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Message: <blockquote data-quote="VelvetViolet" data-source="post: 9670270" data-attributes="member: 6686357">I really don't understand why all the people who are vitriolic about V5 haven't already done that several times over. It's an extremely derivative and generic IP. I can make 1:1 comparisons between the setting's various conceits and specific works of vampire fiction. The great laws from Anne Rice's The Vampire Lestat (among other Ricean comparisons), the sacred ground non-violence prohibition from Nancy A. Collins' Sunglasses After Dark (and Highlander), the ugly Graf Orlok from Nosferatu, Nicholas Cage's role in Vampire's Kiss, Set in the works of Robert E. Howard, the unkara from Sazan Eyes, the Wamphyri from Necroscope, etc. There's no reason that you couldn't go back to the same wells of inspiration and make your own IPs. There are plenty of IPs that are distinctive enough that you'd be hard pressed to do a knock off without running afoul of copyright infringement, like Nephilim or Star*Drive, but this IP ain't one of those. About the only thing in the IP that I could determine was original and not directly inspired by an earlier work was the rule that drinking vampire blood enslaves you to that vampire even if you're a vampire yourself. This is simply not a thing in any earlier stories I could find (although Google books is really naughty word at research) and it still doesn't seem to be a thing in general vampire fiction. All the non-game IP references to "blood bond" I could find uses it as a vampiric equivalent of the soul bond trope: if you exchange blood with a vampire, then you develop a tele-empathic bond. This particular usage goes back to Dracula, where Mina has a link to Dracula while she's turning into a vampire.So it's pretty ridiculous that none of the many angry fans decided to make their own game in protest. Not tabletop, anyway. I did find a guy who had previous been working under the licensed video game umbrella had decided to change his project into an original video game that he titled <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/2509440/Nightborn/" target="_blank">Nightborn</a>. It's a pretty blatant ripoff and replicates the same bizarre "race as class as faction" structure that turns me off White Wolf, but it's a pretty clear example that you don't need the White Wolf IPs anymore and can make your own.</blockquote>

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