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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 [[
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.
''Bloodlines'' was also the first game to make use of the licensed [[Half Life|Source engine]] from Valve and was technically the first Source engine game completed, but part of their licensing agreement prohibited the game from being released before ''Half Life 2
{{tropelist}}
* [[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]]:
{{quote|
* [[Affectionate Parody]]: The short-skirted katana-wielding young Japanese demon hunting girl Yukie you meet in Chinatown and the [[Werewolf: The Apocalypse|wereshark]] seem to be some kind of affectionate parody of anime/manga in general, if not anything more specific. The ''"I'm bet you're glad that thing didn't have tentacles"'' dialogue option seems to confirm this.
** Debatable. She's an example of an actual type of oWoD hunter
* [[A.I. Is a Crapshoot]]: In the sewer level, a blue screen of death texture on the computer that controls the entrance to the Nosferatu Warrens states that computers will take over the world and that the user should send it money. Although that was probably just Mitnick's attempt at a joke.
* [[Ain't Too Proud to Beg]]: {{spoiler|1=Sebastian LaCroix}}, in all but one of the endings.
* [[Air Vent Passageway]]: Though vents are more of an alternate way of getting places rather than required paths. They are often a means for the hideously deformed Nosferatu to get into places that more human-looking vampires would enter through the front door.
* [[AKA-47]]: For the record, here is a list of all fictionalized (or not) firearms in the game and their [[Real Life]] counterparts:
** Pistols:
*** Thirty-Eight—Colt Police Positive.
*** Brokk 17C—Glock 17C.
*** Colt Anaconda—Colt Anaconda.
*** McLusky .50 Caliber—IMI Desert Eagle.
** SMG:
*** Braddock 9mm—MAC-10.
*** Lassiter Killmatic—Uzi.
** Shotguns:
*** Utica M37—Ithaca 37.
*** Jaegerspas XV—Franchi SPAS-15.
** Rifles:
*** Jaime Sue—Remington Model 700.
*** Steyr Aug—Steyr AUG.
* [[All for Nothing]]: [[Canon|Canonically]], it doesn't really matter ''what'' you do, as {{spoiler|the world is about to end anyway, and there's nothing you can do about it}}. Note that White Wolf's stance on their own canon is "ignore what you don't like", and many ''Bloodlines'' players implicitly ignore this.
* [[Alliterative Name]]: Velvet Velour.
* [[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,
* [[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
* [[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.
* [[Biological Mashup]]: The spider-creatures in the sewer; they're actually mashups of ''{{spoiler|multiple human women}}''.
** One of which was pregnant. ''Was''.
* [[Bi the Way]]: Jeanette and Velvet. Also the main character if female.
** The vast majority of females. And a very few males.
* [[Black and Grey Morality]]: As fitting for the World of Darkness.
* [[Black Comedy]]
* [[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 Horror]]: Headrunners. Spider Creations. Belials. [[Complete Monster|Andrei]] the Tzimisce.
* [[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
** "[[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 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.
** At the beginning of the museum mission, if you give him a hard time and refuse to accept it, he will just have the Sheriff throw you out of his office. If you go back up to the penthouse, he will just tell you that the car is waiting and everything resumes like you never made a fuss about it.
* [[Cat Scare]]: Used several times in the [[Hell Hotel]] level and the Natural History Museum level.
** Those horrible heads with arms. As if jumping out of every conceivable hiding space (and several ridiculous ones) wasn't enough, they scream horribly and suddenly while doing it.
* [[Character Level]]: Averted, XP is spent directly on attributes.
* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: A few more literal examples than usual: there's a knife on the Prince's table the whole game. {{spoiler|It gets used in two of the endings, by you
* [[Chekhov's Gunman]]:
* [[The Chessmaster]]: Several of the NPCs are using the
* [[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
* [[Cosmetic Award]]: A certain series of missions rewards the player with nothing but posters. Other quests also have effects minimal enough to bring their purpose into question.
* [[Cosmic Horror]]: There's ''something'' down in the Hollywood sewers, other than vampires and their work, judging by the abandoned logs of the supervisors. What is it? [[Nothing Is Scarier|You never find out
** {{spoiler|Though the implication is the Nosferatu did it
*** There are references to Bloody handprints and something animal-like in the sewers. It's likely what the sewer-workers saw was simply {{spoiler|Andrei's creations
* [[Covers Always Lie]]: Jeanette is purposeful for only a small portion of the game.
* [[Cultural Posturing]]: Ming Xiao is rather un-subtle in posturing about just how much better Kuei-Jin are to Kindred. If you play a Malkavian, you can throw her superiority about lacking "childish Caine superstitions" right back at her by name-dropping the big bad bogeymen of the [[All There in the Manual|Kindred of the East]], like the Yama Kings and the Demon Emperor of the Sixth Age. Which freaks her out royally as, in their own worldview, the Fifth Age is about to end.
* [[Cursed with Awesome]]: There's a few vampires that quite explicitly state they are very happy with their deal, noting that they have a shot at immortality complete with superpowers so long as they stay out of the sun.
** Mitnick, the Nosferatu hacker, being the prime example. He states outright that his embrace was the best thing that's ever happened to him
** Most ghouls feel basically the same way. They have weaker powers and have to rely on a long-term relationship with a vampire, but they tan.
* [[Dark Action Girl]]: All female
* [[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}}.
** Interestingly enough, {{spoiler|Therese always stands on the left side of the room's screen, as in left-brain, and Jeanette always stands on the right. When she's having her [[Freak-Out]], she stands in the middle}}.
** There's a [[Foreshadowing|subtle warning]] - for anyone who's paid close attention or knows the setting - that there's more than mere sibling rivalry at play because {{spoiler|one of the sisters mentions having Embraced the other, which means they can't be of different clans}}.
** If you are a Malkavian, {{spoiler|you know from the spot that they are the same person}}, though it is cleverly hidden in the very colorful speech and almost impossible to get during your first playthrough. The Malkavian {{spoiler|calls Jeanette and Therese the white and black daughter of Janus respectivly. Janus is a roman god with two faces}}.
* [[Disposable Sex Worker]]: Played pretty much straight. It's hardly a ''good'' idea to go around murdering prostitutes, but the consequences are entirely personal, not because anyone, you know, cares about the prostitute. If you remember to stop just before they cork it, you can go on a cheery prostitute-drinking spree to no penalties whatsoever.
* [[Door to Before]]: After you finally get through [[Scrappy Level|the Sewers]] into the Nosferatu hideout, you find a door that leads you straight back to Hollywood.
* [[Double Agent]]: Not only possible, but recommended, especially for the quest "Fun With Pestilence/A Plague for the Angels". That way, you get respect from both factions, double the experience, ''and'' an extremely useful magic item.
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* [[Dronejam]]: Can happen obnoxiously often with the wandering [[NPC|NPCs]]. If you're a Ventrue or Malkavian, you can use Suicide or Vision of Death to take them out without violating the masquerade, which is ''very'' satisfying.
** This will cost you Humanity in the unofficial Fan Patches, so you might want to use Suicide or Vision of Death as a very last resort. The jam will clear if you wait a few seconds.
* [[Dual Boss]]: [[Chinese Vampire|A pair of Kuei-Jin]], Claw Brother and Blade Brother.
* [[Dude, Where's My Respect?]]: Just because you're supremely competent and capable of defeating supernatural horrors centuries older than yourself, don't expect that every other vampire (and a good number of humans) in the city will think twice about considering you their personal errand boy/girl. Some of the dialogue options [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshade]] this.
{{quote|
** This eventually gets inverted later on, as the elders running the city start noticing how this days-old neonate manages to defeat things it should, by all rights, be insta-dusted by, and start treating you as someone they want on ''their'' side... or as someone they want ashed and out of the way before you can start biting the hands that feed you. Considering the ''modus operandi'' of the average elder, this is as close to a compliment as you're likely to get.
* [[Earn Your Happy Ending]]: There are five endings, but four of them require you to fulfill certain requirements such as completing certain missions in a certain way or being polite to certain NPC's. Also, there are two [[Very Definitely Final Dungeon|final dungeons]] in the game, each with a very tough boss at the end. Two of the endings allow you to skip one of them. Both of those endings feature your character getting royally screwed over.
* [[Easily Forgiven]]:
* [[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
* [[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]],
* [[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.
* [[Failure Is the Only Option]]: To get the good ending. Any [[Genre Savvy]] player knows that if a [[MacGuffin]] [[Upgrade Artifact|promises power]], then the [[Big Bad]] will use it to become either [[Nonstandard Game Over|undefeatable]] or [[One-Winged Angel|much harder to kill]]. Since any clues otherwise are ambiguously presented, either weakly worded or emphasize the [[Big Bad]]'s threat, what's the choice a smart gamer will make? Why, reload your save and pick the stupid option next time, of course.
** 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.
* [[Fan Service]]: The "posters" quests, whose only purpose is to give players the pictures of four hot NPCs chicks on the wall of their haven.
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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.
** Playing a Malkavian after already finishing the games makes it clear that their dialogue option is full of these.
{{quote|
*** 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
* [[Gainaxing]]: The female Malkavian. Also Jeannette, Venus and Velvet. It's played for [[Nightmare Fuel]] with the "Spider Creation"'s pendulous breasts.
* [[Gameplay and Story Integration]]: If you get Beckett to teach you about stuff, you'll get relevant stat bonuses. It's possible to get a bonus to Research by talking about possible origins of vampires, as well as an extra point to a displine if you're playing a Gangrel.
{{quote|
* [[Gay Option]]: The
** 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)
** 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").
* [[Gratuitous Japanese]]: Yukie
* [[Gratuitous Russian]]: By mafiya goons, used apparently correctly.
* [[Grievous Harm with a Body]]: If the player goes to the heart of his sanctum, the insane prosthesis maker Dr. Gimble attacks him/her with a severed arm. After defeating him, he/she can then equip it and use it as a weapon. [[Gameplay and Story Segregation|No pedestrians will look twice at you for walking down the street with a severed arm in your hand
** Incidentally, as Dr. Gimble himself has a prosthetic arm (and in fact according to one dialogue option admits the injury was self-inflicted), it's entirely possible the arm he was hitting you with... was his own.
** Another severed arm can be found in the Hollywood sewers.
** If you're a Tremere with level 5 Thaumaturgy, meaning Blood Boil, you can burst people into bloody piles of body pieces, and from some of those piles you can obtain a severed arm as well. Very neat indeed.
** The closest thing the [[One-Winged Angel|Hengeyokai]] can do is to throw huge, frozen tuna at you.
** In the Nosferatu Warrens, the first "Tzimisce Spider Creation" encountered ''throws corpses at you'''.
** The Chiropteran Behemoth picks up random NPCs off the street below and hurls them at you. ''That's'' going to be hard to explain without breaking [[The Masquerade]].
* [[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}}.
* [[Gun Fu]]: Toreador have a natural talent for this since all their diciplines enhance gunplay nicely. And since combat becomes more prominent as the game progresses, it's highly recommended not to ignore your gun skills for too long.
* [[Hair-Trigger Temper]]: Damsel. The [[Player Character]] can even tell her something along the lines of "Did you know you have easily pressed [[Berserk Button|buttons]]?".
** [[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.
* [[Hell Hotel]]: The Santa Monica Ocean House Hotel was the site of the violent murder of a family by their father, and is still haunted by his and his terrorized wife's ghosts.
* [[Hellish Pupils]]: Beckett has these, but subverts the common intent of them by not being ''nasty'' per say so much as snarky. "Gleam of the Red Eyes
* [[Hero of Another Story]]: Beckett. He indeed is a prominent character in old-VtM backstory, participating in many high-profile events. In the game, he shows up from time to time to give player an occasional quest or piece of advice {{spoiler|including a critical one towards the end}}, but is mostly absent on those other adventures of his.
* [[Hot-Blooded]]: Every single Brujah. The ones who appear calm at first are inevitably [[Hair-Trigger Temper|easy to piss off]]. This makes them both [[Badass]] and [[Man Child|irritating]].
* [[I Hate You, Vampire Dad]]: Ash hates his sire, who rescued him after he almost died of a drug overdose, but this action rendered him unable to act, leaving him unfulfilled. It's extra heartstring-tugging because his sire Isaac is a kind, sentimental man who refuses to give up on Ash's wellbeing.
* [[Ill Girl]]: Heather Poe, when you first meet her, although she was technically hit by a car.
** If you look in the computers at the clinic, you can see that they had time to diagnose and document her "lacerations, organ damage, and internal bleeding" but not enough time to cure her, but then again she's lucky to have survived the car crash at all. Doctor St. Martin mentions that they have way too many patients and that he's working on someone who was shot in the head, but still...
* [[Implacable Man]]: The Werewolf. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead... er. Or escape. {{spoiler|Or use a game guide
* [[Improbable Power Discrepancy]]: In a few nights, the player is able to gain sufficient experience to overpower vampires ''hundreds'' of years his/her senior. Justified by the player's character being an 8th generation Kindred, which would explain great inherent power--there's also heavy implications that ''someone''
:If LaCroix's failure to Dominate you isn't simply narrative convenience, then one interpretation is that your generation has dropped sharply since you saw him last. Even Andrei thinks something's up with you: {{spoiler|"I recognized the smell of your blood, young Cainite--very potent, greater than our last meeting. I could smell it, even over the flood of my fallen brethren. Doesn't that make you wonder?"}}
* [[Incendiary Exponent]]: At one point in the story, you can get set on fire repeatedly. Doing so drains your health bar rapidly (vampires are especially susceptible to fire), but touching human enemies while ablaze kills them immediately. Also, the image of a crazed Malkavian wielding a fire axe, while on fire, bursting out of an upstairs mansion window is [[Rule of Cool|absolutely awesome]].
* [[Infinity+1 Sword]]: The Tal'mahe'ra Blade, a mystical katana which deals aggravated damage. Can be found [[Lost Forever|once]] in the "Hell at the Hotel Hallowbrook" miniquest, along with her gun equivalent, the Flamethrower.
* [[Informed Flaw]]: It is actually quite hard to violate the masquerade by running around the streets as a Nosferatu so long as you watch where you're going. People don't seem to notice anything until you're close enough for them to smell your breath.
* [[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
** 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.
* [[It's All Upstairs From Here]]:
* [[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
* [[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.
**
* [[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
* [[Karma Meter]]: Two
* [[Karmic Death]]: Phil, The [[Butt Monkey]] assistant at the blood bank
** This is very likely to be your character's fate if you are too much of a bastard, since you
* [[Katanas Are Just Better]]: One of the best melee weapons in game.
* [[Kick the Dog]]: The fate of your ghoul if they remain with you late in the game.
* [[Killed to Uphold the Masquerade]]: Several characters get too close to the truth or threaten to reveal the existence of vampires, and it's up to you to take care of the problem. Some of them you can let go; others have to die. {{spoiler|Bizarrely, and in an extremely meta moment, Mercurio also suggests this is the reason for Troika's closing
* [[Kill It with Fire]]: The flamethrower is the absolute best weapon in the game. Pity you get it so late, and its ammo is so rare, expensive
** Fire is also one of your main weaknesses. Will be used against you from time to time.
* [[Knight Templar]]: Bach and the Society of Leopold as a whole.
* [[Lady Not-Appearing-In-This-Game]]: Jeanette Voerman is featured on the cover and promotional material despite her minor role in the game.
* [[Large Ham]]: ''Beckett'' has a habit of making ''everything'' sound like he's... ''OVERLY''... sarcastic. ''Eveeeeeen'' when he's ''not''.
** Gary, possibly justified since he used to be a movie star capable of drawing the attention of vampires.
** Grünfeld Bach, that guy is about as subtle as a tactical nuke.
** Andrey makes it a point to turn every single line he speaks into a work of fine art.
** Lacroix tends to get pretty melodramatic whenever he contemplates the burdens of leadership.
* [[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
** And if that's not creepy enough, wait until you see what he meant by "precautions to protect my beloved wife"
* [[Let's Play]]: [[Marik Plays Bloodlines]].
** And in his [[Yu-Gi-Oh!|Marik Ishtar]] voice the entire time.
Line 285 ⟶ 270:
* [[Limp and Livid]]: Gangrels when using Protean.
* [[Looks Like Orlok]]: The members of the Nosferatu clan.
* [[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.
{{quote|'''Gary Golden''': Spaghetti and corpses, boss.}}
* [[The
* [[Malaproper]]: The Malkavian [[Player Character]].
* [[The Masquerade]]: Obviously.
* [[The Maze]]: To a small extent, part of the sewers on the way to the Nosferatu hideout.
* [[Mismatched Eyes]]: Jeanette (blue/green), Mr. Ox (grey/amber), the Malkavian [[Player Character]] (blue/brown) and the Nosferatu [[Player Character]] (blue/brown).
* [[Mugging the Monster]]: Oh, Gimble, you really picked the wrong guy to try and murder.
* [[Multiple Endings]]: Depending on your choices, there can be several different endings:
** {{spoiler|1=LaCroix ending:
**
**
** {{spoiler|1=Anarch ending:
** {{spoiler|1=Lone Wolf/Independent ending:
* [[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]]:
** Though, the second example can be a fairly challenging [[Bonus Boss]] if you happen to be inclined to attack
* [[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
* [[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
** Protean disciplines allow the player to do this.
* [[Only Sane Man]]: Compared to much of her caller base, radio hostess [[Show Within a Show|"The Deb of Night"]] combines this with a [[Deadpan Snarker]] approach; even when [[Cassandra Truth|unknowingly interacting with actual elements of the World of Darkness
* [[Our Vampires Are Different]]: Goes with being part of ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade]]''.
* [[The Password Is Always Swordfish]]: In every computer you hack, you find them. So much, in fact, that if you have a password list handy, you don't even need to spend points to raise your Hacking feat.
* [[Pineapple Surprise]]: "Nines" Rodriguez saves the [[Player Character]] from a gang of Sabbat shovelheads by threatening them with a grenade.
* [[Point and Click Map]]: The taxi/sewer map which serves to leave the current district.
* [[Power Born of Madness]]: Malkavians, obviously. Their powers range from seeing bits from the past and future to being able to induce their insane thoughts into anyone they choose, provided it's not a very powerful or strong willed individual.
* [[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
* [[Precision F-Strike]]: Not literally, as there's no swearing involved, but any time the Malkavian
{{quote|
* [[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.
* [[Puzzle Boss]]: The werewolf in Griffith Park is completely invincible, so you can either evade it until the tram returns (thankfully, it's not very smart, although it can tear doors to pieces, leading to hilarious [[Oh Crap]] moments) or you can find another way to deal with it...
* [[Ragdoll Physics]]: So much so that enemies go flying at even a single hit and you'll often have to wait for them to get up just to hit them again.
* [[Replay Value]]: Immense due to the fact playing a different faction of vampire changes the game noticable, with the Malkavian option nearly turning the entire game into a bizarro alternate universe. There are also numerous endgames possible depending who you ally with at the end.
* [[Revolvers Are Just Better]]: Subverted. The .38 revolver has very poor accuracy and does low damage, though this could possibly be attributed to the game engine.
* [[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
* [[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}}.
* [[Signs of the End Times]]: This game runneth over with all kinds of approaching apocalypse signs. {{spoiler|Turns out, most of them are fake or just misinterpreted, even though the Gehenna really is approaching fast}}.
* [[Slobs Versus Snobs]]: The preoccupied-with-beauty Toreador versus the clobbered-with-an-ugly-stick Nosferatu. Also, the Ventrue "blue bloods" versus the Brujah "rabble".
** If you're playing a Toreador, the first thing out of your mouth upon first seeing Gary is "you are the vilest creature I've ever seen" despite he being downright ''handsome'' by Nosferatu standards. This comes after Gary informs you that:
{{quote|I want to stick your lovely face in a piranha tank; I want to apply an acid glaze to your sculptured body; I want to throw your pocket mirror under a thresher and watch you fetch it.}}
* [[Smug Snake]]: {{spoiler|1=LaCroix}} is a perfect example of this trope: a powerful, cunning, self-satisfied individual who is clearly a [[Magnificent Bastard]] wannabe... but somehow doesn't appear to be really up for the role, often losing his cool and being generally distrusted or despised by pretty much every other NPC in the game, good or evil. It's worth noting that in spite of being the [[Big Bad]] in almost every ending, he is not even worth a boss fight... you face his [[The Dragon|Dragon]] instead.
* [[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
* [[Stealth Pun]]: Did you ever notice that the name of the building you know as "The Ventrue tower" is actually spelled "Venture tower"?
* [[Straw Critic]]: The Toreador, as ever. "Who's going to organize art shows without the Camarilla? You? Free mud wrestling for everyone!"
* [[Stripperiffic]]: The female Malkavian's armor graphics are all literally stripper outfits. Somehow, this manages to be [[Fan Disservice|more disturbing than erotic
* [[Suicide Mission]]: {{spoiler|1=Prince LaCroix keeps sending the player on Suicide Missions to get rid of you without sparking a civil war with the Anarchs
* [[Sunglasses
* [[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
* [[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
* [[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
* [[Twist Ending]]: {{spoiler|1=In the independent and Anarch endings, you hand LaCroix the key to the Ankharan Sarcophagus if your humanity's up to snuff (probably realizing that thing contains more trouble than it's worth). When he opens it to diablerize the ancient vampire within, the box contains... Half a ton of C4, a timer counting down from '5', and a note saying "BOOM! :) Love, [[Magnificent Bastard|Jack]]". Cue maddened laughter from LaCroix, and likely from the player too
* [[Undeathly Pallor]]: Naturally. Vampires are gray, largely since the standard Caucasian mortal model is pretty pale already.
* [[Underground Level]]: The Nosferatu hideout, after the sewers, though it is not so much a level as it is a town.
* [[Ungrateful Bastard]]: Kiki, a girl that got kidnapped by the Tong crime gang; as you brave gunfire to reach her prison which is a boarded up closet, all she does is scream at you and call you all sorts of names even after finding out you're not part of the Tong. It gets to the point where you can basically tell her "Shut up or I'll shove your ass back in that closet."
* [[The Uriah Gambit]]: There are several characters who would quite like to kill you, but can't for political reasons; so they send you on suicide missions instead. Most notably, Ming Xiao (it's not personal; she just hates your species) and {{spoiler|1=Prince LaCroix, whose pride was hurt when Nines interrupted your execution
* [[Vampires Own Nightclubs]]: "Asylum", owned by Therese and Jeanette Voerman, "[[Stealth Pun|Asp Hole]]", owned by Ash, "Vesuvius", (a strip club) owned by Velvet Velour, and "Confession", which can be co-owned by the [[Player Character]].
* [[Vampire Vords]]: Only one character speaks with such an accent.
* [[Viewer-Friendly Interface]]: Averted completely, and arguably ''inverted''. All the accessible computers in the game work by command line interface.
* [[Villainous Breakdown]]: LaCroix has a
* [[Violence Is the Only Option]]: For the [[Scrappy Level]], unsurprisingly.
** 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
* [[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]]:
*
** 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]].
* [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity]]: The Malkavians. Some less than others, but all inevitably have at least one mental illness. Of course, some might not even seem insane, but the player is one of the worse cases. Which, considering the dialogue you get, is [[Hilarity Ensues|pretty funny]].
* [[The Wonka]]: Only the wisest of vampires understand that Malkavians are not [[Cloudcuckoolander|Cloud Cuckoolanders]], but [[The Cuckoolander Was Right|they have supreme insight]]... they just don't communicate it well.
* [[Xanatos Gambit]]: There is literally no possible ending to the game that does not go {{spoiler|1=exactly as Jack and Caine planned it. LaCroix ''will'' die, whether by C4 or by execution}}.
* [[Yes but What Does Zataproximetacine DO]]: '''WARNING:''' The Surgeon General Has Determined That Cigarette Smoking Can Cause Cancer, Lung Disease, Emphysema, Diarrhea, Jock Itch, VD, Alien Invasion, Swamp Foot and May Lead to the Death of Cute Little Puppies.
* [[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|you will become the new Sheriff if you side with the Camarilla and defeat LaCroix}}.
* [[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.
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