#thinbloods

Saw this post and had to draw Khloe and Kyle doing it. :3

Unpopular opinion, but i didn't really like the campaigns by Jason Carl: a lot of the plot of LABN felt forced, like he was forcibly pushing the players wherever was more convenient for the story HE wanted to tell. This wasn't the case in NYBN: in the anarch chapters the game was heavily pushed by the players (who did an AMAZING job imo), but i do have an issue with the camarilla chapter, because it becomes clear that JC has no interest in the camarilla at all.

On top of this, the fact that Private Nightmares is a Thinblood chronicle really put me off, mostly because im not a fan of v5 giving thinbloods so many powers when the whole thing about thinbloods is that they dont really have any.

All of this to say: i had very low expectation.

But Alexander Ward did an amazing job at making a Thinblood campaign that actually shows you the horror of being a thinblood.

I generally love his storytelling, he focuses a lot on the character's psychology and treats the beast as intrusive thoughts and lines of logic that may pop up in a person's brain, which i LOVE (as opposed to JC's beast which is an actual animal)

Also the fact that the players get injured so easily, the sense of oppression from these older vampires that at best see you as a throwaway instrument, something easy to dispose of.

Hm!

So, I actually kinda like the core Discipline as it exists in V5. The art of discovering truths about someone through their Blood, or manipulating the Blood directly, or turning the Blood into a weapon or a message? That shit rips. That is a good time.

I'd move Scour Secrets into Auspex (seriously, what the shit is it doing here?) and I'm turning Koldunic Sorcery over and over in my hands - it's a botch job, but the net effect works, you take that and then your upper levels are things like Visceral Absorbtion and Transitive Bond, there's a Tzimisce-sorcerer route through the Discipline and it does hold together now that i think about it. It's fine.

I think a good Discipline is one where you can cross the streams, but it's also apparent what the streams are. Blood Sorcery is a good Discipline, it has archetypal routes through for your stereotypical Tremere and Banu Haqim and Tzimisce but also space for you to push sideways and create characters who have leant this way or that.

Digression: Oblivion is a bad Discipline, largely because it has four pathways between two clans and is trying to cover two historically separate applications of mysticism and ceremony while also remaining as faithful as it can to every depiction of them that's ever existed, because it's a Dawkins design and he can't not include something that's canon. Great concept, but indulgent execution. Someone needed to say no.

But then we get into Rituals, and that's where the bloat kicks in. Niche protection? What niche protection? Haven't you heard, we're Tremere!

I think each Ritual needs to be interrogated. Ask it what it's for. Why does it exist at the level it exists? What is Clinging of the Insect for? We have Potence and Celerity powers for that. Splash another Discipline, you cowards, this is worth more than 3 XP and some bug juice.

What is Blood Walk for? Why is it not a critical effect on Taste for Blood, the mainline power that's its obvious prerequisite? This is stupid. Merge them.

What is Wake With Evening's Freshness for? Why do Tremere get to do this, for cheap? Get rid of it.

Do that, and pare the Rituals right down to the ones like Enrich the Blood, Herd Ward, Calix Secretus, the ones that are clearly derived from actual Blood manipulation. To be honest, the Oblivion notion of prerequisite powers is a good one, and if you can't think of a good prerequisite power, chances are you don't have a good Ritual - you have an Ars Magicka wizard spell that nobody's had the spine to delete.

I've said before and I'm saying now that I prefer Tremere as alchemists to Tremere as mages from Ars Magicka backformed into mages from Mage. It shucks off a lot of baggage, it makes them a self-contained Vampire concept (this is a problem I also have with the Giovanni, to be entirely fair), and - in the context of this ask - it also creates some cool parallels with the thin-bloods, the Duskborn of the here and now. Tremere looks to Thin-blood: as you are, we once were. As we are, you are not allowed to be. No wonder Tremere invented the practice of branding the little shits.

I do agree that being a hyperflexible little multi-tool, manifesting semi-random powers from Resonances and cultivating specific counterfeits with Alchemy, is a really good niche for Thin-Bloods to occupy. The Revised era version - "vampire from clan, but shittier" - had no appeal outside of specific metaplot-hugging or masochistic playstyles. The V5 version is exciting. People should play them, and want to play them.

That said, I have some beef - specifically, a Thin-Blood who lives long enough and plays with other clans erodes niche protection by being able to counterfeit most Disciplines a PC from another clan can bring to the table, "anything you can do I can do" kind of deal. Level 5 is off the table, but how many PCs are getting level 5 powers at the standard rate of XP gain? Blood Potency is a counterbalance and if you bother to implement its rules all the way across (the rerolls are super important) I do think it works as a balance, but this isn't about what works. It's about the feeling of having your special snowflake power, and yours, and yours, all available to this one character.

More of the clans for your passive aggressive needs.

Yet another brilliant photograph from my week in St. Louis. Just a fantastic shot, I love how the sky looks this time of day, right before sundown.

But, anyway, welcome back to another trip out with Benny! Today I had a very intriguing dish (but when don't I, amiright?)

Look at that! Doesn't that just look DIVINE?

Now, where can you get a beautiful piece of pie like that? Down by the WATERfront, of course!

The crust here is made out of crumbled MOONpie and the filling? And don't forget those BUTTONS on top made from Oreo.

Just a delicious dessert. Perfect way to end my day!