I also own Clanbook: Cappadocian and dislike it. The overwhelming vibe I get off it is "here to go": that they're there because the timeline says they have to be and too much of what's done with them is foreshadowing the rise of the clan they're spun off from, rather than establishing them in their own right. The fait accompli remark - that's what I wish VTDA was, not a claim about what it is. I'm sorry if that wasn't clear.
(This is really a big tied-up-and-tangled Thought about the whole issue of metaplot, the Giovanni and Transylvania Chronicles, my bone-deep hatred of Thaumaturgy, the problem of doing a prequel game in a format that's all about player agency and how that doubles down on all the usual problems prequel content has about lining things up properly and so on. I think it needs cooking, and thinking about, and a proper post written up when I'm not depressed and inarticulate.)
As for the Giovanni: GOOD STUFF. As someone who has, er, done a bit of work on the concept of "necromancy" and the Christian tradition in my time, I agree that you've got to treat them as creepy Catholic ancestor-worshipping war profiteers to get the most out of them. I usually start with "haunt-related services" - because vampires are bound to kill and ghosts are bound to happen and who else are you gonna call? - and bagged blood from funeral parlours and real estate. I like my Giovanni as doing the infrastructural legwork, owning the things other vampires need and making themselves a necessity and having their own agenda tick quietly along in the background.
I put my hand up to having played around the stereotypes a bit - in that I've joined games with established Giovanni characters and had to lead by example, as it were. But I prefer playing the late Venetian, old-money ancilla who plays along with the performance right up until he doesn't and can bring the wayward to heel and actually act like a respectable man of business. Or characters from the diaspora: Dunsirn and Ghiberti or even a Welshman with the surname 'Giovanni', because it's not like we haven't had a wave of Italian immigration here. But what I really like are Giovanni characters who can integrate into the traditional grab-bag of a coterie: the chancers who are working on something outside the core remit, and nothing like what people expect.
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Date: 2018-12-16 04:51 pm (UTC)From:(This is really a big tied-up-and-tangled Thought about the whole issue of metaplot, the Giovanni and Transylvania Chronicles, my bone-deep hatred of Thaumaturgy, the problem of doing a prequel game in a format that's all about player agency and how that doubles down on all the usual problems prequel content has about lining things up properly and so on. I think it needs cooking, and thinking about, and a proper post written up when I'm not depressed and inarticulate.)
As for the Giovanni: GOOD STUFF. As someone who has, er, done a bit of work on the concept of "necromancy" and the Christian tradition in my time, I agree that you've got to treat them as creepy Catholic ancestor-worshipping war profiteers to get the most out of them. I usually start with "haunt-related services" - because vampires are bound to kill and ghosts are bound to happen and who else are you gonna call? - and bagged blood from funeral parlours and real estate. I like my Giovanni as doing the infrastructural legwork, owning the things other vampires need and making themselves a necessity and having their own agenda tick quietly along in the background.
I put my hand up to having played around the stereotypes a bit - in that I've joined games with established Giovanni characters and had to lead by example, as it were. But I prefer playing the late Venetian, old-money ancilla who plays along with the performance right up until he doesn't and can bring the wayward to heel and actually act like a respectable man of business. Or characters from the diaspora: Dunsirn and Ghiberti or even a Welshman with the surname 'Giovanni', because it's not like we haven't had a wave of Italian immigration here. But what I really like are Giovanni characters who can integrate into the traditional grab-bag of a coterie: the chancers who are working on something outside the core remit, and nothing like what people expect.