The hard part of writing criticism for Sins of Sires is that a decent chunk of “why I didn’t enjoy it as much as Parliament of Knives or Night Road” is either, something I can’t really put to words or something so embedded in the way the story is structured that it isn’t something that can be changed without changing the whole story.
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Yeah this is absolutely a problem. Without even having played the full game, I know Markos lying to you (or at least his unwillingness to tell you everything) is a core reason why the MC is in any danger whatsoever. The MC doesn’t know that though, because Markos isn’t telling you anything. I know I’d be furious when I found out. Also ties in with:
I don’t know anything about Kapriel, but there is only one reason the MC would be afraid of Neoptolemos, and it’s that Markos is trying to get Neoptomelos to kill you.
I don’t know if this was intentional or not, but it actually feels like a complete afterthought that Markos is hiding stuff from you. Like, “Oh wait, why doesn’t the MC know jack shit? Um uh… Markos is hiding stuff! That’s it! This doesn’t completely change the story at all…”
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Spoilers for Sins, very light spoilers for other games.
I’d also add the way we meet Elias. Martha suggests it, the MC has a fake choice and whatever they say Martha introduces them to Elias, because… the author wanted to make it happen so it happens. Then, MC wants to find out how much Elias knows about vampires - where’s the Dominate option? Or Auspex? We can just ask nicely or less nicely. Someone said this didn’t feel like a vampire game, and this is another point in that favour. And I never saw Elias again, so I’m not sure why the meeting was forced.
Another example of railroading is with brother Isidoros. I’d set up my character as someone who believes the Masquerade is necessary for the survival of vampires. The monk straight up points out the blood on my character’s face, yet there’s no choice but to let him walk away? Compare and contrast with Night road, where the MC could kill to protect the Masquerade. And Isidoros wasn’t a bigger character than Raul; he ended up being irrelevant to the story, at least the one my character experienced.
The detour with Savvas felt pretty pointless. We have Sophia/Neo/the Prince/etc scheming and they all state directly what they want (where’s the unreliable narration, done so well in Parliament?); they could have been fleshed out instead, and offered up the same info on the cult of Aristovoros that Savvas did. So many characters appear for a single scene, leave an impression of being important/powerful and drop out of the story never to be seen again (Vole, Dio, Neo, Kapriel, the cop at the hospital).
“A city torn between the Camarilla establishment and the Anarchs, where everyone owes your boss a favor, and that makes you an untouchable vampire in this nocturnal society…” That was advertised. Yet when MC finds themselves in need of shelter, they can only turn to people they’d just met and who they have to beg for help - or to mortals from their old life. How does this “untouchable” vampire not have resources, contacts, backup plans?
p.s. Sorry if I got any of the names wrong - I only played once and Greek names & language are quite foreign to me, unfortunately.
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I interpreted this as being because Markos failed to properly inform the MC about how the Masquerade works. If the MC was properly informed and still acts like they do… they are 100% Anarch and yet the game still lets you choose for some reason even though it doesn’t affect their behavior at all.
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The interpretation would have made sense for a neonate. I think the story should have just gone that way - with MC having been embraced very recently. They don’t feel like an experienced equivalent of a consigliere at any point; ties to their mortal life, the struggle with humanity vs being a monster, the lack of allies all would have made sense then.
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The MC is a neonate. It’s just that “neonate” in VtM terms is a very wide age range and actually starts at 10 years. So… neonates are not young.
The “recently embraced” term is childer, which… still goes up to 15 years. (yes, there’s this weird 5 year overlap because of generation stuff).
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Ah, thank you. Pretty much the entirety of my knowledge of VTM lore comes from 4 or 5 videogames; I meant very recently embraced, only just discovering the ropes, like in VTM: Bloodlines or Coteries of New York.
All of mine comes from V5… Though, come to think of it, V5 uses specific years which totally wouldn’t apply if this game is set hundreds of years in the past.
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*Fledgling
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It takes place during the present
All of these characters can appear in at least two scenes. Kapriel in particular can have a major role in the last three chapters, as can Neoptolemos to a somewhat lesser extent. Officer Georgiou can appear up to four times in the story. Vole features prominently in several endings and in some ways serves as an anchor/moral center for the story as a whole.
Savvas’s experience foreshadows the later reveal about the Aristovoros ruse, expands upon the character of Selene, and introduces several of the philosophies and motifs that inform the rest of the game.
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D’oh. That term completely slipped my mind!
Maybe they can, but for me they didn’t. It seems like a bad handling of paths, then. If the introduction signals “this character is a Big Deal” they should be seen again, Chekov’s gun needs to go off. Otherwise, make them a background character in their first appearance. Kapriel got all up in my face, threatened me, dropped some heavy hints and disappeared from my story.
As I said, all this could have been done through other characters. Sophia and Markos could have dropped hints about Aristovoros, Vole could have reappeared and expanded upon Selene (or someone else), same goes for philosophies and motifs. There didn’t need to be a whole extra character and scene in a game where the main players get so little screentime.
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That doesn’t mean I remember that detail… I didn’t say it was set hundreds of years in the past. I just didn’t know.
(Besides, that’s not the first point you learn about the general time period. It’s page 2, where you could have had a job fixing computers.)
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Fledgling - Neonate - Ancilla - Elder - Methuselah - Antediluvian - Caine.
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This got me thinking.
IMO the big difference is that in Parliament of Knives you are a player and in Sins of the Sires you are a piece. This is an important distinction to make because players have agency and pieces do not, and I feel like that’s really the problem with Sins of the Sires.
Starting off as just a piece on the board is, of course, a time-honored VtM tradition, with lots of games being about your proceeding down the piece-to-player pipeline. As you go about your piece-ly duties you meet some of the various players involved, learn about the factions, and eventually you pick a side and start moving yourself of your own accord. Bloodlines does this and so does Night Road, for a couple examples.
That does not happen in Sins of the Sires. There, you start off knowing nothing and this continues throughout the entire game. You meet most people once and only once, unless you specifically choose to meet them again based off of that one small first encounter. You’re never told anything about the factions at play. At the end, when they give you the mission to kill Gor, I’d talked to him a grand total of one time, in that early first mission to dispose of the body. On top of that, I had never met the guy he was accused of killing and knew nothing about him other than that he killed that boy. Sure, that’s evil and everything, but we’re vampires. What were his politics? Should I be upset with Gor about this? I don’t know anything about Sophia’s politics, should I be okay with sacrificing Got to back her play? For that matter, I’ve never had a conversation with Markos that wasn’t him giving me orders. What are his politics? Should I back Sophia for his sake? How is the Prince at handling things? Should I back the current order or make a play to help a challenger for the throne? What’s the Sheriff like, politically speaking? Should I try and side with them?
None of those questions are ever answered that I have found. I’ve played through the game half a dozen times or so and I still know practically nothing about any of these characters and have no idea why I would want to side with or against any of them.
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And a big issue is that “you are a piece” felt unintentional. Plus it’s clearly not what the game sales pitch sets up:
Who will you use, who will you help, and who will you prey on? Will you topple the old Prince Peisistratos? Will you betray your boss when your lost sire returns? What miseries will you inflict to fight for a fairer, more humane world?
After the Elysium the Sheriff came to me and offered an alliance. I agreed. Then I never saw him until the very final choice. I have three options - side with Sophia, side with the Prince, side with the Sheriff. The Prince sucks, and in the words of a wise man: “I ain’t nobody’s bitch”, so fuck Sophia too. So I decide to honor that alliance and go with the Sheriff, even though I know nothing about him. But the alliance is never mentioned, the Sheriff is suspicious, and I have to pass personality checks to convince him why I want to put him in charge. Why isn’t “you asked me three days ago” an option?!
And then it gets worse! I’m the Sheriff’s bitch now, doing the job I hate? Why? I won the game. I’m the kingmaker who decided who sits on the throne. Why is my character suddenly a witless goon for the Sheriff-Turned-Prince? I understand why we are not the Prince - political legitimacy means a lot. But clearly there’s enough groundwork done to be a Strauss-type lesser-but-equal. It’s just a feel-bad ending because the author wants you to side with the Anarchs.
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Oh what? The Anarchs aren’t even mentioned in the demo at all on any route, and you start out pretty obviously Camarilla. I can tell Gor is an Anarch, but that is never stated. It is stated that he’s an anarchist… does the author think those are the same thing?
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Uh, dude, I haven’t read any of them if you think reading the demo doesn’t count. I can’t have opinions about demos? Which are intended to, you know, demonstrate the game? If my opinions don’t matter, then by definition the demo didn’t do its job.
I’d like to ask both of you to chill a bit, please.
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