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[[File:1174331955_vampire__the_masquerade_bloodlines_4396.jpg|frame|''"Hurry up, I can only amuse myself for so long..."'']]
The final game of Troika Games, composed of the Black Isle exiles responsible for ''[[Fallout]]'' and ''[[Arcanum]]''. An FPS/RPG hybrid, many consider it the best successor to ''[[Deus Ex]]''. The closest thing it has to a [[Spiritual Successor]] itself is ''[[Alpha Protocol]]''. Though it's not a sequel, fans of ''Bloodlines'' will no doubt be pleased to know that the upcoming{{when}} World of Darkness MMO in development by [[EVE Online|Crowd Control Productions]] will be based on the
The game takes place in the [[Old World of Darkness]]. In the Anarch-controlled city of Los Angeles, the player character is a newly-Embraced vampire... and it would seem an illicitly-embraced one, as well. After their sire gets offed for Embracing a mortal without the permission of LaCroix, newly instated Camarilla Prince of Los Angeles, the PC finds themselves trying to prove their worth by becoming LaCroix's errand boy. They'll become embroiled in local vampire politics and meet a wide cast of characters in their quest to track down an ancient sarcophagus.
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* [[Abandoned Hospital]]: The decrepit building in the Downtown area. Not ''entirely'' abandoned, as some unfortunate reporters find out.
* [[Absurdly Spacious Sewer]]: Nosferatu use them in lieu of sidewalks and taxicabs. There are also a few plot points down there.
* [[Acceptable Breaks From Reality]]:
* [[Adam Smith Hates Your Guts]]: Justified in that the humans don't actually know the issues in Kindred society. Except for Vandal, the ghoul at the blood bank, but he's got ulterior motives.
* [[Adaptation Distillation]]: Of the [[Old World of Darkness]] in general.
* [[Adult Child]]:
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* [[All There in the Manual]]: Despite the game taking liberties in a lot of ways, the amount of research of the setting that went into this game is just juicy for any World of Darkness fan. One of the subtlest references was during Society of leopold level, where in the mook chatter we hear a reference to the Gladius Dei, a subsect of the organization that was mentioned in one old book.
* [[And I Must Scream]]: Should you choose to ally with the Kuei-jin, {{spoiler|Ming Xiao will (after you defeat the Sheriff) chain you to the Sarcophagus and throw it in the ocean. Since vampires cannot drown and the blood will prevent decomposition, your best hope is to be eaten by sea creatures (good luck, you traitor)}}.
* [[Anti-Grinding]]: You get experience solely for completing quests, and in fact will obtain ''less'' experience in some missions for killing people
* [[Apocalyptic Log]]:
** The recordings of Dr. Grout, the LA Malkavian Primogen. Hey, he's a Malkavian. They ''all'' go insane. Though he is ''somewhat'' more lucid than expected of a Malkavian. He cites his own experience as a psychiatrist as help, though he's still a bit of a [[Cloudcuckoolander]].
** There's also less logical examples (Grout wasn't in any direct danger when he recorded his last audio log) found in the Ocean House Hotel and the LA sewers, with people's diaries lying around where they've been writing down things like "aaaaah!" ''while they were being assaulted''.
* [[Arc Words]]: "Don't open it." Arguably "Where to?".
* [[Artificial Atmospheric Actions]]: Done rather well: the NPCs move around in a way that is, if not entirely realistic, a much closer facsimile than most games. Many of the random citizens walking around the city hubs can be seen chatting to each other, smoking, using cellphones, using payphones, and being victim to muggings. Some male NPCs can be seen occasionally urinating in back alleys or bathroom stalls, and it's possible at several points to walk in on a woman giving a man a blowjob in an out-of-the-way location. However, the NPCs will knock over any objects in their path, causing more than a few trashcans and debris to roll around and get in the way of the player.
* [[Attack of the Political Ad]]: ''Vote Republican Senator Robert Thorne! A candidate NOT accused of being a murderous child pornographer!''
* [[Back Stab]]: The player character can approach most anthropomorphic enemies from behind in stealth mode and, if they are undetected, kill them with a single blow. Backstabbing with a sword weapon has your character impale them through the chest [[Rule of Funny|while a japanese chord sounds off in the background]].
* [[Badass]]: Nines establishes himself as this in his second appearance. Later cements it by {{spoiler|ripping a werewolf's head off}}.
** It's implied that {{spoiler|he shoved a grenade down the werewolf's throat}}. Which is of course even more awesome.
** [[Badass Abnormal]]/[[Badass Normal]]: Mercurio and Romero are ghouls, so they aren't exactly normal humans, but some of Mercurio's stories (shooting his way to the Nevada state line?) and Romero's zombie-suppression situation are incidents some vampire builds might find tricky to overcome.
** Smilin' Jack is only tenth generation (which should put him on the weaker side of average). [[Informed Attribute|Despite that he is treated like a walking legend.]]
* [[Badass Biker]]: Smiling Jack. Doesn't hurt he used to be a pirate. Many Brujah love this look. The Female [[Player Character]] heavy armor is a kickass biker suit... [[Fan Service|and nothing else]].
* [[Badass Boast]]: If you had to believe their constant smacktalking, every single vampire you meet is the biggest [[Badass]] around and all other kindred are completely insignificant compared to them and their clan. They all need your help tough, so most of it is hot air.
* [[Badass Bookworm]]: Most Tremere. A pair of [[Specs of Awesome|smart glasses]] is pretty much mandatory for females of the clan, both in this game and fan art.
* [[Badass Longcoat]]: Several outfits.
* [[Bedlam House]]: Grout has turned his mansion into one of these for the sake of "research", and also appears to have been the head of one in the pre-Freudian days of psychology.
* [[Being Good Sucks]]: By all means, be a [[Friendly Neighborhood Vampire]], keep your Humanity stat maxed out, [[Never Hurt an Innocent]]. It can be done. But you'll have a hard time upholding the Masquerade, vampire hunter attacks will make your life very difficult, and too many violations will end your game. Being good is not easy in the World of Darkness. On the other hand, having a low Humanity removes some dialog options and makes you more likely to lose control of your character in a frenzy.
* [[Better Than Sex]]: Jack describes drinking blood as better than having sex and taking drugs, although [[Old World of Darkness]] vampires can't do the first (unless they are ''really'' weak vampires or use a special trick, but they're usually not interested anyway) and require roundabout methods for the second (they have to drink the blood of someone ''on'' the drug, which requires feeding).
* [[BFS]]: One of the many reasons no one messes with the Sheriff.
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* [[Black Comedy]]/[[Gallows Humour]]
* [[Black Eyes of Crazy]]: The Sabbat sport these.
* [[Blessed with Suck]]:
** While most vampires take [[Cursed with Awesome|a different view]], some see their condition this way, and some of them are justified. Of particular note is Clan Malkavian, who have eternal life, kickass powers, and debilitating mental illness, and Clan Nosferatu, who have eternal life, kickass powers, and ugliness so horrific that they have to get around via sewer, because being seen would violate the Masquerade.
** Malkavian Thin-blood Rosa got hit by this pretty hard, she got all the madness of a malkavian, and the vampire's thirst, but almost no benefits of actually being a vampire (though, she can still see the sun and eat and drink mortal food, for all it's worth).
** Ash Rivers feels like this VERY much. {{spoiler|Especially the second time you see him}}.
** Also, all vampires in this setting have to constantly deal with "the Beast", said Beast being a metaphor for their uncontrollable animal sides, so in order to keep the beast back, they have to avoid doing things like killing innocent people (people trying to take a tire iron to your skull are fair game, though). This is the in-universe justification for why the player has to keep their "Humanity" stat high, or else the player will "frenzy", which means they will go on a violent rampage with increased combat stats but no control over their movements.
* [[Bloody Handprint]]
* [[Body Armor as Hit Points]]: Averted: body armor is merely a factor in damage calculation.
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* [[Bonus Boss]]: An [[Expy]] of ''[[Devil Hunter Yohko]]'' named Yukie asks for your help in hunting down the Hengeyokai that killed her master. So you're probably thinking it's a werewolf or a kitsune or something or whatever. Nope, it's a 12-foot tall wereshark with armored skin, claws and razor sharp teeth. And you have to keep it from killing Yukie during the fight. But your reward is an enchanted katana. If you did not follow ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'' closely, you would probably be going WTF at this point and the game itself never really explains what the weresharks are or where they come from.
** "[[Lampshade Hanging|Did I just fight a landshark?!]]"
* [[Breaking the Fourth Wall]]:
** A Sabbat thug preparing to deliver a thrashing looks over his shoulder into the camera and warns, "Those of you in the first two rows will get wet...".
** The Malkavian, when advised not to enter a dangerous hideout, can say, "I don't want to, but try telling the guy playing me that!".
** If you stick around in the Convenience store in Hollywood long enough, the drunk will mention a "what if" scenario about being in a video game.
** At the very end of the game, if you're friends with Mercurio, {{spoiler|you can ask him about information on Troika Games (the company that made ''Bloodlines'')}}.
** You can ask a seer a number of questions about the future, including whether you will win the game. She will reply I doesn't matter if you win the game, just that you bought it.
** If you use a mod or something to jazz up your starting stats, in your first conversation Jack will call you a cheater and give you the option of starting a new game.
* [[Break the Haughty]]:
** Nosferatu ''love'' to do this by transforming vain, attractive people into members of their hideous clan. One of their members is a former supermodel and is decidedly bitter about her new looks.
** Also, by most of the game's endings {{spoiler|1=Prince LaCroix}}.
* [[But Thou Must!]]: [[Justified Trope|Justified]]: if the player character refuses to accept one of the main story quests from Prince LaCroix, he will use his powers to Dominate him/her into doing it. Which is actually rather sporting of him considering the usual punishment for insurrection against the Camarilla Prince is to be nailed to an east-facing wall and left out for the sunrise. It also makes {{spoiler|telling him where to get off in most of the endings}} that extra-bit satisfying.
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* [[Chinese Vampire]]: The Kuei-Jin. [[Berserk Button|Just don't call 'em that]].
* [[City of Adventure]]: The whole game takes place in Los Angeles
* [[Cloudcuckoolander]]: If the player chooses to be a Malkavian, he/she ''seems'' to be one of these.
** As a Malkavian, different dialogue options are provided, some of which come close to [[Leaning on the Fourth Wall]]. Bizarre events can also occur. For example, it is possible to enter into an argument with a certain stop sign downtown ("No you stop!"); in addition, the newscaster in the in-game TV network will occasionally direct comments through his "fourth wall" at them, culminating in the Malkavian at one point being able to enter into a conversation with the newsreader.
* [[Companion Cube]]: Those stop signs. "You've made a powerful enemy today, sign!"
* [[Compelling Voice]]:
** Ventrue player characters get the option to use Domination in dialogue, sidestepping the need for social skills. Tremere also get Domination, and can even use it in conversation if you've got the unofficial patches installed.
** Malkavians can do the same thing with Dementation, though their methods generally involve "convincing" the target the Malkavian is a T-Rex and they should run like hell.
* [[Conspicuously Light Patch]]: Only if you want it; you need high Inspection to make gettable items shine. If you don't they'll look like any other piece of the background.
* [[Conspiracy Theorist]]: Gomez. Hilariously, one of his theories turns out to be [[Cassandra Truth|the plot of the game]].
* [[Contemptible Cover]]: [[Ms. Fanservice]] Jeanette Voerman leers from the cover. To add fuel to the fire, she's involved in only the earliest quests. Once you leave the starting area, she ceases to be involved in the plot to any extent and the player has no need to see her ever again. {{spoiler|And that's assuming you didn't get her "killed"}}.
* [[Continuity Nod]]: A ''lot'' to the [[Old World of Darkness]] in general.
* [[Contract on the Hitman]]: Happens near the end, right before the final bosses; {{spoiler|1=Prince LaCroix will call one on ''you''}}. The only way to get it called off is to get to the final boss fights.
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* [[Dark Action Girl]]: All female [[Player Character]]'s. Brawl, melee, guns, psychic powers, bloodmagic: make your choice. They are all inevitable dark and capable of killing lots of things.
* [[Dark World]]: Obviously. It ''is'' ''[[Old World of Darkness|the World of Darkness]]''. Particularly effective is the sinister version of the famous Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.
* [[Deadpan Snarker]]:
{{quote|'''Tire Iron''': "You could change a tire with it, sure."}}
* [[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything]]: Not as much as some games, but there are some nice details given thought to.
** Max out your disciplines before asking Beckett for advice at Ventrue Tower, and he'll comment on how rare it is for a vampire to master their disciplines so soon instead of giving you advice and another dot in one.
** When Jeanette asks you to slash some paintings and steal a donations box, you can comply and carry it out as normal, but since you're stealing from a charity, you'll lose humanity. If you refuse initially, Jeanette will re-affirm it's going directly to the vampire, and not to an actual charity, removing the "wrong" factor and thus the humanity loss attached to it.
** The hated sewer level actually has chances to leave before completion, if the player is willing to explore a bit around the sewers. There are at least two doors that lead straight to the Hollywood sewer system.
** It's possible to find two future boss fight characters, {{spoiler|the serial killer}} and {{spoiler|the wereshark}}, respectively hanging out in their human forms in a couple of restaurants. Attacking the former results in {{spoiler|him assuming his war form and most likely killing you horribly}}. Attacking the latter just results in a fight with a stronger than average human that is entirely possible to win ([[Fridge Logic|Maybe he didn't have room in the restaurant to shapeshift?]]), bypassing the later fight with him entirely. It also grants less XP and a humanity loss.
** The quest Replanting A Lily is a great example. The obvious solution is to send a girl from Asylum to the blood bank, but if you hold off on the quest you can instead send the annoying Masquerade-breaking ghoul Patti, killing two birds with one stone. Or you can avoid Humanity loss completely by sending the dismembering serial killer Gimble, which also saves you the trouble of having to fight him yourself. OR, if you are a Malkavian, you can use Dementation against him to make him forget.
** During LaCroix's briefings, if you lose Masquerade points before talking to him, he will in some instance chew the player character for violating the Masquerade. If you only have one Masquerade point left, there is a special line in which he says that you'll be in big trouble if you only do it again once.
** The Malkavian playthrough changes everything from basic dialogue and interactions to adding a whole suite of unique, Malkavian-only interactions that change based on how you perceive the world as a complete, stark raving madman. It really adds a huge bonus to the game, and makes for an interesting second playthrough.
** One of the cooler little touches is when starting a new game during the intro you'll see player characters from any previous saves in the audience. This isn't even a case of using default models as the characters are in later game armor if you were wearing any.
* [[Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?]]: {{spoiler|Were you just ferried around the city by Caine himself}}?
* [[Different As Night and Day]]: Jeanette (the obviously Malkavian nymphomaniac party-girl) and Therese (the obviously Ventrue strait-laced businesswoman) Voerman. {{spoiler|The player later learns they are actually the same vampire; Jeanette is a [[Split Personality]], the manifestation of Therese's Malkavian insanity and the result of her disassociation from being molested by her father as a child}}.
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* [[Emo Teen]]: Patty, the ghoul going cold turkey. An incredibly whiny character deliberately designed to be as annoying as possible. She needs to be executed for breaking the masquerade. You can off her in a dark corner or even {{spoiler|send her to Pisha to get eaten}}. Of course killing her [[You Bastard|costs you humanity]].
* [[Ending Theme]]: "Swamped" by [[Lacuna Coil]]. Depending on who you ask, it either fits the game extremely well or not at all.
* [[
* [[Everything Fades]]: Bodies fade, but bullet holes and blood spatters from fights remain.
* [[Evil Is Easy]]/[[Being Evil Sucks]]: In a game of [[Black and Gray Morality]], {{spoiler|1=LaCroix and Ming Xiao}} are probably the biggest bastards around. If the player chooses to side with one of them in the last act, he will actually skip one of the two [[Very Definitely Final Dungeon|Very Definitely Final Dungeons]] and also one of two difficult boss battles. Too bad that he will also {{spoiler|get one of two [[Downer Ending|Downer Endings]] so bleak that they're virtually [[Nonstandard Game Over|Non Standard Game Overs]]}}.
* [[Evil Is Petty]]: {{spoiler|Andrei the Sabbat}} loses a few points on the
* [[Evil Tower of Ominousness]]: The Ventrue Tower.
* [[Eye Scream]]: The Blood Dolls kept by the Sabbat have their eyes gouged out.
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** It helps if you know the World of Darkness, where two out any three artifacts that bring you significant power also [[Evil Is Not a Toy|lead you to a bad end, usually sooner rather than later]].
* [[Fan Disservice]]: So why exactly is it that the Clan cursed with perpetual, horrific ugliness has one of the skimpiest wardrobes of all playable characters, their males even dressing in skintight leather gimp suits?
** Nosferatu ''love'' to freak out the norms. Lampshaded by Fat Larry as he refers to the character as a "freaky S an' M gremlin".
** Not to mention when the elegant Ming Xiao becomes a tentacular blob monster.
* [[Fan Sequel]]: The Unofficial Patch focuses on continually adding new features and material to the game. The True Patch focuses only on bugfixes and preserving the original gameplay experience.
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* [[Flat Earth Atheist]]: Grout is convinced that there's a perfectly scientific explanation for vampires and all the supernatural things they can do, despite actually being a vampire. It's implied this is a manifestation of his Malkavian insanity.
* [[Food Chain of Evil]]: Even Nines Rodriguez is terrified of werewolves.
* [[Foreshadowing]]:
** If you ask the thin-blood seer on the beach to predict the future for you, she'll accurately predict the entire course of the game right up until the point where you have to make the choice that determines your ending. The way she describes it is so incredibly obtuse, however, that it sounds like gibberish unless you've already played through the game, in which case you can easily relate the vague imagery to important quests. She's less vague if you ask her who you can trust, her answers obviously meaning no one but Mercurio and Beckett. {{spoiler|Mercurio will support you through the end game if you've been decent to him, and Beckett warns you not to open the sarcophagus when he learns what's in it}}.
** Playing a Malkavian after already finishing the games makes it clear that their dialogue option is full of these.
{{quote|The one who has the pawn will win the whole board.}}
*** You are the [[Wild Card]], and whoever gets you on their side will manage to win the game.
* [[Friendly Neighborhood Vampire]]:
** Isaac, the baron of Hollywood, is a genial fellow who demands respect but gives it back in turn.
** VV in a more take-no-prisoners way.
** It's also surprisingly easy to play as one. It tends to get you more experience, items and allies. However, even the nicest vamps sometimes have to [[Kick the Dog|euthanise a sick puppy]] to avoid breaking the masquerade.
** The Thin Bloods certainly qualify. They just want to hang out on the beach and keep out of the way of the nastier creatures of the night.
* [[Funny Background Event]]: In addition to the [[Artificial Atmospheric Actions]], the various computer terminals scattered throughout the game provide a lot of background information. This ranges from the entertaining (the corporate peon writing his manifesto) to the backstory-explaining (Yukie got to America by pretending to be in a foreign-study program) to the useful (blackmail material).
* [[Furry Fandom]]: Mentioned in passing in the sex shop in Hollywood as the owner lists through the products he sells. It appears the [[Furry Fandom]] is popular enough to have its own porn movies selling in prominent sex shops. [[Did Not Do the Research|They also appear to have it confused with bestiality]].
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* [[Gay Option]]: The [[Player Character]], male or female, has the option of seducing a number of women into willingly giving up their blood. Additionally, regardless of gender, the player can have a sexual encounter with Jennette Voerman. There is an opportunity for male [[Player Characters]] to seduce a stranded yuppie for his blood early on in Santa Monica.
** It's possible to seduce the snobby restaurant critic Tommy Flayton in the ''A Dish Best Served Cold'' quest, regardless of gender, in order to complete to the quest. Afterward, when he offers to take the PC on a dinner date in West Hollywood, the (male) [[Player Character]] [[I Have to Wash My Hair|takes a rain check and promises to call him]].
** The long-running fan-made patches have enabled an option for males to [[Kiss of the Vampire|offer their services]] to Romero in the graveyard just like females can. As well as allowing the [[Player Character]] to actually feed from the aforementioned food critic after seducing him, also regardless of gender.
* [[Genghis Gambit]]: {{spoiler|1=LaCroix makes it look like you set up Anarachist figurehead Nines to get killed, allowing him to unify the Anarchs and Camarilla by making ''you'' a target}}.
* [[Giant Space Flea From Nowhere]]: While almost all of the bosses might ''seem'' to be this, their forms are all actually [[All There in the Manual|listed in the various books for VtM]]. The Sheriff's boss-form has a little [[Artistic License]] though.
* [[Girlish Pigtails]]: Jeanette.
* [[God Was My Co-Pilot]]: {{spoiler|That cab driver who's been ferrying you around all game is implied to be Caine. Especially fun if you play a [[Mad Oracle|Malkavian]]; the character actually figures it out and [[Oh Crap|freaks out]]}}.
** God may be Smiling Jack's drinking buddy, it seems. {{spoiler|Averted in that Gehenna: The Final Night explicitly points out that the Cabbie in Bloodlines is not actually Caine, but a pretender instead}}. Which only happened because fans of the pen and paper rpg complained the game wasn't canon enough. It is true that the identity of the Cabbie is a debated issue, mostly over fans of the game and fans of the Old World of Darkness. {{spoiler|Within the context of the game, Caine being the Cabbie is perfectly logical and heavily implied, while in the actual Old World of Darkness it's quite odd because of differing personalities and that Caine's arrival is supposed to herald alot more then just another Jyhad. And Vice Versa for Caine being an Imposter in the game, which the game ITSELF does not even consider a possibility, while the actual books basically say that Caine being in Los Angeles is an impossibility}}. Regardless, White Wolf has more authority then Troika who made the game, so their explanation would be given more weight, especially in the actual World of Darkness Fanbase. Anyone else is basically out of luck.
* [[Grandma, What Massive Hotness You Have!]]: Beckett and Strauss sometimes get this treatment by the fandom.
* [[Gratuitous Italian]]: Used incorrectly with the Giovanni book "Voce del Morte" (which should be "Voce ''della'' Morte").
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* [[The Guards Must Be Crazy]]: The penalty for criminal trespassing? The police open fire on you on the streets of Los Angeles.
** [[Justified Trope|Then again]] this is the [[Crapsack World|World of Darkness]] so the cops that aren't corrupt have probably learned to shoot first and ask questions later.
* [[Guest Star Party Member]]:
** Barabbas, notably the only time in the game when you actually get anything resembling a party member.
** Also if the player parts with the Japanese Demon Hunter on good terms, she will help you kick some Kuei-Jin ass in the Chinatown Temple level near the end of the game.
* [[Guide Dang It]]: The player has a very small window of opportunity for receiving the body armor, the best clothing item in the game, from Heather. There is no indication in the game that Heather has it (until the player talks to her, which he probably won't since there is no obvious reason to go back and do so) and the window of opportunity is right before {{spoiler|she is killed, making the body armor permanently unavailable}}.
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** [[Mood Swinger]]: With a single dialog option, she can swing from ''"You cammy fuck!"'' to "Hey, you're not so bad after all."
* [[Hammerspace]]: It's unknown where the character can store pistols, shotguns, swords and fire axes on his person even when wearing just a sweatshirt and pants (or in the Malkavian case, nothing at all). This get really ridicolous with the vampire hunter stripper Chastity which is barely in bra and fishnets and yet can pull out a katana from nowhere to hack you.
* [[Happiness in Slavery]]: Your ghoul, Heather. Although her "happiness" is purely artificial and beyond her control. The Blood Bond is a quasi-mystical connection forged from the moment she took her first drink of your blood, and is akin to passive mind control. This is why you'll notice her "loyalty" is almost pathological in nature, and gets more and more obsessive the more blood you feed her over time.
* [[Harmless Freezing]]: The quest with the Wereshark contains large tanks of (presumably) coolant that can be shot, freezing the monster if it is close enough. The freezing itself is harmless and the Wereshark thaws off quickly, but you can unload on it while it's frozen.
** Justified in that were-creatures of most types in the World of Darkness are obscenely resilient to damage, healing just as quickly as they get hurt. The only thing they can't immediately shrug off are wounds caused by fire, silver (or gold in two cases), or the teeth and claws of other supernatural creatures. Freezing a were-creature solid would be a momentary inconvenience at best.
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* [[Interface Spoiler]]. It's best not to play Malkavian for your first run-through. Partly because the jokes are funnier when you know the subtext, but also because Malkavians know the answer before the question is even given. For instance, playing as a Malkavian when dealing with the Voerman twins, he'll flat out tell Jeannette {{spoiler|that he knows she and her sister are two sides of a multiple personality}}... though he'll do it with a weird metaphor about Roman gods.
** There's also the loading-screen tips, which change with each chapter. Many of them have implied spoilers. You've gone through 4/5 of the game without ever seeing a werewolf, and now the loading screen is telling you how fearsome they are? Not too subtle.
* [[Ironic Echo]]: {{spoiler|The last living member of the snuff film producers in Hollywood claim they only killed junkies and runaways, the something of society. The maker of the creatures that killed them claims he made the creatures out of the exact same thing}}.
* [[Irrelevant Sidequest]]: "Sorry Prince, I can't go look for the [[Sealed Evil in a Can]] right now. Some creepy shopkeeper wants me to steal the eyes off a corpse." Though most of them do give you useful cash or items.
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* [[It's Up to You]]: You are apparently the ''only'' agent (or at least the only competent agent) that Sebastian LaCroix has access to, despite his being a Prince, a Ventrue Elder, and rich enough to own the tallest skyscraper in downtown Los Angles. Also, in a city full of vampires that have been around the block a time or three-hundred, only you (a newly turned Childe) can defeat the ghosts/zombie cult/vampire-hunting fanatics/etc.
** One of the [[Let's Play]] articles on this game raises a fair point: {{spoiler|1=LaCroix ''is trying to kill you''. He's sending you on exceedingly dangerous [[Suicide Mission|Suicide Missions]] ever since Nines' protest stopped him from publicly killing you. In his mind: [[Xanatos Gambit|you die, he wins. You succeed, he wins]]. Well, he ''is'' a Ventrue, and most older vampires would likely have the sense not to stick their necks out in the sort of missions you get assigned}}.
* [[I Was Quite a Looker]]: Gary, formerly a famously handsome movie star, and Imalia, once a model, are now Nosferatu, hideously disfigured by their vampiric condition.
** Imalia is understandably bitter about this. Gary seems oddly unbothered (though he's had at least a few decades to adjust).
** Averted with a Nosferatu [[Player Character]], who doesn't seem at all bothered by how they look. Some dialog options even imply that they actually ''enjoy'' it.
* [[Jiggle Physics]]: The game has numerous female models for the player to control, depending on what type of vampire he/she chooses. Oddly, only some of these have jiggle physics... others appear to have breasts made of solid metal.
** Any character with breasts of the "jigging" type can have her breast size adjusted with a console command. Which can be very confusing for those who type in "money 1000" expecting to receive 1000 dollars, only to find that all the women suddenly have ridiculously large polygons protruding from their chests.
* [[Jive Turkey]]: Fat Larry, who would like you to know that that's 'fat' with an F-A-T because he knows he has a weight problem, but just doesn't give a fuck.
* [[Justified Tutorial]]: The [[Player Character]] is turned into a vampire, has his/her sire killed in front of them, is nearly killed him/herself, and is summarily dumped into the street with a "Don't call us, we'll email you." Luckily, Jack is waiting outside. He kindly deigns to teach you how to maul pedestrians for their bodily fluids, as well as how to beat things to death with a tire iron when the Sabbat crash the tutorial.
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* [[Late to the Party]]: Grout's mansion is like this: As the main character begins exploring the [[Malevolent Architecture]] of the mansion in search of Dr. Grout, they come across [[Apocalyptic Log|tape recordings by the Malkavian Primogen]], discussing his condition and history. The further into the mansion you go, the less sane these recordings begin to sound, finally climaxing into some truly epic paranoid rantings {{spoiler|that not only turns out to be utterly true, but utterly justified: by the time you get to the inner sanctum, you find his obviously murdered corpse inside}}.
** And if that's not creepy enough, wait until you see what he meant by "precautions to protect my beloved wife": {{spoiler|her corpse is sealed inside a huge Victorian belljar, surrounded by objects from her childhood and their courtship}}.
* [[Let's Play]]: [[Marik Plays Bloodlines]].
** And in his [[Yu-Gi-Oh!|Marik Ishtar]] voice the entire time.
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* [[MacGuffin]]: The Ankharan Sarcophagus. {{spoiler|Averted in a most hilarious manner in any ending that involves someone opening the thing}}.
* [[The Mad Hatter]]: Malkavians know they're insane, which leads to some amusing dialogue options if the player chooses that clan. For example, instead of telling someone they're crazy, you can say "Your insanity surpasses my own!".
** Usually the alternate dialogue is quite amusing/interesting, but sometimes it can make it hard to tell the difference between the "sure I'll help" and "screw you" dialogue options. Which can be a bit awkward at times. It's best to play through the game as a sane clan first. Interestingly, the Malkavian seems to get more coherent over the course of the game.
* [[Mad Oracle]]: Inspect the Malkavian dialogue options after running through the game, and realize that you're actually guessing at what's going on... ''and almost always right''.
* [[The Mafia]]: The Giovanni, a vampire mob.
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** {{spoiler|1=Lone Wolf/Independent ending: in a particularly ballsy move, you decide not to ally with ''anyone'', instead resolving to make your own path in (un)life. You kill Ming Xiao and the Sheriff, and the confrontation with LaCroix is nearly identical to the good and bad Anarch endings, depending on your choice. In the good ending, Nines offers you a place with the Anarch, but you decline [[Flipping the Bird|most elegantly]] and leave the city for parts unknown}}.
* [[My God, What Have I Done?]]: The Toreadors humanity shifts are always doubled. So they'll probably react like this if they kill an innocent or perform humanity-losing feats.
* [[Mythology Gag]]:
** One of the passwords is "[[Arcanum|Gil Bates]]".
** Venture Tower, Lacroix's base of operations in Downtown L.A, as well as being close to being named Ventrue Tower, looks pretty much as the old V:TES card Ventrue Headquarters did. [https://web.archive.org/web/20140830202025/http://www.vteschecklist.com/images/library_set/card_image/3772/3772-large.jpg Blending in so well].
* [[New Game+]]: Finish the game with any character, then immediately start a new game with a new character with that exact same name, gender and clan. Your character will start out in a grey box-like area where you immediately gain infinite XP, allowing you to max out everything. Leaving the box then starts the game normally. Jack won't call you out on it either, meaning it's either an unintentional bug or an intentional example of this.
* [[The Nicknamer]]: The Malkavian almost refuses to call anybody by their real name.
* [[No Fair Cheating]]: If you cheated your stats higher than possible, before meeting Jack for the first time, he will comment on this and tells you to redo the character creation process fairly; however, you can tell him that it's part of a mod.
** There's a cheat code that allows you to use [[BFS|the Sheriff's Sword]], an item only available by cheating. The item description is "You shouldn't have this".
** On the other hand, in some locations if a "no clipping" cheat code is entered, and the player enters into the area where the TV newscaster is located, quite often a small amount of money can actually be found in the room for pick-up.
* [[Nothing Is Scarier]]: A very good example. There are two levels where you just can't help thinking about dangers you've never seen before that ''must'' wait around the corner. Which never appear. The first one is {{spoiler|Ocean House Hotel, a [[Haunted House]] which actually poses no danger except some "environmental hazards" (like tableware jumping at you, [[Deadly Gas]] or falling elevator)}}, though you can actually see the ghost of the killer stalking you if you look carefully (but he never does anything), and the second is {{spoiler|the [[Abandoned Hospital]], where all the strange events turn out to be the work of a flesh-eating vampire, who is not hostile towards the player}}.
** Though, the second example can be a fairly challenging [[Bonus Boss]] if you happen to be inclined to attack {{spoiler|her}}.
* [[Obfuscating Stupidity]]:
** {{spoiler|Knox can play you like a fiddle}}. That is, unless you can perceive his bullshit (read: your Perception must be three or higher). With enough stats, you can call him on it.
** The Malkavian [[Player Character]] can be a lot more sly than he leads on for his gibbering, sometimes childlike demeanor and as mentioned above, seems to get a bit more lucid as the story get farther in (though the latter may be due to the rush for release).
* [[Obvious Beta]]: A solid case of [[Screwed by the Network|Screwed By The Publisher]]. The one official patch was made pro-bono.
* [[Omnicidal Maniac]]: The plaguebearers. All three of them are good examples of what happens when a vampires humanity is completely abandoned.
* [[Omnicidal Neutral]]: At the end you have to choose whether to side with LaCroix, Strauss, Nines or Ming Xiao; which choices are available depends on their actions up to that point. They always have the option of siding with nobody and taking out both the Camarilla and Kuei-Jin.
* [[One-Letter Name]]: E.
* [[One-Winged Angel]]: {{spoiler|The Hengeyoukai, Andrei's War Form, Ming Xiao's evil blob form, the Gangrel serial killer and The Sheriff's Chiropteran Behemoth}}.
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* [[Pragmatic Adaptation]]: Of the Storyteller roleplaying system. Manipulation, your social dexterity - one of your most important abilities - is used purely to influence your haggling score. And there are no willpower points, virtues, or vices... instead, you have Blood Buff, which is the Storyteller system's spending-blood-to-increase-stats ramped [[Up to Eleven]]. But the degree to which they simplified the system without losing most of the coolness of it makes it a good change in general.
* [[Precision F-Strike]]: Not literally, as there's no swearing involved, but any time the Malkavian [[Player Character]] [[Let's Get Dangerous|gets angry enough to speak straight]], it has much the same effect.
{{quote|'''Malkavian PC, after having been taunted by Gary for a while:''' [[
* [[Psychic-Assisted Suicide]]: The Suicide and Mass Suicide powers of the Dominate discipline. Note that this is mostly there for [[Rule of Cool]], as Tabletop rules explicitly state that you can't use Dominate to order someone to do something that directly goes against their instincts of self-preservation.
* [[Psychotic Smirk]]: Jeanette Voerman.
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* [[Room Full of Crazy]]: The prosthetics lab. Pictures of extreme bondage on the walls with the eyes and mouths crossed out (It's research for torque, apparently), huge bloodstains, torture tools in neat little rows all over the place, and it's such a long area with so many downward staircases and down ramps and side rooms that by the time you fight the guy you're totally freaked out. Which makes him kind of a letdown in the end.
** It's really an interesting bit of meta-horror; the only reason we're not terrified out of our wits by Gimble is that he's bitten off ''way'' more than he can chew.
* [[Rule 34]]: Dear God! Practically ''every single character in the game'' features in ''someone's'' fantasies or artwork. Threesomes of Damsel/Heather/VV, Ming Xiao using her Naughty Tentacles, [[Twincest]] {{spoiler|and [[Screw Yourself]]}} between the Voerman sisters, Venus wearing denim shorts, the blood-stained savagery of shark-toothed Pisha, and even the ''putrid horror of Imalia'' are far from the being only common themes. Even male characters are not immune: there are jokes about [[Flamboyant Gay]] Sebastian LaCroix, [[George Romero]] was made bisexual by the Unofficial Patches, a girl interviewed on the in-game radio wants to have Ash Rivers' [[Dhampir|baby]], while Beckett, Mercurio, Nines Rodriguez, and Smiling Jack simply ''ooze'' with Subpaging raw animal magnetism. The sheer sex appeal of so many gorgeous characters is apparently part of what makes the game a cult classic even years after release.
** [[This Troper]] has even seen a picture involving ''all'' the female cast (both [[Player Character]] and NPC) at once, minus the Nosferatu females, and the Malkavian male [[Player Character]]... though the fact that both Voermann twins are present at once, as well as Heather in both her normal and "gothic" looks, strongly implies the mass lesbian orgy is just a figment of the Malk's demented little mind.
* [[Schmuck Bait]]
* [[Sealed Evil in a Can]]: {{spoiler|Majorly and hilariously subverted at the end}}.
* [[Serial Killer]]:
** Throughout a large portion of the game, there's a destructive serial killer covered by the news. The player eventually has the opportunity to deal with him.
** Dr. Gimble is one of these, but little does he know that the player character is ''far'' more dangerous.
* [[Shout-Out]]: [[Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines/Shout-Out|Has its own subpage]].
* [[Shown Their Work]]: With an [[Rule of Fun|Experience system that makes you as powerful as an Elder vampire in matter of days aside]], ''Bloodlines'' is amazingly faithful to its parent setting and contain more [[Continuity Nod|Continuity Nods]] than you can shake a stick at.
** Also, it's implied that {{spoiler|Caine}} has been lowering your generation to help you out. So even the EXPERIENCE AND DISCIPLINE SYSTEM is explained within the plot.
** Beyond that, one of the designers mentioned in an interview how {{spoiler|Jeanette/Therese developing an alternate personality as a way to cope with childhood sexual abuse is based on the known mechanic of how Dissociative Identity Disorder develops in real life}}.
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* [[Source Music]]: A lot of the game's music is actually heard over in-game radios or being played in clubs.
* [[Spiritual Successor]]: As noted above, both in gameplay and the general feel and atmosphere of the world, the game is strongly modeled on ''[[Deus Ex]]''.
* [[Split Personality Merge]]: {{spoiler|Therese and Jeanette. If you're nice to both of them and have more Persuasion points, you can convince them to work together. [[
* [[Split Personality Takeover]]: {{spoiler|One of the ways the Voerman sisters' problem can be solved: have either Therese or Jeanette shoot the other and kill her, so only one personality is left}}.
* [[Stealth Pun]]: Did you ever notice that the name of the building you know as "The Ventrue tower" is actually spelled "Venture tower"?
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* [[Super Not-Drowning Skills]]: Vampires don't need to breathe, though there are only a few parts with swimmable water anyway.
** It is enough to turn the {{spoiler|Kuei-Jin ending}} from a [[Family-Unfriendly Death]] to a [[Fate Worse Than Death]] though.
* [[Take That]]:
** When asked to confess his or her darkest secret, one of the confessions the player can choose is having "voted Republican".
** Velvet tells you of a human she knows writing a movie script about "secret societies" of things that go bump in the night and powerful elders ruling the world from behind closed doors. It's blatantly obvious that what she's really saying is "this human is being fed information on our society and is writing a movie about it." One of your possible responses is, "What? He's writing a movie about the [[George W. Bush|Bush Administration]]?".
** Two to Valve Software, who requested the game be delayed so that Half-Life 2 would be the first game on the market using the Source engine, as computer passwords in the museum: valveleaks, steamblows. Kinda ironic given that it's now sold on Steam, but hey.
* [[Talkative Loon]]: The Malkavian [[Player Character]]'s dialog, sadly unvoiced as they're the best lines in the game.
* [[That Man Is Dead|That Woman Is Dead]]: Talking to Velvet Velour as a Malkavian lets you ask her why she doesn't use her real name {{spoiler|Susan}}. Velvet reacts by speaking coldly about {{spoiler|Susan}} in the third person as a "weak woman who died".
** You can also invoke it literally when attempting to convince Samantha (a friend from your living days) that you're not... you.
* [[Too Dumb to Live]]:
** There's a thin blood on the beach at Santa Monica who can be talked into handing over his money in exchange for 'special gum for vampire teeth', 'unicorn blood' (i.e. ordinary blood packs) for a blood transfusion and the 'holy stake' (i.e. a random piece of debris on the beach) to kill the "head vampire". Once you've sold him all this with a minimal persuasion check, he'll cheerfully run off on a suicide mission against either LaCroix, Nine Rodriguez, or the President of the United States, depending on who you've pegged as the "head vampire". Even if you hadn't come along and conned him, it's hard to imagine his life expectancy among the undead would have been very long.
** Helping the {{spoiler|Kuei-Jin}}. Of course, you can't die so you just end up living forever {{spoiler|in a box beneath the ocean}}.
** Prince LaCroix, as well.
** None of the factions can really match the utter foolishness of the Society of Leopold. Not only do their 'field agents' dress like your typical cliche ''[[Old World of Darkness]]'' character (literally a trenchcoat and a katana), making them stand out like sore thumbs, their base is littered with ammocrates not seen in any other base (not even the sabbat) ripe for anyone to shoot everybody to hogh heaven. The actions of the hunters are also so stupid, it gets lampshaded. But the best example of their foolishness has to be their laser trip-wires, while one might expect the lasers to simply warn the hunters, instead, they are explosive rigged. And why would people fighting against vampires allow their own laser tripwires to be easily toggled between being triggered by vampires (room temperature) and humans (body temperature)? Of course, it could just be [[Law of Conservation of Detail]] and the player character actually does something more complicated to change the settings than pick one in a menu.
* [[Transformation Trauma]]: {{spoiler|1=Ming Xiao = [[The Blob]]}}.
* [[Troll]]:
** Andrei, of all people, calls into ''The Deb of Night'' and trolls the host in one of the late-game broadcasts. He does this by speaking entirely truthfully (or at least the truth as he sees it) about current events the regular humans don't see, mostly signs of Gehenna.
** Gorgeous Gary hasn't evolved beyond the joys of trolling either, boss.
* [[Tsundere]]: She's no ones [[Love Interest]] by any means, but Damsel is a cute example of this trope that cosists of 97% tsuntsun and 3% deredere. {{spoiler|If you go anarch in the finale, and Damsel sees you survived the werewolf attack, she honestly sounds like she wants to hug you... for a fraction of a second}}.
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** For all final levels too. There is a plethora of ways to get through first quests, including talking your way through half of them. But the final quests are always a massacre, and if you can't fight, you are screwed.
* [["Wake-Up Call" Boss]]: The "Cathayan" ([[All There in the Manual|a Kindred-coined term for the Kuei-jin]], [[Fridge Brilliance|which no self-respecting Kuei-jin would ever use]]) in the Santa Monica warehouse side-quest qualifies. If your character is combat-oriented, however, he is fairly easy to kill without giving it much thought; in this case, the [["Wake-Up Call" Boss]] would be [[Sinister Minister|Bishop Vick]].
* [[We Do the Impossible]]: The reason LaCroix uses the [[Player Character]].
* [[Weird Moon]]: In the World of Darkness, the moon's craters resemble not so much a [[The Man in the Moon|face]] or a [[Moon Rabbit|rabbit]], but a skull.
* [[White Dwarf Starlet]]:
** Gary Golden is an arguable example of a male version of this. His career was abruptly ended by his transformation into a hideous Nosferatu and now he lives in the sewers, dressed in a tuxedo and surrounded by decaying relics of his [[Glory Days]], including two corpses stuffed into costumes.
** And Ash, who used to be an actor but now can not act as he's a vampire. He's become a club owner and minor celebrity. Not as bad as Gary perhaps, but a lot more Angst.
* [[Why Don't Ya Just Shoot Him]]?: Inverted, averted, subverted, justified aaaand played straight in the scene with the Mandarin. The player is trapped in a nigh inpregnable test facility by the Mandarin, with the aim of finding out the limits of vampire powers and resilience. [[Inverted Trope|To get out, you do shoot/eat him]]. [[Averted Trope|A squad of mooks do attempt to shoot you in one of the tests]]. [[Subverted Trope|To progress, you do have to shoot parts of the environment]]. [[Justified Trope|Shooting you wouldn't be nearly as informative as testing the character's resilience to UV, flame, spinning blades]], [[Double Subversion|bullets]] [[Justified Trope|and some more flame]]. Finally, when you escape, the [[Smug Snake|Mandarin]] does attempt to shoot you. Revenge is [[Incredibly Lame Pun|delicious]].
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* [[You Bastard]]: Some quest log entries will check you out, for instance, if you let the [[Serial Killer]] go without talking him out of it first, the questlog will aks if you're feeling proud of yourself now.
* [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness]]: {{spoiler|The Kuei-Jin ending}}.
* [[You Kill It, You Bought It]]: Dialogue implies that {{spoiler|
* [[Your Vampires Suck]]
* [[You Suck]]: Humorously, this can be done by the player; depending on who he/she sides with at the end of the game. Should one decide to [[Screw This, I'm Outta Here|go it alone]], you even get to do it to all the major factions who have tried to use you throughout; [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge|and]] [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|it]] [[Earthshattering Kaboom|is]] ''[[Flipping the Bird|glorious]]''.
** And, well, this ''is'' a game about vampires
* [[Zombie Apocalypse]]: Averted hard: the CDC has the outbreak pretty firmly locked down by the time you show up. The only reason you care, in fact, is not that that the zombies might get out and spread, but rather that the CDC might do ''such a good job dealing with the zombies'' that they could figure out who - or rather what - is really behind it.
** There is another one in the cemetery that one ghoul is containing by himself. If you agree to cover for him, the task is almost impossible as their numbers increase exponentially trying to break down two separate gates it takes time to travel between. Makes you wonder how Romero was able to hold the line all by himself, night after night.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Survival Horror]]
[[Category:Vampire Fiction]]
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[[Category:Western RPG]]
[[Category:Action RPG]]
[[Category:Video Game]]
[[Category:Licensed Game]]
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