Is it possible for vampires to be relevant and interesting again, or have they been cliched to death...

>vampires that instead of being killed by the sun get killed BY THE DARK!

Well yeah. Usage of resources. I have no problem with that.
This is also a bait thread. I've seen this exact thread countless times before.

Too many people meme that the villagers were right and the doctor faultless, but shiki was good.

Don't make them supervillains, make them monsters.

You catch more fishes with bait. Or, ideas in this case.

Few people are going to provide constructive criticism if you post "hey Veeky Forums here's my setting's government idea about a meritocratic communist regime, what do you think?"
You've got to hook folks in, like "Meritocratic communist regimes are the best government, prove me wrong (protip, you can't)"

No. In fact it's impossible for anything to be relevant ever again. Nothing is new, everything has been driven into the ground over and over. All of human existence is reduced to horrible post ironic malaise because we've seen it all, done it all. Your unique idea has been done better already, probably hundreds of years ago by someone better. All that's left for you to do is weep bitter tears of ennui and use them as masturbation material because baby it's a slow slide into the morass of oblivion from here on out.

T. Lamentations. It's in the Bible look it up.

I figure that this would be a good place to ask. I'm planning on having some distinctly non-evil vampires serve as benefactors to the PCs soon. What are some ways that I could suggest that they're vampires so that the players will catch on, without rubbing it in their faces?

They come off as way too human these days. Play up their inhumanity and indifference to mortals more. The more powerful and ancient the vampire, the more detached and inhuman, etc.

Fair enough.
I do my vampires feral. Fuck this aristocracy and education nonsense.
If people see dead bodies with bite wounds and no blood in them - they know. They get scared even. They still fuck them up, but they need to get creative.

Villagers were right, though. They weren't GOOD, but they were RIGHT. Retribution is one of the things that undisputedly is considered right.

STOP
CARING
ABOUT
CLICHES
IF THEY DON'T GUESS YOUR "PLOT", YOU'RE GOOD

What is detect evil at will?

If you want a D like setting, just run Ravenloft - it's pretty close.

Becoming a vampire is a medical procedure invented during the cold war.
Project MKUltramarine infected several civilians with the condition.
Decades later it was discovered that the infected didn't physically age.
Over time the oldest surviving with the condition obtained other vampire powers but also more weaknesses.

Many of the oldest vampires died when they acquired the need for blood.
Although some did took to drinking it injecting it was more popular.
Dirty used needles spread the condition further resulting in a vampire epidemic in parallel to real world aids.

The camp "aristocratic" stereotype came from a side of gay culture.
The more covert side that doesn't do loud pride parades in the sunlight.
And there are gangsta thuggish vampires.
Who are some of the first self inflicted, motivated by the eventual "perks" of the condition.

My group did vampire kids once. The Vampire Queen was trying to conceive but because vampire womb she miscarried every time. In the catacombs under her castle was a hall that was lined with little child sized coffins. We opened one and it was full of dust.
Apparently she also tried adopting, but because children have no sense of right or wrong, her vamp kids were basically mindless blood hungry animals. We found that out further into the room when a bunch of the coffins flew open and we got swarmed by the little bastards.
It was kinda sad because she just wanted to be a mom.

Have them send the players after a mysterious serial killer. On the trail they find clues that connect him with the benefactors. He might have worked for them or been a member of another coven or anything really. Eventually they realize that he's starting to mentally break down and is targeting the benefactors for some kind of revenge. When the players finally confront him, they see a blood starved vampire on the verge of madness. Too far gone to even speak the truth.

This is a nice idea, thank you.

If a player asks to freshen up, you could drop that their bathroom has no mirror.
Or they could politely turn down any offers to dine.

If that's your op pic, I have zero hope for you.

I don't need your weak-ass hope when I got my own

Can Rem make an interesting vampire character?

...

>or have they been cliched to death?

No, they haven't. A lot of how the game works is buy-in. Players and GMs alike think that one or the other is suppose to go along with everything perfectly, but it takes literally everyone at the table to be on board with ideas for them to work as effectively. If everyone is willing to be invested, you have more fun overall. Cliches be damned, so long as your players are down to deal with vampires, go nuts however you like.

What aspect of vampires do YOU find the most scary? Think long and hard about what you like about vampires. Do you like vampires as an analogy for cruel, detatched power figures that selfishly exploit people? Vampires as serial killers driven by an innate lust? Vampires as an ancient, predatory evil man with all his progress is hopeless in comprehending? Vampires as an analogy for rape or corruption?

Build on that. Don't stick too close to the script - don't have him be a dude named Vlad living in an abandoned castle - but stick with the spirit of it. Don't make him too human, or just misunderstood. Vampires are about horror. Make him the kind of monster YOU would be terrified to run into in a dark alley, and your players will feel that coming from you.

Use the cliche to your advantage. Old tropes are old for a reason. Make it a shortcut to the dark places in the players' psyche. If you change too much about what vampires are or how they work you lose that kind of gravitas.

But don't lean on the cliche like a crutch, either. Only include a cliche element if you can explain why it works for the story. Cliches aren't bad, lazy storytelling is.

Imagine if Alucard(Abridged) met
a loli vampire. Honestly he'd probably keep her around just for the smugness alone. Then brutally murder her without a second thought when she inevitably tried to betray him.

I guarantee TFS brings up Smug Wendy and/or fidget spinners within a few episodes.

If your players bitch and groan about something being cliche and overdone immediately upon it's introduction, that's a problem with you having shit players.

>Imagine if Alucard(Abridged) met
a loli vampire.
What, you mean like Alucard?

>when she inevitably tried to betray him
Lies and slander, smug loli vampires are initially aggressive and territorial, but very hospitable and extremely loyal once gained their trust.

>not being part of the People's Party
CAPITALIST PIG DETECTED.

Oh look, it's the reply from every thread where Shiki comes up.

Nothing well-done is played out.

You just need to do it well and it'll be good.

Shut up fagpriest, we will find you.

I think what's interesting in fiction and what's interesting for your RPG are two different things.
Nobody wants to read a story about a knight slaying a dragon, but you and your friends slaying one yourselves is fun.
So far, enemies my party have enjoyed going up against the most are the iconic ones. Dragons, werewolves, vampires, giants. All that sort of thing.

I like this post, it makes sense.

>Ugh we're fighting vampires? What are they gonna do, glow in the sun?

The broodmother was literally Gigginox and got a TPK.
Then that same player's next character got throat slit by a vampire because he kept thinking with his dick. Then his next character lost his ancestral home in a political uplifting orchestrated by another vampire he had met and ignored previously.

Now he's a paladin and keeps jumping at shadows expecting me to Dio his shit again.

>Party hears stories of a "life draining menace"
>Details vague, villagers get gloomy when approached about it
>Nobody knows exactly where or what it is
>Party searches everywhere, only finds minor monsters
>Descriptions differ, most people say it isn't even corporeal
>Party forced to pay all of their money for information
>It's false, and they're broke on the streets
>Nobody will hire them
>They resort to petty theft
>An old man heard their story one day as they beg him for a spare coin
>"You fools! The life draining menace is capitalism!"
>Players moan and groan
>Old man drinks their blood and flies away chuckling

See

>He never smote someone that didn't deserve it.
>Smites on sight random people and then acts like the deserved it afterwards
Was that paladin actually you per chance? Was he named Frank Castle?

Flan's more fun to be around.

I like the fantasy warrior vampires from Warhammer and Legacy of Kain, and judging by Gygax's depictions of Kas and friends, I always assumed that was the default. The whole Anne Rice search-for-deeper-meaning vampires seems rather off to me. But then again, I mostly play combat-heavy RPGs.

Someone storytime the first issue of Redneck

Everyone in the campaign he smote was either the living dead, or objectively evil by D&D terms. The guy had a 10/10 internal radar for this shit. He was actually pretty forgiving normally, but when he got a whiff of evil he really knew how to smite.

You wanna get kicked in the balls?

Make them all suicidal depressives.
That or try doing a Transylvanian accent.

Make everyone DIO

Make Hellsing vampires.

Suicidal depressive trannies?

Try me.

Consider this stolen.