im probably beating a dead horse here, but once again i am really ticked off by v5 making nosferatu looking like plain disabled, disfigured, deformed or homeless people.
my previous posts about it were pretty emotion filled and thus i haven't explained myself how i wouldve liked (hence why im posting about this again)
the biggest problem, and what makes this change ableist to me, is the fact that by making nosferatu, in RAW, appear like normal disabled, disfigured or homeless people, instead of supernatural looking, and making this something that risks the masquerade more then any other clan bane (Corebook: 'any attempt to disguise themselves as human incur a penalty to your dice pool equal to your character’s Bane Severity') pushes, wether purposely or accidentally, the idea of members of different clans as always visibly able bodied, or if not that, the idea that members of other clans cannot look deformed or disfigured.
The nosferatu 'look' of previous editions, the fact that wether they wanted or not they were gonna look supernatural set them apart from any member of another clan that was simply disabled. The loss of this distinction gives an implicit idea that any vampire that looks disabled should be a nosferatu, especially when v5 removed a lot of the merits and flaws that made disabilities mechanically relevant, leaving the only way for them to be so (without homebrew) being making the character a nosferatu
and sure, previous editions of the game were anything but perfect, especially when it came to portraying minorities, but one thing ive been loving about v20 since i started playing it is the amount of traits i could give my characters to make both their disabilities AND peculiar abilities (both natural and supernatural) mechanically relevant instead of just being flavortext the game doesnt care about.
that's not to say that v5 doesnt have ANY merits that make your character mechanically disabled, but all of these merits and flasws only disable you in the supernatural way.
there is no mechanic for a hard of hearing vampire, there is no mechanic for a blind or bad sighted vampire, there is no mechanic for vampires with limps or cannot walk on their own, there is no mechanic for vampires with deformities or disfigurments (other then 'they risk the masquerade'). (note: previews editions did have most if not all of these, plus several more supernatural disabilities compared to v5
shit, even when it comes to nosferatus themselves, the representation of disabilities only comes down to them looking 'ugly', as before the recent bloodlines 2 body deformities in v5 weren't really represented in any official v5 book or game, all the nosferatus had facial differences or looked homeless at best.
i guess my real critique here isn't really about how 'they ruined nosferatus, making nosferatus disabled is ableist', but rather the fact that v5 took away any meaningful way of having a disabled character besides them being a nosferatu, then again taking away that too in recent books claiming that a lot of nosferatus simply look like disabled people and masquerade related mechanics can be ignored because of it (Live from the Succubus Club: '[...] the truth of it is that there are a lot of deformities among the members of the clan that don’t appear particularly supernatural. If someone looks like a burn victim, the first reaction among the living is often pity, not suspicion of vampirism.')
And yes, a lot of nosferatus DO get disabilities due to their embrace, and yes, nosferatus in vtm HAVE always been a metaphor for disabilities and othering of people, but up to v5 this has been mostly hyperbolic (as in the nosferatu look has been hyperbolic/metaphorical to represent disabilities and how they get treated irl) with their supernatural looks acting as that which made them being rejected by both other supernaturals ('they risk the masquerade! we can't associate with them or they will put us in danger') and humans ('that's a monster!'). V5 makes this explicit, yes, but at the cost of making the disabilities relevant in the life of the character.
