adhering strictly to the world information the books put forth. You have no reason to be inflexible, especially when it's not going to matter mechanically(as is the case with most of VtM's rare clans). An individual pack or coterie doesn't need to adhere to some sort of standard of averages.

This is where I segue into talking about the problem I mentioned before. Simply put, the WoD games foster this rigid mentality in how they're presented. White Wolf relies on stereotypes in many of their books, to the point where it's filled with "All X are Y" statements. The fact that clans DO have trends because of who they seek out, and DO have flaws they ALL carry doesn't help. The games almost feel like they're set up so you don't have to worry about your character's personality if you don't want to, with Werewolf: The Apocalypse being especially egregious with this. You have three intersecting things to define your character with(Breed, birth moon and clan) which can serve as a character defining set of traits if you want, even worse than alignment.

Back to Vampire. I went flipping through the Sabbat Guide yesterday for some object lessons I could use in this topic. I remembered the misguided notes placed on several of the rare clans in this book. Let's look at three of them: One piece of play advice that's totally fair, and two that are absurd.

First, the Blood Brothers. They are a created, artificial clan, a sect of loyal servants with very little individuality. Their clan-mates are their life and they frequently form exclusive packs. They even frequently look identical to the other members of their pack. So, let's go through our questions! What's gonna happen if we let someone play a blood brother?

The player won't be able to use any of the powers of his unique discipline Sanguinis, because they require other blood brothers.

He'll either be beholden to a bunch of NPCs, be playing very contrary to the clan, or end up playing basically the same character as someone else.

He'll have fewer roleplay opportunities because they're bred for no personal drive.

Holy shit, those sound like a lot of reasons to say no. The book primarily cautions against allowing Blood Brothers because of their low opportunties for RP and rigid concept. While it may be possible to bend and give the character roleplay opportunities or personal drive, there's no fixing how Sanguinis works: It's a discipline only known to Blood Brothers that requires you to know Sanguinis to benefit from it. It's also atypical to see a lone Blood Brother, even if the player is okay with only having two disciplines. The entire core of the clan is their camaraderie and bond with their brothers.

Let's move on to the Harbingers of Skulls. Formerly the Cappadocians, this ancient clan was betrayed and their progenitor was killed and diablerized by Giovanni, making that clan the world's premiere necromancers and the Cappadocians a distant memory. They have recently returned to the world stage and joined the Sabbat, craving revenge. They're all decayed and hideous, with a similar disadvantage to Nosferatu. They have necromancy in-clan and a path of it unique to them. So before I yell the loud funny words about what the book SAYS about Harbingers, let's ask our question. What happens if we let someone play a Harbinger?

He'll have access to Necromancy beginning with the Mortuus path, which is of middling usefulness until later levels.

He'll have to blow freebie points on being around 8th generation.

His sire is probably going to be a powerful, important figure.

He might catch shit for being rare or have Giovanni gunning for him.

Basically the same answers as Lasombra Antitribu. Generation is frequently restricted in LARP games, but in tabletop this isn't really an issue: tabletop GMs don't have to worry as much about direct player versus player stuff, and other backgrounds are generally more useful than in LARP. He'll have necromancy, but must buy Mortuus up to 3 before taking anything else, and Mortuus isn't really that useful. It has a nice debuff, some good but situational powers, and a quite powerful 5th dot. Please note that I don't consider a very nice 5th dot to be a mitigating factor to a shitty discipline. More on THAT later with Mytherceria. Anyway, really, there's...not a lot of reasons here other than our phantom boogeyman "They're rare".

So let's talk about why the BOOK says you shouldn't allow them and where the problem with this reasoning is. The book claims it's impossible to create a Harbinger of Skulls under a normal character generation system because they're all very powerful, very old and very low generation. They have "More disciplines than many starting packs" and predate the Sabbat. Okay, first off, that's all fair, but the implication that you can't possibly contrive a reason for a new character to exist is absurd. This is more of the "All X are Y" thinking the White Wolf books are guilty of. The short passage then goes on to say that a Harbinger of Skulls isn't likely to "pick people off the street and turn them into vampires". This is literally a false equivalence. I don't think anyone is implying a Cappadocian is going to pull someone off the fucking street to embrace them. It's stupid to even bring that up. It then goes on to say that they're "better off" being used for you to "weave your elaborate plotlines" than as "powerhouse players' characters". This part reads like a direct insult. It might even be one. It also implies if you want to play a munchkin that it's okay to just pick another clan. By saying this one ISN'T good for it, they're saying other clans ARE. Fuckin' go make an Assamite Antitribu. GO WILD, CELERITY FIVE!

Anyway, our final one, Kiasyd. They're fey blooded researchers and intellectuals who rarely interact with others. That's fucking it, here's our questions.

The character would have Obtenebration, a basic option available to him if he were to just play a lasombra.

He'd have a second unique discipline, Mytherceria, which deals primarily with fey, meaning it sucks and won't hardly ever come up. It is potentially the worst discipline in the game.

Brujah Antitribu will call him a nerd and dump his books.

If you'll notice, I even had to come up with a third reason on my own. The Kiasyd is literally at a disadvantage because of Mytherceria's niche uses, most of which won't EVER come up in a normal game. Fey in the classic World of Darkness generally want nothing to do with vampires due to their high banality. In terms of strict effectiveness, Kiasyd is behind many character options that are inarguably basic like Lasombra.

So why does the book say you shouldn't allow them? Because they're content to spend all of their time researching and contemplating. That's basically it, they even contrive the stupid-as-hell exchange I used as today's quote above. All X are Y, remember? The question "What if I want to play someone who's not like that?" goes completely unanswered. It reads like White Wolf has never heard of field researchers.

Do you see the difference between the Blood Brothers and our other two clans? First off, the Blood Brothers having no personal drive is inherent to the clan, like an insane Malkavian or a Ventrue with a feeding restriction. It's not something the book is just telling us about the clan, it's something they are, enforced by their blood. Second, even if that weren't true, their powers create problems: In this case, the fact that he's not likely to be able to use an ENTIRE discipline without teaching it to everyone(which is slow and likely to get him in trouble) or with other people playing Blood Brothers, which would mean they're essentially playing the same character. That's not as fun as it sounds. It's not the same as the Harbingers of Skulls or Kiasyd descriptions telling us they all act a certain way.

I'm not saying you can always flex. Some concepts are integral to a race or clan and can't be flexed much, and some are enforced by mechanics. In general, try to be permissive of people trying to develop a story contrary to something's concepts if they can come up with a great reason for it, and be harder on things that are mechanically integral to something or VERY important concepts. Can you play a Malkavian who's completely sane or a Brujah who never flips out? Really, no. Those things are enforced by their blood and there's not many reasonable stories that will get you around a clan weakness. I'm not saying you can never get around that with a decent story, but most of the time it's going to come off as hacky or lame. These clan disadvantages are important to the game's theming.  Can you play a Gangrel who hates the wilderness, though? Sure! In fact, I believe that's the conceit of the Gangrel Anarchs.

Like Spoony said when he was talking about reacting to other people's concepts, don't say "You can't", come up with a reason why it'll work. He was speaking in terms of being a player and being permissive of other players, but there's wisdom in that thinking in general. It's very easy to bend to allow someone to play something cool, and in a PNP game(not a LARP) that's usually all they want. A lot of the time, there's really no reason to deny them. I mean, I could go on. The book says there's only fourteen Nagaraja left and they're all under the protection of powerful Kuei-jin, right? So obviously, you can't play one. However, what's it matter to bend the details of the world a little bit to let someone play one? Say you alter it so that the Nagaraja are vampires living primarily in India and South Asian countries and have only a minor presence in the United States. What does that REALLY fuck up to say that?

Brief sidenote, but why the fuck do they get a full write-up if there's only fourteen of them left? The fuck is the point of that? It's not like we got rules on the Bunyip or the Wereboars in Werewolf: The Apocalypse. If we're counting, btw, that's one whole thing WtA got right. I mean, with Salubri I get it, they're a HUGE part of the Tremere and Sabbat stories and they're fairly playable too. Nagaraja aren't mentioned again past their write-up.

Anyway. It doesn't matter one bit to the world, really. Information on Asian countries is thin to begin with, the Nagaraja are independent and weird shit is tucked into every inch of the World of Darkness. Really, it's the whole point. It's why we like the world. What's REALLY the difference between a Pizzaria secretly run by incestuous Italian necromancers and a Korean Restaurant run by South Chinese cannibal necromancers? One would sell calzones and one would have bulgogi. That's really it, they're BOTH putting people into the food. There's no way they're not.You could even have a subplot where the Giovanni feel threatened and start a turf war to try and muscle them out of the city. We've CREATED plot!

Edit time. Nagaraja are printed in the Storyteller's Guide, which is where I know them from, but apparently their first printing is Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand. If you don't know what this book is, it's something that blows the lid off a secret organization in VtM called the Black Hand, old vampires and master manipulators playing the Camarilla and Sabbat off each other. So that's why they got printed: they're a clan so old they're almost extinct. This book was widely regarded as a mistake to define so much about the Black Hand and a poor book in general. It's entirely full of things players can't use and won't likely ever even see, putting it on par with the SWD20 Guide to the Sith. I don't feel this invalidates my point. In fact, I feel it supports it. The Black Hand are such a mysterious and important concept that a GM should be taking their plots and details into his own hand in the first place. The GM shouldn't rely on the books for this. So essentially, the Nagaraja matter to a metaplot I'd advise a GM to never use.

What happens if you ignore me and strictly adhere to the metaplot, though? Well, someone gets mildly to moderately upset and plays a less interesting character. I guess you...get to feel good that you kept everything in line? I mean, I guess some people get satisfaction from being really inflexible. But really, nothing happens. Your game isn't enriched by it, a White Wolf rep doesn't show up to give you the Golden Stickler Award for Metaplot Safety. Hell, even the books constantly give you the advice to flex if you don't and everyone seems to completely gloss over it.

Go reading the old VtM books if you don't believe me. There's a wealth of information out there that says "Hey, if you don't like our metaplot, change it". People frequently miss the forest for the trees when they're talking about the World of Darkness, though. A lot of people miss the fact that you can bend world ideas to allow someone to play a concept, or even come up with strange circumstances for it. The real world is full of absurd, nonsensical circumstances and coincidences, I assure you.

The obvious counter to "What does it matter to say Yes" is "What does it matter to say No", I think. I imagine I'm going to hear that at least once. My answer is that it matters because someone could be having more fun and play a really memorable character because you allowed them to play something "Rare". It's nothing to you as the GM, but it's a really good feeling to them. Enjoying ourselves and creating good memories are why we do this. Some of our most memorable concepts, like Rosemary and Kamuati who are undead, Doctor Gatter and his aggressively amoral approach to science, Jumpin' Joe who's a cyberzombie with a fucking chainsaw or Joe Beautiful, the only wraith in a game of vampires...they're all something someone might've(maybe even should have) said "no" to. They're also all memorable characters we're going to treasure forever.