29V: SYSTEM
Having talked about the various systems in the Darkness family of games before, and the Circulatory System in Flavour, fighting the system. Playing in, around, and against the Camarilla.
The Camarilla in Vampire: The Masquerade is a pretty obvious model for a secret society of vampires who grow more powerful with age - it has a cardinal rule about secrecy and the ones in charge tend to be old. Having one vampire in charge of a city gives you a clear antagonist and/or questgiver. Since there are clans it follows that often there’s a council of clan representatives, and in turn that they’re generally old too. Yet another in-game reason for the theme of the old clashing with the new.
Some details which don’t follow as clearly from the basic setup include the Boon favour economy being heavily codified and overseen by the court gossips, and the official position of not thinking about the existence or otherwise of the ancient vampire founders established in the game backstory.
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| The coins in John Wick are very much Boons, but overseen by the Keeper of Elysium instead. |
Some things became standard by accident, several after being established in the first big example setting Chicago By Night. It has the Primogen being largely independent, though not the quickly standardised setup where they’re representatives of their clans. It codified most cities having a Sheriff too, and this goes back to the Dark Ages setting. While a system like the Camarilla having enforcers makes sense, the original Sheriff was the nickname for one who acted like a stereotypical corrupt Western lawman. He basically existed as someone for the Anarchs to hate.
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| Which he did really well. |
The Anarchs started as the default player position, in opposition to the Camarilla as they were generally younger and closer to Humanity and not entirely happy to lose expectations for their political systems like getting to vote. They had their share of monsters, hypocrites and potential sellouts along with sincere and idealistic heroic types, some of whom had ideas for a better system. Of course a better system doesn’t make for a great game, so when we got an Anarch city book in Los Angeles By Night it wasn’t all that different, with multiple Barons for each major centre instead of one Prince who were a little bit more accountable as a result. The Camarilla got a lot of worldbuilding and the Anarchs mostly got to be against it. So the Anarch game felt like it was trying to break the setting with nothing to replace it with.
With its formal rules and titles the Camarilla quickly became the standard for LARPs, to the extent of the first global club being called The Camarilla. This was reflected in tabletop games, with PCs more likely to quietly resent that Camarilla than try to overthrow it. Taking down the Prince remained popular, but more likely to take the throne yourself.
Before long the Sabbat became playable as well, with their goal being the defeat of the Antediluvians that the Camarilla didn’t talk about, and the conflict between the Camarilla and Sabbat moved to centre stage. The first two sourcebooks for Revised edition were for the Camarilla and Sabbat, with Anarchs getting one a couple years later.
And apart from having a goal and some cultish beliefs which both require more explanation to new players than the Camarilla, the Sabbat also didn’t look so different from them in terms of elders bossing childer around and advisers arguing about what the leader of a city should do.
Vampire: The Requiem started with five Covenants who could work together or fight each other as part of an overall loose vampire society. The closest Anarch equivalent, the Carthian Movement has a number of alternatives, some of which make for nicer cities than the Invictus and other Covenants generally offer, and some very much don’t.
Now in V5 the Camarilla has become more exclusive, the Sabbat has pretty much stopped running cities and the cult side has spread, and the Anarchs are one of the usual well-supported playstyles again. Can they bring down the Prince? And can they make something better?
2.17: Wake Up
Multiple Camarilla ancillae look to take the master of the Rack’s position, and neonates who have been loyal until now start to question that choice as the barbed words look set to escalate to violence.
2:18: It Has To Start Somewhere
The Sheriff knows that Alice is a dhampir. Who betrayed her? And why would another elder offer to help her escape?
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