6V: FLAVOUR
I try not to plan too far ahead for RPGaDAY and come to prompts fresh, but seeing THRONE and FLAVOUR in the first week definitely influenced my decision to feature Vampire.
My main post mentions edition changes to the flavour of a game, and Vampire: The Masquerade fifth edition beings the biggest changes of any edition. It affects the background and also changes a lot of the mechanics, including the central use of blood. V5 replaces the reliable Blood Point with the fifty-fifty Rouse Check so your Hunger might stay low or rise dramatically, and unlike Blood not being a big deal until it gets really low Hunger affects everything. It replaces regular dice with Hunger Dice as it rises and that brings trouble on the 1 (critical failure) and the 10 (critical success) which takes the old Botch system and ties it directly to Hunger and its results focus on vampirism, as well as making some great successes unwelcome. Keeping the Hunger down is a constant issue, encouraging regular hunting. And you can get it to zero... if you kill someone. While there are several ways to mitigate rolls, the overall effect is to make every roll feel a little riskier.
So that’s system flavour. Of course with flavour and vampires, I’m here to talk about blood.
While the setting has always had blood connoisseurs and the Ventrue clan has a very narrow focus on prey they can feed from, V5 also adds rules for specific kinds of human blood based on the four humours, encouraging Kindred to hunt particular targets for the benefits they bring. I haven’t actually seen this crop up much in play, getting enough regular blood is trouble enough. I may push it more in my next long-term chronicle. Other effects like the issues of using non-whole bagged blood have come up.
One new feature of the setting is the Circulatory System, a network of blood suppliers who can provide anything from whole blood from questionable clinics to specific victims delivered alive.
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| I swear this is real. From a blood bank franchise. |
The System appeared in my games on the shallow end of that moral sinkhole, the somewhat organised providers of a useful service who help ensure blood is taken quietly and safely, with those on that level - including some PCs - avoiding dealing with the specialty sommeliers. The latter goes all the way back to the Forged In Steel setting from the first edition rulebook, with an independent ghoul hosting monthly auctions of victims.
They could split the sides, but could the low-paying service survive without the specialists?
It hits the moral trouble of the Naked Lunch moment, trying not to think about where your food comes from.
When push comes to shove, the PCs might do the right thing... and watch those connections dry up. Which sounds like a plot hook to me.
And here’s a second plot hook. I’m nice like that.
1.06: I Could Stop If I Wanted To
A party drug starts to circulate on the Rack that leaves users’ blood tasting amazing, a real hit to Sanguine Resonance. A whole lot of the city’s vampires want to know what it is and where it comes from. How long before a drug war breaks out? And how long before someone leaves a nearly bloodless body in the Dumpster behind Nocturne, or right on the premises?
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