Vampire: The Masquerade — Sins of the Sires

As a fan of Natalia Theodoridou’s short fiction and Vampire: the Masquerade, I knew I was going to play Sins of the Sires. The question was when. Previous to playing myself, I’d chalked up the more critical Steam reviews as players not really “getting” Theodoridou’s vision, like a preference misalignment or artist & audience not quite meeting. But then a reviewer I respect, who is familiar with Theodoridou’s previous work, had a poor experience. I was so astonished I hit download to figure out what exactly, is up with this game. One run later and oh…I get it now.

Like I said, I’ve read Theodoridou’s short fiction, so I thought I was prepared for the level of melancholy, but dear Lord. The prose is honey-dripped-from-thorns beautiful, but the despair drenches deep and bleak. The Greek tragedy framework is heavy-set in. My PC truly felt like a cog in fate’s machine. Which is all well and good at an artistic level–sparkling even–but it’s quite depressing to hang out in a space so nihilistic. Was it a story worth telling? Yes. But it wasn’t fun.

I also think other reviewers are right about the game design needing some tweaking. I missed the Storyteller System because it was difficult to track how useful each Stat was. No one seemed impressed by my PC’s high Etiquette, haha. Maybe because of the doomed themes, but some successes still led to failure or ultimately didn’t matter. For example, (Spoiler - click to show)my PC passed an *if test to convince Prince Peisistratos to let her be in the forum. While he still shunned her (cause he’s a jerk), Neoptolemus took her aside and offered his aide. However, he aided the PC no matter what during the story’s climax. There was little reactivity to Clan choice. Discipline availability puzzled me. I kept wanting to Dominate people into forgetting or Obfuscate to hide or attack, and they’d not be available. In fact, most of what my PC did a human could do with little effort. My PC’s one rebellion (Spoiler - click to show)—supporting Sophia as a new Prince—stumbled for unclear reasons. (Spoiler - click to show)My PC attacked Prince Peisistratos with max Auspex and he brushed it off. I accidentally did a rare thing of not fulfilling the prophecy.

With such a pervasive “nothing matters” atmosphere, it almost seemed like, not worth the effort to know the characters. Even mechanically, investment is not rewarded: beginning narration builds up (Spoiler - click to show)Vole as an important ally, but he is never seen in-game again. Why put in the emotional investment when every relationship is obviously doomed? These sort of thoughts go great with the works’ themes, but again, aren’t fun. People love chewing on their blorbos. My PC nominally pursued (Spoiler - click to show)Persa and I was content with hand holding, hugging, and snuggling as like, brief flashes of friendship and solidarity during a tough life. I wouldn’t call it a romance.

Theodoridou’s take on VtM’s Gothic-punk yanks hard into the Gothic and plunges right into the lake of introspective depression. He follows the grim thread of gritty logic to the likely end: rocks fall, everyone dies, and you’re a serial killer. It’s not so much personal horror as a personal sadness among decay and corruption. The mixed Steam reviews underscore how Theodoridou struggled to create a Greek tragedy about choices NOT mattering in a genre all about choices. Sins of the Sires is beautifully authentic to feelings of helpless despair, nihilism, and inter-generational grief. Maybe it would do better as a novel.