Is 5D bad? or just lesser than what came before?
V5 is a product of it's time. It tries to ape what came before but the devs don't really
get it, as it was back when VtM was made.
That doesn't mean it's a bad game, or that it's unplayable. But it's
not the same experience.
I actually like hunger dice, for instance, over the blood pool mechanic. Though it does turn the thirst for blood, functionally, into a drug addiction. I don't like how poorly it scales past a street level game.
Some of the new lore is
very millennial. And I don't think they actually get that VtM is basically the Mafia LARPing as vampires for the Cam, even the clans that aren't Giovanni; and only slightly less organized street gangs with pretensions of philosophy in the Anarchs. That
no matter how you skin the cat, you are still regularly physically, arguably sexually, assaulting someone just to continue living. That
you are a toxic, abusive, manipulative predator. That you are a monster and it takes
concerted effort to try and be as non-monstrous as you can. I'm also unsure if they know how to make a badguy/badguy faciton who isn't either 'actually 100% in the right and twice as sympathetic as the pc' or 'NAZI-flavoured [x]'
I'd say overall, it's probably not quite as good, but definitely different, than older editions. If I was being
fair. I do know that most of everything after the Sabbat book is pretty garbo, and the Sabbat book isn't too good either.
But Humble Bundle means you get it for suuuuuuuper cheap, plus Hunter (which is apparently very good even if it didn't get imbued) and W5 (Which I hear is pretty close to actual dogshit compared to older versions) core iirc.
You'll probably rather play V20 with apropos supplements, truth be told. And
maybe cherry pick a few things from V5.
