Good evening my fellow Kindred,

Let's keep the fires burning and delve into another interview with S'Mor our second narrative lead. S'Mor has been working with us for some time already, mostly as the part of narrative team and occasionally as a programmer. We hope that additional perspective will give you even more interest in our project.

• Tell us about your experience as a writer.

S’Mor: In all honesty, this is actually going to be my first major published work, but I’ve been writing fiction pretty much since I learned how to read. I understand that this may raise some eyebrows in terms of how capable I am of producing something worthwhile, quality-wise, but I hope that people will be willing to give it a chance - especially since Nicole is co-leading the writing team along with me. Be assured that she will bonk me if I’m chasing an idea she thinks isn’t great.

• What media are your biggest inspirations?

S’Mor: Let me see… I’ve been a fan and a voracious consumer of RPGs (tabletop and otherwise) and adjacent genres since I was a child, so the full list may be a bit too long to mention here. But to name a few which I think are most relevant: Disco Elysium, the Baldur’s Gate series (I’m still working my way through the third installment), the Pillars of Eternity games, the first two Fallouts and New Vegas are all phenomenal games and represent the kind of storytelling we’d like to strive towards with this project. 

• What is your favorite part of Vampire: The Masquerade?

S’Mor: Anyone who has talked to me for an extended length of time knows that I am a lore gremlin, but that’s perhaps painting with too broad a brush when answering the question of what my favorite “thing” in this slice of the World of Darkness tabletop series of games is… I suppose if I were to narrow this down, my answer would be that unlike Dungeons & Dragons, for example, the Vampire: the Masquerade TTRPG’s mechanics and system are built to encourage and support an intrigue-heavy style of play where the complexities of political maneuvering in a high-stakes social context remain at the forefront. That is, Dungeons & Dragons is, first and foremost, a war game. As a rule, you aren’t going to be able to run a satisfactory plot with lots of subterfuge and schemes at a D&D table without homebrew or an absurdly competent dungeon master to carry the game. Luckily though, that arena is where Vampire: the Masquerade excels.      

• What sort of narrative do you wish to present with your game?

S’Mor: I think that the rest of the team would agree with me when I say that we want to present a narrative that is the closest thing to a high-quality tabletop chronicle of Vampire: the Masquerade as we can manage in the medium of a video game. This means that we’ll be focusing heavily on restricting player choice and agency as little as possible - all while telling a cohesive and compelling story.   

• What is your approach towards established canon? Do you adhere to it strictly or treat it rather loosely?

S’Mor: Ah! This is an interesting question - especially taking into account how the World of Darkness series has handled canon in the past. First, some context… Our game exists in a strange space, being set in 1986, since the majority of major canon events in 5th edition (The Beckoning, the fall of the Pyramid, etc.) have not even begun to occur yet. Thus, in a certain light, it may be more comparable to an older edition game, lore-wise, with us having to consider heavily those versions of events. But, it is still compatible with 5th edition, in the sense that we posit a timeline which leads to those events happening when we are writing the plot and script for the game, as well as the fact that the game is solidly based upon 5th edition’s mechanics. So, we do believe that it can still reasonably be called a “5th edition game”. However, something that I absolutely must clarify is that our approach does not entail us uncritically accepting aspects of the older World of Darkness canon into our understanding of the history of the game’s world. A lot of the older lore from the White Wolf days of the WoD series is… culturally insensitive, to put it lightly. And heavy-handed, to boot. So, in the cases where such a harmful piece of representation is present within canon, you can be assured that we’ll do all that we can to right those wrongs - if we believe the depiction can reasonably be done justice by our team and salvaged into something respectful, that is.

That being said, I find how the World of Darkness series handles events in canon which fall so far back in time as to be legend deeply intriguing. The foundations of a given subject being handled as a bundle of narratives rather than simply stated to be canon, full-stop, within the published material is clever, in my opinion - since the presence of that ambiguity necessarily results the existence of a multiplicity of valid viewpoints a given individual or group can hold about the subject. And of course, with such little concrete evidence which can be pointed to in order to support any one claim, there are bound to be a plethora of conflicts pertaining to ideology and belief. We will thus be writing this video game with a definitive canon in mind, but nonetheless endeavor to impart a sense of mystery and uncertainty with regards to its veracity - which means that we must consider, and even at times lend credence to, narratives which run contrary to the canon we have chosen. But we won’t only be “muddying the waters”, so to speak, without any input from the player. There will be in-depth discussion of these topics by way of conversations with characters who have their own set of beliefs and opinions about the world - conversations that you’ll be able to take part in and respond to in a multitude of ways (At least, you will once you know what particular brand of supernatural mumbo-jumbo they’re arguing about in the first place, lick).

• Without too many spoilers, which canon elements do you intend to incorporate into your story?

S’Mor: I want to focus on the political struggle and conflict inherent to the setting, and examine thoroughly its intersection with the personal - as well as what that means for creatures who never age or die of natural causes. That is, yes, Vampire: the Masquerade is often touted as being primarily driven by “personal horror”, but there is an institutional dimension to said horror that I feel is often not acknowledged sufficiently in discussion about the setting - that being, how can one hope for change, justice, or any form of restitution for the wrongs of the past when the people at the top of each pseudo-feudal vampiric hierarchy are more often than not mentally living in that bygone era? Of course, this question is less pertinent in a game where the Beckoning is in full swing, but this video game is not that. To clarify, I am not only talking about the Camarilla, when I make these observations and criticisms. The Anarchs, as well as the Sabbat still organize themselves in power structures (Baronies and Archdiocese, respectively) that are functionally the same, in a broad-strokes sense. Anarchs have a tendency to gesture at ideals of a less stratified and oppressive regime more frequently, but those ideas are rarely - if ever - implemented. The Sabbat, on the other hand, does indeed have a relatively flat organizational structure at the pack level; the positions of Ductus and Pack Priest are more positions of honor than any real authority. That is, unless there’s an enormously vast power differential between the individuals occupying these positions and the rest of the pack, the roles only have as much power and influence as the rest of the pack is willing to give them. But, I digress. This is perhaps not the best place for an essay enumerating and discussing at length the minutiae of how the sects differ.  And no, you will not be locked into aligning with a single sect. This means endings can be Camarilla-aligned, Anarch-aligned, Hecata-aligned, Independent-aligned, or yes, even Sabbat-aligned (Shhhh! They’re not even supposed to be in the city!). Oh, and you can expect us to get a bit funky with things, too. I enjoy my weirdos and outcasts, so long as they’re sprinkled in judiciously and not just there to be wacky for no reason.   

• What are you most excited about about this project?

S’Mor: The opportunity to flex my creative muscles and finally put myself out there is exhilarating (and a bit terrifying, too, I might add). This might be the first time I’ve gathered the necessary courage to approach showing something I’ve had a hand in making to the public, but despite my myriad of irrational anxieties, I hope you’ll all be honest and blunt with your criticisms!

So our 2nd narrative lead has spoken and we hope it extended your opinions about our little project. Remember that we plan to publish an extended Game Jam version of the game on the 29th of April! See ya then!