I strongly disagree but this is because I am far more interested in the metaphor of vampires as bloodsucking aristocratic exploiters and unliving echoes of the darkest elements of our past, and far less in the metaphor of vampires as queer people
I like the idea of clinging to a pale echo of life at terrible cost to everyone else around you, and am not particularly interested in vampire stories where the immortality comes at minimal cost and the problems of vampirism are external, lol
Basically I don't like any vampire story where it's possible to be a "good vampire", or where vampires being bad is something external to the condition of vampirism itself
I find the extractive nature of the condition itself compelling
This circle can instead be squared by making vampirism something that has to be entered into voluntarily. You're choosing to live forever at terrible cost to everyone around you.
Vampires are metaphors, and right now, VTM has weirdly muddled and mixed metaphors, which never worked for me. So we’re ripping out most of the mechanical framework and replacing it.
So!
Mechanically vampires in my VTM are basically benign. They feed a bit, they chill.
HOWEVER. Vampires do not exist in a world where they just need to feed a bit. They’re part of a Family. They have *debts.* expectations. And master vampires don’t just need a tiny amount of blood. They need a lot of blood! And these debt and patronage systems drive the adventures and moral choices.
This really does tie back into what I think the strongest metaphor for vampirism is: organized crime and it's effects on a society. Human thralls and Cantiff are basically treated like associates and every other vampire in a Camarilla city is basically somebody or another's soldier.
And feudalism metaphors come back with more force in this case.
"I am Count of Walachia bc I claim all the blood here, dumbass, not bc I love to count. Now, on you go and grab some tourists in Romanian woods or something"
I think making them *too* benign just rips out the conceit completely. what difference does it make that you're a vampire at this point? the metaphor just becomes literal, might as well be playing a mobster rpg
plus the beast, frenzy, immortality all contribute to the idea that a vampire *can* be benign, they *can* be a good person, it just takes a lot of effort and the world they're in encourages them to become beastly
I did expand on my idea that basically, the more blood a vampire drinks, the more extractive and exploitative they become, the more actual powers they get.
so, like, if a vampire just nibbles a bit a day, just enough to "survive", they age and will die eventually.
Bold choice. Personally i'm one of the weirdoes who actually likes Humanity and Paths/Roads despite the many, many flaws, but I will say I respect the daring in being willing to cut so much
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I like the idea of immortality as something fundamentally extractive
I find the extractive nature of the condition itself compelling
This circle can instead be squared by making vampirism something that has to be entered into voluntarily. You're choosing to live forever at terrible cost to everyone around you.
That being said we were running in my setting, so it didn't conflict with that Lore/story at all.
Thousand Years of Night campaign kicked off HARD.
So!
Mechanically vampires in my VTM are basically benign. They feed a bit, they chill.
"I am Count of Walachia bc I claim all the blood here, dumbass, not bc I love to count. Now, on you go and grab some tourists in Romanian woods or something"
so, like, if a vampire just nibbles a bit a day, just enough to "survive", they age and will die eventually.
On the other, would love to see how you translate the whole courtship thing you spoke mechanically