Sabbat: The Black Hand - A Review

The Sabbat are the vampires the other vampires are afraid of. The antagonist sect in Vampire: The Masquerade, the Sabbat fling themselves headlong into the Gehenna War and their lack of secrecy has cost them at the hands of the Second Inquisition. A full book on the Sabbat has further emphasized the ways that the sect is used differently in V5 - specifically, that they are not available as protagonists. Is there anything in Sabbat: The Black Hand for players who are unsatisfied with this state of affairs? And what about players who like the status of the Sabbat in V5?
If you want to see if the pre-order with PDF is still available, head to renegadegamestudios.com/sabba...
- Contents -
00:00 - Introduction
01:52 - The Sabbat as Purely Antagonists in V5
07:20 - What's Up With The Sabbat These Days
15:12 - Paths of Enlightenment
21:41 - Disciplines, Rituals, and Ceremonies
30:21 - Other Content
31:22 - Final Thoughts

[@thecombativemedic521]

That's kind of heart breaking. Especially since so much content had been previously written. I apperciate this review.

[@uziel1701]

Great vid! I think I'll be sticking with past stuff to handle the Sabbat.

[@Violenceinmind40]

V5s first monster manual.

[@MrRourk]

I fully expect a V5 Players Guide to the Sabbat to come out at some time

[@stephen8342]

@@MrRourk idk, paradox seems pretty dead set on forcing people to play what they approve of. Probably too busy making shitty battle royale to focus on what their fans would like

[@MrRourk]

@@stephen8342 sadly you may be right

[@jarredstewart9890]

I don’t give a fuck I play V5 and I’ll make my own version for my players to become sabbat. I won’t let a company tell me I’m not allowed to make sabbat player characters when they were clearly a huge part of the fan base.

[@horusrage]

I run a V5 Sabbat campaign that I started before the book even came out. What I did was fine Gehenna war a war needs soldiers thus the shovelheads are made from mortals buried & sent via plane to where they need to go. Those that get out of that and escape at the local city get to go on the path of being True Sabbat. I amped up the cult-like aspects for the Sabbat. Many of the mechanics I simply adapted. I tried to use the V5 that I was aware of where I could. But it gave me so little to work with. Yes I also adapted the tenets of their path to work similar to humanity. We are now hundreds of hours in. I understand the points that you made. But I don't agree with all of them. But hey that is what makes a community if everyone agreed then it would be just dull.

[@GivenForver]

I'm thinking of running the faction of the black hand like this. They're the majority and die so fast that the paths have degenerated. The minority, the rest have the old paths and culture/structure, but are so low number that they can't hold major territory.

[@horusrage]

@@GivenForver Sounds interesting. I say go for it.

[@eiskalteshandchen9036]

Everybody who wants a deeper look into it and does not have any problems with digital content, might should take a look into the Sabbat Guide revised. Only thing missing is the downgrading of the Sabbat and the mechanical parts.

[@Eyeslayer]

Fantastic Review good job!

[@Itukaaj]

Thank you very much for this review. The Sabbat book was the only one I cared about and was one I wanted to buy a hard copy of. You helped me save money. Unfortunately, this was also a final strike on playing V5 since I depend on Discord communities to play VTM.

[@Gangrel442003]

V5 is an abomination and an insult. End of Story...

[@SomethingToSee101]

@@Gangrel442003 sure, if the reason you were into vampire in the first place is the hardcoded deep lore (like the whole "True Black Hand" stuff that I hated) I can understand your position, but I am really enjoying the freedom of V5 and the return to it's personal horror origins

[@Kropothead]

@@SomethingToSee101 Yeah, it sucks not being able to roll Sabbat right now, but there’s a fair amount of stuff V5 just plain does better.

[@Itukaaj]

@@Kropothead I like hunger dice and some standardization of difficulty ratings and simplification overall. But that is about it. Lore is what brought me to the game and V20. Horror could be incorporated in different ways and none of my characters were ever sad about being a vampire.

[@soarel325]

@@SomethingToSee101 Metaplot is part of what makes VTM VTM. There was already a game that got back to that original concept, it was called Vampire the Requiem and it’s still being published. I don’t understand the need to make Vtm into a worse version of VTR and crowbar a game that had evolved into something totally different from what it was originally conceptualized as into a weird bootleg VTR.

[@MrRourk]

Have you ever danced in the heart of the burning flames in the pale of the moonlight?

[@strangeassembly5595]

I’ve danced with the devil in the pale moonlight. Does that count?

[@MrRourk]

@@strangeassembly5595 you can't be Sabbat until you have played with fire

[@kosciukadam]

Thnx! Good review ;)

[@strangeassembly5595]

Glad it was helpful!

[@tammydj9941]

I don't know of a named Methuselah(s) who is on the same power strata as ur-Shulgi from any previous editions prior to v5. If he was sent to his final death then tread lightly sons and daughters of Caine. Good job!

[@Nyrufa]

100 vampires in ANY city is grossly over populated. Especially if the Sabbat are as out of control as what's presented here. How the fuck is the Masquerade still intact!?

[@davidfriend6462]

It's lazy writing. It's just lazy writing.

[@adamsboringvids]

The 100 vampires are in torpor. They are a Sword of Damocles hanging over the Prince of Madrid to ensure they do not interfere with Lucita. Did that fix it?

[@Nyrufa]

@@adamsboringvids NO, because you've still got 100 vampires within a single domain! And once again, this book seems to depict the Sabbat as a bunch of rabid, frothing maniacs. They wouldn't black mail the prince with an army kept on standby, they would just unleash it upon the city.

[@adamsboringvids]

@@Nyrufa lucita is an old one maybe she’s got a bit more going on upstairs.

[@davidfriend6462]

@@adamsboringvids Lazy writing can't be fixed with additional laziness.

[@clairestark9024]

Well....it sounds less shit than anarch.

[@Nyrufa]

Compared to previous editions of the Sabbat, it is absolutely shit. Complete disgrace to what they've been in the past.

[@clairestark9024]

@@Nyrufa yeah, personally I'd recommend grabbing Sabbat rules from Storyteller's and just grafted revised fluff on

[@clairestark9024]

@Paul Gauthier did I? who are you?

[@justanotherdayinthelife9841]

Tzimisce isnt even a clan and neither is Vicissitude a discipline, and the Sabbat are npc's. This is like the most boring larp attended made into canon. V20 or Revised is the only Vampire the Masquerade worth playing. This V5 goofy crap is insulting.

[@Kropothead]

Solid review! It’s pretty disappointing that I can’t play a Sabbat character, but I understand making the choice to present them solely as antagonists. It makes sense lore-wise, and fits with V5’s themes. I’m kind of psyched there’s an opportunity for young Tzimisce to try a different sect.

[@ConernicusRex]

This book cemented my hate for V5. Will not purchase a product, will pirate bloodlines 2. I'm just done.

[@madjack3944]

I knew the sanitization was coming after the writers pushed their political opinions in the second print of the v5 core book with the letter to fascists or whatever it was called. V5 is very much the pg13 rated vtm. But the mechanics are better so I just homebrew v20 with v5 mechanics. Its not hard, for example I've almost go mage finished.

[@clairestark9024]

Ehhh I tend to see the letter to Fascists as the successor to the older "don't worship Satan." posts they're their to save face and appease idiots. I'd probably put one in myself if I was writing now

[@stephen8342]

@@clairestark9024 except the Satan one was likely tongue in cheek instead of literally inserting real world politics where it doesn’t belong. It astounds me that these people still honestly think there are fascists everywhere when in reality there are maybe a few thousand in any given country

[@iseeundeadpeople9]

So you're OK with the previous writers pushing their political opinions in the previous versions?

[@stephen8342]

@@iseeundeadpeople9 previous editions were no where near this overt and extreme about it

[@iseeundeadpeople9]

@@stephen8342 I think my link keeps getting deleted. Read Dog with Dice's entry about v5. There was also a cuck sample character.

[@DarkKaij]

I did love this more crude and cruel version of the Sabbat. Most of my chronicles Sabbat focused were most like this, to lose yourself into the most evil and wrapped path and devotion to the beast. Down with the Bizantine Structure and lords. I can craft all I need with my previous knowledge and this new presentation.

to me, Sabbat can stay as antagonist, but i cannot tolerate lazy writing and lack of esence to inspire people. sabbat v5 is a bad attempt to make a monster manual. one of the thing bothers me is that even in v5 retcons itself. retconned antitribu in a way not really clear sabbat as antagonist but not well written to be intereting to be really villain. as if this book was forced to be bad to make people forget sabbat. lack of fluff, you can make sabbat fucking evil and unplayable as philosophy but can not make it boring, i want to read about survivors of sabbat, ppoeple who recover. this book looks like a check list describing but no inspiring (even with the storyteller part) lack of merits/flaws agains sabbat (like make a loresheet that make the character be prepared about sabbat member or something) no real explanation about blood brothers, kyasid, or the former antitribu clans (that was badly retconned) and when confronted Justin achilli just said: if if you don't like v5 sabbat and want to play as one, play v20. and that was just... bad... People like sabbat not only because is evil is because we can explore further the concept of a monster with other struggles. making sabbat evil for the sakeness of evilness is lazy and poor writing the same i can say about anarchs making them the "good guys" cause they are the oposition of status quo i definetly i can say i'm more exited to see people homebrew takes on sabbat, character options, playable sabbat and new stories that a new v5 book

[@Violenceinmind40]

Loresheets and advantages for fighting the Sabbat would have been great!

[@strangeassembly5595]

I’m surprised they didn’t put something like that in there, if only because that’s a standard ‘sell the ST book to players’ move

@@strangeassembly5595 exactly. i mean you have a lot of potencial in sabbat to make a selling point, make narrative "agenda" to justify no player character but this is... i don't know- I'm a writer, is my job (also teach creative writing) and this is totally unispiring. is like having D&D monster manual but without descriptions that can make good ideas in a dm/storyteller mind.

[@dizzyrosecal]

@ The whole thing strikes me as having been the result of a writing team labouring under some really tight restrictions on what they can do. I don't think they're bad writers, but it seems like the Paradox leadership team really wanted to remove any possibility of this book being perceived as having any player utility whatsoever. Perhaps they're scared of bad PR, potentially because of the social media storm the original first release of V5 caused. It's a shame, because mechanically I really like V5 - but in terms of mechanical and metaplot support, it doesn't allow me to tell the stories that I want to tell in my existing campaigns without significant time and effort put into homebrew - which I am not going to do when I can just play V20 instead.

[@strangeassembly5595]

The direction taken with the Sabbat (whether one likes that direction or not) is definitely directed by Paradox, not the writers of this individual book. Honestly, I speculate that one of the reasons Paradox has tightened up on who’s doing the tabletop RPG is to keep things more in line with their vision (for example, folks at Onyx Path more than once commented that they deviated from V5 norms in certain ways because they weren’t fans … and Onyx Path hasn’t announced any new Vampire books lately). There are, apparently, also considerations of how the setting will be portrayed in licensed media.

[@stephen8342]

I really don’t see how any tolerates how shitty v5 is, completely fucked the lore

[@SomethingToSee101]

it fucked the lore but fixed the vampire experience, I'm fine with it

[@stephen8342]

@@SomethingToSee101 some slightly different systems that dumb down combat and limiting what playable options they offer by cutting out an entire sect fixed the experience?

[@clairestark9024]

@@SomethingToSee101 its a pretty mixed bag mechanically it's very good at personal horror but God awful at byzantine politics or snatch with fangs.

[@clairestark9024]

I have complex views on mechanics but the lore can jog on.

[@justanotherdayinthelife9841]

I agree, it fucked the lore and killed the entire vampire gaming experience. There are neat and clever notions in V5. That is all. So run V20 and Revised and never buy any more books. Where as I had bought every single book from white wolf 2nd edition and revised 3rd edition across the genre board (vamp,werewolf, etc), this pathetic layup of a game world will never get a single dime from me. It's like people in charge didnt get it when Requiem flopped, we do not want this trash. Write updates for V20 and/or Revised and knock off the rewrites from lesser imaginations please.

[@justanotherdayinthelife9841]

V5 is hot garbage.

[@deathdealer13cat]

I guess as someone who was introduced to VtM with Bloodlines 10 + years ago and has only ever played V5, I dont really understand why so many veteran players are salty about this. If you want to play a Sabbat pact tje keeps true to the "old ways" as they were in V20 I can do that and still have it make sense in the lore. This is a table top game. If u and the players don't want to do something as written in the book then u don't have to do it that way. There is literally nothing stopping you from playing Sabbat using V5 rules. Just worry about the enjoyment of you and your players..

[@dizzyrosecal]

I'm afraid your argument is essentially "you don't need rules to play the game so it doesn't matter if support isn't provided". But if that's the case, then why stop with the Sabbat? Why not remove the Camarilla as well? Why not take out the Lasombra and Tzimisce entirely? Why not get rid of Blood Sorcery, or remove Oblivion from the the game? Why have a 5th edition at all? Why don't we all just homebrew our own campaigns? I'm sure you can see my point: for your argument to make sense, you need to explain why it's okay for the Sabbat stuff to be removed but not other huge swathes of the rest of the game. Where do you draw the line? Why is this decision not arbitrary? Why is this argument not self-serving (I certainly don't see people clamouring to cut their favourite elements of the game out "because you can homebrew it" after all)?

[@clairestark9024]

The ultimate issue is im expected to pay money for it.

[@Itukaaj]

No one plays any VTM where I can play table top. I am the only one who likes it. So, Discord is the next option which means if you join a server the rules are already set. Unless you want to run your own server, and, I have a life and am actually working. In short, my options have been written out by the writers of V5.

[@thegoodolddays9193]

@Paul Gauthier The only thing worse than an edition troll is an edition white knight that thinks everyone with a different opinion is an edition troll. It's never worth arguing with them, they'll just scream about you being a troll and ignore everything you say.

[@Kropothead]

Speaking as an old-ass WOD fan, old-ass WOD fans can be pretty entitled people, and they get mad when you change the status quo in a meaningful way. Heard somebody the other day whining about how many times the word “new” is used in the core book. It’s some goofy shit to be upset about.

[@_princeovpeace6512]

Man, this whole comment section reads like a yelp page for a restaurant that just replaced their bathroom placards.

[@simonward244]

I have never seen a RPG which does not state these are guidelines, it's your game. If you don't like the new rules. Don't use them it's easy. I am pretty sure your safe from the RPG police coming around to make sure your following the rules..a lot easier than complaining the book was not written with your wants and wishes. Just use the rules you want.

[@MaricKillJoy]

Right but if you don't like the rules why play the game? I see so many defend v5 in this way and it just sounds to me like someone saying "If you don't like v5 just play v20"... which really isn't a defense.

[@simonward244]

@@MaricKillJoy because they are guidelines. There is nothing stopping you creating a Sabbat PC. And running a game. If the game does not make this possible just play the old version.. Like I said Every RPGi have seen over the years say these are guidelines. It's your game you run it how you want. So Sabbat can be played, just it's not official.

[@SomethingToSee101]

And you can always play older versions of the game...the rules and core of 20 are not outdated or unplayable. It's okay and healthy to criticize and share your opinion but a lot of WoD fans (yes even old times fans) really liked the direction of v5 so it was not a failure or not even something like "they only care about getting popular and getting new players"

[@MaricKillJoy]

@@SomethingToSee101 I view v5 as a different game. There is far too much retcon and rules changes... but that is not a bad thing. I love the Old world of darkness and chronicles of darkness, I very much enjoy v5 too. It just doesn't feel like VtM to me personally.

[@simonward244]

@@SomethingToSee101 Exactly the history, lore, and background are the same, only the core mechanics have been changed.. You can please some of the people some of the time.

[@ChristopherLaHaise]

Good. I find this entire idea of 'well, you should be allowed to play the villains' tired. I like the idea of the enemies being 'unknown' by the players, something to actually be afraid of - not something to play.

[@stephen8342]

They already had that in the antediluvian s, Cain, god, and the technocrats. All vampires are villains by default

[@strangeassembly5595]

To an extent. But vampires (at least the player characters) are supposed to at least care about the bad things they do. That’s what makes it personal horror - it’s not the horror of being scared of the monsters, it’s the horror of losing control of yourself and your humanity.

[@ChristopherLaHaise]

@@stephen8342 There's a difference between PCs and antediluvians and PCs and Sabbat.

[@stephen8342]

@@ChristopherLaHaise you’re right, sabbat should be playable and antediluvian shouldn’t. There’s still a plethora of other antagonists that are real antagonists. If sabbat are antagonists simply for wanting to destroy the cam then the anarchs should be as well by that standard

[@stephen8342]

@@strangeassembly5595 that’s one perspective, there’s also the horror of controlling the beast, having elders and antes that could come back and annihilate you at any moment, having to integrate and degrade what you were for what you’ve become in order to stick with those who share goals, paths, and undeath with you. The “only the camarilla and anarchs have personal horror” but that the company has tried to tow just doesn’t hold water when examined and seems to be a cheap excuse for white washing their product to remove the truly horrific parts of it and make it more marketable. I get no horror value from camarilla because it makes vampires seem like people who just suck blood occasionally and not the absolute monsters that old wod understood all vampires are.