I own all the stuff so far for Vampire the Masquerade 5e but it has been months since my initial read-through of the material. I remember having the impression upon first read through that I was surprised at the number of rules, especially for vampires and how they operate (Blood Resonance and Blood Humors being one big one.) I remember though that the game makes some things modular.
I want to run a mostly narratively driven game with rolls for things like skill checks and combat mostly. How crunchy do you all feel VtM 5e is and what parts of the game are indeed modular and can be removed for a more narrative game? Which ones does the book seem to encourage leaving out?
Personally I feel that V5 is much less crunchy than V20 ever was. I’ve played both and whilst V5 arguably has more optional rules, they are just that, optional. If you think that resonance, humours and the such would lead to too much upkeep getting in the way of roleplay, omit them, it won’t harm your game.
I’ve run 'bout 5 chronicles or so now, of varying length in V5 and you can easily run a mostly narrative game where the system just handles skill checks.
As for the one’s it ‘encourages’ omitting I’d say resonances, humours, advanced combat (physical and social), memoriam, and then things like the organisational conflict system found in the Camarilla book.