I've been poring my old character notes for my past Second Edition Vampire: The Masquerade campaign, and I realized what really bothered me about the setting - more than outdated stereotypes proper.
It's the concept that the Blood overpowers all attempts at addressing the Camarilla's needs rationally. Assume I'm playing as a Nosferatu and that my Coterie includes a Brujah, a Gangrel, a Toreador and a Malkavian. One of the supposed hooks of Masquerade as a setting is that everyone mistrusts everyone else, and that the Blood of Cain sort of pushes even outwardly-kind natures towards various forms of contempt for other Clans.
I've always found that the Cleopatra hook, for instance, is selling human psychology short. If I get turned into a fugly supernatural pariah, I probably won't resent my genetically-related undead Ken and Barbie dolls if they're civil while dealing with me. It's not like anyone's Embrace involves entering a store where you're matched with a Bloodline by the Tim Gunn of Undeath, after all.
It's made me wince a few times while playing Bloodlines, seeing as starting as a Toreador means that the Nosferatu Primogen will instantly dislike you. He's never met you, he's only seen you once before in the opening cutscene and never spoke to you - but you're Toreador, and the very fact that you're visually appealing makes his blood boil.
All the while, I'm just sitting here thinking "I don't know my own guy's backstory! What if I wasn't Embraced because of my looks?! What if I have something else to offer and I just happened to look classically pretty?" I get that humans can be petty and that V:tM really focuses on humanizing our monsters, but if you were Embraced as a good person, I'm probably stupid enough to think that some of that would remain - especially on such a short span of time as Bloodlines' main story arc.
Considering, it's no wonder my own efforts as Storyteller made the traditionalists in my circle cry foul: I was dead-set on creating a world populated by monsters who could at least apply some cogent reasoning behind their hatred, as opposed to the bog-standard "The Blood compels me to".
It's just dumb, honestly. At least Warhammer 40000 is smart enough to realize that the Imperium of Man's societal conditioning is entirely and completely batshit - and to revel in that satire.
