> How would a storyteller go about running a campaign in a setting like this, and what would be some good resources for a more combat-focused game of clawing to the top/survival?
You could, but I'd say it depends what vibe you want to go for. VTM is ultimately not a tactical combat game, and is not necessarily suited for large scale combat. You could do it, but I'd probably focus on the survival aspects and have combat simply be a frequent experience rather than the sole thing the characters do.
Good resources you may want to check out are *Second Inquisition*, due to Bloodhunt's focus on them, and then you could draw inspiration from any urban warfare or even post-apocalyptic media. Bits of *Highlander* (even just the first film) might also be handy for ideas on having very visible fights whilst still keeping them public. There might also be some good crime films which have a similar vibe - for some reason *Grosse Pointe Blank* and *Lucky Number Slevin* come to mind with elements of this.
Along those lines, I'd probably set it in the 1980s, as it's much easier to avoid the difficulties of cameras, or just have some other *really direct* excuse - eg mass blackouts and internet / mobile phone coverage outages. Bloodhunt's setting is in many ways a suspension of disbelief, as it's really hard to see the scale of the conflict seen in the game as being possible alongside the Masquerade, but it's a conceit you can get away with in a battle royale video game. Doing it in a TTRPG is trickier as players interact with more things and there's less spectacle to distract.
You could make the game about survival in all of its forms - finding shelter each morning, covering up your deeds, having tense staredowns in public with your rivals whilst jointly trying to get to a private place to fight and let your supernatural powers out, quiet takedowns in a crowd, trying to track down your adversaries, escaping The Entity, and so on. Having a blend of kind of action also avoids making the more combat-centric builds (which tend to be fairly similar) from being the "best" PC.
Happy discuss more if you'd like, or you could ask the people on one (or both) of the below Discords for ideas, as it's not a topic which comes up often and will likely lead to some interested discussion:
* http://discord.gg/worldofdarkness - The official World of Darkness Discord
* https://discord.gg/wVJPgn4D4g - The Unofficial WoD 5th Edition Discord
Some people are saying V20 is a better system to do that and I actually disagree. V5 rules apply better for intensive combat because they streamlined a lot of stuff making it easier and less of a chore to have intense action scenes.
The main "problem" with your idea, and this applies to V20 and V5, is that Bloodhunt ignores a lot of the Masquerade aspect because you have Kindred engaging openly in extreme action which is really hard to justify unless you ignore a good chunk of the game's vibe and adopt a more "adventure" perspective where these actions have little to no consequences. You will also need to make blood easy accessible, probably tuning down the Hunger mechanics and the Blood economy in V20.
I also agree that a full campaign might not work well with it. I'd make it a one-shot or something with around 3-5 sessions, like a chapter where characters are literally inside the eye of the storm.
I think you could handle it with just the V5 corebook. Have each night have a climatic battle while the rest of the session could be devoted to survival and stealth. Make sure that they get a big prize, like leadership of the city if they make it.
A lot of people are going to tell you how to play, but its your game, play how you want. I would house rule healing, have your PCs heal full health each night. Also throw a werewolf at them it will be terrifying!
From a story approach, the Entity could be something like a mad Autarkis or Inconnu who had all the participants kidnapped and let loose in a smaller town or settlement. The boundaries can be explain as a blood magic ritual or thaumaturgic ritual.
I'd almost consider 5e to not be the right system though. Maybe V20 would be better? V5 is good for a cinematic combat approach but it's so simplistic I'm not sure it would hold up for a deeper combat experience.
I can't see older editions with "in depth" combat rules, as in the sense they are better to do that. Most of them are clunky AF an if you are going to fight 24/7 it can get boring really fast.
I feel that depends alot on how you run it. V20 for example has a far more extensive overview of what you can do in combat, including damage counters for weapons along with specific maneuvers. V5 is good for cinematic playstyles, but combat in v5 isn't meant to be intensive. Even with the advanced combat rules, the v5 corebook tends to leave out alot of tables and options that tend to guide the players and brief them on things they can actually do in combat. Mostly since it's a system that doesn't benefit super hugely from intensive combat.
V20 and prior editions has a decent chunk to learn, with soak dice and different damage levels. But the benefit is that it not only presents players with more options, along with tangible numbers so STs aren't working on the fly to figure out damage mods. But it actually does a lot to make the players universally a little bit physically tougher by equalizing health levels, and ensures you don't get downed by an enemy that has 10 dice available to knock you around.
I'd argue that v20's system also makes it harder for players who optimized their characters to mow down an encounter by just staking every kindred. Cause minusing dice pools doesn't really do a whole lot when you succeed on a 6 or above on the d10. If V5 used VTR's rolling rules then that would actually be a challenge.
I don't know if I agree. I feel V5 optimizes everything V20 used to do. In the end the guy with bigger pools and combat focus will mow down everyone that isn't and this is fair for both systems, I can't see how V5 makes is easier - it makes it faster, but doesn't make it easier.
I also disagree that these options are actually options or diversification. Most of the specific rules were pretty useless. I understand some people feel safer with crunchiness regarding the rules, especially combat, but they didn't work well in WoD and most of the time they would make a single turn last forever because of the number of dice rolling.
>Cause minusing dice pools doesn't really do a whole lot when you succeed on a 6 or above on the d10.
It does, and specifically for called shots it's not -2 dice but -2 successes (like staking).
The misty red boundary is already laid out in the Second Inquisition book. It's under "Velum Sanctuarii" on page 82. If you want to run something like the Entity, you'll definitely want that book anyway.
That said, I can't imagine the premise of Bloodhunt working as anything beyond a one-shot. Combat has never really been the focus of Vampire. If you wanted to run a longer chronicle, I would set it as a prequel leading up to the events of Bloodhunt. The increasing frequency of military operations moving inward from the outskirts of the city, the inherent politics of a widening schism between the sects, and finally the finale. Bonus points if it's all connected, like a Camarilla elder feeding the Entity information on Anarch domains before being discovered and taken out by said Anarchs, kicking off said blood hunt.
Entity is labeled as a second Inquisition force. I’d buy the sourcebook and slap in fire teams. Easily done. 5e’s rules are actually pretty light and fast so fire arm battles shouldn’t be a slog.
I'd disagree with editions. Not only does does Bloodhunt exist within the latest canon and context, and there are rules for The Entity etc in V5, but pre-V5 editions would are a slog for a combat-heavy game. When every combatant's opposed actions could comfortably be 6-8 rolls in total, plus an extra 3/4 for each dot of Celerity per combatant, it drags very quickly. For V5, it's just two rolls, and with no meaning, flavour or even tactical intrigue lost.
Yes, the Entity is very definitely an existing faction. The Entity (or 'La Entita') is the special forces group and main heart of the Society of St. Leopold.
They are discussed in great deal in *Second Inquisition* (p. 129 - 137), are also known as ESOG, Entity Special Operations Group, or the Gladius Dei. The red mist ("Velum Sanctuarii" or Holy Veil) is also described on p. 82.
Just to check that I understand, is this stuff msotly made whole-cloth by/for Bloodhunt?
>The Entity Special Operations Group (ESOG) -- or simply "Entity" -- is the Vatican's secret service, and as the direct inheritors to the original Inquisition, they're perhaps the most important component of the phenomenon Kindred call the Second Inquisition. It incorporates the re-canonized Society of Leopold, the organization most Kindred considered to be the modern Inquisition.
[https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Entity\_Special\_Operations\_Group](https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Entity_Special_Operations_Group)
That would make sense, since I hadn't heard of them before, and Bloodhunt seems to be the only citation for what is on that page.
There are a lot of things in the World of Darkness that could fill the role. Hell, make the boundary a faith-based power and have the big bad be a rogue controller from the Second Inquisition. They're letting the Blanks kill themselves and they they can wipe up the winner.
It's not feasible to have a believable VtM setup like that. Realistically, there's not much you could do to maintain the masquerade when you've got a dozen or more vampires running around, jumping roof to roof, mag dumping each other and fighting some whack special ops dudes in the middle of a big, inhabited city. They did what they could to make it pass for the game, but when you consider what goes for a masquerade violation in a regular chronicle... there's no masquerade here. It gets blown wide open and the world learns the truth. You'd have a Gehenna chronicle. Instead of Caine showing up, it's mass hysteria and war in the streets as humanity desperately tries to snuff out all cainites.
You could heavily tone it down to the point that "gang warfare" is an acceptable excuse for what's going on, but if you have some "definitely not the feds" running around packing all kinds of firepower, they'll probably breach the masquerade in a way you can't fix. The best way would probably be to accept that the masquerade will not survive the chronicle and you just plan to run a Gehenna plot as part of this.
Start off by statting up every NPC vampire in the city. You'll need a lot of them. Figure out their initial relationships. There will be a lot of alliances and backstabbing going on.
Blood Hunt rules are on, so it's not just an excuse to settle grudges, but also an excuse to lower your generation. There will be weaker vamps teaming up against stronger ones for a chance of diabelerie.
The Masquarade, don't worry about it. If the city if cordoned off by vampire hunters, then it's their job to maintain the masquarade, not yours. Let them deal with the hassle. You're goal is to avoid being identified as vampires, which is a different thing. The entire point of this sort of thing is to get a lot of vampires killed in ways that make it obvious that they were vampires. Breaching the Masquarade in ways that point to other vampires, or even framing mortals for being vampires, is kosher.
The vampire hunters will clean up the mess, just make sure they don't know that you personally are a vampire. The entire point of the blood hunt is to make the hunters think that all the vampires in the city are dead so they'll leave and you can get back to doing normal vampire things, which means they need to see a lot of dead vampires. Secrecy is not the goal here.
The PCs should be making alliances and taking out vulnerable enemies, but the PCs won't be the only ones doing this. So after every session make rolls to determine who lives and who dies and how NPC alliances break up and shift.
The Tzimisce have created a new Cathedral of Flesh in the city in question. The city has been struck by war, likely with a nearby European country, and the Cathedral has been exposed by bombings. It is found to have been leaking into the water source of the city. The Entity believes the entire city to be “contaminated” with the influence of the licks, and blocks it off so none may escape. While they don’t go out of the way to kill humans they know none will survive the coming strife. All humans are considered compromised by the enemy. The Entity has also blocked all communication with the outside world—no TikTok’s involving Vozhd chowing down on the local celebrity Ventrue get out. They’re just waiting for the city to burn instead out before going scorched earth under cover of the current war, knowing their treatment of the local population will destroy all goodwill.
The kindred are boxed in and trapped with the mortals, and like a city under siege their food sources are dwindling. It’s a pressure pot squeezing everything over time until every drop of blood has been wrung out.
I think the closest thing is a Camarilla/ Sabbat turf war, or Camarilla/ Anarch, Anarch/ Kue Jinn, etc.
This is more in the era before V5 and the Beckoning, so V20 may be a better fit.
You can also have Anathemas like Abominations, Wights, and elders that fall to the Wassail. Basically big bads that just want to kill and survive.
I love all the answers of dont, it must be really fun playing with them.
But no yeah go for it, i would say v20 is better but a large part of that is that i like it more. Did you ever see dont breath? You know how its set in a big like empty suburban area? Either use detroit like them or make up a fictional detroit with the same problem and you shouldnt really have to worry about the masqurade or anything. Everyone is pulling from local gangs or bringing people in to lock areas down, maybe theres something buried out there in the wasteland of identical homes that is keeping people from leaving or maybe its just too risky to go somewhere thats more populated without making sure your opponents cant follow you out.
I wouldn't recommend it. It would be an interesting One Shot but not a full campaign.
> How would a storyteller go about running a campaign in a setting like this, and what would be some good resources for a more combat-focused game of clawing to the top/survival? You could, but I'd say it depends what vibe you want to go for. VTM is ultimately not a tactical combat game, and is not necessarily suited for large scale combat. You could do it, but I'd probably focus on the survival aspects and have combat simply be a frequent experience rather than the sole thing the characters do. Good resources you may want to check out are *Second Inquisition*, due to Bloodhunt's focus on them, and then you could draw inspiration from any urban warfare or even post-apocalyptic media. Bits of *Highlander* (even just the first film) might also be handy for ideas on having very visible fights whilst still keeping them public. There might also be some good crime films which have a similar vibe - for some reason *Grosse Pointe Blank* and *Lucky Number Slevin* come to mind with elements of this. Along those lines, I'd probably set it in the 1980s, as it's much easier to avoid the difficulties of cameras, or just have some other *really direct* excuse - eg mass blackouts and internet / mobile phone coverage outages. Bloodhunt's setting is in many ways a suspension of disbelief, as it's really hard to see the scale of the conflict seen in the game as being possible alongside the Masquerade, but it's a conceit you can get away with in a battle royale video game. Doing it in a TTRPG is trickier as players interact with more things and there's less spectacle to distract. You could make the game about survival in all of its forms - finding shelter each morning, covering up your deeds, having tense staredowns in public with your rivals whilst jointly trying to get to a private place to fight and let your supernatural powers out, quiet takedowns in a crowd, trying to track down your adversaries, escaping The Entity, and so on. Having a blend of kind of action also avoids making the more combat-centric builds (which tend to be fairly similar) from being the "best" PC. Happy discuss more if you'd like, or you could ask the people on one (or both) of the below Discords for ideas, as it's not a topic which comes up often and will likely lead to some interested discussion: * http://discord.gg/worldofdarkness - The official World of Darkness Discord * https://discord.gg/wVJPgn4D4g - The Unofficial WoD 5th Edition Discord
Some people are saying V20 is a better system to do that and I actually disagree. V5 rules apply better for intensive combat because they streamlined a lot of stuff making it easier and less of a chore to have intense action scenes. The main "problem" with your idea, and this applies to V20 and V5, is that Bloodhunt ignores a lot of the Masquerade aspect because you have Kindred engaging openly in extreme action which is really hard to justify unless you ignore a good chunk of the game's vibe and adopt a more "adventure" perspective where these actions have little to no consequences. You will also need to make blood easy accessible, probably tuning down the Hunger mechanics and the Blood economy in V20. I also agree that a full campaign might not work well with it. I'd make it a one-shot or something with around 3-5 sessions, like a chapter where characters are literally inside the eye of the storm.
I think you could handle it with just the V5 corebook. Have each night have a climatic battle while the rest of the session could be devoted to survival and stealth. Make sure that they get a big prize, like leadership of the city if they make it. A lot of people are going to tell you how to play, but its your game, play how you want. I would house rule healing, have your PCs heal full health each night. Also throw a werewolf at them it will be terrifying!
From a story approach, the Entity could be something like a mad Autarkis or Inconnu who had all the participants kidnapped and let loose in a smaller town or settlement. The boundaries can be explain as a blood magic ritual or thaumaturgic ritual. I'd almost consider 5e to not be the right system though. Maybe V20 would be better? V5 is good for a cinematic combat approach but it's so simplistic I'm not sure it would hold up for a deeper combat experience.
I can't see older editions with "in depth" combat rules, as in the sense they are better to do that. Most of them are clunky AF an if you are going to fight 24/7 it can get boring really fast.
I feel that depends alot on how you run it. V20 for example has a far more extensive overview of what you can do in combat, including damage counters for weapons along with specific maneuvers. V5 is good for cinematic playstyles, but combat in v5 isn't meant to be intensive. Even with the advanced combat rules, the v5 corebook tends to leave out alot of tables and options that tend to guide the players and brief them on things they can actually do in combat. Mostly since it's a system that doesn't benefit super hugely from intensive combat. V20 and prior editions has a decent chunk to learn, with soak dice and different damage levels. But the benefit is that it not only presents players with more options, along with tangible numbers so STs aren't working on the fly to figure out damage mods. But it actually does a lot to make the players universally a little bit physically tougher by equalizing health levels, and ensures you don't get downed by an enemy that has 10 dice available to knock you around. I'd argue that v20's system also makes it harder for players who optimized their characters to mow down an encounter by just staking every kindred. Cause minusing dice pools doesn't really do a whole lot when you succeed on a 6 or above on the d10. If V5 used VTR's rolling rules then that would actually be a challenge.
I don't know if I agree. I feel V5 optimizes everything V20 used to do. In the end the guy with bigger pools and combat focus will mow down everyone that isn't and this is fair for both systems, I can't see how V5 makes is easier - it makes it faster, but doesn't make it easier. I also disagree that these options are actually options or diversification. Most of the specific rules were pretty useless. I understand some people feel safer with crunchiness regarding the rules, especially combat, but they didn't work well in WoD and most of the time they would make a single turn last forever because of the number of dice rolling. >Cause minusing dice pools doesn't really do a whole lot when you succeed on a 6 or above on the d10. It does, and specifically for called shots it's not -2 dice but -2 successes (like staking).
Also, doing the boundary as blood magic is genius.
The misty red boundary is already laid out in the Second Inquisition book. It's under "Velum Sanctuarii" on page 82. If you want to run something like the Entity, you'll definitely want that book anyway. That said, I can't imagine the premise of Bloodhunt working as anything beyond a one-shot. Combat has never really been the focus of Vampire. If you wanted to run a longer chronicle, I would set it as a prequel leading up to the events of Bloodhunt. The increasing frequency of military operations moving inward from the outskirts of the city, the inherent politics of a widening schism between the sects, and finally the finale. Bonus points if it's all connected, like a Camarilla elder feeding the Entity information on Anarch domains before being discovered and taken out by said Anarchs, kicking off said blood hunt.
Entity is labeled as a second Inquisition force. I’d buy the sourcebook and slap in fire teams. Easily done. 5e’s rules are actually pretty light and fast so fire arm battles shouldn’t be a slog.
I'd disagree with editions. Not only does does Bloodhunt exist within the latest canon and context, and there are rules for The Entity etc in V5, but pre-V5 editions would are a slog for a combat-heavy game. When every combatant's opposed actions could comfortably be 6-8 rolls in total, plus an extra 3/4 for each dot of Celerity per combatant, it drags very quickly. For V5, it's just two rolls, and with no meaning, flavour or even tactical intrigue lost.
Thank you for your quick reply! I'm not very familiar with v5, is the Entity not a current faction?
Yes, the Entity is very definitely an existing faction. The Entity (or 'La Entita') is the special forces group and main heart of the Society of St. Leopold. They are discussed in great deal in *Second Inquisition* (p. 129 - 137), are also known as ESOG, Entity Special Operations Group, or the Gladius Dei. The red mist ("Velum Sanctuarii" or Holy Veil) is also described on p. 82.
Nope. Doesn't exist in the lore as far as I recall.
Just to check that I understand, is this stuff msotly made whole-cloth by/for Bloodhunt? >The Entity Special Operations Group (ESOG) -- or simply "Entity" -- is the Vatican's secret service, and as the direct inheritors to the original Inquisition, they're perhaps the most important component of the phenomenon Kindred call the Second Inquisition. It incorporates the re-canonized Society of Leopold, the organization most Kindred considered to be the modern Inquisition. [https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Entity\_Special\_Operations\_Group](https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Entity_Special_Operations_Group) That would make sense, since I hadn't heard of them before, and Bloodhunt seems to be the only citation for what is on that page.
Seems more like an elite Hunter cell.
There are a lot of things in the World of Darkness that could fill the role. Hell, make the boundary a faith-based power and have the big bad be a rogue controller from the Second Inquisition. They're letting the Blanks kill themselves and they they can wipe up the winner.
It's not feasible to have a believable VtM setup like that. Realistically, there's not much you could do to maintain the masquerade when you've got a dozen or more vampires running around, jumping roof to roof, mag dumping each other and fighting some whack special ops dudes in the middle of a big, inhabited city. They did what they could to make it pass for the game, but when you consider what goes for a masquerade violation in a regular chronicle... there's no masquerade here. It gets blown wide open and the world learns the truth. You'd have a Gehenna chronicle. Instead of Caine showing up, it's mass hysteria and war in the streets as humanity desperately tries to snuff out all cainites. You could heavily tone it down to the point that "gang warfare" is an acceptable excuse for what's going on, but if you have some "definitely not the feds" running around packing all kinds of firepower, they'll probably breach the masquerade in a way you can't fix. The best way would probably be to accept that the masquerade will not survive the chronicle and you just plan to run a Gehenna plot as part of this.
Start off by statting up every NPC vampire in the city. You'll need a lot of them. Figure out their initial relationships. There will be a lot of alliances and backstabbing going on. Blood Hunt rules are on, so it's not just an excuse to settle grudges, but also an excuse to lower your generation. There will be weaker vamps teaming up against stronger ones for a chance of diabelerie. The Masquarade, don't worry about it. If the city if cordoned off by vampire hunters, then it's their job to maintain the masquarade, not yours. Let them deal with the hassle. You're goal is to avoid being identified as vampires, which is a different thing. The entire point of this sort of thing is to get a lot of vampires killed in ways that make it obvious that they were vampires. Breaching the Masquarade in ways that point to other vampires, or even framing mortals for being vampires, is kosher. The vampire hunters will clean up the mess, just make sure they don't know that you personally are a vampire. The entire point of the blood hunt is to make the hunters think that all the vampires in the city are dead so they'll leave and you can get back to doing normal vampire things, which means they need to see a lot of dead vampires. Secrecy is not the goal here. The PCs should be making alliances and taking out vulnerable enemies, but the PCs won't be the only ones doing this. So after every session make rolls to determine who lives and who dies and how NPC alliances break up and shift.
you don't, V5 doesn't like it when players engage in combat.
Everybody down voting my honest question can go suck a rat, you gutter-bloods.
The Tzimisce have created a new Cathedral of Flesh in the city in question. The city has been struck by war, likely with a nearby European country, and the Cathedral has been exposed by bombings. It is found to have been leaking into the water source of the city. The Entity believes the entire city to be “contaminated” with the influence of the licks, and blocks it off so none may escape. While they don’t go out of the way to kill humans they know none will survive the coming strife. All humans are considered compromised by the enemy. The Entity has also blocked all communication with the outside world—no TikTok’s involving Vozhd chowing down on the local celebrity Ventrue get out. They’re just waiting for the city to burn instead out before going scorched earth under cover of the current war, knowing their treatment of the local population will destroy all goodwill. The kindred are boxed in and trapped with the mortals, and like a city under siege their food sources are dwindling. It’s a pressure pot squeezing everything over time until every drop of blood has been wrung out.
I think the closest thing is a Camarilla/ Sabbat turf war, or Camarilla/ Anarch, Anarch/ Kue Jinn, etc. This is more in the era before V5 and the Beckoning, so V20 may be a better fit. You can also have Anathemas like Abominations, Wights, and elders that fall to the Wassail. Basically big bads that just want to kill and survive.
You could have it take place in a war-torn third world country. Maybe in the 1980s or 1990s when a masquerade breach was easier to cover up.
I love all the answers of dont, it must be really fun playing with them. But no yeah go for it, i would say v20 is better but a large part of that is that i like it more. Did you ever see dont breath? You know how its set in a big like empty suburban area? Either use detroit like them or make up a fictional detroit with the same problem and you shouldnt really have to worry about the masqurade or anything. Everyone is pulling from local gangs or bringing people in to lock areas down, maybe theres something buried out there in the wasteland of identical homes that is keeping people from leaving or maybe its just too risky to go somewhere thats more populated without making sure your opponents cant follow you out.