There's definitely big bias in the current WoD.
A part of it is they don't understand evil. They don't understand being a villain. They don't understand politics or society outside of their immediate experience and bias. They don't understand being a monster.
Which is strange given most of the WoD is about being some flavor of monster. Its like they refuse to think about being in those shoes and do everything in their power to still be the good guy.
Another big part is that there is a very vocal part of the fandom that doesn't want to engage with certain parts of the setting, and vocally says 'just get rid of it.' Even if it added flavor and texture.
But it leads to them axing political factions with the wrong politics. Or axing the politics, and not actually understanding why those politics were semi-necessary to prop up that faction. Or by giving a faction the dumbest fucking politics that make no actual sense.
The factions that remain are simply comically evil with no real supporting ideology. But the dev's'll say 'they aren't meant to be played, they're there to be extra evil npcs. They don't need complex lore or reasons, just make shit up if it's really that important to you. No, we don't care we've retconned all the good stuff away, we did that on purpose.'
There are things I like about V5, fairly big fan of hunger dice, but there are huge swathes where I'm like: did we read the same older materials? Are you even working from the older materials? Did you just watch Blade and Kindred the Embrace and call it a day? Do you even know how to people?
They do not understand politics or often the words they say
Like, they described the Camarilla as fascist and it wasn't in the Anarch book. They had the in-universe perspective of what should have been a camarilla vampire use terms like punching down/punching up.
The Camarilla are a Feudalist secret society that updated (to varying degrees) to neofeudalism in many domains (that along with trying to make the camarilla domains be largely the same when it should vary far more/the whole mess which is the power of The Prince versus Primogen when that itself should vary often)
how comically evil they tend to go also...makes me wonder how these characters are still alive especially with how the writers keep pressing the government hunter button. This also tends to be emphasized with the Camarilla to the point where if I look at a lore book I can guess which group someone will be in based on how sympathetic the writers try to make them (which often fails)
Like, I wrote a technically camarilla (was in the paradigm of Constantinople's Dream) Tzimisce Voivode that engaged in a mass killing of the old establishment of a city's vampire hierarchy and took over the camarilla through violence
The player characters liked her while knowing she was ancient evil vampire koldun because:
- She was cool, I had picked out nice character art and given her a personality beyond Scumbag
- Was polite to Everyone even people she disliked (This is something which Ventrue Should Have and was emphasized in the clans lore books but is pretty much always ignored in favor of a sneering rich guy)
- The vampire overlord that wanted control over other vampires...actually gave benefits to those that worked under her and those who did more for them got greater benefits (Blood bonded the spirit of the city and thus makes travel easier for those in her good graces)
We don't see anywhere near as much of this in any of the factions as we really should.
Like say, a Tremere that had been the Chantry's financier and logistics person (because by god a bunch of wizards need the for reagents and laundering the gold they keep making) who either got big into technology or dominated/blood bonded a tech mogul and now "Takes care of the community" by getting other vampires secure lines so long as they continue to do favors for the chantry.
Or a toreador prince that bought a social media company and gives their subjects burner phones as a show of "faith"
Chicago's lore books are a mess of a timeline (without getting into them changing peoples ages without looking at the dates they give) where they had Critias make a "Finishing school" for vampires, destroy it, have Kevin Jackson remake it, and...don't really do anything with it. A prince sponsoring attempts at making the vampires in the community tech literate is a genuinely interesting concept which would help in survival, but it doesn't go anywhere and is like two sentences.
