[Vampire] Looking for tips on how to use Dominate...

[Aron Times]

Dominate went through the transition from Masquerade to Requiem virtually unchanged. There are, of course, differences in how dice rolls are resolved, but the discipline itself is identical to its Masquerade version. I'm looking for tips on how to maximize the use of Dominate in Requiem.

Here are the five levels of Dominate:

1. Command - The user speaks a one-word command and the subject obeys.
2. Mesmerize - The user is no longer limited to one word, and can also implant commands that remain dormant until triggered.
3. The Forgetful Mind - The user can modify or restore the target's memory.
4. Conditioning - The user makes the target more suggestible over time.
5. Possession - The user possesses the target's body and gains the benefits and drawbacks of a mortal body.

I'm concerned mostly with Command, Mesmerize, and The Forgetful Mind as these are the ones that require the user to issue verbal commands to the target.

For Command, I was thinking that perhaps hiding it in a statement can give context for the target's actions. One example in a Masquerade book I read involved a vampire asking a cop who pulled her over for speeding to FORGIVE her and let her get off with a warning. Another thing I think might work is to order someone attacking you to HALT or STOP. Yet another would be to get someone holding back information to SPEAK.

Would any of these work, provided they are preceded by a normal statement that gives the Command context?

"I'm sorry, officer, I'm just having a bad day. I just got laid off, and the last thing I need is a fine for speeding. Won't you please FORGIVE me?"

"Put the weapon down, man. We don't have to fight. STOP!"

"I know you're hiding something. It's alright; you can tell me. Now SPEAK.

I'm also looking for tips on how to use Mesmerize and The Forgetful Mind.

[PersonMan]

It would depend on your DM, but Speak! might get results like "Blah blah you are dominated me oh noooo help I'll never tell you anything."

[KillianHawkeye]

Personally, I'd rule that a one word command must be fully encapsulated (i.e., specific and understandable) within its single word confines. Meaning that I wouldn't allow you to use context to modify the command, since that is essentially what the higher level version allows you to do. You can, of course, disguise a one word command by speaking an entire sentence around it (so that it may not be obvious to people who overhear you), but only the word itself would carry the power of the command.

[Riffington]

Personally, I'd rule that a one word command must be fully encapsulated (i.e., specific and understandable) within its single word confines. Meaning that I wouldn't allow you to use context to modify the command, since that is essentially what the higher level version allows you to do. You can, of course, disguise a one word command by speaking an entire sentence around it (so that it may not be obvious to people who overhear you), but only the word itself would carry the power of the command.

That's how it works.
Speak gets speech but no specifics.
Halt and stop and silence are usually pretty good.
Forgive will require some DM decision. She might forgive you or her father - whatever conflict is weighing on her mind most closely.

[comicshorse]

For Command, I was thinking that perhaps hiding it in a statement can give context for the target's actions. One example in a Masquerade book I read involved a vampire asking a cop who pulled her over for speeding to FORGIVE her and let her get off with a warning. Another thing I think might work is to order someone attacking you to HALT or STOP. Yet another would be to get someone holding back information to SPEAK.

HALT and STOP might be okay as there is pretty much only one thing the person can do. SPEAK could get the guy talking about anything and god knows what would happen if you used FORGIVE, the cop might suddenly forgive his ex-wife for divorcing him

I'm also looking for tips on how to use Mesmerize and The Forgetful Mind.

These are the importent ones, These are the ones that can save your butt when you've just blown the Masquerade wide open and the Prince is going to have you greeting the sun. Nothing is better than gently modifying the F.B.I. agents memory so he didn't see you throwing a bad guy through a wall and then drinking his blood.
Note also one word commands can be misinterpreted, if a guy is walking towards you shooting, saying HALT may only means he stops walking and doesn't stop shooting. THROW YOUR GUN AWAY can't be misinterpreted

[Aron Times]

My character actually has Dominate 2. Is there any reason I should bother using Dominate 1 outside of combat?

[comicshorse]

Tricky, once you get the higher levels Dominate 1 tends to get forgotten in my experience.
FLEE can stop a fight before it starts. But yes generally outside combat Dominate 1 diesn't get much use. BTW ifd the G.M. allows it try VOMIT as a handy fight stopper ( against mortals and werewolves only )

[Set]

'Confess' is a better one word option than 'Speak,' IMO. Back in the days of the D&D Command spell, it was something of a game to come up with one-word commands like Expectorate or Defecate that would keep someone busy for more than a round. (Of them, 'Flee' is one of the best, since it takes the advantages of 'Run,' and adds the implicit 'away from me.' Most one-word commands would only take someone out of action for one action, but 'Flee' has the advantage of requiring them a second action to get back to you, if they still want to fight.)

Best use of Forgetful Mind is for gathering long-term resources. Anyone with anything you want suddenly 'remembers' that they owe you a favor, that you have blackmail dirt on them from the time you helped them get rid of the body of that dead hooker, that you saved their life in 'Nam, that you are that Internal Affairs officer investigating their boss which they aren't allowed to tell anyone about, etc., etc.

Mesmerism is a great way to have 'Manchurian Followers' who, at specific times, or in response to specific stimuli, perform certain actions for you. Combined with follow-up with the Forgetful Mind, you can even catch up with them the next night and make them forget that action, while implanting a new 'sleeper' command. Need weapons? Have an officer in charge of a scene 'forgetfully' kipe a few and route them your way, and then forget entirely about it after the fact. Need something done during the day? Find the person who does that, and leave them a suggestion to do that when their watch alarm goes off (and then set their watch alarm to go off at noon, so that the fire department ends up busting into your rivals haven mid-day).

Dominate may be limited in its use on other vampires (at least it was in VtM, due to generation caps), but it's pretty much unlimited in applications on mortals. Anything any person in the city can do, through authority or resources, you can look them in the eye and make them do for you, and then forget all about it later.

Need a little cash? Oh, look at that front page news, about the seemingly squeaky-clean dude who turned out to be embezzling money from his company. He's up there on the stand saying he never did it, and the money was never found, but all of the evidence proves that he *did* do it... I wonder if he's gonna try for an insanity plea?

Gosh, I wonder where all that money went? :)

In my experience, a VtM Tremere that spent his points in Dominate was always vastly more effective than one that wasted his points on all that Thaumaturgy crap. Thaum was a huge point-sink, rarely more useful than a hand-gun, and while people didn't generally scream 'It's a trap!' back in those days, it really was.

Dominate is also an amazing way to drive people nuts (or make them fear that they are losing their minds) by adding memories that aren't real, changing memories that are, deleting past events and leaving 'gaps' that coincide with your own bloody nocturnal activities (convincing them that they have a secret life as a serial killer, perhaps to the point of causing an innocent person to turn themself in and confess to your acts of mayhem!), causing them to flip out in the presence of certain stimuli (effectively giving them phobias or prejudices), etc., etc.

[Riffington]

In my experience, a VtM Tremere that spent his points in Dominate was always vastly more effective than one that wasted his points on all that Thaumaturgy crap.

Well, Dominate is extremely powerful, particularly levels 2/3. You don't need much more than that [admittedly 5 is shiny], leaving plenty of points for Thaum or whatever.

Thaum was a huge point-sink, rarely more useful than a hand-gun, and while people didn't generally scream 'It's a trap!' back in those days, it really was.

There were some pretty nice rituals. Ward against X, anyone?

[hewhosaysfish]

Note also one word commands can be misinterpreted, if a guy is walking towards you shooting, saying HALT may only means he stops walking and doesn't stop shooting.

Is "ceasefire" a single word?

This is fun . If I ever play VtM I'm going to be a mind-controlling-type-vampire. With a thesaurus.

[Project_Mayhem]

I've a feeling our Storyteller ruled it as one short and simple command, rather than one word. So RUN AWAY was fine, as was SIT THERE, or EAT THIS. That was just a house rule though. Made it more versatile

[Riffington]

Is "ceasefire" a single word?

As a noun. As a command, it's two.
Surrender, on the other hand

[Project_Mayhem]

How about "Rötschreck"?

[Riffington]

How about "Rötschreck"?

Not a command. Frenzy is a command, but few vampires have the capacity to frenzy at will, so that wouldn't be followed either.

[Project_Mayhem]

Why would Rötschreck as a verb not be a command while sit as a verb would?

[Riffington]

Why would Rötschreck as a verb not be a command while sit as a verb would?

Rotschreck is a verb? We never used it as such "He went into Rotschreck", or "She entered Rotschreck", never "Oh man you should have seen him; he Rotschrecked all over the place."

If it were a verb, it would be a valid command. But to obey it you'd have to have some special ability to Rotschreck at will; few vampires have this. Furthermore, even if you had this ability (say, you are currently holding a torch and are carefully avoiding looking at it)... you still might not obey because it's a worse-than-suicidal command: vampires are viscerally more afraid of the Rotschreck-inducing object than they are of death.

[Kalirren]

Seeing how you can always find a language in which some given action a "one-word command" (and this has come up before in my campaigns) I've always interpreted the one-word command rule as allowing only commands that have no direct or indirect object, either explicit or implicit.

So "Halt!" works. So does "Shut up!" On the other hand, "Autodefenestrate!" (i.e. throw yourself out the window) doesn't work because it has a direct object (yourself.) Neither does "Kill him," or "Answer (my question.)" "Confess," while it would go through, would likely get you nowhere because the target could confess to anything irrelevant.

[Aron Times]

For game balance reasons, I wouldn't allow Frenzy or Rotschreck or Wassail as Commands. Animalism 5 causes the target to start or stop frenzying, and allowing a novice user of Dominate to accomplish what a master user of Animalism could would be terribly unbalanced.

[Chen]

'
In my experience, a VtM Tremere that spent his points in Dominate was always vastly more effective than one that wasted his points on all that Thaumaturgy crap. Thaum was a huge point-sink, rarely more useful than a hand-gun, and while people didn't generally scream 'It's a trap!' back in those days, it really was.

Dominate up to 3 is good. 4 was almost completely useless due to the whole "they are zombie like" clause and 5 is of course good but annoying to get to. And it was nearly impossible to stay awake during the day anyways.

Thaum though was downright broken in combat at 3 (Path of Blood) along with the ritual that allowed you make blood "coins". Thaum 4 was kind useless but allowed access to Ethereal Passage which was also one of the most broken rituals. Path of creation once you hit 3 was also almost completely broken. Movement of the mind was nice for 4 (to allow flight) and possibly broken combat applications (once you beat someone's willpower roll you could just hold them above the ground and they were completely unable to do anything). And thats only main book resources. If you had access to things like Technomancy Thaum was the be all end all of disciplines.

[Project_Mayhem]

For game balance reasons, I wouldn't allow Frenzy or Rotschreck or Wassail as Commands. Animalism 5 causes the target to start or stop frenzying, and allowing a novice user of Dominate to accomplish what a master user of Animalism could would be terribly unbalanced.

Yeah, in VtM game balance was pretty much not there. We just accepted it - all vampires who wanted to be good fighters took celerity for example.

[OldFart]

4 was almost completely useless due to the whole "they are zombie like" clause and 5 is of course good but annoying to get to.

It's been a while (it was VtM, not VtR), but IIRC my characters used level 4 Dominate to break the will of mortal "patsys" down to the point where the target numbers for dominate ateempts were a "slam-dunk." They would then use level 5 dominate to achieve "serial immortality" when having to deal with the dangers of a world full of other supernatural critters. I cannot count the times fellow players, to say nothing of NPCs, had thought they had eliminated a rival, only to find out that they had in fact only killed a mortal host, and in reality did not know their foe's actual name, face, location, etc.

[Aron Times]

It's been a while (it was VtM, not VtR), but IIRC my characters used level 4 Dominate to break the will of mortal "patsys" down to the point where the target numbers for dominate ateempts were a "slam-dunk." They would then use level 5 dominate to achieve "serial immortality" when having to deal with the dangers of a world full of other supernatural critters. I cannot count the times fellow players, to say nothing of NPCs, had thought they had eliminated a rival, only to find out that they had in fact only killed a mortal host, and in reality did not know their foe's actual name, face, location, etc.

This tactic got nerfed bad in Requiem. All of the damage taken by your host's body is transferred to your own. Thus, if you host takes lethal damage, you also take lethal damage. Basically, if your host dies, your character gets forced into torpor due to his injuries.

Anyway, I'm looking for specific examples of Mesmerize and The Forgetful Mind that you guys successfully used ingame.

[Chen]

It's been a while (it was VtM, not VtR), but IIRC my characters used level 4 Dominate to break the will of mortal "patsys" down to the point where the target numbers for dominate ateempts were a "slam-dunk." They would then use level 5 dominate to achieve "serial immortality" when having to deal with the dangers of a world full of other supernatural critters. I cannot count the times fellow players, to say nothing of NPCs, had thought they had eliminated a rival, only to find out that they had in fact only killed a mortal host, and in reality did not know their foe's actual name, face, location, etc.

I should have clarified that I meant Dominate 4 is really only useful for Dominate 5. Its effectively as if Dominate 5 cost the same as 4+5. There's almost no reason to get 4 on its own.

Didn't Forgetful mind get hit pretty hard in VtR? I seem to recall the difficulty being very high to make drastic changes to memory, unlike in VtM.

[Riffington]

This tactic got nerfed bad in Requiem.

It didn't need to. In a mortal body, you were less vulnerable - but only in certain ways. The mortal's senses are duller than your own, and she can be spied upon more easily. Discover where she's going and what she's doing, and eventually you can track down her Dominator. Make sure to wait until he's having an "out of body experience" before you pay him a visit.

Note that protection of one's inert body is easier for a Thaumaturge than for the average lick.

Anyway, I'm looking for specific examples of Mesmerize and The Forgetful Mind that you guys successfully used ingame.

Getting someone to do your research/spying for you, without having any idea why. It's a spy who can't betray you even if tortured, because he literally has no idea how.

Blood bond is obviously easy. And especially fun to blood bond a physical vampire or combat ghoul, make him forget about it, then tell him to feel blood-bound when [your target] eventually makes him drink her blood. Quite a surprise to both victims when it turns out the real blood bond is to you.

Creating a false memory, then erasing it. Can be too subtle (your intended target may have no idea the memory was there) - but it's hard to tell that the memory was false when obviously there was major tampering in the form of the erasure.

[mostlyharmful]

may I recomend reading through the Preacher series... hell, that's even a good tip even if you never do play a vamp with dominate at all.

[comicshorse]

Posted by Joseph Silver

Anyway, I'm looking for specific examples of Mesmerize and The Forgetful Mind that you guys successfully used ingame.

A particulalrly snotty Toreador got Mesmerized with an overwhelming attraction to one of the Nosferatu. ( and then mercifully had her memory erased)

[Aron Times]

I'm going to watch Code Geass again for inspiration. I remember one instance where Lelouch implants a suggestion on a Britannian mecha pilot to shoot what I think was a blank at Rolo so Lelouch can step in and save him, leading him to believe that Lelouch actually cared about him.

[Semidi]

Successful uses of Mesmerize:
(dominate in italics)
"For instance, allowing oneself to ride the wave during the prince's announcements would be extremely bad.

Sir so-and-so, you will be prohibited from the use of claws during the duel. If you do so you will lose.

Command:

STRIPTEASE!

Disrobe!

Run!

Leave!

Fun for the whole family.

Forgetful mind:

I mostly just use it to cover up feeding and breaches of the masquerade. Occassionally to clean up mesmerism and to get information from someone.

[dragoonsgone]

Sleep would be good I think.
Die - Doubt it would work.

[Chen]

Successful uses of Mesmerize:
(dominate in italics)
"For instance, allowing oneself to ride the wave during the prince's announcements would be extremely bad.

Doesn't this imply they are already frenzied? Just letting dominate cause a frenzy by telling the person to, is broken.

Sir so-and-so, you will be prohibited from the use of claws during the duel. If you do so you will lose.

I was pretty sure the person had to understand exactly what you were telling them. Not obfuscating it in a sentence like that. That would usually lead to some misinterpretation I'd say. Plus in the above example "use of claws during the duel" is not an actual directive to do anything (due to the word "of").