Ima keep this brief and just hit all the important points for now, and some defences for them. In my opinion, Vampire's sunlight weakness is more or less useless because each player is able to decide what time it is to them, meaning since Vampires can only be active in the night, they more or less just always assume its night. If they aren't doing this, it is just ignored for the sake of allowing RP to happen. Sunlight Weakness only serves to disrupt roleplay for vampires, and unlike the weaknesses for most other powerful aberrant/race picks- being shunned and outcast by normal society etc (which vampires also have on top of this), the Sunlight Weakness does not Instigate RP in any meaningful way. If Vampires stick to this rule hard and assume its daytime during daytime hours IRL, it just means they are being confined to the Sewers or their houses, which on many days may be inactive and stifles their RP. Or alternatively they do what most seem to and just assume its night for the sake of allowing themselves to actually RP. Beyond that, Weaknesses should at the VERY least be a good way to deal with a powerful aberrant, but with Vampires sunlight isn't that either. If your fighting a vampire its either night or your in the sewers anyway, so its not even useful as a balance tool. To sum that up: Most people use personal RP-Time to assume its night and avoid the sunlight weakness. Anyone who sticks to the weakness staunchly is just hurting their own ability to find and partake in Rp. Sunlight Weakness isnt even a good tool to deal with vampires in the first place because if your fighting one its either night or your inside or in the sewers. On top of all that, more or less all Permissions are free game again, with much more powerful and dangerous aberrant powers being opened up to players. Vampires' added sunlight death weakness isn't needed anymore, it just pushes them even further down the power bracket with the exception of Undead/Varghul vampires. The solution that makes the most sense to me is this: Remove the sunlight death/boiling from all vampires. Replace it with "Sunlight Dampening". Instead of melting and burning in sunlight, all vampiric muters are inaccessible in sunlight, and all natural powers are unusable. So, no more screeching, no transforming into a varghul, not even faster healing after feeding. It all gets nullified in sunlight. Essentially, you become a normal person under sunlight. With that, it goes from being an rp inhibitor to an actual workable weakness, fills the same gap and solves the same issues, while letting them RP more freely without disruptive limits. Edit: More Things Proposed / Ideas condensed onto the OP to make finding things easier for any staff reading this. To give them an actual unique counter, bring back the wooden weapons weakness and make holy water harder to obtain. Holy Water is more or less the all round "throw it at shit if it looks nasty" solution to everything aberrant. Every aberrant needs a unique counter that is the most effective way to deal with them, so there is no one-bottle solution to dealing with things people can conveniently and borderline power-gamingly have on them. Vampires get stakes, ones for the rest can be sorted internally if this idea is liked. Add or repurpose a line to be more beefy but have stricter guidelines to follow in the vein of old vampire folklore. Can't enter a house uninvited, etc all the weird vampire codes and stuff.
Personally: I'd like Sunlight to simply deactivate all active Mutations, maybe stinging and being uncomfortable or exhausted as their gift is temporarily stripped from them. (Agree'ing with @Conflee ) More Canonised Holy Weaknesses: Unable to cross the threshold of a church (with faith symbology inside) for example without bursting into flames. Being able to create a set of glyphs upon the floor that if crossed by a vampire they become trapped until the glyphs are broken. Particular rituals being performed by Unionists on homes, that weaken sanguine on entering. Disabling their mutations, or causing them to feel exhausted. Or perhaps even barring them entry without an invitation? Ehh? Conversely; something I'm hoping to attain in roleplay (via Story Web/Event), but would be happy just to have added - Rituals that can be cast by sanguine, similar to the kathar, that allow for minor aesthetics? Anything to give Sanguine some extra lore that can be used in roleplay. Without adding power to them necessarily.
Then Alais must be 100% immune to this then, or it removes half their usefulness- that they can do or go wherever, and the most they get is a rash. As long as they don't sparkle...
There's a lot of cool weaknesses you could add that isn't just "Oh- Yeah sorry it was uh- It was night when this RP started and we've like, done four emotes- Only a few seconds would've passed but it's already day. Can we all pretend it's still night time? Great." You need permission to enter someone's home All public places are fine, but if you're going to enter someone's home, you need permission. Might get in the way of roleplay, might force some social RP to actually be allowed in without blowing the fact you're a vamp. Animals hate you Yeah just like, a small weakness. Rats, cats, dogs, everything. They all snarl, hiss and bark or whatever at you. It's not a complete tell, it's just unless you have some kind of mutation for it, animals will all shun and hate you. I like Lords' no churches idea The idea of bursting into flames if you enter a church is great and should be a thing imo When you're in the sunlight, none of your abilities work, and you move sluggishly, as though tired. You're a flat half as effective in combat, so all rolls have are halved. If you refuse to engage in rolling, you must still portray that your character is weakened by a straight half. Something like this I think would be good - since it means you can still roleplay in the sun, you just can't go about causing fights in the sun. Honestly even if the sun weakness is kept I think more vampire weaknesses would be a good thing.
I feel like a sunlight weakness in any form is pointless. It will just result in the same thing everyone always does, where they just assume that it's nighttime while they roleplay. It provides practically nothing to RP.
True but at least this way theres less need for it to end up disrupting RP casually. This is mostly quality of life for vampires that aren't in it solely for the CRP buffs. Plus like people above have added: I'd love more fun and odd weaknesses and rules. Maybe some bloodlines can be under different rules etc.
i wan 2 talk 2 ppl in dy pls pls thk u. This is a very good thread with some good content and discussions - I really hope this is taken into consideration. Thanks @Conflee for this new point of view. I personally side with you and Double D.
I agree for what has been said save for extra rituals for vampires, seeing as they already can select 5 mutations/abilities already, unless they are exclusively aesthetic and nothing more. Also atheists should spontaneously combust too On the flip side I'd like to see the holy side of things get buffed. More trinkets, wards, and an overall larger significance for holy fighters to appear that aren't necessarily Phantasma. I think Sanktism is a great start for this, but one I rarely see used, likely as it is restricted to Unionism. If there could be a version of this more accessible to the public, or a lesser version, that would be interesting. Alternatively, make Unionism more appealing. I personally enjoy the Witcher series and one of the things that comes to mind is the black blood potion, an item which makes your blood acidic(?) and deadly to vampires. It is no light thing, and puts a strain on the user, but it gets the job done. Having an alchemical item like that would be pretty interesting, especially now. As for an idea of a trinket, or item, I think expanding the Holy Word: Protection skill would be an interesting take. The passive would remain the same, but also granting them the ability to bless the swords of others would up their usefulness on supportive characters that contribute to the holy vs void conflict. Naturally, there would be limits (like how many active), but I think that would be a fair change.
