Seduction and Lacroix. Not necessarily combined.

[Anaximander]

[quote="ProgRockGhoul]Damsel at one point says "]

It's an extraneous sound file. If you look around some more, you'll find one just like this for nearly every e-mail. Developers often have their voice actors record some generic lines like this for post production purposes. They don't want to have to call the actor back into the studio to record one line.

[ProgRockGhoul]

Ah well, alas - that makes sense. I was hoping that Damsel might drop her tough facade for a second - I remember at one point she says something about people in The Last Round eavesdropping and thinking she's gone soft, so I thought that maybe she might be more personable in correspondence or something.

[pennypincher]

You can get a pin up picture of her naked... But that's about as close to "personable" as she gets. I'm 99% sure she'd kick you in the jollybeans if she knew you had it anyway.

[Adahn]

You can get a pin up picture of her naked...

You can? How? When?

[Anaximander]

You can? How? When?

It's one of the posters Gary sends you in exchange for a little item he wants you to find. Her back is turned in the poster and she's not completely naked, but you do get a little side boob action.

[Adahn]

It's one of the posters Gary sends you in exchange for a little item he wants you to find. Her back is turned in the poster and she's not completely naked, but you do get a little side boob action.

Ah good ol' side-boobs. Anyway I guess it makes sense since one of the Brujha histories says something about 'Voyeur Model' or something of the sort. Which could have been her previous occupation. :mischief:

[ProgRockGhoul]

This one's fresh in my mind, just finished it with my 'Halloween S&M gremlin' Nosferatu lady. It's Gary's second "poster mission": to steal a cd from the Metal Head warehouse in Hollywood. I think you only get the chance to do this in tandem with Mitnick's second stealth/hacker mission at the same location – and if you've done Gary's first poster mission (grabbing the film canister in the gargoyle theater). Mitnick's first mission is a breeze, so getting his second mission shouldn't be a problem. Stealing the cd requires decent hacking (or a list of hack codes from a FAQ) and better than average stealth if you don't want to blast your way through.

I bet Damsel would whack me in the jollybeans if she knew I admired that side boob action in its tastefully done art-nude package. Gary mentions that she did artsy nude shots before her Embrace (in her hippie college days).

[Adahn]

I know this is really going off topic here, since well we've basically deviated from talkin' about poor LaCroix.

But what if - a Vampire say Jeanette for instance has sex with Kine, and while she was doing that, she fed on him a bit. Would that give her more pleasure? Or be able to reach climax or not? Becuase thinking about it, having hot steaming...er relations all the while feeding a bit in a fit of ecstacy-filled passion does sound pretty erotic.

[Lunaida]

Another thing I wanted to say was the fact that Vampires (I might be wrong) tend to be a bit bisexual don't they? I mean... they can swing both ways as far as I've seen in movies and such. In Interview with the vampire there's a lot of homo-erotic tension going on especially with Armand. In Queen of the Damned there's the same type of thing between Lestat and his sire I believe.

That is a totally different story.
The Vampire Chronicle series of Anne Rice have a different sort of perspective of vampire than the White Wolf series; at least in some aspects, such as sexuality.

Nevertheless these are the rules that these people have set for themselves and who says that we can't have our own rules regarding how vampires should be?
So if we like to have some fun, why not using our own imagination and playing the game the way we want?
Bram Stoker's Dracual's mouth smelled like the sewers or something in his book, but I never considered that part of his character when reading the book or watching the movie, so to make it more enjoyable for myself

[pennypincher]

I know this is really going off topic here, since well we've basically deviated from talkin' about poor LaCroix.

But what if - a Vampire say Jeanette for instance has sex with Kine, and while she was doing that, she fed on him a bit. Would that give her more pleasure? Or be able to reach climax or not? Becuase thinking about it, having hot steaming...er relations all the while feeding a bit in a fit of ecstacy-filled passion does sound pretty erotic.

Again... Milk carton.

Does licking the side of the milk carton make the milk taste better? No. The sex would just be... Something that was happening which was unpleasnt and distasteful, during which she got to feed, which was fantastic.

[Anaximander]

[quote="Adahn]Becuase thinking about it"]

It certainly does. But unfortunately for those of us who occasionally enjoy delving into the depths of depravity, pennypincher is absolutely correct. I didn't want to believe this about the Kindred myself at first, but then I started poking around online, reading what I could find of White Wolf lore. On this topic, it's always the same. Vampires are dead things. Walking corpses. Blood is everything to them. Sex is... less than nothing.

Eh, just play a Nosferatu character for a while. When all posibility of erotica is completely removed, it really drives home the true nature of vampires. They are bloodsucking parasitic monsters. End of story.

[Adahn]

Eh, just play a Nosferatu character for a while. When all posibility of erotica is completely removed, it really drives home the true nature of vampires. They are bloodsucking parasitic monsters. End of story.

*Nods* I think I'll do that then. Since I can't for the love of me remove my mortal and fleshy thoughts on corporeal mating as delicious. So I guess I should play a Nos for a bit. Maybe after a month or so of doing that I'll feel that I'll be able to get into Vampire Psyche a lot better.

[Celacena]

Blood is everything to them. Sex is... less than nothing.

Eh, just play a Nosferatu character for a while. When all posibility of erotica is completely removed, it really drives home the true nature of vampires. They are bloodsucking parasitic monsters. End of story.

Just because the Nosferatu are denied pleasure through their appearance, that does not mean that all Kindred are asexual. Obviously, to Kindred, blood is the all-important need, but when fundamental needs are met, other 'needs' can come into play. Abraham Maslow - a respected psychologist/behaviouralist has a "Hierarchy of needs" which ascends from the physiological through safety, belonging and recognition to self-actualisation - in kindred that could be represented by blood, a haven, acceptance in a clan/the camarilla and after that - creativity of some kind - whether like laX, it is creating a power base or Nines, an area where kindred have freedom.

sex for the sake of pleasure would kick in about the level of 'belonging' and above. with mortals/ghouls it may be for a short period, life-wise, but simply because it may be emotionally damaging to 'love' a mortal, that doesn't close it off as an option - it also depends on the attitude to sex - is it a temporary pleasure or it is related to a strong emotional attachment?
if humans can have wide attitudes to such things, kindred as post-humans should be able to also.

blood is not all - it is merely the primary physiological need.

[Anaximander]

[quote="Celacena]blood is not all - it is merely the primary physiological need.[/quote"]

True. Darkness and blood are all a vampire really needs physically. This is primarily why most Kindred don't engage in sex - unlike us, they feel no physical need to do so. However, there is a significant psychological component to sex. Here are a few reasons I can think of that a vampire might choose to engage in it:

To feel more human and less monstrous. This is something more commong in younger vampires than older ones, particularly if they are having trouble adapting to their new existence. But even older vampires who are feeling nostalgic might do something they used to do when they were living. With the elder Kindred, I doubt sex is something they would consider in this case.

To please a mortal lover. Should a vampire make the mistake of falling for a mortal, they might wish to express that feeling to their partner phsyically.

To give some pleasure back to their prey. Feeding on the blood of others is the most pleasureable thing the Kindred can experience. A vampire who uses seduction get close to it's prey might follow through with it all the way to make the whole experience more enjoyable for their victim. Would you consider making love to a nice juicy steak? I doubt it, and likewise the great majority of Kindred wouldn't even consider doing this with their food.

Sheer debauchery. Maybe this particular Kindred delights in the delicious depravity of having their dead body defiled. Or in tricking mortals into participating in what amounts to necrophelia. I could see this happening with the Giovani. Incest and necrophelia are fairly common in their family. For other clans, I suppose you'd have to take it on an individual by individual basis. Some people are more demented than others. This applies to the Kindred as well.

Insanity. Jeanette is a case in point. Unlike most Kindred, she actually does feel the urge to engage in sexual activity on a regular basis. She has many mortal lovers, and will readily make herself available to the PC. In this case, it's nympohmania induced by Malkavian madness. She can't help but behave this way. In her it is a compulsion.

[Jhereg]

Insanity. Jeanette is a case in point. Unlike most Kindred, she actually does feel the urge to engage in sexual activity on a regular basis. She has many mortal lovers, and will readily make herself available to the PC. In this case, it's nympohmania induced by Malkavian madness. She can't help but behave this way. In her it is a compulsion.

Jeanette is MPD, not nymphomaniac, and in any case, nympomania is a concocted psychological disorder to explain the fact that some women genuinely enjoy sex. It was written off as a psychological disorder back in the days when women weren't supposed to like sex at all - this tidbit coming from the puritanical doctors of the day, who wrote off sexual desire in females as an aberration - and hence some kind of disease. We know better now.

In any case, while one may fairly state that in humankind sex is a biological requirement, it actually is not. It's a biological imperative - not the same thing. The species requires sex to procreate - hence an imperative, but they do not actually require it as individuals. Not like food and water. A human can do their whole life without sex and they won't die from it - no matter what the guys may be telling the girls.

Ultimately, though, sex is a reaction to attraction between two people. One can be hungry and thirsty and still elect to have sex with somebody they are attracted to. I believe this would hold in the case of a vampire as well. They may be dead, but they are also conscious. As they are conscious, they are subject to all of the frailties that consciousness entails.

After all, even dead things can have sex - in the real world. Men have died sporting erections that they retain into their death - hence necrophilia is a real thing - for females as well as males. The whys could probably fill a book. Vampire falls in love with ghoul, or ghoul falls in love with vampire (apparrently the way these things are supposed to go). An artifact of attraction, nothing more. Of course, the other reasons Animaxander provides are equally relevant. Humans use sex in order to influence things in certain ways, and there is no reason to believe that a vampire would not entertain the same capacities and ideas.

In Jeanette's case, she does it with kindred and kine because her other personality hates it, and to gain influence and power. Nothing more elaborate than that.

[Anaximander]

[quote="Jhereg]Ultimately"]

Yes, they are concious. Perhaps more so than any human. They can admire beauty, they can feel lust. But their bodies are dead. They are incapable of the pysiological responses to emotional stimuli that humans experience.

When we see someone who is particularly attractive, our bodies respond. Eyes become dilated, heart rate increases, body temperature rises, and so on. When a vampire sees someone who is attractive their bodies do... nothing. They have to spend blood points to simulate the kind of responses that occur naturally in human beings. One for an erection, or to lubricate in the case of females. One to make the heart beat. One to make the body warm. Et cetera, et cetera. All to create the illusion of a living being who is physically aroused - unless you intend to violate the Masquerade or your partner is already aware that you are undead. In which case, they better be your ghoul as well, or you've already violated the Masquerade.

Blood is precious to the Kindred. Most of them simply won't go to that kind of effort to do something that is unneccessary and from which they derive no real satisfaction.

Being Embraced doesn't just change you physically. There are psychological changes as well. When a vampire feels lust for someone, the thought of having sex with them doesn't come into play. What they really want is to taste the blood of the object of their desire, to feel them and know them in a way no mortal could. Think of Heather's reactions when she drinks your blood. That's sort of how a vampire might feel when drinking from someone they love or lust after. To feel that person flowing through their veins is the sensation they're after.

The things that inspire lust in the Kindred would be mostly psychological as well. A vampire might see a sweet, innocent, naive young person and long to taste that sweetness. Or perhaps feel aroused at the thought of defiling it. The lowly Nosferatu may lust after the forbidden fruit of the rich and the highborn.

A healthy, well fed individual will provide greater sustence to a thirsty vampire. By the same token, a victim the Kindred finds attractive or fascinating in some way will be more satisfying to feed upon. Again, though, it's the blood they're after, not the body. Their victim's hot, living blood flowing through their cold, dead veins. The physical attractiveness of the target might not even be a factor.

As I mentioned in my previous post, a Kindred could actually sleep with a mortal lover just as a way of expressing their love physically. Taking a mortal lover has other implications, though. If your fellow Kindred ever found out....

Oh, and I wasn't aware of the medical history of nymphomania. Thanks for the correction.

[pennypincher]

No, no, no, a thousand times no. Turn back your one way truck boys and girls... You're thinking is too flatlined.

Vampiers are NOT humans. They do NOT view things the way you seemed to be focused on them doing. Sex isn't natural to them... It's quite the opposite, it's now unatural. It's not something that crosses their mind. Try and focus your thinking on some basic points:

They have NO sex drive. 0. None. Nadda. Think about yourself when you don't feel like having sex... Obviously the ladies will relate more then the blokes to this (Musical sting )... If you have a grand total of 0% desire for something, and someone offers it to you, you still don't want it. In fact, their constant demands for it eventualy become angering and frustrating. Don't lose track of this fact, it's why I keep going back to the milk cartoon... It's something irrelevant that the milk carton wants, not you. And what the carton that holds your milk wants shouldn't even cross your mind as you rip it open and drink it.

They are controled by a supernatural beast with NO human urges. The beast doesn't do "sexuality". All lusts and desires the beast has are "Rest, Feed, Kill". All the kindreds thinking is tainted by this constant pressence, and all their desires are bent into a mockery of what once was. When a woman openly presents herself to a male vampire, it's just an easy feed, nothing more. Gathering power protects you, gathering slaves feeds you, gathering respect empowers you... Not many vampires have "Knitting" as a hobby, because knitting doesn't get you blood, money, powers, protection or respect.

The human body is now a dirty, weak, disgusting, soft thing. They leak fluids all over themselves that carry dirt and filth. The break down and stop working utterly at random. They can't help you achive anything because they are so weak in confrontation. They produce gasses and smells and sticky plhemgs that are nothing but a carrier of their own diseased by-products. Now that you are far and removed from that, these things are blatantly obvious. Again, if your milk carton was covered in maggots and mold, you wouldn't want to rub yourself against it, let alone drink from it, right?

You've tried to classify the mental reasons a person might want sex. Vampires AREN'T people. The vampires that -DO- want sex are the insane ones. In the very same regard that some people cut themselves very badly and say it makes them feel better... These vampires have sex and say that it feels good. They are the crazy ones! The ones doing something that EVERYONE knows very well doesn't feel good at all, but they refuse to stop no matter how dirty or painful it might actually be.

It's annoying! We aren't talking about you or me with our normal human bodies, we are talking about a creature that has to focus mental power on maintaining this, ultimatly fruitless, sexual escapade. Sex wouldn't be nearly as much fun if it was more like school work, would it? If you had to constantly focus and pretend you liked it and remember this and that and not lose your focus on keeping certain body parts working a certain way...

It's Expensive!! Getting sexual active costs BLOOD! Blood which was likley the whole reason you pretended to want it in the first place. Obviously if you wanted it enough to pretend, you needed it... So lets look at the figures.

You're down 1 blood, you use (lets say) 1 blood to pretend to want to make love, now you're down 2. Suddenly you have to leave the person out cold and likley feeling slightly sick the next day in order to have even gained any blood from the encouter... This means you'd have to hunt EVERY NIGHT just to stay full, because each time you did this it would cost you as much as you would be gaining. God Forbid you don't take enough to knock them out and they ask you to go again... There goes another one! If you were down 4 blood (just feeling peckish for a 12th gen) you'd have to hunt 4 times and leave 4 people out cold... Thats 4 hours, likley 5 after you shower and get dressed again each time... Of your night GONE! Seeing as there is often only about 10 good hours of honest darkness most nights, that's half your night spend gaining back what you could have gotten off 2 people in an hour if you just jumped them in an alley...

It's a SHOCKINLY HUGE masquerade risk. All it takes is for one lover to suprise you in a bar, fall asleep on you and not want you to move at dawn, try something kinky with candle wax, ask to make love in front of a roaring open fire etc etc... Don't forget, without focus and blood, vampires are cold, without breath or heart beat, and certainly not sexualy active. One slight slipp and you have a terrified naked person demanding to know why you don't have a heart beat... Or a dead naked person who tried to light some candle and casued you to frenzy.

As has already been covered... Vampires may have sex for a tiny few reasons. Usualy, Insanity and Power are high on the list, but even the ones who use it to sway mortals don't mention it to other vampires for fear of public mockery, and try and avoid it as much as possable. The topic is a dead one (HAR HAR HAR HAR!), it's been covered through and through by player after player wanting some paper thin excuse to have a sex crazed vampire chick in leather with a katana and a trench coat and two pistols, PEW PEW PEW! It's just not on.

[Celacena]

No, no, no, a thousand times no.

The topic is a dead one (HAR HAR HAR HAR!), it's been covered through and through by player after player wanting some paper thin excuse to have a sex crazed vampire chick in leather with a katana and a trench coat and two pistols, PEW PEW PEW! It's just not on.

I don't need to justify MY fantasies and I am sure that reality can be moulded should I need it to be.

However - in the argument advanced, the poster is drawing too great a distinction between the human and the vampire IMO. I am coming at this, not from some particular FRP milieu, but from legend, tradition and psychology.
In those, the image of the vampire is entwined with eroticism - the desire for blood, the need for blood is a basic lust that drives the vampire, but does not replace all the other motivators. As I pointed out in the hierarchy of needs, blood may be a physiological need, but there are others.
who is to know how the mind is affected by extreme longevity? how would living amongst and upon mortals seem? we do not know, but even if the need for food and drink were replaced by the need for blood, then you have only replaced one drive with another - should that mean that the other drives cease to exist? I think not.
If a vampire does not kill the prey and lets it live to be fed off again - i.e. the vamp does not drain the blood-doll, then there is not even a close approximation with cannibalism: a cannibal kills and eats the prey - he or she does not wait for flesh to be re-grown so feeding can take place again. thus the satisfaction that a vampire may derive from a particular person is more complex and closer to sex than cannibalism. a nurturer or a victim are both potential roles of kine. that the kine would be expected to pre-decease the vamp is not so different to a younger woman marrying a much older man - it was look exploitative, but it is not necessarily so.

I think to say that the desire for blood is so completely overwealming all the time so as to displace all other drives is only one possible way to consider vampirism, not the definitive way.

in such circumstances, I'll continue to accept Kate Beckinsale in leather as a potential vampire fantasy figure (after all, her director husband did).

this implementation of vampire lore into a game tends to countenance vampires having different attitudes to sex, particularly based on 'clan' - I don't think that there is a definitive vampiric attitude to sex any more than there is a definitive single human attitude to food.

[Anaximander]

Personally, Celacean, I think your reasoning is sound. My point is that it runs counter to White Wolf lore. Every argument I've made has been based on my admittedly limited understanding of it. Pennypincher has explained it much better than I could have.

If I were writing this stuff, I'd be right there with you. Unforunately, White Wolf didn't consult with me when they printed their material. You're right that in other vampire literature vampires do appear to be sexual, or at least sensual, creatures.

But this game is based on the PnP game created by White Wolf, so their rules are the most applicable. No matter what our opnions may be about the nature of vampirism and sexuality, White Wolf has already written theirs and this game takes place in their universe.

Now, we may be free to change things up a bit when writing our own material inspired by this game, or when playing our own character within the game itself. So long as we don't try to pass anything off as official White Wolf material, the sky's the limit.

[pennypincher]

Lets start from the top... No wait, let me go down to the bottom as it might save some reading:

"this implementation of vampire lore into a game tends to countenance vampires having different attitudes to sex, particularly based on 'clan' - I don't think that there is a definitive vampiric attitude to sex any more than there is a definitive single human attitude to food."

Sorry if I've mislead, but (as Anaximander pointed out) I was only talking about V:TM vampires. Obviously, I'd be crazy to say I knew what an actual vampire did or felt because.. 1... I'd belive in vampires! And 2, I'd pretend to have any idea what a blood drinking undead felt. Heck, if we go by D&D standards, they are all "Evil" and just hang around in castles waiting for adventures to come along so they can say corny lines like "Vlah! Blood!". No no, as this is a V:TM thread from the V:TM game... I can only comment from the point of view of someone whos read, played and run the game time and time again. My bad.

Having said that... As far as V:TM vampires go.. I maintain...

"However - in the argument advanced, the poster is drawing too great a distinction between the human and the vampire IMO. I am coming at this, not from some particular FRP milieu, but from legend, tradition and psychology.
In those, the image of the vampire is entwined with eroticism - the desire for blood, the need for blood is a basic lust that drives the vampire, but does not replace all the other motivators."

This is wrong for a start. Even in non VTM tradition, Vamperism has been closely knitted with sexuality, but used as a pointed warning and a horror context. Note, if you will, that vampires in traditional stories NEVER have sex with their victims, always luring them into sexual play and then killing them and draining them. Vampires were often used to keep "God Fearing" citizens away from handsome strangers in the night, living in fear that the next person who invites you to his/her bed that is hard to resist just might be the blood drinking devil.

"who is to know how the mind is affected by extreme longevity? how would living amongst and upon mortals seem? we do not know, but even if the need for food and drink were replaced by the need for blood, then you have only replaced one drive with another - should that mean that the other drives cease to exist? I think not."

Yes it does. This is a Set Universe with rules and details clearly written out and detailed and debated time and time again. -I- can tell you how VAMPIRE longevity effects Vampires.. In fact I can open pages and quote you from the exact scoures from this game how it effects them. I can even quote to you from the page describing the derangment "Nimphomania" that states how utterly unfilling and pointless sex is to those without the mental condition as described. if we were talking about your own created fantasy or universe, knock yourself out with your Necrophila, but we are talking about "Vampire, The Masquerade"... And rather then typing out the details again, you can just scroll up... Save my "V" key from getting worn out.


... Vampire vampire vampire! Dang it, I wore it out anyway.

"If a vampire does not kill the prey and lets it live to be fed off again - i.e. the vamp does not drain the blood-doll, then there is not even a close approximation with cannibalism: a cannibal kills and eats the prey - he or she does not wait for flesh to be re-grown so feeding can take place again. thus the satisfaction that a vampire may derive from a particular person is more complex and closer to sex than cannibalism. a nurturer or a victim are both potential roles of kine. that the kine would be expected to pre-decease the vamp is not so different to a younger woman marrying a much older man - it was look exploitative, but it is not necessarily so."

Cannibalism from human to human is not vamperism. Scroll up for more details. Marrying a Human Woman when you are an older Human Man isn't the same as marrying a corpse that doesn't feel love in the same way a person does, doesn't have any human desire like you do, has been dead for 50 years and now feeds off people like a spider from bugs. Again, scroll up if you need more info.

"I think to say that the desire for blood is so completely overwealming all the time so as to displace all other drives is only one possible way to consider vampirism, not the definitive way."

Again, no. It is the key to the condition. If you want vampires that run around collecting stamps, or bettering humanity, or whatever else... Vampire The Masquerade is not the game for you. Some of the very opening lines of the book will detail for you that it is a game of personal horror designed to let people play characters who slip down the slope of humanity and eventualy give in too their bestial sides. Buffy vampires might not be like that, or the ones from Anne Rice books, but they aren't V:TM vampires.

Oh, and before anyone asks... And I -KNOW- they will, despite it not being a real mental illness as far as I can tell ... From the Guid To The Sabbt, page 162... Quoted word for word, including the constant, suggestive "'s and ('s.

Nymphomania/Satyriasis

A noteable few vampires have subconscioulsy denied their undead state, and find themselves "Sexually" attracted to mortals, other vampires (and, in particularly severe cases, other paramours). Of course, as vampires lack the ability to procreate due to their undead satus, any couplings they may achieve are inevitably frustatung and fruitless.
Such limitations do not hinder the efforts of those who suffer from this derangement, however, and they pursue the carnal act with every ounce of their being. By spending a bloodpoint the vampire may "function" and even bring a partner to climax, provided they're not dead, too. Vampires under the influence of this derangment often sink into even more depraved activity, hoping to somehow stimulate the pleasure they have been denied. (Pennypincher- ew!) Indeed, outside the "normal" hetro- and homosexual affairs, these vampires may indulge in...(Pennypincher- excluded to keep the thread G-PG12 rated)... and all manner of other vile acts.
A character afflicted with this derangement is always "on the prowl" and should attempt to... (Pennypincher - blah blah blah, role playing suggestions and game mechanics.)

Heh, yeah. Not a game for 13 year olds who want to drink blood and have cool ninja powers is our "Vampire, The Masquerade". I put that in cos I knew that, as soon as I mentioned that the book detailed vampires who do want to have sex, someone would ask for more info... So there it is.