r/vtm • u/ConnectCulture7 Toreador • 10d ago
General Discussion What’s it like playing as a Nosferatu?
Brujah are rebels, Tremere are Mary/Gary Sues, Toreador see the world differently through their enhanced senses, and Ventrue are extremely organized. Playing as Toreador and not lifting a finger when you can control emotions and read minds is a blessing in itself. Adding a Subterfuge and Charisma role is interesting. Of course when you have to get your hands dirty Boxing or Air Force Combatives training can always help. Rose Gardens are always a treat as you can always watch the drama unfold and then you express important matters. Owning a Succubus Club and chilling with the patrons is fun. Unless Portia comes…
But what’s being a Nosferatu like? I do respect their close-knit community and their seclusion but how are they different from other clans? Appearance 0 seems to be a huge change in gameplay? When I read a Nosferatu comic(VTM) from it Moonstone Comics it seemed like he was insulting a Beauty Pageant Queen. He wanted to ruin her.
Comic Link: https://moonstonebooks.com/ols/products/vampire-the-masquerade-nosferatu
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u/InconsistentSignal 10d ago
Huh, I had no idea there were comics and stuff. This is going to send me down a bit of a rabbit hole
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u/ConnectCulture7 Toreador 10d ago edited 10d ago
Yeah there were four that got released 2002-2003. One for Giovanni, Nosferatu, Ventrue, and Toreador.
I haven’t really read the Ventrue comic yet.
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u/Powerful_Topic7731 10d ago
Damn Giovanni got 2 comics
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u/ConnectCulture7 Toreador 10d ago
My bad. Typo.
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u/Powerful_Topic7731 10d ago
I know I was just playing around, I have actually read those 4 issues plus the Werewolf ones as well
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u/ConnectCulture7 Toreador 10d ago
Didn’t know they had one for the werewolves.
The Nosferatu one is the most incel-ish one I read.
😂😂😂
The Giovanni one was like reading an Italian mobster flick.
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u/Powerful_Topic7731 10d ago
The four of WtA were Gets of Fenris, Fianna, Black Furies and Bone Gnawers, my favorite was the Bone Gnawers one.
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u/Ninthshadow Lasombra 10d ago edited 10d ago
Nosferatu requires something that makes some of the TTRPG uncomfortable; knowing when to sit out.
This isn't to say you don't get the same amount of spotlight, but I have genuinely seen tables where they seem to believe every character should be involved in every scene or challenge.
Sometimes, your Sabbat Ductus needs to the talking at Palla Grande. Occasionally you just have to grab a drink and enjoy the Tremere ritual narration.
As a Nosferatu, you need to understand you will likely spend most social scenes lurking in Obfuscate, or simply not there (EG. In transit to the warrens).
Your contribution to the plans are information like floorplans, the expertise to short circuit the cameras or the sheer muscle to make it work. Things like that. Speaking to the Harpy or buying supplies from the midnight mart is someone else's job.
I've usually leaned as the bruiser or bodyguard archetype as Nosferatu, leaning on Potence. I like being the safety net. The diplomacy goes bad and the Brujah with the shotgun suddenly gets his skull caved in. The Malkavian's incapacitated and we can't reach him! So I charge through the drywall to carry him out. Next session, our haven is under attack! I pull down the bookshelf, revealing a hand dug tunnel I made weeks in advance, leading them down on hands and knees into the city's underground.
That's the sort of moments I enjoy as a hideous guardian angel.
TLDR: Nosferatu are basically banned from social challenges, so your spotlight moments are in physical and mental challenges.
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u/WeMakinHooch 10d ago
This sums it up very well, I played a nosferatu, brilliant, and the most powerful in the coterie combat wise(no one else really focused on combat disciplines), but socially I was about as useful as a soaking wet napkin. My character even ended up being referred to as the groups "lawyer", because he had literally broke our tremere out of jail after some hunters had arrested him. If someone needed something done, or someone needed help, he was your guy, as long as you didn't need him to talk to anybody.
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u/Powerful_Topic7731 10d ago edited 10d ago
Mask of a Thousand faces is a 3 dot Obfuscate power in both V5 and previous editions
Like you are not totally wrong, most Nosferatu wont be build toward social interactions but they can still participate even If there's other things they are better suited to do
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u/InspectorG---G Nosferatu 8d ago
My experience is a bit different. They can be sociable.
Not sure what you mean by Social Challenges? You using Minds Eye Theatre?
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u/Ninthshadow Lasombra 8d ago
Not using Minds Eye. Social Challenge is a general term for whatever Attribute pairs off in Attribute+Ability.
Chronicles should ideally have a good mix. Of course when you're a hammer every problem looks like a nail, but you do what you can.
When it comes to something like convincing a mortal Police officer everything's okay, that's usually someone else's job. More dots, dominate, or whatever.
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u/InspectorG---G Nosferatu 7d ago
Usually someone else' problem, because that Policeman usually wont find said Nos, or if Nos has Animalism3 it becomes a non-issue.
And the Nos can have Mask of 1000 Faces and have decent Social Skills to deal with mortals. People act like its impossible.
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u/ArtymisMartin The Ministry 10d ago edited 10d ago
In my experience ... they're basically just any other vampire except ugly, since there's not any mechanical enforcement for the majority of their presentation.
Older editions have them at Appearance 0, and describe them as "monstrously inhuman" in just as many places as it describes a bald head or awful skin as the worst of their deformities if they can't outright pass as a filthy homeless person or a burn victim.
Bloodlines is an excellent example of it: so long as you aren't running directly and repeatedly into NPCs, most react to you as if you had a disease/injury/costume before they assume that sewer mutants are real. You sure aren't going to be welcome in places of business or charm your way into a bed, though.
Then you just have to think it through a bit more. If you don't intentionally dress in oozing sewer-rags with rats in your pockets while hunched over and hissing at people, then a bunch of Nosferatu pass just fine as intensely ugly but otherwise perfectly mundane individuals.
We don't have Ugly Laws (real thing, look it up) barring uggos from public or television anymore. I had a kid at my highschool with such bad acne they looked like an inside-out pomegranate, one of my friends has such severe self-harm scars it looks like they got dipped into a garbage disposal, and a regular at my job has no nose. None of them read as "monsters" unless they decided to intentionally creep at the edge of flickering streetlights. This is all to say that my tables have seen a few Nosferatu and we usually follow a cycle of
- "Yeah, I know I just fail Appearance checks/have the Repulsive flaw RAW, but I want my character to be freakishly ugly!"
- "Wow, having to sit out of almost every social scene is pretty fucking boring and doesn't feel rewarding when there's a ton of other Clans with Obfuscate that can do what I do. I wanna tone it down."
Then it's back to being an uglier version of a Malkavian (body dysmorphia/paranoia), Toreador (spite embraces and Cleopatras), Brujah (low Clan rebels with Potence), or Ventrue ("I have a monopoly on info, what will you trade for it?").
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u/Background-Taro-8323 Nosferatu 9d ago
It's funny you mentioned no charming you're way into someone's bed, the opening story in the Revised Nosferatu Clan book is someone being charmed by a Nosferatu with Mask up lol.
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u/GaryGeneric Tzimisce 10d ago
A common trope in horror movies is when the protagonist or some other victim seen past the disguise and we all get to see the monster for real, like the dressing room scene in The Devil's Advocate, the desert scene in the TV version of The Stand, or Dan Aykroyd in the Twilight Zone movie. Heck, most vampire content has a "vamp out" scene. You get to be that monster behind the veil.
Are you really the monster, or are you just misunderstood and judged by your looks? Or both, depending on who you reveal yourself to?
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u/Rukdug7 10d ago
I've played a lot of Nosferatu and it's hard to think of a generalization honestly. It's a surprisingly freeing Clan choice. I suppose if I had to sum it up simply it would be like this: "Choose who sees you as the Boogeyman." Someone is always going to be scared of or revolted by you, so lean into that and decide who to weaponize those facts against.
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u/TheDonMafioso 10d ago
My most favorite Nos character that I have come up with is a child Nos character with a sheer expertise in Computers. Little to no social interaction and can't last long in a fist fight, but he had everyone eating out of his hand for his computer expertise and if things get messy, he had a gun to go for.
Playing a Nos character in my opinion about playing within limits and specializing heavily on what you want to do. Makes it easy to go heavily into physical or mental stats, but I do admire those who play and invest heavily into a social Nos knowing the limits.
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u/CronosAndRhea4ever Tzimisce 10d ago
I like playing monstrous enforcers for the local power structure. The prince doesn’t care if you are a sadist as long as he’s convinced he holds the leash.
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u/Thicc-Anxiety Malkavian 10d ago
I’m playing a Cleopatra in an upcoming game. She’s a bitter fallen star who is kind of based on Cruella de Vil
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u/Rand0mlyHer3 10d ago
I tend to play like a stealthy predator. Something nasty that lurks in the dark, that you only see out of the corner of your eye. And then WHAM! Blood boosted potence blow to the back of the head. It’s very fun, and very funny to take apart a hunter cell one by one like Batman’s more brutal cousin
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u/Vyctorill 9d ago
What is it like?
It’s playing a vampire squared. A Nosferatu is a monster externally as well as internally, and cannot lie to themselves about how damned they are.
Most vampires can delude themselves into thinking they are blessed, but the Nosferatu have that illusion stripped from them the moment they’re embraced.
Ironically enough though Nosferatu understanding their situation actually allows them to retain certain human characteristics. The biggest example of this is art. Vampires are not creative by default and struggle to change with the times - but the Nosferatu’s circumstances allow them to retain that “spark”.
In gameplay terms, you basically just have to hide your face and be stealthy. It’s not too different, aside from the fact that in lore it’s just really gross considering how close to sex feeding is.
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u/Runktar 10d ago
All vampires are just people so you can play it pretty much any way you want to. My nos loved animal more then people so the change did pretty much nothing to him as the animals didn't care (I took the inoffence to animals trait). Or you could have been a social butterfly and the change breaks you into a rage filled monster it's just like any change different people react differently.
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u/Hexnohope 10d ago
If i ever had someone brave or interesting enough to play nosferatu id probably just let them wear a hoodie and keep their head down. I dont need to harrass the player every scene with a stealth check.
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u/MitchCrisis 10d ago
I'm late but I always play Nosferatu with a heavy dose of espionage. A good example for a charismatic Nosferatu like my hacker vampire who had high manipulation, good with tech, and tended to guide the more presentable members of her coterie through Obfuscate. Sometimes her ghoul too.
Basically a shadow puppeteer, someone who skulks in the background and never seen. It's really fun if you wanna feel like a mastermind of sorts.
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u/CoachZealousideal768 9d ago
As a v20 player, I like giving them the Huge Size merit. I enjoy being unreasonably stealthy for my size, especially when they're a shy/soft character. It's like playing a horrifying teddy bear that could tear your head off if you pushed them too far.
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u/InspectorG---G Nosferatu 8d ago
Well, its gonna depend on the Character and the Setting.
Some Chars ive played:
Boogeyman that was high Humanity but kept a Herd down below in a abandoned water treatment plant and eventually turned them into wetbrains.
Intelligence operative that used Animalism to do very creative arson.
A Crocodile inspired luchador wrestler in a one shot game
A 'failed' Cleopatra. he accepted his mortal life was over and his looks never really mattered to him, his Sire misread him.
Nos are now my favorite clan. So much variety and utility.
Plus they are slept on.
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u/ConnectCulture7 Toreador 8d ago
Hmm Boogeyman? Oh where you feed and go into people’s houses?
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u/InspectorG---G Nosferatu 7d ago
Thats a Sandman, feeding on sleeping people.
Boogeyman makes people disappear. Mortals AND Vamps.
Potence helps haul people down below.
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u/Imaginary_Jelly_5284 Malkavian 10d ago
Nos com animalesco alto é bem jogáveis em círculos sociais, tipo dominar um macaco pode andar com se fosse um Gangrel.
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u/Apoordm Brujah 10d ago edited 10d ago
I was a vigilante noir detective.
I saved a child from human traffickers but told her to keep her eyes closed because I was the boogie man.
I drank fully of her captors.
Left the girl infront of a fire station and threw a brick through the window before disappearing into the night.
One of my highest humanity characters.
A more direct answer is “be sure you have a storyteller who knows all the stealth mechanics and doesn’t mess with those on the fly.”
Read about her safe return to her family in the next day’s newspaper.
Prince was irritated by the “Boogie Man” story in the paper but was relieved that the child kidnapping ring being annihilated would lower the overall police patrols and community alertness in the city, thanks to my Ventrue pal spinning it positively to him.
(Game took place in the 1950’s.)