Why do people hate this book? Sabbat The Black Hand Review (V5)

By Chris Renshaw

Previously, I wrote on how I've been learning about Vampire The Masquerade 5th edition. Well, along with the Core Rulebook, Renegade Games sent a copy of their latest sourcebook, Sabbat: The Black Hand. This book was extremely curious to me as the first two books, the Anarchs & the Camarilla, are factions that are discussed heavily in the core book. However, the Sabbat is a faction that is largely glossed over. There are a couple of mentions about the "Gehenna War", where Vampires of high enough influence are supernaturally drawn to fight the Sabbat, but that's mostly it.

So what is the Sabbat? For fifth edition, they are the ultimate baddies. A game like Vampire is one where everyone is some kind of monster, willing to ally with whomever they need to protect themselves. The shifting political landscape is one aspect that people enjoy about the game. However, the Sabbat is one of those types of villains-above-all-villains that you put into a game for your players to kill without hesitation. You know, like Nazis or Zombies. Granted, the Sabbat aren't mindless drones, but they will kill you without a second thought. There's no allying or reasoning with them.

You've redecorated! I don't like it…

That brings us to the biggest problem with the book - or at least, the biggest problem if you go online reading reviews. The downside of being a very lore-heavy game like Vampire is that people get extremely devoted to it. To the point that if "they" don't agree with a direction that the company makes, "they" will get *very* vocal about this fact. Which is something that has happened with this Sabbat book. Apparently, in previous editions, the Sabbat were a playable faction within the game. In V5, this is no longer a thing. Within the first page of the book, they make this clear:

Old school fans didn't like this. "They changed the lore!!" they said, not liking the way that Renegade chose to depict a faction that I reckon was the favorite (in a game about monsters, some apparently have to be the monsters of monsters). As a newcomer to this, I found this hilarious because if you read further, there was always someone correcting this notion, saying "Um, no they didn't, they just went back to the original idea for the Sabbat". I guess it's hard to keep track of *all* the lore in a game that’s over 30 years old.

Different Game, Same Argument

This argument seems to pop up any time there's a major change in a game/edition. There's always people who are unhappy with a change and feel they have to vocalize it…or burn their miniatures for some reason. Feel free not to like a new edition, but what's the problem with just playing with your old stuff? If you prefer the old version of the Sabbat, then why not just play the old version of Vampire? Or is the problem that you *like* the new V5 rules, you just want to be able to play the Sabbat? Ok, then get creative and use the info in the V5 Sabbat book with the old editions and make new V5 rules to play with. You could probably even rename some stuff so it's not "technically" the Sabbat and sell it to make some money. Or see if someone else has already done it.

In this case though, I tend to agree with how Renegade went with this faction. I don't have the historical perspective, but one of the themes that repeats itself often in V5 is the concept of balancing the monster with the little bit of humanity your character has left. In fact, if you lose enough humanity, your character has a breaking point and now becomes an NPC. So why would they provide player rules for playing a group of vampires that doesn't embrace its humanity at all? That seems counterproductive to the game they are trying to establish. You might not like that aspect of the game, but that seems to be the way that V5 is going for the future.

But is the book any good though?

Now, that the edition wars argument is tackled, back to the actual sourcebook though. First and foremost, this book is pricey. It retails at $45.00 for about 130 pages of content. For reference, the Camarilla book goes for $50.00 but appears to have over 200 pages of content. That makes this Sabbat book pretty skim for the price point. If the book was like $30-35 I'd say that would be more appropriate for the amount of content in the book. Or, if they wanted to keep the same price point, there needed to be a lot more in the book. For instance, going the D&D route and having a premade adventure on using the Sabbat would be a perfect way to pad out the book. Plus, given the way that the Sabbat is being portrayed in this edition, the perfect way to show players how you imagine the sect operating. Also, the organization of the book is a tad off. Chapters 1 & 2 reference ideas that aren't even explained until you get to Chapter 3. That did make the book a bit disjointed to read. It's like using an acronym but not defining it until the end of a paper.

Those are my biggest complaints about the book. There were a lot of things I did really enjoy about it though. For instance, the book makes a point to talk about a ritual or specific trait of the Sabbat, and then immediately talks about how a GM might use that in their game. This is amazing! Why don't other RPG books do this? It really helps get the creative gears moving on thinking about how a piece plays into a game and makes the lore "click" together better. Especially when the appeal of Vampire is how detailed that lore is. (I did wish there was more "in character" lore like there was in the core rulebook, but that's a small thing). As I mentioned previously, the little bits of the Sabbat/Gehenna War left this gaping, mysterious hole in the lore that just left me confused and with more questions. This book provides enough information to fill in that void and helped me understand why the sect exists and why the clans are fighting viciously against them. 

With that said…

Overall, I think that this book is one that a GM is going to need to run a Vampire the Masquerade campaign. Especially if you are like me and are new to this world. If you've been playing Vampire for a while, then you probably know enough to have the Sabbat in your game without this book. Unless you want some of the specific mechanics that they list out for some of the rituals. Might want to keep an eye out for a sale before picking this book up though. (Or use the amazon affiliate link at the top of this post!)

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