Hunger frenzy in 2E?

[TheMadFedora]

So I posted this question on reddit while waiting for validation of my account here, so I am now transplanting this here in hopes of getting more opinions to help me make sense of this as it caused a lengthy argument at the table lol.

so we ran our first VTR game recently and ended up having a 30-45 min halt of game discussion about hunger frenzy, and our different ideas of how that should work. This is mostly between me and another setting veteran as the other two players are newbies.
The story attached is that my friend used his herd to get himself to 5 Vitae (which I'm fine with, I wouldn't make a player frenzy on Herd unless they were REALLY low since it's a Merit) then went hunting afterwards. During this hunt he used a point of Vitae to gain the benefit of adding his discipline to the hunt roll putting him at 4 where I then warned him: "hey, that puts you at hungry and you'll have to roll to resist frenzy." Which then spawned this entire argument.
So, as far as my understanding of this rule goes; a Frenzy happens when a Kindred is introduced to a strong enough stimulus to cause the Beast to stir and want to let loose; i believed that means at vitae 4 or lower is when you count as “hungry” and begin to risk a hunger frenzy, this is furthered by the fact in the VtR2E core book it labels hungry as a -2 penalty for resisting a frenzy, and has that further labeled at 4 or less Vitae. This would mean that effectively 36% of the track(0-4) is not a good place to be in for a sane person, and would get worse as the time goes on. However, I also know that they could just top off when they get to about 5 fairly easily taking advantage of Herd or Feeding Grounds. Their concern is that if we run things like that they’re just gonna bleed humanity every time they try and feed.

My veteran player believes they should only risk hunger frenzy at 2 or lower which feels like it would easily be avoided and never used unless I force them in a situation that bleeds them of Vitae which feels scummy and gamy to me to just invoke a feeling of being monsters.

So, how do you fellow STs handle this? Or how have you seen this handled as players? The fine folks at Reddit who have answered this have given me the impression that we're both right. I'm right that yes, a hunger frenzy COULD happen at Vitae 4 or less, but perhaps not in the context I was employing it, as the Kindred is already indulging in what the Beast wants to begin with. That would mean instead that I wouldn't make my players roll for Hunger while feeding above 2 Vitae, but if they sat at 3-4 they'd instead need to resist it incase they came across a strong sent of blood, or saw an open bloody wound from a Vessel instead...is that an accurate thought path?

[Neos01]

I think that at vitae 4 every time you feel the presence of blood you risk frenzy.
This means that while hunting, when you taste the blood of a prey you roll to resist, and failure could mean that you are unable to stop feeding until you are sated.
The Beast is an "animal" and i think that a wild predator would behave in this way when hungry

[Neos01]

If the player think it s an harsh rule, consider that you could try to avoid becoming this hungry in first place.
If not possible the player is still in control before meeting the right stimulus and could adopt a couple of special measures:

-if possible use a small animal as an "appetizer" to bring the pool to at least 5 (even if you frenzy i think it would end with the death of the animal), then hunt humans (someone taking out the dog for a jog would be a perfect prey)
-make someone put blood in a container while you are not in the same place.
After he leaves, you can open the container and feed (even if you frenzy you would feed violently from the container)
-feed from vampires more powerful than you, your sire usually would fit well.
Even if you frenzy their higher blood pool would make it hard to put them to a low vitae level (obviously there is a risk to gain blood bond and addiction)
-It s riskful, but you could feed from your Touchstone, as they gives a good bonus to resist frenzy.
You could at least feed in your touchstone presence, as she can talk you out of frenzy

Naturally it becomes more hard as you rise in blood potency, but the greater pool makes it harder to reach such a low vitae level

[Marcus]

So I posted this question on reddit while waiting for validation of my account here, so I am now transplanting this here in hopes of getting more opinions to help me make sense of this as it caused a lengthy argument at the table lol.

so we ran our first VTR game recently and ended up having a 30-45 min halt of game discussion about hunger frenzy, and our different ideas of how that should work. This is mostly between me and another setting veteran as the other two players are newbies.
The story attached is that my friend used his herd to get himself to 5 Vitae (which I'm fine with, I wouldn't make a player frenzy on Herd unless they were REALLY low since it's a Merit) then went hunting afterwards. During this hunt he used a point of Vitae to gain the benefit of adding his discipline to the hunt roll putting him at 4 where I then warned him: "hey, that puts you at hungry and you'll have to roll to resist frenzy." Which then spawned this entire argument.
So, as far as my understanding of this rule goes; a Frenzy happens when a Kindred is introduced to a strong enough stimulus to cause the Beast to stir and want to let loose; i believed that means at vitae 4 or lower is when you count as “hungry” and begin to risk a hunger frenzy, this is furthered by the fact in the VtR2E core book it labels hungry as a -2 penalty for resisting a frenzy, and has that further labeled at 4 or less Vitae. This would mean that effectively 36% of the track(0-4) is not a good place to be in for a sane person, and would get worse as the time goes on. However, I also know that they could just top off when they get to about 5 fairly easily taking advantage of Herd or Feeding Grounds. Their concern is that if we run things like that they’re just gonna bleed humanity every time they try and feed.

My veteran player believes they should only risk hunger frenzy at 2 or lower which feels like it would easily be avoided and never used unless I force them in a situation that bleeds them of Vitae which feels scummy and gamy to me to just invoke a feeling of being monsters.

So, how do you fellow STs handle this? Or how have you seen this handled as players? The fine folks at Reddit who have answered this have given me the impression that we're both right. I'm right that yes, a hunger frenzy COULD happen at Vitae 4 or less, but perhaps not in the context I was employing it, as the Kindred is already indulging in what the Beast wants to begin with. That would mean instead that I wouldn't make my players roll for Hunger while feeding above 2 Vitae, but if they sat at 3-4 they'd instead need to resist it incase they came across a strong sent of blood, or saw an open bloody wound from a Vessel instead...is that an accurate thought path?

You are right. 4 vitae below you are hungry and Beast become stronger. So whenever a PC touch 4 vitae I ask for a frenzy roll (they can spend willpower if they want to mitigate the risk to fail the roll) and, even if they pass the frenzy check, every scene they found themselves among mortals, they risk frenzy.

Being a vampire should be a damnation not a superhero games. Being to "polite" using frenzy ruin the setting in my opinion.

And let me say, I have years of play experience and it was not even as much frequent as I would have liked actually. PCs have an average pool of 5 dice, taken out the 2 as per the table is still 3, which is 90% a success. If they use WPs they sum one or more dice. And, in a first instance, if they do not want to risk, they go around fed up.

I really don't see this too heavy to handle indeed.

[Tessie]

The problem this all stems from is the fact that VtR 2e doesn't actually state when you're supposed to roll for Frenzy. All we have is the extremely vague and ill defined "strong enough stimulus" and a list of modifiers that can "under the right circumstances" be Frenzy triggers.

The way we handle it is that we roll for Frenzy if the character has any of the hunger modifiers and 1.) sees spilled blood/bleeding wounds, or 2.) has an excellent opportunity to feed (and not already in the process of hunting). Like, if you chance upon a lone mortal when hungry/starving, that's a relatively sudden chance that pops up which is a fair Frenzy trigger, but if you find a lone mortal when actively prowling the streets then you're both mentally prepared for it and in the process of doing what the Beast already wants you to do. Rolling for Frenzy is just an unnecessary complication at that point.
Other generic Frenzy triggers we use is when the character takes damage (though we generally apply the amount of taken damage as a modifier, potentially being an unmodified roll if Resilience prevented all damage), when being surprised or threatened by a Bane even if it hasn't caused damage yet, or when a character's Touchstone is threatened. Insults relating to sensitive topics is also a common Frenzy trigger for us, but that's extremely individualistic. For my character being mistaken for Invictus (the Covenant he was Embraced into by his uncaring Sire and only managed to leave after almost 50 years) or Ventrue (who are most likely to hold high Invictus positions, have been the most insulting NPCs towards him, and later revealed to have a cowardly and disgusting origin as a Clan in our campaign) would be a trigger. The state building Daeva in the party despises having her authority considered illegitimate, and a Japanese PC once fell to Frenzy for being mistaken for Chinese.

Basically, as a rule of thumb, all negative modifiers on the list could be a trigger if it's also in a context that is either: directly threatening (being disturbingly close to or outright exposed to Banes, taking damage in general), relates to a sensitive subject (highly personal insults, threats or grave insults towards a Touchstone), or is otherwise unexpected/sudden (being surprised by a Bane even if you're safe from it, chancing upon blood or feeding opportunities). The only exception being that seeing an open wound shouldn't be a Frenzy trigger no matter how unexpected as long as the character isn't actually hungry. Not that it wouldn't make sense but because it's just not that interesting, imo.

[Aurumae]

I think that at vitae 4 every time you feel the presence of blood you risk frenzy.
This means that while hunting, when you taste the blood of a prey you roll to resist, and failure could mean that you are unable to stop feeding until you are sated.
The Beast is an "animal" and i think that a wild predator would behave in this way when hungry

This is how I like to run it too. If you get down to "hungry" or "starving" the biggest threat isn't random frenzy (though that might happen if you see or smell fresh blood), it's losing control when you do go to feed.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

I run it similarly. Being hungry alone isn't enough to risk frenzy. Basically I have a rule "don't make people check for frenzy unless there's a reasonable chance they fail." So there has to be either one BIG factor, or a constellation of smaller factors that add up to a significant likelihood of frenzy. And the threshold obviously is different for someone with a small starting dicepool (before penalties) than with a big dicepool (before penalties).