#defiler

After playing a lot of Demon the Fallen recently I think it's really interesting how much better this system is at the whole "personal horror" aspect than Vampire is. So many of the most controversial changes to Vampire have been made ostensibly in the name of preserving the "personal horror" aspect which, in case anyone isn't aware, is the aspect that's meant to make you go "oh no I really shouldn't have drained that person in my hunger frenzy, I'm such a monster fr." I actually think this has never really been done that well in Vampire the Masquerade because it always feels to me like the game does this by either taking control away from you to make you do bad things through stuff like Frenzy rolls and Messy Criticals, or giving you chores to do that cause you to lose Humanity if you don't do them, like with protecting your Touchstones. So losing Humanity is usually due to a mechanical loss of personal control rather than a temptation to give into the monster within and feel guilty about it later. Demon, on the other hand, is set up through it's mechanics to actually tempt you into being more monstrous. Because staying low-Torment has real gameplay benefits like being able to resist True Faith and holy symbols better, appearing as an angel instead of a demon to people who see you're apocalyptic form, and being able to walk into a church without bursting into flames. But the raw combat power and destructive potential you get from taking on Torment is so tempting sometimes. In just a few sessions of Demon, I have desperately wanted my character, Ishtar, to whip out her claws or grow some extra limbs to help out with a gameplay challenge pretty much every time I sat down to play, just like I've been tempted to emotionally manipulate someone useful into becoming a Thrall just because I could really use their help and it'd be so nice if they couldn't say no. I think it also helps that Demon has a satisfying power fantasy on both ends of the spectrum. If you do well and avoid Torment you get to be an angel, which is cool, but if you give into Torment you get to be a badass powerful Demon and at least get to tear shit up. Whereas your reward for being a good little vampire and never losing Humanity is that you get to be... just kind of a nice vampire, while missing out on some of the things you might conceivably want to do when you sit down to play a vampire game, like drain some loser dry, or turn someone into a vampire.