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House Rules


Last Updated: 10/15/08 - Added Clan Specific Disciplines

Clan Specific Disciplines

1) No one can purchase a clan specific discipline unless they A) belong to the clan, B) belong to a bloodline that has that discipline, or C) have a teacher from the clan.
2) At character creation you can purchase 1 Dot of a clan specific discipline, but you need to put in your backstory that you had a teacher and now owe them a Small Boon.
3) This does not affect Animalism, Celerity, Obfuscate, Resilience, or Vigor.

Breaking and Entering

If you want to break into a building, then you roll Dex + Larceny + Equipment - Security. The number of successes needed is Security x 3. You can make a number of attempts equal to your Resolve + Larceny. If there are people who might be inside a location that you are unaware of, then the ST will roll 1d10 per person. On an 8,9 or 10, then the individual is there.

Finding Someone's Haven

While it's certainly possible to find someone's Haven, it's a difficult process. There are two tests involved to see if you can tail the person to their Haven undetected. The first is a perception check to see if they notice you. This is the Wits + Composure of the person being tailed or a relevant Skill in place of Composure + Auspex vs the Wits + Stealth + Obfuscate of the person tailing them. If the person being tailed gets more successes than the person tailing them, then they know they are being followed and can react accordingly. Please note that if the person being tailed does not have Auspex, and the person tailing them has Obfuscate 3 or higher, or some other way of being undetected then there is no test.

The second test is to determine whether you can follow them all the way back to their Haven. This roll is Wits + Composure or a relevant Skill in place of Composure + Auspex vs Wits + Stealth + Obfuscate + Haven Security. In order to successfully tail them back to their Haven, you must get more successes on this roll than they do.

Table Top Rules

Despite this game being a LARP, we use Table Top Rules for dice rolling. We advocate using mediation (for more on this see: http://www.venturebynight.com/tips/mediation.shtml)as the primary conflict resolution system, however, when this cannot be managed, TT rules should be used. We are however using the MET rules for capping Damage to avoid one-hit kills. "Use the highest trait available out of the relevant base Attribute or Skill applied, or based on the weapon's damage rating (if any) to determine the damage limit for the attack. Note that supernatural means of enhancing an Attribute, Skill or weapon don't increase the base statistic used for establishing damage limits."

Eminence & Ascendancy

For the purposes of calculating Eminence & Ascendancy, D.C., Baltimore & Annapolis are treated as one (1) city.

Predator's Taint

The nature of a LARP makes Predator's Taint impractical, and so we do not use it for our normal interactions. So, if a new character shows up, you do not immediately run a Frenzy check with everyone in the room.

Inactivity

Regular Players - Any player who does not attend two local games in a row without giving some notice to the Storytelling team will be set to Inactive Status. This means you have not attended any games for 2 months. If your character becomes Inactive, their Status does not count when calculating Eminence/Ascendancy, and any positions you hold may be taken from you. You will be contacted to inform you of this move. If you miss another local session after being notified without contacting the storytellers, then your Assets will be set loose.
Ways to prevent Inactivity - If you are a Regular Player, you can at any time choose to become an Online Player to avoid becoming Inactive, or work with the storytellers on a plot for why your character cannot attend gatherings for awhile.

Online Players - Any player who does not post at least once in a month, and does not give notice to the Storytelling team will be set to Inactive Status. If your character becomes Inactive, their Status does not count when calculating Eminence/Ascendancy, and any positions you hold may be taken from you. You will be contacted to inform you of this move. If you do not post to the forums for another month without contacting the storytellers, then your Assets will be set loose.
Ways to prevent Inactivity - Work with the storytellers on a plot for why your character cannot attend gatherings for awhile.

Debate Rewards

The default for Stakes is Primacy and Inferiority. If you win a Debate, you gain an amount of Primacy equal to the number of successes your opponent needed to defeat you. If you lose a Debate you gain an amount of Inferiority equal to the number of successes you needed to defeat your opponent.

The size of the audience augments this:
1-10: No modifier
11-20: x2
21-40: x3
41-50: x4
51+: x5

Currently, Primacy and Inferiority gains are capped at 10 per Debate (you can only go up or down one full permanent Status. This may be altered if the game play supports it.

Gaining Titles

To gain a title, If you are awarded the position by a superior, then that warrants purchasing up to that level (the exception here being Corporation Status where some positions (if granted) give you the Status for free). So, if you were named to clan position X, that would be justification for purchasing Status 2. The exception to this being Team Lead, which, if vacant, is determined by members of the team using Input to sway the decision toward their preferred candidate. If a Lead cannot be determined using this method, then the Board will determine the new Lead via Input.

There are also cases where you can earn enough Status to challenge someone else for a position. To do this, you must:

  • You must first acquire as much Status of the relevant type as the person whose position you want. You must then challenge them to a Debate in public (public here meaning a significant number of Status holders of the same kind as the position being present and aware of the challenge).

  • The position holder can either accept or decline the Debate.

  • If they decline, their Inferiority is increased by 5 (they lose face by declining the challenge). If there Status is dropped by 1 as a result of this increase in Inferiority, then they lose their position, unless they gain 10 Primacy in the same period.

  • If they accept, a Personal Debate occurs between the two (or potentially more if multiple individuals challenge each other) for the position. A higher ranking member of the group must be in attendance (so, if it's a Debate over who should be the head of the Invictus of an area, a higher ranking Invictus than anyone in the Debate must be present in the audience.

  • If the challenger loses the Debate, you automatically lose 1 full Status (instead of the normal Primacy/Inferiority system outlined on the forums) in the relevant area. If the defender loses, they gain Inferiority as normal and lose their title.

  • The winner of the Debate gains Primacy as per normal and the title.

Corporation Status

Corporation Status can only be gained in the following ways:

  • You may purchase 1 Dot at any time, but you must be acknowledged by the Division Head.

  • Gaining a new position. You automatically get raised to 2 Dots if you are a Team Lead, 3 Dots if you are Chief of Security, Controller, or Project Manager, or 4 Dots if you are Division Head

  • You can purchase 1 Dot if you are granted a position of Master of Elysium, Harpy, or Hound.

  • You can purchase 1 Dot if you "exceed expectations" on your evaluation.

  • Gain 10 Primacy. See Primacy rules.

Being a Board Member

Each team has a Team Lead, and the Team Leads make up the Board of Directors for the area.

* A board member can be removed from their position in three ways:

  • Being challenged as outlined under "Gaining Titles"

  • By a vote by the board if the board member has not participated in three (3) or more board meetings.

  • By having a blood hunt called on them or otherwise being reduced to zero (0) status

* A board member has three options when voting, For, Against, or Abstain.

* If a board member votes for or against a motion, their Input is added to the vote for or against. The vote with the most Input backing it, is the decision of the board.

* Half of the board must be present for a board meeting to be called.

* Any board member can call a board meeting.

* Discussing board matters outside the board without permission is punishable by a vote to have them removed from the board. This is handled like any other vote.

* Any board member has the right to call a vote of No Confidence in the Division Head to have the current Division Head removed. It then goes to a vote for the board to discuss.

Removing a Division Head

1) Any member of the board can call a no confidence vote. As soon as this happens the Division Head cannot strip them of status or fire them until the vote is either passed or denied.

2) The no confidence vote is based off Input, not board majority (very little of what happens in the world of vampire is based off democratic majority)

3) If the no confidence vote passes, the Division Head has his Division Head powers frozen, he is unable to strip any status, fire, call blood hunts, or otherwise exercise his Division Head power. S/he does however retain all of his status.

4) It goes to an Input vote, in which everyone with Input in the game votes on whether to keep the old Division Head or implement a change (usually an election of a new Division Head but not necessarily). The vote usually takes at least a session and a downtime, in order to give people the chance to play politics.

5) Once the Input is calculated either the Division Head regains all of his/her Division Head powers, or is replaced by new Division Head / new policy for running the corporation.

Discipline Changes

Predator's Mien
Protean (•)

The Kindred know that a Beast lurks within them, skulking just below the surface. Vampires who learn the basic power of Protean learn to draw that brute predator to the fore, transfiguring themselves into the image of their Beast. When a Kindred activates this power, his facial features take on aspects of a predatory animal. Bone structure changes, eyes may change color or shape, and the vampire's normally-subtle fangs become a sharp maw of teeth resembling nothing human.

The exact changes to appearance vary from vampire to vampire; some take on a Werewolf cast reminiscent of a Werewolf's near-man form, others aquire the bright, slitted eyes and sleek features of a cat, and some take on reptilian characteristics. Still others, perhaps the most terrifying, gain features that could only be described as demonic, hinting at terrible predators mercifully unknown to any branch of zoology. In all cases, the change is a hybridization; the vampire does not literally grow the head of a wolf, cat, or snake.

While active, Predator's Mien gives a +1 bonus to all tests involving Wits and Intimidation.

Cost: 1 Vitae

Dice Pool: This power requires no roll. The Kindred simply wills his features to change, and over the course of a turn, his features shift into the Predator's Mien. The change lasts for a scene or until the Kindred chooses to end it.

Action: Instant

Concealing the Unhidden
Obfuscate (••)

This power allows a Kindred to conceal an item in plain sight. Any single item that the vampire can easily hold in one hand appears to bystanders to be an innocuous item appropriate to the context in which the vampire finds himself. The disguise persists even if the item leaves the vampire's grasp, provided it remains relatively close to him (say, within arm's reach).

Cost: none
Dice Pool: Wits + Subterfuge + Obfuscate
Action: Instant

Character Bonuses

All characters start with a 2 in Resources and a 1 in each type of Haven (Location, Security, Size) as long as they are employees of the corporation.

Learning a New Discipline

Learning a new level of a Discipline requires a number of downtimes of training, study, etc. equal to the new level. So, learning a level 4 discipline would require 4 downtimes while you are training up this discipline. This training would not count as an action. This reflects the amount of work it takes to learn a new power.

There is one exception to this, if you are learning an out-of-clan discipline. For out-of-clans, it is dependent on whether you have a teacher or not. With a teacher, you can learn at the same rate (or in some cases faster if they have Instruction). Without a teacher, it takes an extra downtime. So to learn a level 3 out of clan, it would take 4 downtimes of training, study, etc. Please remember that you can only learn one of the clan specific disciplines (Auspex, Dominate, Majesty, Nightmare, and Protean) if you are a member of the clan, a member of a bloodline with access to the discipline, or have a teacher.