Very much true.
A lot of the writing reminds me of that JK Rowling worldbuilding. Like it's all about trying to invoke a certain feeling but often logic just get lost somewhere on the way. Like the fall of the Tremere is a prime example everyone knows that this doesn't make any sense, but they needed it to go with the theme of "Status quo got destroyed" they were going with, same with schrecknet.
I wouldn't even describe any of current edition as Punk despite the writers saying otherwise
Completly agree that there are no punk groups in V5, just groups that pretend to be punks, but "now you can also rebel against those groups that are supposed to be rebels, so you can punk on the fake!punks that's like punk^2". Wouldn't be surprised if that was their literal thoughts on that.
Call me naive but as a long fan of crusaders kings and europe universal it never felt like this to me.
Part of the thing with vampire is "Okay, so you hate all these factions and want to rebel? Leave the city. No, don't go in the woods full of werewolves, just leave the city and live in a smaller town. It is probably cleaner anyways" but WoD is written by people who are very much city people.
I am not surprised by that being a fanmade thing or alternate game but yes
Use older editions or have someone who doesn't know what is going on since he had his first date and now he is a nine foot tall werewolf getting visions of a pine up girl riding a WW2 bomber plane shouting about how he needs to rob a gun store and go to war with a bunch of cultists snorting uranium in the old mine before they put it in Pepsi bottles and make people get possessed by satanic spirits that want them to beat their wives
I would read this
...the core concept of 20th century horror folklore setting is my new brainbughttps://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/440577/Old-Gods-of-Appalachia-Roleplaying-Game-FREE-PREVIEW
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/447290/Old-Gods-of-Appalachia-Roleplaying-Game
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/448863/Old-Gods-of-Appalachia-Players-Guide
All the good writers have stuck with W4 anyway.
Currently reading https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/439115/Umbral-Pilots - it's really good!
Christopher Gunning, one of the few good writers of W5, has also written Werewolf The Savage Age for W4 - it plays in the Ice Age, during the War of Rage, and the next books go back to the Tyrant Kings
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?author=Christopher Gunning
No forgotten conclave of people that still have electricity or whatever buried deep beneath a mountain?
Nah it is an alternate universe where oil is necromancy and electricity is accepted as magic since they are writing runes on precious metal to manipulate power
WoD vampires in Appalachia makes me think of a brujah that acts as a one man mining crew
still thinking about this
I don't know why but after taking a look at what the region is, I just imagine it to be Tzimisce lands. Like some Old Clan, Koldun practicing, motherfuckers. (Probably practicing some before unknown Kraina that is similar to the Bialowiza one.) Nobody fucking knows when they got there (maybe a unknown childer of Tzimisce settled there), but they are just sitting somewhere in the mountains served by their own clan of Revenants and probably locked in some feud over something that happened centuries ago.
Elder Tzimisce: I walked here millennia ago
I imagine it is something like Tzimisce, Gangrel, Giovanni and then you get vampire over with the snake handling churches who look at the main Setite clan and go "What's a Set?" which makes people confused if they are a bloodline or a bunch of Caitiff that somehow figured out Serpentis
The Giovanni, Gangrel, and Tzimisce regularly dance around swords in the rain to appease the lightning daughters and keep their havens from being blown up by thunderbolts
My dislike of how they are doing werewolf 5E has made me think of much funnier ways of having people deal with being thrown facefirst into the whole werewolf thing (they made it so now Garou look at people they think might be garou, turn into warform to bite them, and hope they have their change due to stress instead of...any of the ways it worked previously along with a lot of the types being removed like Metis. Where, Metis really hit the theme of Garou being so goddamn stupidly prideful and removing themselves from the people they were supposed to be helping on both sides is part of what screwed them over).
Therr are were-oppossums in WoD?
There is oppossum totem spirit around to adopt people as her kids
So the average living qualities for mortals is significant higher than in WoD, nice.
We liked to joke in one of my previous Mage games that if it an object in WoD is modern enough to run on electricity there is at least one evil plot connected to it.