Kindred and Computers
by jachilli
One of the questions that came up at the Grand Masquerade (in conjunction with tabletop RPGs, and Vampire: The Masquerade in particular) is how the feel of that original Vampire setting would have changed over the course of its almost 20 years, with regard to personal technology. It’s a great question, and one fraught with significance, given that one of Vampire‘s core themes was neonates versus elders, the modern young versus the hoary old.
I think Caine had one of these in the first city.Part of what makes it even more interesting are recent changes in personal computing. Back when Vampire was young, the emergent technological scene was the Internet, which was powered on the user side by file-driven applications and the Web being a destination of its own. Now, with the look and feel of Web 2.0 development being a very different thing than the AOL portals and rough dial-up gateways of the mid-1990s. Now, with many (if not most) Web use being driven by custom applications (of which browsers are now a subset), those static elders are even more behind — but are 10 years ago’s ancillae equally as out of date with their PDAs? Imagine how out of touch, how downright comical, it is to imagine a bigshot Ventrue using one of those old toaster-sized cellular phones. Or seeing a limousine with one of those old boomerang-shaped car-phone antennas. Could you take someone seriously if he called in his Brujah backup using a Nokia 9000 tonight?
On a surface level, “vampires using Twitter” is kind of a silly idea, and I said as much at the Grand Masquerade. But realistically, like I followed up at the Grand Masquerade, what young vampire wouldn’t use Twitter? What tech-savvy group of fledglings wouldn’t use a social networking tool — one alien to the very mindset of elders and even Kindred as comparatively young as their own sires — as a way to outmaneuver the more powerful but less technologically proficient old Draculas whose domains they want to undermine and usurp?
Years ago, I remember having many discussions on how the ready availability of cell phones radically changes the dynamic and pace of a Vampire game. Well, guess what? That technology shift is happening again, and it has an amazing impact on the way the undead — not to mention the other World of Darkness critters — communicate.
I had similar thoughts, though I certainly dont think young Kindred using bleeding edge tech is silly. In fact, since we will be playing young Kindred – Id expect the functionalities of smartphones and personal computers with wireless connections be available to our characters.It gives the developpers of a MMO a great way to explain various OOC features like /tells. Much like a Pip-Boy in Fallout, a neonate’s smartphone could even be used to “house” much of the interface beyond the vital health and blood bars. Mail, chat, vendors (arranging drops through allies?), screenshots, in-game internet, game journal, contact lists, maybe even in-game voice; it could all be housed in a polyvalent phone everyone has. Hell, strike a deal with a phone brand and they’ll pay you millions to make em all look like theirs ;)I would definitely be disappointed a little to see technology reduced to Bloodlines-like levels, especially if we have a “Computers” skill. Theres alot that could be done to make the game firmly grounded in 2010. Now, to keep true to the old themes, of course, make sure older Kindred (NPCs) dont get the same perks. Some NPCs would only deal face to face. But still, the very concept of technology could be rooted in the plot as one of the first great upheavals of the power structure in Kindred society in ages. After all, players will gain power in your game at an unusual pace (since we are all protagonists and movers-and-shakers). The more ways this can be justified, the better for the game’s continuity.Another thought I had, is that it might be worth it to relax a little the “static” element of Kindred nature; make it more like an extra hurdle for Kindred rather than an almost all-emcompassing mental “block”. That way you wont need to put Nokias 9000 in the game ;)
I know thats pushing the envelope a little, but given how often I play games on my phone IRL whilst in transit or even at work (shhh!), Ive always thought the MMORPGs of the future would be multi-platform.Imagine, you are home and play your MMO in front of your 40 inch screen with full detail. But if you have to leave, you can still play on your phone. The interface is different, the things you can do are a bit different also – but its still the same game and the same character – you can help him progress, and do many of the things he normally does, on your phone. You can even use the phone to “call to” the in-game voice of your contacts. I should be selling that kind of stuff. You writing this down for the first xpack? ;)
We’ve dealt with this a bit in more recent Requiem books, although not as much as I’d like. White Wolf’s vampires are bleeding edge, and when we don’t show that, we’re doing them a disservice. They move through our history and culture like sharks through water.Now, I never really bought the common assumption that because the Invictus or the Camarilla are conservative, that they’d be low-tech. Your elder types have been around centuries, at least, so if they don’t know how to keep up with a changing world they’re probably experienced at finding and using people who do.For all of the opportunities that information technology brings to blow the Masquerade, it offers as many to maintain it. It’s possible for the vampire establishment to keep pace with more media channels than ever before. Those channels are relatively unfiltered and have a low barrier-to-entry, making them ideal places for someone to blurt out the horrible encounter they just had… and for the guardians of the Masquerade to catch up to them.Daylight culture also becomes more accessible to the Kindred. Knowing who the food wants and who the food wants to be, what the food fears and what it craves… vampires have always been good at figuring that out. Even something as simple as time-shifting Top Model is going to make it even easier.Then, of course, there are the advantages in finding out about specific prey, in running the sort of illicit businesses that keep you in those sharp suits, and so on.The idea of Draculas on Twitter is dumb on its face, but information technology is going to make those Kindred who can use it safer and deadlier. And the ones who can’t? Same thing happens to them that happened to them when the witch-hunters learned how to read.
I had figured a while ago that many Kindred would end up hunting via Craigslist, I think we can safely add Foursquare and Facebook Places to that list as well.
Amazing post Russell! Its great to get the input of so much WW staff…… Out of curiosity, do you/are you also going to work on ‘World of Darkness’?
For me, the intriguing one is with werewolves. Today’s technology is ever more mobile and unfixed. Does this bother a werewolf’s sense of territory, or does it allow packs to be more nomadic?
I’m a polar opposite of Russell here. In my VtM campaigns I took great care that elders always appeared in the settings appropriate to their mortal days, avoiding the use of technology of any kind. – it was one of those themes I liked alot. I never thought that elders were unable to use the tech (they are not senile), it was just that their vampire nature has grown so deep that it was seen as a weakness. Phones can be tapped, computers can be hacked – and yes, humans are better at it than the vamps. Playing the preys game is never a good thing for a hunter. They don’t call you up, they summon you or have someone fetch you – yes clumsy and slow, but within a realm where humans are always in disadvantage and they have all the time in the world.Making such a strict divide between Elders and Neonates ment that neonates were the ones cotrolling the city, having all the influence and connections in the city and Elders were concentrated on managing the vampires through opression and intrigue, I liked this because it allowed me to give my neonates infuence and a field of responsibility within the city (sanitation dep.) which brought story hooks, resources and contacts to play from the start. Prince was just interested in getting the players in trouble and getting them break the traditions so that he could get a hold on them through boons and extortion – that’s the way my Prince stays in power. So at the moment a vampire starts to draw attention to himself by being a bit out of touch from the modern world, my vamps changed their whole behaviour from trying to blend in with the human masses to indulging themselves fully to the vampire society, maintaining this divide between neonates and elders. Some of the older anarchs were quite succesfully still mixing with the kine as 50′ rockers masking their nature and thus extending their time with the living.Yes of course a powerful vampire who is in touch with the world is a superior survivor, but I dont want all powerful elders. The paranoia which emerges from their isolation from the modern world is a beautiful weakness which makes these characters interesting.
“Making such a strict divide between Elders and Neonates ment that neonates were the ones cotrolling the city, having all the influence and connections in the city and Elders were concentrated on managing the vampires through opression and intrigue”I think this is one of the ways that the Danse Macabre has more social mobility than people think. As I said, a successful elder who can’t figure out the telephone probably has a servant who can. That servant is then in a position of substantial influence, even if it’s not formal influence.Of course, what about power blocs composed exclusively of younger vampires? They’ll often lack the resources and dread powers of their elders, but they’re likely to be more agile.I hear Men in Black quoted a lot:”A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals…”Maybe that’s the way the herd is. (Though I’d dispute that.) But vampires? Other way around. Whatever their issues, they’re damn good at social predation.An individual vampire might be a mastermind or she might be a putz. Her coterie, her covenant, her sect? Smarter, calmer, deadlier. What happens when you pair the sharpest members of the next generation with ancient monsters who have risen, fallen, failed, learned better and risen again?Bad things, if you’re the food.
One of the more interesting Elder characters I ever saw portrayed used ghouls to offset their inability to deal with the changing times. They wouldn’t touch cell phones, computers, or any of the other “blinking claptrap” of the modern era, but they always kept a young and knowledgeable ghoul around to make the adjustments necessary for them. When the young Kindred wanted a phone call rather than a summon, she simply let the ghoul take care of it.
” As I said, a successful elder who can’t figure out the telephone probably has a servant who can.”This makes it sound like elders are mentally handicapped somehow. I’m picturing Ozzy Osborne trying to figure out how to turn on a VCR and failing because of all the drugs he did back in the 80′s,or a granny taking a computer class with a 5 minute short term memory limit. World is changing too fast for these slow beings to keep up with – that’s never the way I picture the elders being.This surreal supernatural being who first impresses us with his presence and then owerwhelms us with his capabilities won’t fail to dial a phone number if he needs to – It is just that such thing is against his nature.Relying on technology to survive is a sign of weakness, a sign of a vampire not fully in touch of his vampire nature – of the realm of supernatural. Can an elder hack computers? No, not even if he wants to, he hasn’t bothered to learn the skill.Can he operate a phone? Sure, even though he might never have operated one before, if he has a phone number scribbled on a piece of paper he can make the call. Operating a phone isn’t something a person with an average intelligence cant figure out on their own, pictograms, numbers have been around since they were living, so it is not a stretch for them to figure it out. This is the way I handled older vampires in my campaigns, they despised the humans for not being capable of experiencing the realm of the supernatural, never understanding the depth of it which lured these vampires ever deeper. The devices humans use to help them manage everyday life is something to look down upon, true power is somewhere else.
I was the one who asked that question at the panel (and it is totally awesome you thought it a good enough topic to write this over), and at the time I guess I was looking at it from more of a Story Teller consideration as far as difficulties it presented and the unlimited access the internet affords a player.However on the other hand from an IC perspective you are totally right, and I think technology really would be the flash point of a new civil generation war inside of a vampire society.In our game, I had a Tremere elder prince who hated the internet because of youtube masq breaches and whatever, so he set out to destroy the internet. I had a room full of priomogen and neonate experts telling me “No no, you don’t understand you can’t just get rid of it” then I animate the unmoving a chair to dance around and then transmuted it into a liquid form and said “I can do that, don’t tell me it isn’t possible to kill internet”.Thats about the time it really set in to me how out of touch the elders would really be.
Yeah excellent consideration all around.My question to the question is this – given that we’re operating off of Masquerade not Requiem, how much of the Requiem will be poached in terms of technological considerations of 2010?Specifically – having grown up in and around cops/government agents, I was probably more “realistic” about surveillance in my chronicles whenever players would attract that attention. And Masquerade vampires don’t have the built-in defenses against the “all-seeing camera” that Requiem vampires do (which I think was a very good thing to add). Will the MMO be lifting this idea as well? I think it should. At the time Masquerade launched, it was all well and good, but the fact was unless vampires controlled every aspect of the government – the technological know-how that ramped up between the late-80′s and 2000 was pretty steep. I don’t see the Masquerade lasting long (granted… with Gehenna I guess it didn’t matter heheh).Assuming we’re in 2010 in the MMO – I’d suggest that vampires get the Requiem ‘blur’.In terms of use I think there will be the newer younger vampires that will be technologically adept (if not frighteningly so – imagine the single-minded terror one could create from a vampire wire-head that knew his stuff?) I also think that vampires own nature may preclude the need for technological advancement in many ways.I don’t think there should be any specific reason for elder’s non-technological capacity other than the lack of perceived necessity.Technology exists because of the need for convenience. And as creatures of habit, mortals and vampires alike – we will stick with what works and with what we are comfortable with. In many ways technology ARE disciplines for mortals. For vampires, why should they learn how to use a Excel or SQL to write reports of their holdings when it would be far easier for them to have a retainer do it. In fact, learning to master ones disciplines as a vampire is in many ways a direct substitute for the need of many technological conveniences. Or at least, that’s how I imagine a lot of older vampires might see it (aside from the ego-bred narcissism of the superiority of Ye Goode Olde Days). Peter, your example of the Tremere elder is a great example of this idea: WHY should a Tremere elder learn to use the interwebz? He can communicate with those he deigns important enough to talk to to with Telepathy, or summon them. Elders of any clan would fall into this category (though their mileage may vary with this generalization).But younger vampires with relatively little skill with their disciplines, I can easily see them relying on their technological know-how to compensate. That’s pretty much a no-brainer.The litmous test to this question is this: If you were turned into a vampire, would you be spending your time trying to get your Epic ETL Data Transaction Certification, or your MCSD Cert – or would you be hitting the arcane tomes learning to raise that Thaumaturgy? Or spending a LOT of time contemplating on how to focus your blood in order to make you stronger/faster/resiliant, or figuring out turning into a wolf/bat/mist? Learning how to read minds? Astrally project?Yeah… me too. SNIKT! Fear the claw!
” If you were turned into a vampire, would you be spending your time trying to get your Epic ETL Data Transaction Certification, or your MCSD Cert – or would you be hitting the arcane tomes learning to raise that Thaumaturgy? Or spending a LOT of time contemplating on how to focus your blood in order to make you stronger/faster/resiliant, or figuring out turning into a wolf/bat/mist? Learning how to read minds? Astrally project?”I’d be going for Aegis and the fair escapes! What good are all the computer skills and vampire powers if you aren’t around forever to use them?
Thematicly, I thought this issue was best expressed by the Jyhad card game. Technology is the weapon of the young against the old.While elders can trivially have their ghouls as an interface with the modern world, many of them still won’t trust technology. It’s not ‘safe.’ An elder for example would never get on a plane ‘If God wanted me to fly, I would have been embraced by a Gangrel.’ It’s not that they don’t have the intellect to, it’s that they don’t want to.Research suggests real old people treat the internet the same way. They might learn enough to use it as a basic level, but they would never trust it enough to do their banking or tax return online. It’s also quite possible that elders still think this internet thing is a fad and not worth learning, the same as telegrams were.