Dresden Files has four (notable) vampire courts:

Red Court: As Socratic DM said, "horrible evil bat monsters that wear literal human skin suits."
White Court: Appear human, feed on emotions, manipulative rather than combative.
Black Court: Classic Dracula types.
Jade Court: Chinese, secretive, feed on breath.

Not sure how the "Lost Boys rules" fits into that.

Quote from: Aglondir on October 06, 2024, 09:39:39 PMRed Court: As Socratic DM said, "horrible evil bat monsters that wear literal human skin suits."

It is not literally a suit of human skin. It's a coating of ectoplasm that conceals their true form and gives them the appearance of being human. No actual human skin is involved. If the ectoplamic coat is damaged, it takes them time to mend it (but there isn't any specifics on how long). For most, it was stricktly a disguise, but some of the Red Court could also perform tricks with their coat, like hiding items under it or pulling a limb out of the coat and doing some sleight of hand trickery.

Quote from: Aglondir on October 06, 2024, 09:39:39 PMWhite Court: Appear human, feed on emotions, manipulative rather than combative.

This isn't necessarily true. The most commonly seen White Court in DF stories (House Raith, IIRC) fed upon lust, so they were manipulative because it served them, not because they couldn't be combative (they were quite effective in combat when well fed).

Other White Court houses specialized in feeding upon terror or despair. These, particularly those that fed upon terror, probably had less use for manipulation.

The organization of red court infected is the Fellowship of St Giles, patron of lepers and outcasts. 

You probably could go solo as a red court infected, but without a support group you are probably going to lose your shit, kill somebody, and go full vampire right away.


Lost Boy vampires are Red Court, because of their sunlight issues, changing features, screaming, leaping about and blood drinking.

Quote from: Socratic-DM on October 05, 2024, 10:49:44 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 02, 2024, 08:19:47 AMYeah, the "woe is me, I'm a blood sucking superhero" thing is just so obnoxious. It's quite refreshing to see them get their comeuppance.

You know, I'd like to see a game where the vampires are outright b-movies supervillains who enjoy it and only use their humanity as a cover.

I personally double down on that notion, fiction writers are often interested in the concept of the vampire society, but to me that humanizes them to much.

I agree, the lone b-movie evil apex predator is the best model, classic Dracula and his spin-offs come to mind for a charismatic force of nature bad-guy.

Non-evil vampires were a thing very early on in the movies. Son of Dracula had Alucard. One of the House of movies had Dracula seeking a cure. Theres a few others where someones been infected and is either seeking a cure, or at least trying to curb the worst of the urges. Serums, artificial blood and so on.

Theres always been these "flip the script" notions and it goes back to at least Greek Hero times with some plays turning heroes into villains. Villains into at least sympathetic monsters.

So WOD fits right in with that concept and leaves plenty of room to play good or bad. Though the general theme was not good. But mostly not full on evil. WW really loved their conspiracy theory/secret cabal plot as they used it for about every book.

Quote from: Omega on October 07, 2024, 05:22:02 PMNon-evil vampires were a thing very early on in the movies. Son of Dracula had Alucard. One of the House of movies had Dracula seeking a cure. Theres a few others where someones been infected and is either seeking a cure, or at least trying to curb the worst of the urges. Serums, artificial blood and so on.

Theres always been these "flip the script" notions and it goes back to at least Greek Hero times with some plays turning heroes into villains. Villains into at least sympathetic monsters.

So WOD fits right in with that concept and leaves plenty of room to play good or bad. Though the general theme was not good. But mostly not full on evil. WW really loved their conspiracy theory/secret cabal plot as they used it for about every book.

I think why I disdain for WOD's vampire  isn't just for the "woe is me" aspect, you either eating or not, being a vampire is pretty morally binary, even more than a humans because slipping off the straight and narrow path means cracking your old human friend like a cherry capri sun.

And even just eating "people who deserves it" doesn't really justify it to me,

Though also I kinda of dig early White-Wolf because there was satire to it, kind of like early 40k, which made some of the more stupid elements make sense, as though it was semi-aware the decade it existed in sucked ass.

But later White Wolf dropped that as much, and Paradox straight up has second hand guilt/remorse for the politics in those books despite being progressive for their time and most of their current authors not even directly linked to the older products.

If I recall right, WOD vamps do not need to drain someone dry?
That was part of the system even. Resisting the urge to drain someone to death.

Quote from: Omega on October 09, 2024, 07:22:48 AMIf I recall right, WOD vamps do not need to drain someone dry?
That was part of the system even. Resisting the urge to drain someone to death.

Off the top of my head, without referencing a book: yes.

Quote from: Omega on October 09, 2024, 07:22:48 AMIf I recall right, WOD vamps do not need to drain someone dry?
That was part of the system even. Resisting the urge to drain someone to death.

They do not need to drain someone dry, but sometimes it happens if they lose control.

Quote from: V20, p260If the character catches prey, but currently has fewer blood points in her body than [7 minus Self-Control or Instinct], the character is considered to be hungry and a frenzy check (p. 298) is necessary — Self-Control to see if the character frenzies, or Instinct to see if the character can control her frenzy while feeding. If the player fails this roll, the character continues to gorge on the vessel until she is completely sated (at full blood pool), the victim dies from blood loss, or she somehow manages to regain control of herself.

Quote from: Socratic-DM on October 07, 2024, 05:52:03 PMBut later White Wolf dropped that as much, and Paradox straight up has second hand guilt/remorse for the politics in those books despite being progressive for their time and most of their current authors not even directly linked to the older products.

It is always Year Zero for the Revolution.

WW/Paradox's problem is that they've lived long enough for the WoD's heroes to become today's villains. All the "oppressed" factions they supported who demanded tolerance and a voice in the 90's turned into the same "got mine so fuck you!" oppressive, intolerant, censorious types once they had power themselves.

But rather than lean into that truth; the natural corruption of power achieved; they instead insisted on presenting imaginary far-right bugbears (the Catholic Church and far-right elements of Intelligence Community form the Second Inquisition to hunt down all the oppressed innocent LGBT-proxy vampires) and basically jumped the shark.

The original VtM worked because it was satirizing uncomfortable truths and the only thing you needed suspension of disbelief for was the vampires who were themselves metaphors related to those truths.

ParaWolf VtM doesn't work because the very foundation of its setting is now lacking in any truth which makes any suspension of disbelief harder because you aren't just applying it to the existence of vampires, but the "truths" of the setting itself.

It's why my own efforts at a setting for Hunters of the Damned is leaning towards a '20 minutes into the future' approach focusing on the worst turns our present society can take...

- the Blackguard and Vanrock megacorps, and NGOs like the cult that is the Global Commerce Council, control the political and economic spheres for their Satanic masters.

- Police State surveillance, censorship, and state-condoned militias akin to Antifa keep the population fearful of speaking out.

- Engineered wars, famines and plagues are used to force the poor into lawless urban hellscapes where the monsters can more easily feed.

- Transhumanism-obsessed elites experiment with AI (ghosts in the machine), neural links, cybernetics, and bio-engineering, slicing away at the humanity of themselves and their test subjects.

- Transnational drug and trafficking cartels supply human misery and the behest of inhuman masters and clients.

- Orthodox faiths are persecuted using hate-laws, and in some places (large urban hellholes) driven to financial insolvency, while faithless Unitarian and Prosperity Gospel pushing megachurches in step with the views of the State are allowed to flourish.

... and so on. Just throw supernatural evils into the margins and shadows manipulating these attacks on humanity and you've got yourself something that isn't satire, but is making commentary on where today's society is at.

Quote from: Omega on October 09, 2024, 07:22:48 AMIf I recall right, WOD vamps do not need to drain someone dry?
That was part of the system even. Resisting the urge to drain someone to death.

Correct. Unless they're in the midst of a frenzy, a vampire could get their nightly nourishment from a single pint of blood.

This process is also intensely pleasurable for the person being drunk from so one of the merits available is "herd" a group of mortals addicted to the pleasure of being fed upon who willingly allow the vampire to drink from them.

If a WoD vampire is able to stay well fed, there is virtually no way for them to overfeed except deliberately. If a victim does die it's more likely because of some underlying medical condition that losing a pint exacerbates (ex. chronic anemia, extremely low blood pressure, hemophilia, etc.).

You pretty much need some alternative to "must kill humans to feed" if you want any longer term campaign with PC vampires. The number of people okay with playing complete monsters long term is vanishingly small.

As I will have "cursed" options for PCs, my approach is to treat the need to feed for those as akin to an addiction or hunger. They are still living and so do not need to consume the blood of innocents to survive... the curse just drives them to desire it (and acts of virtue allow them to push past those desires until the next temptation arises).

Once lost to the curse the addiction passes. The consuming of life, the more innocent the better, adds potence to their satanic powers but is unnecessary to their survival. Instead the Damned crave feeding/killing as an act of pure malevolence.

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 09, 2024, 11:39:43 AMAs I will have "cursed" options for PCs, my approach is to treat the need to feed for those as akin to an addiction or hunger. They are still living and so do not need to consume the blood of innocents to survive... the curse just drives them to desire it (and acts of virtue allow them to push past those desires until the next temptation arises).

Once lost to the curse the addiction passes. The consuming of life, the more innocent the better, adds potence to their satanic powers but is unnecessary to their survival. Instead the Damned crave feeding/killing as an act of pure malevolence.

Neato. You're not the first to come up with this. The 2013 indie game Feed does the same, treating vampirism very explicitly as an addiction metaphor. It outright has a statistic labeled Addiction. Vampires don't feed to survive, they feed to satisfy their Hunger statistic. They can resist their hunger and, depending on the GM's choice, cure their addiction. So the metaphor doesn't fall apart upon further inspection, the way it would if vampires had to feed to survive or were treated as a metaphor for being gay.

The evil apex superpredator thing got boring back in the day.  Honestly there's not that much you can do with them storywise.  Now we're bored with the anguished "I don't want to be a monster" thing because it's been overdone.  I get it, I'm tired of it too.  Besides, I have teenagers at home so I get more than enough adolescent drama.  I wonder what happens now?  Do we go back to the old thing?  Strike a balance?  Switch to another theme for our primary entertainment?  I don't much care as long as it's entertaining.

I was thinking of emphasizing the fantasy aspect of urban fantasy. Stuff like ancient empires ruled by mummies, werewolves, wizards, vampires, dragons, etc. straight out of pulp fiction. Chronicles teased this in a few supplements but never did anything with it before Paradox cancelled them for the crime of not having come out in the 90s.

I was thinking of doing something more with that. A lot of ancient cultures have animal-headed deities descended from earlier totemic religions, so it makes sense to have werewolves and other shifters be god-kings of ancient civilizations. You could invent entire myth cycles around that.

Quote from: Omega on October 09, 2024, 07:22:48 AMIf I recall right, WOD vamps do not need to drain someone dry?
That was part of the system even. Resisting the urge to drain someone to death.

On a practical level, it depends on what the vampire is doing.  They needed a pint a day or about the amount a healthy adult would give when they donate blood for basic maintenance.  That's if they are just living from day to day and not using their blood points for anything.  PCs often needed a lot more than that because they were using it for other things like healing as well.

Quote from: yosemitemike on October 09, 2024, 06:45:06 PM

Quote from: Omega on October 09, 2024, 07:22:48 AMIf I recall right, WOD vamps do not need to drain someone dry?
That was part of the system even. Resisting the urge to drain someone to death.

On a practical level, it depends on what the vampire is doing.  They needed a pint a day or about the amount a healthy adult would give when they donate blood for basic maintenance.  That's if they are just living from day to day and not using their blood points for anything.  PCs often needed a lot more than that because they were using it for other things like healing as well.

It probably makes more sense for worldbuilding and game design to not link consumption to a specific real world amount and to have a separate pool of power points to fuel superpowers. Even in V5, they replaced tracking blood consumption with a hunger statistic. Using powers didn't automatically increase Hunger, you rolled to determine whether it increased Hunger. It's impossible to clear Hunger without killing someone, anything less only diminishes it to a certain point.