Hurray stealth. I’m not sure watching people stealth is even half as engaging as actually playing the stealth can be, but that is frankly true of a lot of gameplay mechanics (which is why I prefer my Let’s Plays in narrative or commentary form).
I recently re-re-re-re-replayed this game, mostly in anticipation of posting this particular episode because I wanted to test if what I said was true. It is not. Gangrel do not have any tools to aid them with stealth (which makes stealthing this particular quest impossible, as they cannot get past that one guy having a smoke); while their “crows” ability does distract enemies, due to it violating the Masquerade, it draws attention nevertheless and thus doesn’t allow it to be used as Exetera used Trance here. Which makes the ability almost completely useless, to be frank.
In terms of stealth mechanics, Nosferatu and Malkavians have it easiest, as both possess Obfuscate, a Discipline that essentially makes you invisible (the in-universe explanation is it’s actually an SEP field, a la the HHGTG). Ventrue and Tremere come next, as Dominate has the nice Trance ability to let you disable particularly observant guards (Dementation has a similar ability, which may actually make stealthing as a Malkavian even easier.) The Toreador and Brujah have a fairly hard time, having to rely on the great speed that Celerity offers or the chance that their Presence will render guards mesmerised.
As mentioned, the Gangrel have absolutely no supernatural tools to help them with stealth – though given their Disciplines (the shapeshifting Protean, the combative Animalism, and the tanking Fortitude) Gangrel play is much more suited to a straight-forward “kill everything” approach, which suits the animalistic Gangrel anyway.
Does a Gangrel player still have Bloodbuff to help him out though?
Yes, all playable clans have Bloodbuff.
Also, Malkavians have the Dementation ability Hysteria, which does almost the same thing as Trance. Only situationally useful when Obfuscate is an option(i.e. both Obfuscate and Dementation level one, need to get past stationary guard), but it’s there.
So, Malkavians seem to be the most stealthy vampires.
Having never played this game, and knowing very little about the VTM tabletop, it was nice to be able to watch an episode straight through without having to worry about trying to follow NPC conversations and commentator conversations at the same time. So yeah I “enjoyed” waching the stealth…
Most Let’s plays I’ve come across at least have commentary from the player. Something without commentary would fall into a different category altogether I would think like a speed run or something. I remember seeing some youtube comments to the effect that if you call it a let’s play, it implies there will be commentary, but that was in youtube comments, so take that with a grain of salt.
I should have specified group commentary, because the conversational dynamic is interesting. I prefer to read a single person’s thoughts rather than listen to them.