I've been kind of off in my own little world with White Wolf stuff. I liked the old stuff, and I hated the new stuff. Then I liked the newer stuff, which was actually the old stuff.
So what the fuck is this newer-er-est stuff? Can someone summarize Vampire 5 in a short paragraph? Who owns it? What product line is it part of? What's wrong with it?
Can someone summarize Vampire 5 in a short paragraph?
Sure. Basically v5 is a remake of VtM with loose fuzzy ties to the metaplot. All elders have been called away to Ghenna so all the younger gen vampires have taken their place. It was, imo, their attempt to make it so vampires can actually have a chance to have some upward mobility in the Camarilla without always having to be some ancient vampires pawn. They added in a hunger mechanic that means that the more hunger you gain, the more hunger dice you have which can result in Bestial failures and successes. (Their version of Frenzy). Also added are humanity touchstones and a predator archetype. The biggest add on is one that is semi-stolen from Dark Ages with the four humours and blood resonances. So basically, depending on the humans state of mind in relation to those four humours, you can gain pluses to different disciplines temporarily and if you can push that state of mind to an extreme place and cultivate it, it becomes a blood clot. Which can be used to permanently alter your powers for the better or even add in disciplines you don't have. That's the jist of the new stuff in it.
Who owns it?
So Paradox bought White Wolf and all their associated IPs. Then contacted Modiphieus to publish a new revival of Vampire the Masqurade with a revamp of the rules and a refresh of the metaplot. Previously Onyx Path was the ones doing new World of Darkness and genuinely some were hits (Requiem, Mage, Werewolf) and some are duds (Beast, Changling, Hunters) but they were favourably received. I believe Onyx Path contributed to V5 like freelancers and Modiphieus is just publishing it, although I know they got a few older VtM writers to consult.
What product line is it apart of?
It's it's own beast since it has redone the powers and the system itself. I guess in some ways it is a spiritual successor of original VtM as it ties loosely into the metaplot. .
What's wrong with it?
A few things. Mostly blandness is my opinion. They took away clan specific disciplines in order to make PCs less like superhero Vampires but have unfortunately just made them more bland. The specific clan powers were what sort of made each one so cutting them out and down just makes everyone feel like they're the same because there is so much power crossover shared.
They also put an emphasis on younger generation vampires to also curb the whole UberVampire Superman thing. It was also revealed by one of the writers that they wanted to encourage all PCs to have a dot in Herd because they didn't want to have to address the nonconsenual (aka bite rape) side of feeding in game which imo, is really dumb since they introduced a predator archetype into the game and blood now has a bigger part to play in terms of powers as mentioned earlier.
There's also the new books, Camarilla and Anarch which add nothing aside from fluff lore and Setites and Assamites to each and the Anarch book is full on stupid. Both books are very expensive for what they are and probably should have been condensed (taking out the stupid rah rah fight the man SJW shit) and in the original book.
They're dropping the ball. Requiem was a good reskin of Vampire that added something interesting and new while still having personal horror and vampire political shennangians. New v5 Masquerade doesn't add enough to the table especially when it takes half of the food away. I was so so with it but I've convinced my GM to switch to v20 because v5 is so bland. There's things we want to do power wise that were possible in VtM but just aren't in v5 and it's fairly frustrating to us older players.
Edited to add in this gem:
