While the newer and newer editions often change the games in big ways, sometimes even the small tweaks and changes can leave a good impression on you. Today I'd like to discuss a few of such things I noticed first reading Vampire the Requiem 2nd Edition.
Sanctity of Merits
In pretty much every White Wolf game, a character has a pool of Merits / Backgrounds / etc. - resources at their disposal that are not necessarily a part of their character. Their money, influence, retainers, etc. In the Old World of Darkness product line, you could purchase them at character creation and then boost them through roleplay. In the New World of Darkness / Chronicles of Darkness, however, you would increase those Merits with XP, just like you'd boost any of your other stats.
This created a small issue. If you spend a hefty amount of XP hiring a high-end Retainer and they happen to die, you felt that blow quite hard. I personally remember that exact scenario happening to one of my characters during an ongoing LARP game, which set me back a few months of XP - not a great thing to be on the receiving end of...
VtR2E had a neat solution for this exact scenario - the concept of Sanctity of Merits. It's a rule printed at the start of the Merit chapter of the book that essentially states "if a character looses a Merit, they get the XP that merit is worth back". While it's a simple change, it makes a lot of sense from a game feel perspective - you are no longer as worried about using your Merits in a risky way, and mechanics that could cost you those Merits are not as harsh.
Obviously, you still have the narrative incentive not to throw your butlers into the meat grinder, and you can't just buy back the Merit without a narrative justification, but at least when your Retainer sacrifices their life to save you, you'll mourn them, instead of the XP they cost you.
Traditions are meant to be broken
Vampiric Traditions have been a staple of the Vampire line of games since its inception AFAIK. They are the basic set of rules to follow in any Vampiric society - "don't break the Masquerade", "don't create too many Vampires", etc.
Maybe it was just me, but for a long while the Traditions were presented as these nigh-immutable laws that would get you into a heap of trouble if you broke them, and no vampire that wanted to keep their unlife would dare to go against them.
VtM Bloodlines intro - break the rules, get the axe
VtR2E once again put their neat spin on that. Right next to the section talking about the Traditions, there is a small box stating what was a small revelation to me - "The Traditions are broken regularly enough that there’s a need for law, but not enough to break down vampire society or the veneer of the ordinary world that the Kindred hide behind. [...] The Traditions are deliberately designed so that vampires have motivation to break them, and so that there will be drama when they do.".
This was an interesting take on things. The rules are meant to be and are broken. It's not an uncommon thing, and since it would be problematic to go around executing Vampires for every transgression, the punishments are not meant to be so dire.
This opens up a very interesting political play - the rule breaker either has to hide the transgressions, or if they come to light, act very apologetic and penitent, to let the judicator carry out the theatre of justice lest they are to be seen as weak. If carried out correctly, the justice appears upheld, and it's up to the political manoeuvring to dictate if something was gained from this. This is much more interesting than "break the rules, get the stake"...
Humanity is about being human
Humanity, another staple of the Vampire games, is a measurement of how "human" the character are. The more horrible things you do, the lower your Humanity gets and the more of a monster your character is.
For a long while, the Humanity stat was revolving around being, well, "a law-abiding person" - don't steal, don't murder, don't hurt people, etc. It was pretty bland, and in the Old World of Darkness, the situation was a bit worse thanks to Roads. A Road was an alternative morality track, mostly introduced to let the more monstrous Vampires of that setting be playable. Road of the Serpent for example was all about hedonism and corrupting mortals, while Road of Metamorphosis was all about fleshcraft.
Vampire the Requiem 1st edition did away with all of the Roads essentially since they often boiled down to "Road of whatever I wanted to do anyways" and Vampires once again would only have Humanity, forcing them to balance their personal horror of slipping and becoming a monster.
The Humanity rules were still a bit bland though:
Vampire the Requiem 1st Edition Humanity
Luckily, VtR2E gave them an interesting spin:
Vampire the Requiem 2nd Edition Humanity
Now, Humanity wasn't just about "not breaking the law", but also about being human, such as interacting with humans (and thus having to relate to them and deal with possible consequences of being a monster), as well as the "mental" consequence living through things humans weren't meant to live through, such as joining a Vampiric society, using your supernatural powers, etc.
These additional things the Vampire characters are supposed to look out for help to highlight how they might struggle to maintain the semblance of being human. This reminds me of a short scene from Interview with the Vampire where Louis and Lestat would pretend-dine with Lestat's mortal father for the company.
Conclusions
Sometimes even small changes and clarifications to game's mechanics or lore can make a large difference to how the game is played. Removing a small pain point, highlighting something that perhaps could've been missed, or adding extra focus on a narrative mechanic can be quite memorable, even if they appear insignificant at first.
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