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View Full Version : Starting my first Vampire the Masquerade game, character advice and general tips??



Brock Samson
2010-05-01, 08:49 AM
So sitting around the table last night my gamer buddies and I decided to start a Vampire the Masquerade game. The guy who's going to be running it was thinking maybe it'd be based on us trying to take over a city, and basically "you get to keep what you kill" is the way the vampire heads are telling us.

I've only ever played a single session like 3 years ago, so extremely newbie to it. I have however looked through the book, but that's probably been 2 years now. He said obviously this is going to be pretty heavy on combat, and we're going to be pretty powerful vampires even starting out too. Was wondering what clans/powers(disciplines?) tend to get more bang for your buck, end up being cool and actually used during your games, and any other advice on the world that I'm sure I don't know about. Any advice is always helpful, hey, even if you've got a fun story it'd be cool to read.

Thanks guys!

Riffington
2010-05-01, 08:58 AM
So, you need a bit more information. Why are powerful vampires trying to take over a city directly?

In general, such takeovers are because of a sectarian war (Sabbat vs Camarilla, or vice-versa); also, in general, the powerful vampires are going to make heavy use of proxies. Are you manipulating dozens of weaker vampires or ghouls to soften up the enemy position? Or are you personally forced into the front? From your DM it sounds like the latter; if so - why? Are you being punished, or are you some kind of special forces?

KillianHawkeye
2010-05-01, 08:59 AM
Do you know which edition you are playing? I'm personally only familiar with VtM 2nd Edition (as opposed to the final version, the Revised Edition). This may have an effect of what sort of advice will be useful to you, as I know there were some significant changes from edition to edition.

EDIT: Also, which faction you belong to (Camarilla, Sabbat, other) would be great to know, since it's hard for Cammys to work with Sabbat and vice versa.

Terraoblivion
2010-05-01, 09:06 AM
Haven't played VtM in years, for a variety of reasons not just limited to mostly having gone over to VtR when wanting to play Vampire, so my advice might be a bit rusty as i have forgotten a lot. However, i do remember that combat is quite broken. For example, Obfuscate means you can get the drop on most enemies since they are unlikely to have more Auspex than you have Obfuscate and thus don't get a chance to see you.

The most effective discipline for combat, however, is Celerity. Being able to take multiple actions a turn without penalty is quite overpowered when you have one base action every turn and every attempt at avoiding harm costs an action.

So if you just want to be able to kill stuff then any clan with Celerity and putting all dots in Celerity would be good. I doubt you want to just go for that, though. It not exactly what the system is good at or suited for. In general i would recommend trying to think of an interesting character and picking whichever disciplines fit, that is just much better at playing to the strengths of the system than trying to milk it for power.

Brock Samson
2010-05-01, 09:14 AM
Yes, we are basically a Special Forces unit. We're taking the city because the Camarilla says if we can take it, it will be OURS (as in the five us players will control it). I don't know for sure, but I assume we're part of them normally, but the current city isn't under their control and they trust us enough to be the new "governors" if we can do it.

I have heard Celerity is virtually the end-all-be-all of combat, but then I also like the idea of Dominating everyone (including potentially Mayors and Police Chiefs and such) to REALLY control the city. Obfuscate for obvious reasons.

I know this isn't the NEW system, but beyond that I'm not sure. Will probably find out later today.

This is definitely going to be more hack-and-slash than what I hear most Vampire games go like. Which, I'm ok with :)

Terraoblivion
2010-05-01, 09:23 AM
If you are looking beyond plain combat then most disciplines are basically worthwhile depending on what you want to do. Unless you start delving into side books in which case many of the core disciplines start looking a bit wimpy in comparison and Thaumaturgy begins dominating all.

Also remember that the Generation background is your friend, it gives you so much more than any other background that it isn't even funny.

Why anybody would want to use VtM to run hack and slash is beyond me though. It is perhaps the worst system for that i can think of.

Brock Samson
2010-05-01, 09:29 AM
Meh, it's something to do while we're waiting for our Epic game to re-start. I didn't even know there were side books, probably won't be using any.

I assume the Generation background improves (lowers) your generation? Which is hear a GOOD thing? :)

Terraoblivion
2010-05-01, 09:35 AM
That is what it does and it is not a "good" thing, it's an awesome thing. It not only increases your capacity for storing blood, but also improves your social standing and grants protection from several disciplines, most notably Dominate. So in a game focused about power generation is kinda important.

tcrudisi
2010-05-01, 09:38 AM
Two clans really stick out to me:

Gangrel. They get Celerity (for all the reasons mentioned above) and Protean (for claws to do agg damage plus a great hiding spot at night). I think the last discipline is Fortitude? Not the best discipline, but hey... it helps to keep you alive.

Assamite. They get Celerity, Obfuscate, and Quietus. Twink some and you can do something like 18-20 points of damage as a sniper.


That is what it does and it is not a "good" thing, it's an awesome thing. It not only increases your capacity for storing blood, but also improves your social standing and grants protection from several disciplines, most notably Dominate. So in a game focused about power generation is kinda important.

+1000

Riffington
2010-05-01, 09:41 AM
If you are looking beyond plain combat then most disciplines are basically worthwhile depending on what you want to do. Unless you start delving into side books in which case many of the core disciplines start looking a bit wimpy in comparison and Thaumaturgy begins dominating all.
Thaumaturgy is fairly balanced. It has cool tricks, but it requires finesse to use properly. It's the opposite in that regard of Celerity (which is strong out of the box, but can be easily defeated using subtlety).



Also remember that the Generation background is your friend, it gives you so much more than any other background that it isn't even funny.
This is true, but it isn't a "real" background. It's not supposed to be a balanced mechanic, the ST is supposed to say what generation people can start at.



Why anybody would want to use VtM to run hack and slash is beyond me though. It is perhaps the worst system for that i can think of.

It's actually a pretty fun combat system. It's fast-paced and vampire powers are cool to play with/give you neat options. I think you overestimate celerity's strength.

Basically, play the character you want. Your team is going to need:
*someone with great auspex. Without this you are completely hosed.
*someone with the ability to manipulate/control people
*a combat bruiser
Preferably more, but those are the absolute minimums. So if you take obfuscate/dominate, you will be filling a needed role - you can gather information and control stuff politically. Note that it's better if you have multiple people with such abilities (ie you can fight, others can Presence or Dominate, etc) so that nobody has "time out" while the others have fun.

Incidentally, re: obfuscate: it's better to either have multiple people with it (so again nobody has "time out" while the obfuscate guy does his thing) or one person with 5 dots (to cloak the whole gathering).

Riffington
2010-05-01, 09:43 AM
Two clans really stick out to me:

Gangrel. They get Celerity (for all the reasons mentioned above) and Protean (for claws to do agg damage plus a great hiding spot at night). I think the last discipline is Fortitude? Not the best discipline, but hey... it helps to keep you alive.


Gangrel get Animalism, Protean, and Fortitude. They don't need celerity.
Some Sabbat Gangrel do have Obfuscate, Celerity, and Protean; they make excellent assassins but unfortunately give up a lot of the awesome you can do with Animalism.

Terraoblivion
2010-05-01, 09:43 AM
No, Gangrel doesn't get Celerity. They get Animalism, Fortitude and Protean. I believe that the only clans in the basic book that gets Celerity are Brujah, Toreador and Assamite. Also recommending Assamite might well cause a whole lot of trouble since they are not only an independent clan, but one of the least popular and most internally organized independent clans. In general advice should probably focus on the Camarilla clans.

Also Riffington, fast-paced? VtM was my primary system for three-years and for all of those three years we tried shunning combat because it ran even more slowly than D&D. Out of more than a dozen systems i have played none have had as slow combat as oWoD, not even Exalted with a group of newbies which is actually quite puzzling.

Brock Samson
2010-05-01, 09:46 AM
Sadly I think Assamite is not an option.

I'll definitely see what generation I can't start with.

We're going to have to make sure someone is a master of those different things, definitely a good suggestion.

How about Presence? How's that work out in combat?

Iceforge
2010-05-01, 09:49 AM
So sitting around the table last night my gamer buddies and I decided to start a Vampire the Masquerade game. The guy who's going to be running it was thinking maybe it'd be based on us trying to take over a city, and basically "you get to keep what you kill" is the way the vampire heads are telling us.

I've only ever played a single session like 3 years ago, so extremely newbie to it. I have however looked through the book, but that's probably been 2 years now. He said obviously this is going to be pretty heavy on combat, and we're going to be pretty powerful vampires even starting out too. Was wondering what clans/powers(disciplines?) tend to get more bang for your buck, end up being cool and actually used during your games, and any other advice on the world that I'm sure I don't know about. Any advice is always helpful, hey, even if you've got a fun story it'd be cool to read.

Thanks guys!

Currently leading my own campaign, just started up after the old VtM GM needed a break from GMing.

I played VtM a lot, so I think I can offer some help.

Lets first leave clans out of the picture for a while, and talk about the various diciplines that are out there.

It would also be helpful to know if you are going to be Camarilla that is taking over a Sabbat town or the other way around, as that changes which powers are relevant to go into depth about.

Disciplines come in various shapes and forms, so lets look into various character archtypes and what is important to those:

The Tank
The Tank is someone able to stand in close combat and take a heavy beating, while also able to lash out a great deal of damage to someone else. If you end up in close combat with a tank, run the **** away.

Disciplines for the Tank:
Fortitude: Each rank helps you reduce incoming damage; Think of this like damage reduction, and it is the best kind, as no kind of damage bypass fortitudes ability to soak damage
Celerity: At the cost of your blood, it helps you take more actions each round; This is very powerful, as it enables you to take a full defense action and still do attacks, and most storytellers will also houserule that Celerity helps you win initiative, which is even more important in vampire than in DnD. With a single dot of celerity and 1 blood pr. round, you are able to dodge every incoming attack and do another action (either move or attack), while a regular character has to either choose to attack, move or defend.
Potence: Each dots add an automatic success to any check involving strength, increasing your damage output for each successful hit; Potence is NOT needed for the tank, but it sure helps knock down an opponent in melee who also got Fortitude, but remember your main job should be to hold the target in melee until your comrades can take it down, so if you are sparse on points, drop potence.

Melee Damage Dealer:
The Melee damage dealer needs to be able to lash out a lot of damage in a short time.
For this, Celerity is very good, increasing number of attacks pr. round, and potence to increase the strength of each hit, so you can bypass the soak of those pesky tank characters with fortitude.

Other noteworthy disciplines to aid in melee damage output:

Protean rank 2: Feral claws is ultimate for lashing out great damage quickly; Your damage is turned into Aggrevate damage, you gain +1 to damage rolls (one additional dice that needs to be rolled, not automatic success like potence). Protean 2 combined with Potence can put down most vampires quicker than your Storyteller might think is fun. Hell a character with Generation 5, Strenght 2, Protean 2, Potence 1 and Celerity 1 can lash out 4 attacks, each dealing 1 automatic aggrevated + 3 rolled dice, for a total of 4 automatic +12 rolled aggrevated, seeing how no vampire has more than 7 health levels, thats average out to instant killing any vampire who does NOT have fortitude
Vicissitude: Rank 3 allows you to impale the heart of a vampire with the bones of his ribcage; while this does not paralyze like a stake does, it does remove 50% of the vampires blood-supply when you are successful, which can easily be archived with potence for automatic successes. Rank 4 grants you +3 to all physical stats, making it insanely easy to both hit and deal damage, Rank 4 combined with Rank 3, potence and celerity is an evil combo. Most Storytellers will disallow combining rank 4 with Protean 2 through, seeing how both alter your shape.
Vicissitude is only applicable if you are playing Sabbat!

Melee Control
Melee Control is someone who disables an opponent from taking any action; Only discipline needed is Potence, as you just Clinge your opponent, then he has to win an opposed strength check against you to break out. Extremely simple strategy that can totally disable an enemy while dealing damage to him constantly. Beware of bite through; Fortitude is definitely recommended for someone who is going to be a Melee Controller as well.

Social Control
Social Control is very important in vampire games, and two disciplines are awesome for this in my opinion:

Presense: The only discipline that works equally well on mortals and kindred a like, and to make it worse, it doesn't matter what generation the target is compared to you either, it can just as easily socially cow a foe of the 3rd generation as someone of the 7th generation, everything else being equal. Dread Gaze (rank 2) is one of the most overpowered abilities, when used as an extended action. It will take time for you to accumulate the number of succeses that you need against strong opponents, but eventually you will make them succumb, fall to the floor and cry for you not to demolish them.

Dominate: Nothing quite like making people feel compelled to do something without any chance to resist. Works much like dominate person in DnD, as you cannot force a subject to do things that is obviously suicide, but besides that, basicly everything is open. At rank 5, you can even posses a mortal, pretend that is you and then when the mortal dies, you just take over another from your secret hiding place and your enemies will never find out who the bloody hell you truly are.



This is just some basic information; The setup sounds quite hack'n'slash like for a Vampire game, which is a shame, as hack'n'slash is not really what Storyteller games does the best

Riffington
2010-05-01, 09:51 AM
Sadly I think Assamite is not an option.

I'll definitely see what generation I can't start with.

We're going to have to make sure someone is a master of those different things, definitely a good suggestion.

How about Presence? How's that work out in combat?

Oh, it's wonderful.
Basically you can make anyone you meet respect or love you. Any favor you might need - a place to sleep, some blood to drink, fill out paperwork - whatever. Unlike Dominate, it gets you long-term loyalty. You want someone to fight for you - dominate gets them to shoot a gun in the guy's general direction; presence gets them to give their life for yours. However, in the short run, Dominate is often stronger. It lets you give precise orders, and the guy has no idea what/why he's doing it. Presence is less precise, and harder to hide. So if someone asks why that paperwork was incorrectly filled, the Dominated guy thinks he made a mistake; the Presence victim's heart starts to race as he thinks of you.

Iceforge
2010-05-01, 09:56 AM
Now, this is not really about how to build a character, just a question (and a hope to enlighten)

Seeing how you most likely have played DnD before (taking this forum into account, that seems to be the norm) beware that Initiative in VtM is VERY different than in DnD.

Many who play VtM who played DnD before does it incorrectly, so maybe you do it like this:

DnD inspired Method:
1. Everybody rolls initiative (D10+dex+wits)
2. Then you go through the round in order of initiative, highest going first, just like DnD

Actual System Method
1. Everybody rolls initiative (D10+dex+wits)
2. Lowest Initiative declares his intended action, working the way up to the one with the highest initiative, meaning if you got highest initiative, you react quicker and is thus aware what everybody else is about to do and can take that into consideration when doing your action.
3. Then actions happen in order of one with highest initiative, working down to the one with lowest. On your turn, you can either do your action or abort (for which there are some more rules)

Doing it correctly makes a very big difference, specially as those with Celerity goes into the initiative twice, usually the celerity actions happens as step 4 and 5 (which are excatly like step 2 and 3, except only for celerity actions)

Riffington
2010-05-01, 09:59 AM
most storytellers will also houserule that Celerity helps you win initiative, which is even more important in vampire than in DnD.
This houserule doesn't really make sense in 3rd edition, because celerity takes time to activate (the round after you spend the blood). In Dark Ages it makes sense, but then again each additional action costs a blood point.


Celerity 1 can lash out 4 attacks
Claws are fun. But you can't both split your dice pool and use Celerity.


Dread Gaze (rank 2) is one of the most overpowered abilities, when used as an extended action. It will take time for you to accumulate the number of succeses that you need against strong opponents
How do you get them to not hit you during that time? Are you Ventrue and just soaking up their damage?

Brock Samson
2010-05-01, 10:04 AM
Wow but I want ALL these powers. I guess I can't really go too wrong with many of them huh?

Anything I should definitely avoid?

Iceforge
2010-05-01, 10:08 AM
This houserule doesn't really make sense in 3rd edition, because celerity takes time to activate (the round after you spend the blood). In Dark Ages it makes sense, but then again each additional action costs a blood point.
I meant "some" storytellers, I do not allow it myself, but played with several who did run it like that.

I agree it doesn't make sense, but when I am a player, I do not argue, I let the storyteller run it like they see fit, as long as it is not totally unbalancing.



Claws are fun. But you can't both split your dice pool and use Celerity.

"Generation 5" being the key, able to use 3 blood pr. turn, celerity gives 1 extra action pr. rank pr. blood used, spend 3 blood and you get 3 extra actions = 4 total actions.



How do you get them to not hit you during that time? Are you Ventrue and just soaking up their damage?

You should have allies able to hold them, or be a Ventrue (Social Dominance characters should be ventrue, both dominate and presense)
Each success removes 1 dice from every action they do, so if you get 2 success in on the first round, they have 2 less to both hit and damage you. A good melee will have a max of 8 dice to hit you, which you should be able to half within 2 rounds unless he got very high Wits and Courage, and if you got a decent stamina and fortitude yourself, you should be able to outlast your target until it lies helpless on the ground.

Better yet, dominate someone to get into your car and sit in the passanger seat besides you, drive to the freeway and speed up to over 100 miles pr. hour and then force the opponent to flee away from you; leaving a car at 100 miles pr. hour hurts a lot, even if you are a vampire with a good fortitude.

EDIT: The max of 8 to hit is assuming standard newly created vampire, by the way, with 4 in dex and 4 in brawl/melee (freebie), sure if it is a lower generation older vampire, we could talk about 10 or more dice to hit (or if Tzimisce it could be 11 of the bat)

Riffington
2010-05-01, 10:13 AM
"Generation 5" being the key, able to use 3 blood pr. turn, celerity gives 1 extra action pr. rank pr. blood used, spend 3 blood and you get 3 extra actions = 4 total actions.

That's a very powerful houserule.
As written, Celerity gives you a maximum extra actions equal to its rank.

Your other scenarios are strong, but it's not the Dread Gaze that's powerful, it's the situation. You could as easily have killed them with a gun, unless they have massive Fortitude. Against high-fortitude opponents, I agree that it's quite useful. But its primary use is against mortals.

Iceforge
2010-05-01, 10:25 AM
But you can't both split your dice pool and use Celerity.

Hmm, better check up on Total Defense action then, I forgot about that point (lead 3 sessions this far and prior to that it has been years since I was the storyteller, and been only 1 very small scale combat yet (basicly an assassination of a potential threat)) not sure if Total Defense counts as splitting your action, in which case you cannot use Celerity to both dodge every incoming attack and do a attack yourself.

Iceforge
2010-05-01, 10:38 AM
That's a very powerful houserule.
As written, Celerity gives you a maximum extra actions equal to its rank.

As it is written, it doesn't really go either way, It doesn't say you can spend more than 1 blood, but neither does it say you can get a max equal to your current rank of extra actions, but I think you are right that the intended interpretation is a max of 1 blood spend that way.

As I said, it's been years since I last lead a vampire scenario, and I didn't play any character with celerity with this group either, so not sure how they used to use Celerity, but I think I will actual go to your interpretation rather than my old one, as it is more balanced; I always figured that older vampires with high celerity was bat**** dangerous, imagine Celerity 4 and able to use 5 blood pr. turn... whoop, 21 actions in one round, and down goes the enemy like a piece of cake.

Much more sensible to use it your way obviously, makes me even laugh at how my old group and I used it many years ago (althrough, I think the only time I fully pumped celerity, if my memory serves me right, was to run all the way up some stairs to save my buddies being held captives)


Your other scenarios are strong, but it's not the Dread Gaze that's powerful, it's the situation. You could as easily have killed them with a gun, unless they have massive Fortitude. Against high-fortitude opponents, I agree that it's quite useful. But its primary use is against mortals.

Inspired by actions I did at a live roleplay, ofc we didnt make the person jump out of the car, and the only reason the GMs said he would survive was due to a houserule against attacks being able to kill you in a single blow.

awa
2010-05-01, 11:26 AM
In my mind the trick is ghouls and lots of them.
Ghouls if i recall correctly cost nothing to make and are completely loyal if you give them three doses of blood. Ghoul important pepole for political power take control of fast food restaurants and bleed into the food mass ghoul large numbers of pepole at once if you can talk to animals ghoul half the zoo. just make your self a massive army of ghouls. creating vampires is pretty cheap as well if i recall and you can control them the same way.

Terraoblivion
2010-05-01, 11:30 AM
You will also be kind of, you know, executed if you embrace people without prior permission. And probably also executed for endangering the masquerade if you go on a mass ghouling spree like that.

Brock Samson
2010-05-01, 11:31 AM
Massive Ghouling... I like that! lol. Is there any limit to how many will follow you?

Riffington
2010-05-01, 11:34 AM
In my mind the trick is ghouls and lots of them.
Ghouls if i recall correctly cost nothing to make and are completely loyal if you give them three doses of blood. Ghoul important pepole for political power take control of fast food restaurants and bleed into the food mass ghoul large numbers of pepole at once if you can talk to animals ghoul half the zoo. just make your self a massive army of ghouls. creating vampires is pretty cheap as well if i recall and you can control them the same way.

They're Camarilla - there's a Masquerade they have to maintain.
Ghouls are wonderful, but you have to be a little more subtle than that if you want to avoid the Inquisition.


Is there any limit to how many will follow you?

That's undefined.

Iceforge
2010-05-01, 11:52 AM
Also, Mass ghouling will likely make their superiors extremely paranoid, seeing how their, at least in the canon setting, are rumours abound of ghouls rising up against their masters, killing weak kindred or simply swarming stronger ones and taking the vitae they are addicted to by force.

If you mass-spread it, like the fast-food suggestion, you will simply create addicts, who if they find out what they are addicted to, will take it by force if they have to.

tcrudisi
2010-05-01, 01:35 PM
Gangrel get Animalism, Protean, and Fortitude. They don't need celerity.
Some Sabbat Gangrel do have Obfuscate, Celerity, and Protean; they make excellent assassins but unfortunately give up a lot of the awesome you can do with Animalism.

Ahha! Thanks.

Want to know something sad? I used to be the ST for New Bremen -- White Wolf's official game chat (now probably dead). That was years ago, though. Maybe 10-11 years ago? :-P Anyway, I used to be the ST for the independent vampires... as such, I sanctioned more than a few Sabbat vampires, which lead me of the frame of mind of "Omg - they get Obfuscate, Celerity, and Protean? Dude!" Except the word dude was usually a different 4 letter word. It is a very potent combination. "You don't see me coming, then I pop out of Obfuscate with 6 actions, all of them doing aggravated damage. Just for dudes and giggles, I'll take a couple of points of Potence, just to be sure."

Depending on how "powerful" your DM is letting you guys be, see if you can swing Serpentis 3. At level 3 it lets you soak agg damage at a reduced penalty with your Stamina. O_o ridiculously good. (If my memory holds up). The problem? Convincing your ST that you should have a Sabbat-only discipline. I would recommend having a great backstory before approaching the ST.

Anyway, what kind of character do you want to play? I mean, if you want to play a "former Navy Seal, released due to PTSD, now an anarch", that's much different than, "smooth businessman who ALWAYS gets his way", which is still much different than, "Hi, meet my cat. Most people say they can't see him, but I can help with that. If you can't see him, just look harder."

Really, any clan can rock the sock in combat like Mick Foley. It's just a matter of picking something you will enjoy. Tell us that and we'll optimize him for ya. As many people have said, there are a lot of powerful disciplines. It's just a matter of building around them properly and having the right ones to fit your character concept.

Iceforge
2010-05-01, 02:19 PM
Ahha! Thanks.

Want to know something sad? I used to be the ST for New Bremen -- White Wolf's official game chat (now probably dead). That was years ago, though. Maybe 10-11 years ago? :-P Anyway, I used to be the ST for the independent vampires... as such, I sanctioned more than a few Sabbat vampires, which lead me of the frame of mind of "Omg - they get Obfuscate, Celerity, and Protean? Dude!" Except the word dude was usually a different 4 letter word. It is a very potent combination. "You don't see me coming, then I pop out of Obfuscate with 6 actions, all of them doing aggravated damage. Just for dudes and giggles, I'll take a couple of points of Potence, just to be sure."

Depending on how "powerful" your DM is letting you guys be, see if you can swing Serpentis 3. At level 3 it lets you soak agg damage at a reduced penalty with your Stamina. O_o ridiculously good. (If my memory holds up). The problem? Convincing your ST that you should have a Sabbat-only discipline. I would recommend having a great backstory before approaching the ST.

Anyway, what kind of character do you want to play? I mean, if you want to play a "former Navy Seal, released due to PTSD, now an anarch", that's much different than, "smooth businessman who ALWAYS gets his way", which is still much different than, "Hi, meet my cat. Most people say they can't see him, but I can help with that. If you can't see him, just look harder."

Really, any clan can rock the sock in combat like Mick Foley. It's just a matter of picking something you will enjoy. Tell us that and we'll optimize him for ya. As many people have said, there are a lot of powerful disciplines. It's just a matter of building around them properly and having the right ones to fit your character concept.

I remember that chat with a lot of anger at how it was run.

Most likely nothing to do with you, but I was permanently banned from it for what I would call a minor infraction and nobody would listen when I wrote to them about it.

I joined to check it out, build a character and went around in the world; I think you had to start as a mortal and hope someone would sire you iirc, but that was nothing to bad.

First time online nothing much happened, except I got the xp you was automatically granted for having been online within a 24 hour period, which was neat.

I thought it was pretty wicked, as I got 5xp after that first time.

I did not actually get 5xp, it turned out later, I got 0.5xp, but they wrote it in your profile as XP:.5 and the small dot infront of 5 to indicate it was 0.5 and not 5 was in a real small font, so I totally missed it.

Second time I was on I went to one of the rooms, where someone wrote *sign* a lot infront of their sentences; I was not that great at English back then (Im a foreigner) and misread it as *sigh*, and thought it was just a character attitude, and communicated back.

After a while, the player in question got angry with me and asked if my character knew sign language, as my profile did not say I could.

I suddenly realised my mistake, but I quickly checked the rules and 5xp was enough to buy the ability to understand sign language, so to correct my mistake, I spend my xp to get sign langauge (which was basicly filling in a request form that an admin would later review and alter your character sheet), so the last 20-30 minuts of interaction hadn't been wasting both me and the other persons time, which seemed fine for the other person and we continued communicating and roleplaying which was quite fun, as there wasn't really any admins on or anyone going around talking to new people so we could become vampires.

That resulted in me being permanently banned for having used an ability that I didn't have the XP to purchase, once it was reviewed by an admin.

Later writing to explain was just ignored and my permanent ban remained in place for at least a week, after which I simply gave up on the entire thing

LibraryOgre
2010-05-01, 02:26 PM
Heh. Reminds me of the time I was banned from the Dragonlance board for refusing to do homework. Yep, they assigned homework for infractions. My infraction was commenting (not inflammatory) on a thread a mod had declared closed. Which is one thing if you're on a message board, but quite another when you're reading an e-mail list on PINE.

tcrudisi
2010-05-01, 03:18 PM
... everything

Ouch. Yeah, there were some ST's who were very strict and others who were more lenient. I was definitely one of the "player-friendly" ST's back then. I'm sorry to hear about your experience. God forbid things got escalated to Conrad. He was definitely a no-nonsense admin and would drop the ban-hammer at a moment's notice. Looking back, I definitely think I should have been stricter (but I was young). Also, I definitely think other ST's were too strict. I kinda wish I could go back with the wisdom I currently possess and do it all over. Things would definitely be different.

Typically, too, Conrad would receive e-mail from people protesting decisions made by ST's. He always fully supported the ST's decision and would not overrule us. Plus, I think you just got caught in a very difficult situation. Many times we would see that and the player would be cheating. You were just in that small percentage where it was a genuine mistake. It's difficult to tell when someone is just making a mistake or cheating at an actual game table; trying to figure it out online is near impossible.

Anyway, I'm worried we might be hijacking the thread, which was certainly not my intention. As such, I'll add in what I can remember from the assassin that a friend of mine played.

He used a sniper rifle and would pump his Dex up. Mind you, my memory of the rules is very fuzzy (and I'm sure someone with a book can correct me), but here's how I remember it: you can aim to get a bonus to hit based on your Dexterity and Wits (or was it Perception?). Using a scope added to that. Use Obfuscate to sneak up on someone and shoot them point blank. Obviously, they have to be immobile while you do this. Aim at the head to make it lethal. Ahh, there was also something about being trained in "Rifles" instead of "Firearms." I can't remember the source, but one rule (optional rule?) said that if you were trained in a specific skill instead of a general skill (Rifles vs. Firearms), you got a -2 bonus to your attack. Including point blank, this made your difficulty to hit something like 2. Rolling a lot of dice to hit (thanks to pumping Dexterity up with blood), you could easily get something like 20+ dice to hit. Since they'll almost all be successes, those go towards damage.

Of course, I also once rolled 13 dice at difficulty 4 and quad-botched the roll. Yes, an actual botch where none of the dice were 4 or above. All my rolls were 1, 2, or 3. Talk about bad luck. But with the above method, things die. I stress again: I've not played or ST'ed Vampire in more than a few years. My memory of the rules is fuzzy, but that should help get you going with an idea.

Iceforge
2010-05-01, 04:21 PM
One thing to remember when playing VtM through, is that you should forget about the system when you are playing, as much as entirely possible.

Decide what you want to do and then your Storyteller will tell you what rolls you will need to make in order to do that action successfully.

Something that can drive me crazy if I am Storytelling is when people go over to reading the system to decide their actions and sort of min-maxing their actions for the system.

I know that it is impossible not to encounter people doing that, but it can really ruin the mood in a ST game, as you can easily make min-max builds in it that does extremely well with one type of action, so well that it can ruin the fun.

Example is clinch+bite, which is an attack where you basicly grabble someone and constrict them.

Clinch attack roll is Strength+Brawl, it delivers Strength in damage and enables bite in the round following it, it deals bashing damage.

Bite relies on Dexterity+Brawl, got accuracy +1 and delivers Strength+1 bite damage.

Make a character with Potence 4, 3 Strength/Dex and 4 Brawl (specialty Clinch), and split your action to a clinch+bite

Then you get to roll 5 dice difficulty 6 to hit with the clinch, rerolling 10's to get more successes, and add 4 automatic successes, averaging 6.5 successes.

To avoid that 50% of the time, someone needs a combined dodge dice pool of 13 = most cannot avoid it.

So you got them clinched and now you deliver your strength in damage, which is equal to 3 dice + 1 dice pr. success you had more than their success to dodge + 4 automatic in bashing damage = average of 6.5 + 0.5 pr. success you beat their dodge with.

Thats not so bad, as thats bashing damage.

Now comes the bite, again 5 dice (+1 accuracy), no automatic successes, but they have 1 less dice to dodge, if it hits, it deals 4(Strenght+1) dice + 1 pr. extra success + 4 automatic aggrevated damage

It is an extremely effective way of putting someone down quickly, but it is not really a fun way of doing it, cause instead of a live well-rounded character who adjust to the various situations that arise in combat, you are reduced to a one-trick pony

awa
2010-05-01, 05:23 PM
if i recall correctly feeding blood on three separate occasions made ghouls absolutely loyal. I think it was called blood bonded or something.
Anyhow you just got to make sure to get your mass produced ghouls fed three times each and they cant rebel. Hell they will think their addicted to the fast food and will willingly come back for their booster shots.

Although as part of the camirela the masquerade can be a problem i had forgotten about that. But on a smaller scale it's still viable if i recall the stats for a big dog were brutal just ghoul a couple dozen pit bulls, and assorted thugs and they can make excellent muscle.

Iceforge
2010-05-01, 06:12 PM
if i recall correctly feeding blood on three separate occasions made ghouls absolutely loyal. I think it was called blood bonded or something.
Anyhow you just got to make sure to get your mass produced ghouls fed three times each and they cant rebel. Hell they will think their addicted to the fast food and will willingly come back for their booster shots.

Although as part of the camirela the masquerade can be a problem i had forgotten about that. But on a smaller scale it's still viable if i recall the stats for a big dog were brutal just ghoul a couple dozen pit bulls, and assorted thugs and they can make excellent muscle.

There is the Blood Bond / Blood Oath aspect, yes, which comes in 3 levels, and requires subject to consume the blood on 3 occations on 3 seperate days, it decreases over time.

Level 1 is basicly just good feelings, like a light reduced charm person spell
Level 2 is strong good feelings, like a charm person spell
Level 3 is fullblown loyalty out of a feeling of unconditional love for the vampire, althrough it is possible to hate the vampire at the same time, leading to a true love/hate relationship.

But it depends on the storyteller, if the ghoul in question doesn't know where the power and addiction comes from, will it then just have unexplainable good feelings towards the vampire, should it encounter the vampire or is that aspect totally lost and just an addiction built?

Also, if you treat your ghouls really bad, even if they do love you, they might still turn on you, in a sort of passion killing scenario; it is not like it is unheard of that people kill someone they love, so if the love interest (vampire) is not feeding their addiction enough and is mistreating them, they might just take what they really want in a frenzy they will regret afterwards, but then the addiction kicks in and they start hunting for new vitae

Also, if it is just a bunch of random people who consumed fast food, then giving them orders/instructions to follow is going to be pretty hard.

Ghouls is without question a very powerful tool for any vampire, and certainly an avenue that should not go unexplored when taking over a city from a rivaling fraction of vampires, but just mindlessly creating hordes of ghouls is not something that I could see ending well

EDIT: Much easier to just create your own "church", get some followers, have mass at night, replace the wine for the consumption of blood, create some who come often to listen to you preach and who is blood bounded to feel really compelled to do your bidding, then just indicate your rivals as being evil pests and treats to society.

Just see how some people will attack abortion clinics; now imagine if they were blood bonded to the one telling them to take such actions and you'd have big hordes willing to do such actions

awa
2010-05-01, 07:42 PM
yeah but if a ghoul turns on you in a fit of passion you have other ghouls to defend you also your still a vampire and hes just a ghoul. Also having a lot of people that just kinda like you even if they don't know why could be really useful when trying to take over a city