Praenomen and Vampirism should be separated, and here's why

Tetchta

The Case for Separating Praenomen from the Vampire Subrace or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Roleplay

How do you do, fellow kids!

Ever since @Naos posted his thread ages ago about separating Praenomen from the Vampire subrace, I’ve been thinking about it. It never struck me as a possibility until he said something, it never occurred to me that Praenomen and Vampire could be separate things entirely--and the more I thought about it, the more it seems like a good idea to me. The case I’m going to try to make in this post is simple: separating the Praenomen class from the vampire subrace is good for everyone and should be done. So let’s get started.

Diverging the RP of Vampirism away from the Praenomen Class will make vampire RP better

My understanding under current class/guild rules is that making the hurdles to getting class too difficult is frowned upon, if not outright against the rules of the game. This means you can require people to do some work before getting GR2, but you can’t make it a huge challenge. This is good and I love it; however, this creates a problem where it is now insanely easy--and in fact, it’s a requirement that getting to be a vampire is incredibly easy. This, I think, devalues the roleplay quite a bit. It used to be that getting embraced was this monumental choice and ritual with a ton of roleplay behind it, but this is effectively against the rules of the game now. You can’t build a relationship to become a vampire over many, many weeks, because it’s compulsory that you be given the Praenomen class relatively easily. Cutting full Praenomen class from the Vampire subrace would effectively eliminate this problem. Which brings us to our next point.

Unshackling Vampirism from the Praenomen Class will make the Dominion better

In Naos’s post, I said that if Vampirism became separate from Praenomen, this would make the Dominion a glorified Praenomen-class-dispenser guild, but after thinking about this a long time, I no longer think this is the case, and is very reductive. A lot of guilds have incredibly immersive guild RP rewards as you move up the ranks. Carnifex has Knighting and Tainting. Syssin has the thing I forgot the name of. Templars have...don’t y’all get cool swords or something? Many guilds have their entire cultures built around these ascending rituals, where once you get past the very basic stepping stone, you get to choose to immerse yourself in the guild culture and Roleplay for more rewards if you want. Breaking Praenomen away from Vampirism will almost immediately unlock an incredibly cool guild reward for people in the Dominion to work to, and could make Vampirism something to aspire toward and work toward again without cutting people off at the ankles mechanically. You could work with a sire and get to know them over weeks and months and finally have a cool ascension ritual just like the old days. Not only would it turn vampirism into a really cool guild reward, it’d actually be one of the coolest guild rewards in the game. Most guild RP rewards (not all) have zero mechanics behind them and are simply RP rewards. Vampirism is an entire subrace, and the coolness of that reward can’t be understated.

Making Praenomen a class independent from Vampirism will make Mirrors easier and better

Okay, so we know that mirror-Praenomen is a thing that’s going to happen and is on the horizon. Spirit tether wants it, and it’s apparently one that @Tiur wants as well, judging by his vote in this thread. With the present set-up, this creates some problems. Currently, the handicaps associated with being a vampire (burning in the sun if your blood is too low being a major one, plus some other stats related to undeath) makes building a spirit-equivalent mechanic/subrace situation a little silly. The RP of vampirism fits things like getting burnt by the sun, being misted upon death and reforming, etc, work really well; however, I don’t think these traits moving across tether will be a smooth transition. Why are you taking damage at night time? Why do you have this weird death cycle? Why do you have to get sustenance from eating corpses?

If you break vampirism off from Praenomen, these issues go away entirely. You’ll no longer be forced to heave these RP consequences onto Spirit people, and it will make forming the class image and roleplay a lot easier and give you a ton more freedom to build Mirror Praenomen into something sexy and unique.

And that’s the pitch

There are really obvious challenges to breaking Prae off from Vampirism from a mechanical and lore perspective, I don’t deny that, but it’s definitely not impossible. There’s nothing that really says you HAVE to be a vampire to use blood magic in a world where we have pretty much every form of weird magic under the sun. Would it require major reworking of some skillsets and messages? Absolutely. That said, I think the benefits to everyone outweigh the costs, and all the hurdles can be worked around with some clever writing and roleplay. Would finding out how Vampirism fits into Prae mechanically require trial and error? Undoubtedly. But I think it’s worth it, in the end, and will make the game better from just about every single angle. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

EDIT: I also don't hope to make it sound like I think only the Dominion should be able to embrace people. I think the current sanction/bloodline system is...okay. I think rogues existing is good and will always encourage diversity. I'm just saying that I think making it something that requires RP and isn't a barrier to class is only ever going to be a good thing. If we made embracing a Dominion-only ability (when they already have exclusivity on Siring), I'd be extremely sad.

Naos

You make the Praenomen mirror a neutral tether class. It doesn’t screw over Vampire RP. You can use another mirror to create a class/sub race situation. Does this not solve everyone’s potential complaints?

Tetchta

If someone has a counterpoint to make I'd love to hear it! A "disagree" react in a vacuum isn't very helpful!

Drystin

I don't have a dog in this race but I'll give my two cents. I'm probably in the minority, but I've never liked the idea of separating them, despite the fact that I'd really love to have the prae class and can't due to RP. I already hate the multi class system (also probably in the minority there lol), and this would just diminish what vampires are even more to me.

Admittedly, it's already weird to me that what essentially equates to the power of a vampire belongs to a class rather than the race itself. I don't have any counter solution, I'm simply giving my thoughts. Vampire is what brought me here and as you can see, it's not what kept me here. I do think vamp as a whole needs some love, but for me, this isn't the way that's achieved.

Tetchta

I think as long as you continue to tie the subrace to a class that requires easy(ish) access to get, you're never going to be able to invest the necessary RP required to make the subrace actually cool an interesting. As much as I never want to see Praenomen become inaccessible as it was back during the Houses era, I have no problem with a mostly-purely RP reward being given that kind of significance, and I think separating the subrace away from the class is the only way to really allow that without making Praenomen yet another exception to the rules at large for how class is handled. Otherwise Vampire is just another class, snore.

Tetchta

New producer bump.

Kirill

Would need to then figure out what you're doing with vampire stats. If I can be a prae without burning in the sun when I use sanguis powers, etc. that would be nifty. From help undead stats, you'd have to shift a few of those items to the class, as opposed to the race. Or have it on both, and see what interesting code interactions arise.

And, not that I'm trying to stir things up, but I'd say it's fair to note you're enemied to the Dominion, so this feels more than a little self serving. Perhaps instead of trying to push a mechanical change through, work through that RP to fix your status and gain the privilege of vampiredom.

Edit: granted, I'm a noob. What do I know.

An undead...   

- Is visibly undead when looked at.  

- Can breathe underwater.  

- Has slightly increased max health. 

- Regenerates health in a graveyard.  

- Heals slightly less from the boar tattoo.  

- Has slightly faster regeneration of endurance. 

- Has slightly lower regeneration of willpower. 

- Uses less essence in Necromancy.  

- Retains Earthenform from Terramancy through death. 

- Regenerates blood slower when asleep. 

- Is unable to dream when asleep.  

- Goes through a unique death sequence. 

The Consanguine of Aetolia, widely known as the Vampires, are also undead, and have several additional differences from those who are normal undead.  Consanguine (Vampire) sub-race ----------------------  A Consanguine...   

- Has the same attributes as undead.  

- Is visibly vampiric instead of undead when looked at.  

- Is involuntarily reduced to mist upon "death". 

- Does not regenerate blood while sleeping.

  - Suffers from damage and afflictions when in the sun.  

- Can FEED upon the denizens of the realm. 

- Can EARTHMELD to regain their corporeal form.  

- Can DIFFUSE MIST to regain their corporeal form in safety.

Tetchta

Kirill said:

And, not that I'm trying to stir things up, but I'd say it's fair to note you're enemied to the Dominion, so this feels more than a little self serving. Perhaps instead of trying to push a mechanical change through, work through that RP to fix your status and gain the privilege of vampiredom.

OH MY GOD.


EDIT: also can I just say that what you said was pretty nasty? Like that post is entirely a good faith idea of what I think would be good for the game, and insinuating that I'm doing something to get one over on The Dominion because, ICly, I'm enemied to the guild is a super disgusting insinuation, and I really wish players like you would stop assuming that just because they have zero IC/OOC separation, the rest of us don't either.

Edit The Second: Also my entire OP was geared toward making vampirism more exclusive and special, literally the opposite of what you're implying. God this post tilted me, lmao.

Kirill

Pardon me for not knowing every detail about your character that isn't visible in honors. Or, having not ever interacted with you IC, for not knowing your character's race. I'm obviously an abject idiot.

/s if that's not obvious.

Kirill

I don't care either way. I'm purely bringing up the possible mechanical implications. For all I know, they can flip a switch and it's done. Or it'll require dozens of coder hours better spent elsewhere.

The idea that you might be "trying to get one over" on the dominion, I wouldn't know. Again, I've never interacted with you. I have no reason to dislike you. If your intent is as pure as the driven snow, awesome. I was just noting that being an enemy of the guild, if you weren't embraced (which, again, I'd have no way of knowing) , then there's a chance that the intent is to get one over on the Dominion guild. I'd make that suggestion no matter who posted this idea as, again, I'm a noob, I don't know you. Either way, I do hope you have a wonderful day.

Iazamat

I'm a noob, I don't know you.

Then it's probably better to remain quiet and not assume something this insulting of your fellow players instead of accruing enmity you supposedly didn't mean. You goofed. Apologize and move on instead of being sarcastic and then lingering and only making matters worse.

Toz

I get you're tilted and this is a pet peeve, but c'mon, like. Snarky reply, yeah. Flagging the post as 'off-topic' when it's literally about vampirism, praenomen and the Dominion just because you disagree with it is pretty dumb. This is off-topic though, so feel free to toss your super downvotes here instead.

Tetchta

Fine, DAD.

Lanara

My two cents: It's been eating at me that I had to rush to find a sire and was a full vampire within a couple days of starting up. A sire is supposed to be a huge super special thing that sits somewhere between marriage, mom, and mentor, but also more than all of these. Oh, and also you need a sire to pass GR1. Like, excuse me, I just barely learned how to shot web and now I have to pick my forever Dadwife before I've even looked at the options for what to do with my unlife?

Gavramel

Odds are your sire will change several times depending on their activity level. The original one will stay on your SCORE though.

Beivu

Lanara said:

My two cents: It's been eating at me that I had to rush to find a sire and was a full vampire within a couple days of starting up. A sire is supposed to be a huge super special thing that sits somewhere between marriage, mom, and mentor, but also more than all of these. Oh, and also you need a sire to pass GR1. Like, excuse me, I just barely learned how to shot web and now I have to pick my forever Dadwife before I've even looked at the options for what to do with my unlife?

I ended up choosing Vinessa so I could learn and have stuck with it since - not rushing my character through it. And, I'm now GR3. So, you can wait to choose your sire until later if you want. Mind you, not defending the process of how you get access to the skills and whatnot, or how all of it works.

Pypo

What do you call the opposite of a vampire? A Vampire hunter ((or a daywalker if ya believe the nerds!)) I like the concept of damphirs and of mortals doing dirty deeds to gain powers of the dark denizens (Witcher series) to obtain gifts while choosing to stay mortal in their own rights. A good question to ask is what is healthy for the mud? WOW made demon hunters in a similar vein that reminds me of this discussion.