TV | Roleplaying Games | Character Creation Challenge
Anarchs are the Good Guys Because of Hollywood
Predictions for the Eventual ‘Vampire: The Masquerade’ TV Show
The current edition of Vampire: The Masquerade has a mood and tone miles away from that of 1st edition. Like WotC has done with D&D, Paradox is re-imagining the other big RPG property to better fit Hollywood’s needs.
This is a good thing, mainly because the World of Darkness is far more interesting than D&D. For as corny as Kindred: the Embraced was, it was way better than the first D&D movie.
The fifth edition of Vampire: The Masquerade isn’t just a continuation of the previous entries. It’s a soft reboot. Most of the older metaplot has still “happened”, just not in the same way. The world certainly didn’t end. Gehenna has been conveniently reinterpreted.
Heisserer and Boylanis are likely to handle the World of Darkness in a Feige-esque way, respecting the source materials but changing whatever needs changing. Then again, they could always leave the project. A different showrunner might see RPGs the same way Zach Snyder sees comic books: as a lesser art form in need of “saving” by turning them into movies. For the moment, let’s hope for the best.
Here are some predictions for the eventual Vampire: The Masquerade TV series.
TV Only, No Movies
A World of Darkness movie would gloss over too much lore, which would be a huge waste of the IP’s potential. It’s not a high-concept property. Blood isn’t just vampire food and the sects aren’t just political factions. Vampire needs room to breathe. TV delivers that better than film.
Blood Will Be a Major Part of the Imagery
Vampire: the Masquerade is about blood.
Unlike The Vampire Diaries and Twilight, blood will be everywhere in this show. Blood in bags. Blood in chalices. Blood smeared across faces. Blood on the wall and floor. Blood gushing from arteries. Blood, blood, blood.
Hunger, blood bonds, and diablerie will all be explained early on. Resonance is going to be leaned on to make blood a metaphor for addiction. Predator Types will definitely be explored. More than Clans, Predator Types are the best shorthand to convey subtext about characters in Vampire.
Anarchs Will Be The Good Guys…at First
Vampire: The Masquerade is about politics and blood.
Justin Achilli has implied that the Anarchs were always supposed to be the default faction. 1st edition Vampire hinted at that but never stated it explicitly, and there was only one Anarch-centric book. It wasn’t until Revised that Anarchs were finally fleshed out. Then the world ended.
Now the Anarchs are the default because Hollywood needs clear good guys and bad guys. But the Anarchs, while righteous, were never really “good”. Even in V5, they’re monstrous. But a Vampire show needs someone for the audience to root for. Even though they’re monsters, they’re also the underdogs.
Details Will Not Be Sacred
V5 has little set-in-stone lore and a lot of in-universe unreliable narration. Having such vague canon will let showrunners change things around without making it TOO out of place.
Flashbacks
This Anarch-centric show will feature flashbacks to May ‘68, the October Revolution, the French Revolution, etc. Basically the best parts of the Anarch book. And because eat-the-rich stories are popular these days, they might even mention the reasons those uprisings happened. Flashbacks to the Anarch Revolution are also likely as part of explaining the Second Inquisition.
Less RPG, More Megagame
If Kindred: The Embraced was structured like a bad game of Laws of the Night, then this new show will feel kinda like Blood Feud. It’ll flit back and forth between the various interested parties. The Baron’s coterie. A fang gang. A blood cult. A recently arrived Justicar. Etc. Basically, Game of Thrones but vampires.
The Gehenna War Will NOT Be Mentioned
At all. They will never go there. But…
There Will Be One Fan Service Episode All About the Book of Nod
Vampire: The Masquerade is about old books, politics, and blood.
Vampire’s lore is luscious, to say the least. It would be a waste if The Book of Nod, Revelations of the Dark Mother, and other in-world texts weren’t featured. Those books are too beautiful to ignore. That said, it won’t mean much to the show’s overall plot.
Season 2 Will Question Anarch Motives
The second season will make viewers question the validity of the Anarchs. Aren’t they just another government? Are Anarch Barons just wannabe Camarilla Princes? Even if Ararch leaders act in good faith, doesn’t the Camarilla make kindred safer? Isn’t trading a little freedom for a lot of security worth it?
No Second Inquisition or Sabbat Until Season 2
The Second Inquisition will only be a vague threat in season one. The spats between the Camarilla and the Anarchs will often mention the Society of Leopold and other organizations as the reason for the Masquerade, but that’s about it.
The Sabbat will remain unseen until the second season, and they probably won’t be a major part of the show. The boogie man will remain the Second Inquisition.
No Werewolves Until Season 3
There might be an episode featuring lupines as a secondary threat before then, but no spotlight episodes until the third season. But if the werewolves get any sort of traction with fans, they will get a spinoff. Creators are going to jump at the chance to try and make werewolves somehow cooler than vampires, which has never happened in all of media history.
For as awesome as Lycans were, the audience was mostly there for Underworld’s vampires.
Mages, Wraiths, Changelings, Mummies, and Demons Will Get Little or No Screen Time
A cynical fan could judge WoD games by how many in-world prop books they have.
- Vampire has The Book of Nod, Revelations of the Dark Mother, and The Erciyes Fragments.
- Werewolf has The Silver Record and Chronicle of the Black Labyrinth.
- Mage has The Fragile Path.
- Hunter has Apocrypha.
- Demon has Days of Fire.
- Wraith, Changeling, Mummy, and Kindred of the East all have squat.
Most WoD core books have several pages devoted to in-world texts, and most of those are disgustingly gorgeous. Still, if the creators couldn’t scrape together enough lore, or enough interest, to make a prop book, it’s not a good sign.
Werewolves and Hunters are coming to the V5 era, so Paradox obviously has faith in these properties. But Paradox isn’t updating classic WoD games “out of order”. They skipped Mage, Wraith, Changeling, Mummy, and Kindred of the East for a reason. They might double back later, but it shows that Paradox doesn’t have much faith in those monsters making good video games or TV shows.
The entire World of Darkness was created during a New Age boom, but Mage and Changeling were really products of their time. Despite the renewed interest in tarot and astrology, Mage and Changeling would be WAY too weird for a general audience.
The same applies to Mummy and Kindred of the East, but for different reasons. Mummy might need to be reworked to avoid offending an Arab audience. Kindred of the East would need a complete overhaul, like retconning Kuei-jin as Canites with a different origin myth.
Demon: The Fallen was released after Hunter: The Reckoning, so Paradox hasn’t skipped it yet. There’s still hope!
One of Vampire’s Original Creators Will Come Looking for Money
The enormous financial success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe prompted the families of two legendary comic book creators to try and collect some of that wealth. The families of Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby have both sued Marvel, because contracts back in the day were terribly written. That ambiguity meant some of the box office money could belong to Ditko and Kirby’s estates. I’m fairly certain old school game publishers had similarly unprofessional agreements.
If Vampire blows up with mainstream audiences, it’s possible Mark Rein-Hagan or Stewart Wieck’s family will come looking for a payout. And just like the Ditko and Kirby cases, they may get it just so they go away.
