Malkavian's and Mental Health
A Note
As Storytellers, the V:tM IP and setting holds a very important place in our hearts. The universe, and lore, is expansive, and does a wonderful job of incorporating the world we live in, and all it’s history, into a supernatural world.
The gritty nature of the setting, along with the focus on moral quandaries facilitate a unique play experience when it comes to exploring meaningful themes.
We hope to create a game that encompasses this, and allows for rewarding interpersonal experiences, whilst also ensuring that the community we hope to foster remains loving, respectful and safe.
It is worth speaking to the elephant(s) in the room, and we feel as if we would be doing our players a disservice if we didn’t. It is no small secret amongst the tabletop, and live-action scenes, that Vampire the Masquerade has a storied history when it comes to dealing with sensitive issues in an altogether damaging manner, that has often perpetuated harmful and appropriative world views in the setting.
It has always been an unacceptable facet of the game, and the most recent edition, V5, has done a lot of the heavy lifting for us when it comes to making the game much more acceptable. We are aware of the ways the writing can, and has, impacted various marginalised and oppressed communities. This isn’t to say it was a deliberate decision in previous editions - but ignorance in this regard is just as damaging.
As such, we have taken the decision to alter some of the source material at our game, in order to rectify these problems, in keeping with our stance on these matters (as outlined in our EDI statement).
In particular order, the following are a list of ways we hope to actively remove the possibility for harmful representation in our game going forward.
Roleplaying Advice
It’s no small secret that depicting an entire clan as “insane” or “crazy”, and then having their weakness being various real-world illnesses led, in the past, to some atrocious representation of mental health issues. As such, we’ve taken the decision to remove the concept of “derangements” entirely from our game. Roleplaying mental illness can be harmful for a variety of reasons, and the idea of encouraging anyone who wishes to play a Malkavian to do so leaves a vile taste in our mouths. Fractured perspectives as a concept opens up many avenues for healthy roleplay, and do not necessitate adopting or emulating real-world illness. Instead of a derangement, we intend to spend time with our players during character creation, to discuss a specific truth that their character has learnt about the world, and the way in which that manifests within their character as a weakness. We aren’t removing the idea of the “Cobweb” or “Network”from the clan, but as opposed to it being “hearing voices” or “seeing things” like it was often described in previous iterations, we intend to depict it more so along the lines of a collective conscious,
by which the characters in play can interpret the world around them by tapping into. We hope that by doing so, we will ensure that the essence of the clan is maintained, but is played out in a more appropriate and sensitive manner.