World Of Darkness General (VtM, WtO, MtA, etc.)

[Tactical Wizard]

Sort of. There is a group in the Sabbat called the Black Hand who are a militant sub-sect of the Sabbat. (See Caine's Chosen: The Black Hand) The "True Black Hand" (aka Tal'mahe'Ra) is probably what you're thinking about.

EDIT: I do worry a bit how they're going to handle the Sabbat since they're not the most politically correct groups out there in the World of Darkness. You can't really cram social justice politics into them.

From where I'm sitting? They've done everything that they can just to get rid of them.

 

[Syaoran Li]

I do worry a bit how they're going to handle the Sabbat since they're not the most politically correct groups out there in the World of Darkness. You can't really cram social justice politics into them.

My guess that's why they're insisting the Sabbat should be NPC only from the looks of it.

 

[Hummingbird]

My guess that's why they're insisting the Sabbat should be NPC only from the looks of it.

Which is too bad. I know they want to go back to the series roots with the Sabbat, but only making them NPCs is a bad idea.

 

[Adamska]

Which is too bad. I know they want to go back to the series roots with the Sabbat, but only making them NPCs is a bad idea.

You'd also have to throw out the metaplot completely too. Because that still doesn't fix this perceived issue.

But then what do I know? I make a point to ignore metaplot as often as I can when playing games.

 

[Pentex]

Forgive me, it's been some twenty years or so since I played this game, but aren't the Black Hand and the Sabbat two different things?

The Black Hand is the military arm/SpecOps of the Sabbat. To use a contemporary example, the relationship between the Sabbat and the Black Hand is similar to the one between Hamas and the al-Qassam Brigades. When the Black Hand gets the call, Princes die and Camarilla cities fall.

Maybe it was my STs back in the day, but the Sabbat has always been more fun to me as this mysterious, subversive, almost conspiratorial foe that the Camarilla was scared shitless of.

I'm six of one, half a dozen of the other. White Wolf was never quite sure what the Sabbat was supposed to be: vampire orcs, an apocalypse cult, or Cainite terrorists. The thing is, any way you chose to present the Sabbat was more interesting than the fucking Anarchs, who have always come off as whiny children.

My guess that's why they're insisting the Sabbat should be NPC only from the looks of it.

Onyx Path/Nu-Wolf have effectively written themselves into a corner with the Second Inquisition/Gehenna War.

Which is too bad. I know they want to go back to the series roots with the Sabbat, but only making them NPCs is a bad idea.

These people's (Nu-Wolf/Paradox) idea of villainy is someone in authority telling them 'no' you can't go to the heckin' antifa protestarino (hence, the Beckoning of the elders, destruction of the Tremere, Rudi's Army).

Don't expect them to be able to handle something as nuanced as 'yes, the Sabbat are ruthless pragmatists at best, outright monsters at worst, but they are right about the hungry antediluvians getting ready to snack on all vampires, and your Camarilla leaders are going to fuck you over if it means they get even one more night of unlife.'

 

[Emperor Julian]

The interesting thing about the Sabbat is they're actually very soclialist outside the theocratic elements. Being communal in terms of property and egalitarian attitudes to clan and age they're way more left wing than the frankly disjointed anarchs.

 

[Snekposter]

The interesting thing about the Sabbat is they're actually very soclialist outside the theocratic elements. Being communal in terms of property and egalitarian attitudes to clan and age they're way more left wing than the frankly disjointed anarchs.

Yeah, but there's that whole Path of Honorable Accord thing that's surprisingly common. I can't imagine anything more horrifying to the SJW types than the absolute worst, most soul-rending thing you can do is go back on your word.

 

[XYZpdq]

As a matter of principle, I just don't like how they explained how the sausage was made when it came to the Sabbat. Maybe it was my STs back in the day, but the Sabbat has always been more fun to me as this mysterious, subversive, almost conspiratorial foe that the Camarilla was scared shitless of. Then the Sabbat books come out and they're revealed as a mix of edgy bois and riff-raff that just... don't make sense in the metaplot. Seriously, the Camarilla, Masquerade and all, is frequently described as having issues with mortals, from independent hunters to full on Technocratic Men-in-Black. How is the Sabbat, the far more obvious, disorganized and deranged sect, allowed to take over major coastal cities?

I like the idea that Cam elders are just that out of touch that they somehow got the idea the Sabbat isn't just a bunch of dumb edgelords and hobos.
as for The Black Hand / The Sabbat iirc in the day the Hand (and the True Hand) were sects within the Sabbat, but outsiders mixed them up, like calling all Palestinians "Hamas"

 

[Pentex]

Achilli and Polack janny serve propaganda on the new Sabbat book:

TL;DW
Sabbat was evicerated by the Second Inquisition and fucked off to Gehenna War...but are still a threat to the Anarchs and Camarilla
Humanity is everything in V5...but we're going to sell you this book with Paths of Enlightenment
The Sabbat must be mysterious in order to be horrifying
Being a Vampire is a power fantasy...and personal horror
Antitribu will be against the very idea of clans...despite the Panders fighting for Clan Status in the Sabbat
Clans no longer matter to the Sabbat...despite the Tzimisce being intensely pro-Clan
Anarch and Camarilla books were conceived as 'coffee table' books


Anybody who played Vampire knows that losing all of your humanity is not easy. Once you get down to that sweet spot of Humanity 2, you effectively have to turn into Ted Bundy to finish your character off.

 

[Corn Flakes]

Clans no longer matter to the Sabbat...despite the Tzimisce being intensely pro-Clan

Hol' up.

"Clan" is an actual element on the character's sheet. It's a concept that has rules implications. It's their ancestry. It's literally the path their blood takes back to Caine. A Brujah doesn't lose his Clan weakness or his favored Disciplines just because he wears a silly hat and calls himself a Malkavian. The Sabbat might say they don't care what Clan you belong to, and the Antitribu (what a fucking stupid term) might be completely outside their Clan's hierarchies and structures, but there will still be painfully obvious differences between vamps of different Clans in the Sabbat. At the very least, Gangrel and Nosferatu are going to be very easy to tell apart from the rest.

So even if you ignore the Tzimisce being very particular about their traditions. Even if you ignore that the Lasombra aren't going to just let the riff-raff play around with the shadows. Even if the really old vampires (born, raised, embraced and "living" through literal ages of social, racial and cultural segregation) go along with it.... How does the Sabbat, this loose confederation of inhuman assholes (remember, following a path makes you by definition a monster without empathy), that are more loyal to their packs than to the sect, manage to maintain this blissful state of egalitarian utopia where something equivalent to someone's entire ethnic makeup and ancestry can be 100% ignored?

I'm just... going to stop here. I'm out of tequila, If I try to think this through I'm just going to get a headache.

 

[Snekposter]

remember, following a path makes you by definition a monster without empathy

Not all Paths ditch Conscience, you know. Gonna sound like a broken record as I bring it up yet again, but the Path of Honorable Accord, Vampire Islam, and the Path of Harmony all adhere to Conscience as Virtues. The two Paths of Redemption both even include Confession as mandatory aspects. It may not be traditional human empathy, but reconciling yourself to the nature of your existence (the entire point of a Path), doesn't exactly preclude empathy, especially if you're still practicing the Virtue of Conscience, and I'd argue someone high up on one of those Paths possesses more empathy than a 4 or 5 Humanity Elder,, given that a rating of Humanity 4 is explicitly deemed "Unfeeling" and 5 is "Removed". Almost like doing acts contrary to basic Humanity cut away at your concern for others...

 

[Emperor Julian]

Its very hard to hit 0 humanity you really do have to do something truly soul detroyingly vile, I played a serial killer who was grinding toward a path and couldnt do it once I hit two and I never stopped killing people.

Sabbat was evicerated by the Second Inquisition and fucked off to Gehenna War...but are still a threat to the Anarchs and Camarilla

This is a real continuing issue in 5th fluff, with the massive depopulation of vampires means their's no motivation for conflict. You don't really need to compete for territory or power since competions for resoarces has plumeted. considering their are cities where all kindred are now dead it's actually unlikely you'll even encounter another sect. If anything it's the werewolves/mages you have to worry about if they've figured out what's happened.

 

[Corn Flakes]

Not all Paths ditch Conscience, you know. Gonna sound like a broken record as I bring it up yet again, but the Path of Honorable Accord, Vampire Islam, and the Path of Harmony all adhere to Conscience as Virtues. The two Paths of Redemption both even include Confession as mandatory aspects. It may not be traditional human empathy, but reconciling yourself to the nature of your existence (the entire point of a Path), doesn't exactly preclude empathy, especially if you're still practicing the Virtue of Conscience, and I'd argue someone high up on one of those Paths possesses more empathy than a 4 or 5 Humanity Elder,, given that a rating of Humanity 4 is explicitly deemed "Unfeeling" and 5 is "Removed". Almost like doing acts contrary to basic Humanity cut away at your concern for others...

Neither of those are likely to be popular in the Sabbat, and they're definitely the exceptions. The original paths were created so you could have truly blue-and-orange morality vampires that didn't immediately get taken over by the Beast.

Really, I have no idea why they even have Paths anymore if they say they're focusing so hard on Humanity. Personally, I never liked paths for players, in part because the non-monstrous ones are fucking redundant, but mostly because I've seen a lot of players trying to use paths to justify playing an asshole without taking a ding to morality, and then get all butthurt when the consequences of their actions catch up to them. As for NPCs, if the Tzimisce is going to be turning entire rural Romanian villages into fashionable furniture for his castle, then he should damn well be just a small step removed from turning into a slavering monster.

 

[Snekposter]

Neither of those are likely to be popular in the Sabbat, and they're definitely the exceptions. The original paths were created so you could have truly blue-and-orange morality vampires that didn't immediately get taken over by the Beast.

I wasn't referring to the Sabbat at all, just your assertion that adopting a Path automatically shreds you of all your empathy by pointing to multiple Paths that retain Conscience as a driving Virtue. That said, I wouldn't exactly call the more humane Paths redundant with Humanity. I know its a terrible analogy, but its like a dark, edgy anti-hero adopting a code of ethics to keep themselves from completely falling. Do you think The Punisher has much humanity in him with the things he's done? It looks like you've had some really shitty players try to game the system, and I'm glad you were able to smack them down, but that doesn't mean the concept itself is terrible. Just that you need good players and a good GM, and a campaign that's less about the usual hell of vampire politics and more about how the characters handle their inhumanity.

I mean, in the one vampire game I was part of there's a good chance my char would have needed to adopt the Path of Honorable Accord simply because if you're trying to keep the gangbangers away from your little patch of LA people will die and things will get broken. I mean, shit, I ended up dropping to Humanity 6 by like the third or fourth session, and all that happened was accidentally killing a couple guys while trying to disable them. This was with Revised, and hoo boy those damage rolls for shotguns can creep up on you. The first roll was hilariously low and only mangled a guy's knee but left him in the fight before I punched him out. The next two shotgun blasts were rather fatally disarming. Turns out that a former PMC with a few years experience getting shot at by ragheads is too good of a shot at times.

 

[Corn Flakes]

I wasn't referring to the Sabbat at all, just your assertion that adopting a Path automatically shreds you of all your empathy by pointing to multiple Paths that retain Conscience as a driving Virtue. That said, I wouldn't exactly call the more humane Paths redundant with Humanity. I know its a terrible analogy, but its like a dark, edgy anti-hero adopting a code of ethics to keep themselves from completely falling. Do you think The Punisher has much humanity in him with the things he's done? It looks like you've had some really shitty players try to game the system, and I'm glad you were able to smack them down, but that doesn't mean the concept itself is terrible. Just that you need good players and a good GM, and a campaign that's less about the usual hell of vampire politics and more about how the characters handle their inhumanity.

That's what Humanity is for, though. That's exactly the point of Vampire being billed as a "personal horror" game. You're going to do bad shit, and it's going to come back to haunt you. Having to manage your humanity and keep it from dipping too low in the process of living your unlife and carrying out whatever designs you set out to fulfill. Hell, if the Punisher had been a vampire, he would definitely have some pretty low Humanity, but he'd still have the Willpower to back it up. You shot some gangbangers in self-defense and your Humanity got dinged? Well, tough luck. It's the system working exactly as intended, you're not meant to hold on to high Humanity very long unless you're trying really hard, and even then you'll have to spend some points to bring it back up. That's why vampires become more and more strange and predatory as they age.

Being low on Humanity doesn't mean you just don't care, either. A low-humanity vampire may be deathly worried about the monstrous things that are getting so easy to do lately, and how good some of these things feel. They can still have a code they adhere to, but they're still stepping closer and closer to when they lose control. That's the personal horror of the setting. That's why I never saw the point of Paths, at least not for PCs. WoD's obsession with giving PCs what should by all rights be rules reserved only to NPCs has always been baffling to me.

 

[Rakdos92]

I have to ask, what kind of deed does a vampire have to do to reach Humanity 1 or even 0?

 

[Mola Ram]

I have to ask, what kind of deed does a vampire have to do to reach Humanity 1 or even 0?

Under oWoD, I imagine something beyond simple murder -- enjoying torture, cannibalism, doing sick shit to children.

Under nuWoD? Probably misusing pronouns deliberately.

 

[Corn Flakes]

I have to ask, what kind of deed does a vampire have to do to reach Humanity 1 or even 0?

It's not that hard to imagine it, actually. In short, anything your average serial killer would be up to.

The way you read that table is "what's the smallest thing a vampire would feel remorse for, depending on their humanity?". Passing a Humanity check means your character actually felt that remorse and held on to their moral compass. So a Humanity 10 Vampire would feel remorse for even selfish thoughts, while a Humanity 3 vampire wouldn't necessarily bat an eyelash at accidentally running someone over with their car. They'd more likely get annoyed at the cost of removing the dent on the hood. Note that "feeling bad about it" and "doing something about it" are not necessarily the same thing. So a Humanity 5 vampire running over someone might just go "holy shit, I ran someone over!", and just... keep on driving just because they're jerk. Or being chased by a pack of angry Glass Walkers. But statistically, the more you flaunt the odds, the more likely you are to slide down the scale. Eventually, the "holy shit, I ran someone over!" turns into a simple "aw, fuck. She cracked the windshield with her head!" and there goes your Humanity.

"Utter perversion or heinous acts" is kind of left to the ST's taste there, as essentially the final "even I have standards" barrier for a character. Torture, rape, cannibalism, child molestation, murder: pick two or more and add "with gleeful intent" to the end. Anything that would get people thinking "how could anyone do this?" if they saw it on the news. Humans that do these things are seen as irredeemable monsters. Vampires that do those things become irredeemable monsters as their inner Beast takes over.

(Note that Humanity also has certain rules interactions, like how long a heavily injured vampire stays in torpor for, or how difficult it is to wake up in the morning evening.)

 

[Rakdos92]

It's not that hard to imagine it, actually. In short, anything your average serial killer would be up to.

This Humanity scale makes it seem as if your average young vampire would be somewhere around Humanity 4 or 3. What kind of lunatic has Humanity 10 as a vampire?

 

[Adamska]

This Humanity scale makes it seem as if your average young vampire would be somewhere around Humanity 4 or 3. What kind of lunatic has Humanity 10 as a vampire?

I mean they do exist, especially if they seek Golcanda.

And usually young neonates start at around 7 and drift to around there over the years.