Does fluff affect your house rules?

[Malkav's Weird Cousin]

Hi there.

This is my first ever post here and I apologize in advance for anything which has probably been rehashed over and over, but I guess it's best just to open a topic and ask. Anyway, a bit of backstory first. I've been playing WW games since 2003. I started with VtM which, silly metaplot and early 90s vibe aside, was pretty fun. When VtR came out, I was immediately hooked. The game was almost perfect (looking at you, Predator's Taint) and I've been the storyteller to a small dedicated group of players for little more than a decade.

After returning to roleplaying games after a year-long break, I discovered the 2nd edition of VtR had come out some time ago so I, of course, bought the book and now I'm... confused. That's why I'm here. Here's my "problem", if you can call it that.

Generally, I like most of the changes to the mechanics of the game. I love the reworked Disciplines. Touchstones and Aspirations are a nice addition, and after an initial period of "they dumbed it down" whining, I've grown fond of Conditions as well. What I don't like is directly connected to the new fluff of the game and the way it affects the rules. What do I mean by that? Well...

A few days ago, my group and I were going through character creation. They wanted to be neonates with a maximum of a few months dead, Humanity 7, 3 dots in Disciplines, all the basic stuff. That's when we realized that neonates are in fact superpowered sex machines with a mild sunlight allergy. Those are the rules and that is the fluff. You get a few points of lethal damage every few minutes or something, the Blush of Life makes you functionally human, and even the Clan bane doesn't kick in until your Humanity drops to 6. To me, these things seem to take away from the personal horror aspect of the game, i.e. something that my group has always pushed to the fore while playing. Also, the Clan and Covenant descriptions really play up the stereotypical aspects instead of the archetypal ones and it's reflected in the rules. The sex-focused Daeva and the Circle of the Crone being a playable version of 1st ed Belial's Brood just don't sit well with me. 1st ed was more "blessed with suck", 2nd is more "cursed with awesome".

So, my question boils down to this: How would I go about tweaking the rules to better reflect the "cursed" aspect of being a vampire? Also, have you ever had a situation in which you had to create house rules because you didn't like the fluff that came with the official ones?

For example, I was thinking of having the Clan bane manifesting itself regardless of Humanity (because it's a mystical curse, deal with it) and taking the sunlight damage rules from 1st ed (because, ya know, don't go out during the day or you're toast). Is there more I could do? We enjoyed the "mad lord" angle of the Ventrue and the Derangements that came with it, they were always roleplayed as realistically as possible and since there are none in 2nd ed, what could I do with that? Maybe putting most of them under a persistent Delusional Condition? Some, like Preferential Obsession could in theory become a bane.

Like I said, I'm a bit confused. I still don't have a firm grasp of the rules so that's why I'm here. I really like the second edition and I don't wanna go back to the first, but it's these details that are taking away from my enjoyment of the game. What other house rules could I implement? Which ones do you use?

Thoughts? Ideas?

Thx for reading through this crap.

- MWC

[Satchel]

At Humanity 7 and Blood Potency 1, damage is a much bigger threat — you don't heal naturally, you can only hold so much Vitae, you have to spend Willpower to keep from burning through the same resource that you use to stay out of torpor, and falling into torpor is risky even without huge time losses because it's a breaking point that risks your clan bane setting in.

Your Touchstones are in turn more likely to be fragile mortals instead of something more robust like a place or ideology, and that makes them important to the ground-level play of the early days in the Requiem in a different way than older Kindred deal with. The personal horror is still there, it's just mixed in with more of a gradual slide.

[lnodiv]

My advice in these situations is to always at least try the new rules as written before hacking them. A lot of systems/fluff changes turn out to not be quite as big of a deal when actually at the table.

My other piece of advice regarding the second edition games in particular is that it might help to not actually look at them as the same game as 1E. A lot of setting conceits change, and it's frequently easier to approach as a reboot/reimagining at best, and something entirely different but similar at worst.

You get a few points of lethal damage every few minutes or something, the Blush of Life makes you functionally human, and even the Clan bane doesn't kick in until your Humanity drops to 6.

Yeah, I mean that's honestly all intentional. Then you lose those perks as your grow in power and fall in Humanity, which presumably is a thing that is absolutely going to happen. Having all of those 'perks' and then losing them as you become more like what you really are is kind of the point.

If you don't want to play through that descent into monstrosity, the simplest patch-job is to start everyone at Humanity 6 and BP 3. But unless you've actually spent time playing through it, I wouldn't really advise it.

[Stupid Loserman]

The first thing I would consider is: have you actually gotten to test-ride these rules in play before patching to correct them? It's possible that some of your concerns have significantly less impact on play than they appear to have on a dry read. In particular, I think you may be overestimating how safe even young vampires are in sunlight. If you don't agree after stress-testing it in experience, then that's a good time to consider houseruling.

Some of the other things you cite are an issue more of emphasis and execution in play. I agree with you that the Daeva writeup in the 2e corebook is rather blunt and artless about its sexuality. But you and your players are the ones representing Clan Daeva in your game, and don't need to follow that lead.

Derangements are a thorny issue as far as "realism" goes in my book, having some experience with mental illness. If you do want a bit more of that 1e feel of the Ventrue as brittle figures of both power and instability, I agree that a Persistent Condition is a good way to approach it, but I don't think it's a one-size-fits-all case. CofD 2e just generally flows better when you feel free to improvise your own Conditions and their situational effects, so I would suggest simply that unhealthy behavioral Persistent Conditions are, if not universal, then disproportionately common among the Ventrue, and encourage a Ventrue PC to design one with you, using the extra beats from the complications it introduces as an enticing carrot.

A few good candidates for these Persistent Conditions from the Vampire book include Addicted (likely with a stricter resolution trigger than simply raising or lowering Humanity), False Memories (especially among old vampires risen from torpor), and Obsession. When creating new Persistent Conditions, I would suggest, rather than translating the 1e model of "penalties which can be suppressed by spending Willpower," harnessing the Condition system's carrot-and-stick narrative approach. For instance, a Resentful Persistent Condition representing a vampire haunted by betrayal and loss could present him, when confronted by moving gestures of love and loyalty, to choose whether to respond with destructive behavior (a disruptive outburst or preoccupied self-sabotage of his own affairs) and take a beat, or take -1 to rolls using Resolve or Composure and reduce his maximum extended action rolls by one for the rest of the night (to give the choice a little bit of teeth without being too coercive). That kind of zeroing in on encouraging interesting moments is what the Condition system is good for.

[Charlaquin]

First of all, welcome to the forums! Always good to have new folks around.

A few days ago, my group and I were going through character creation. They wanted to be neonates with a maximum of a few months dead, Humanity 7, 3 dots in Disciplines, all the basic stuff. That's when we realized that neonates are in fact superpowered sex machines with a mild sunlight allergy. Those are the rules and that is the fluff. You get a few points of lethal damage every few minutes or something, the Blush of Life makes you functionally human, and even the Clan bane doesn't kick in until your Humanity drops to 6. To me, these things seem to take away from the personal horror aspect of the game, i.e. something that my group has always pushed to the fore while playing.

So, the thing about 2nd Edition Requiem as opposed to 1st is that it refocuses the personal horror somewhat. 1st Edition was very much about the horror of being a monster. 2nd Edition focuses on the horror of becoming a monster. As a Neonate, the disadvantages of being a vampire are all pretty minor, and that’s by design, so that you have something to lose. 2nd Edition doesn’t rip your humanity away in a single moment, it gradually drains you of it, drop by drop. The point is to really experience the process of that degeneration.

Now, the flip side of the weaknesses is the powers. And 2e doesn’t hesitate to let vampires be awesome right from the start. Again, this serves to offer a stark contrast between those early nights when you’ve been blessed with immortality, eternal youth, and literal superpowers, and the eventual realization that this power came at a terrible cost. Between the fearless neonates who feel like they own the night, and the jaded elders who for all their power are little more than empty husks of something that was once human. Also, while you may feel like the starting power has been ramped way up, that power has been similarly increased across the board. The gulf between Elder and Neonate is as great as it’s ever been, if not moreso thanks to the benefits of Blood Potency being significantly expanded and improved.

Also, the Clan and Covenant descriptions really play up the stereotypical aspects instead of the archetypal ones and it's reflected in the rules. The sex-focused Daeva and the Circle of the Crone being a playable version of 1st ed Belial's Brood just don't sit well with me.

Focusing on the negative aspects of the Clans, and especially the Covenants, was done to emphasize the point that you are playing the bad guys. Joining a Covenant is a Breaking Point in 2e - it’s part of that process of your humanity slipping away. These are organizations built around distinctly inhuman worldviews, but they also present a comfort for young vampires looking to make sense of their gradually waning sense of themselves as human beings. If this isn’t your cup of tea though, it should be pretty easy to restore the 1e fluff to the Covenants.

1st ed was more "blessed with suck", 2nd is more "cursed with awesome".

I would say that it’s more that 2e curses you with awesome in the beginning and gradually transitions you into being blessed with suck. A 2e character should end up like a 1e character (albeit with more powerful Disciplines) over the course of play, after losing a few dots of Humanity, maybe gaining a few dots of Blood Potency.

So, my question boils down to this: How would I go about tweaking the rules to better reflect the "cursed" aspect of being a vampire?

First of all, I would recommend giving the game a try as is. Run a short story using the new rules as written. Get the feel for Requiem as a process of becoming a monster as opposed to Requiem as an experience of being a monster. Then, if you still don’t like it, then try your house rules.

For example, I was thinking of having the Clan bane manifesting itself regardless of Humanity (because it's a mystical curse, deal with it) and taking the sunlight damage rules from 1st ed (because, ya know, don't go out during the day or you're toast). Is there more I could do?

That would be a pretty good start if you find the Requiem-as-a-process to be for you. Maybe divorce the effects of Banes from humanity as well (Gangrel get a cap of 5 on dice pools to resist Frenzy instead of a [Humanity] cap, Deva roll Resolve + Composure to resist attachment to their vessels instead of rolling Humanity, etc.) Also since Disciplines have been amped up in 2e, maybe decrease the starting Discipline dots, or rule that you can’t start with any Discipline higher than 2 dots or something.

We enjoyed the "mad lord" angle of the Ventrue and the Derangements that came with it, they were always roleplayed as realistically as possible and since there are none in 2nd ed, what could I do with that? Maybe putting most of them under a persistent Delusional Condition? Some, like Preferential Obsession could in theory become a bane.

The Ventrue Clan Bane is actually pretty close to its 1e version if you look closely - 1e Ventrue got -2 to resist Derrangements on a failed Degeneration roll. 2e consolidated Degeneration and Derrangement resist into a single roll, having a Touchstone gives a +2 to that roll, and everyone gets one free Touchstone. Ventrue lose their free Touchstone at the same Humanity level the other Clan’s Banes kick in. So, effectively, the Ventrue Clan Bane, once it kicks in, is still -2 to Detatchment rolls. If you implement your house rule to have Clan Banes kick in immediately, just have the Ventrue Bane be that they don’t get a free Touchstone.

Although I get the impression that what you’re really asking about here is Derrangements. You can pretty much reproduce any 1e Derrangement as a Condition. Just give the player a Beat when its effects cause problems for them. Usually failed Detatchment rolls only give the Bestial, Competitive, or Wanton Condition, but you could rule that they instead give Conditions that Mirror 1e Derrangements. Wouldn’t be my preference, but different strokes.

[Malkav's Weird Cousin]

There's some really good stuff here, thanks! I haven't really considered the theme of short-term benefits and long-term consequences. It's something all of you wrote and the more I think of it, the more sense it makes. The descent into monstrosity is actually something that we've rarely played before, it was usually BP 2 or 3 and Humanity 5 from the get-go to get the better "feel" of being messed up monsters. Hence the derangements. I never had to dangle a carrot, the players wanted to add to the complexity of their characters and to reflect on the traumas they'd endured, no extra xp needed. They're an interesting bunch.

As for damage and its dangers, combat is a very rare thing in my games (we generally like to IC talk our way into and out of problems), but for the 10% of the time when there's imminent physical violence, I've noticed that almost everything deals bashing damage to vampires now, which would in theory make them twice as durable than before. Of course, I'm not accounting for revised combat mechanics...

Anyway, I'll definitely try RAW first, at least a session or two, to see how it feels and where it leads. If it doesn't "feel" right after a while, the worst that can happen is to have mostly 1e fluff with some tweaked 2e rules. It's probably not the first time players have frankensteined a semi-coherent setting, heh. The ideas for tweaks you put forward are all very interesting.

Thanks again for the help, appreciate it!

[Tessie]

As for damage and its dangers, combat is a very rare thing in my games (we generally like to IC talk our way into and out of problems), but for the 10% of the time when there's imminent physical violence, I've noticed that almost everything deals bashing damage to vampires now, which would in theory make them twice as durable than before. Of course, I'm not accounting for revised combat mechanics...

The revised combat mechanics more than makes up for it. Regular humans who's actually good at combat can easily dish out more than twice as much damage than they did in 1e, and there are several ways for other vampires to deal lethal damage, in addition to Vigor both increasing the dice pool and, for a Vitae, straight up adding more damage in melee.

[Malkav's Weird Cousin]

The revised combat mechanics more than makes up for it. Regular humans who's actually good at combat can easily dish out more than twice as much damage than they did in 1e, and there are several ways for other vampires to deal lethal damage, in addition to Vigor both increasing the dice pool and, for a Vitae, straight up adding more damage in melee.

So, this happens even with the potential increase in Defense in 2e (due to adding Athletics to the number)? Interesting. I really need a deeper look into the system.

[Vent0]

So, this happens even with the potential increase in Defense in 2e (due to adding Athletics to the number)? Interesting. I really need a deeper look into the system.

It's all about the weapon modifiers. Example: Firearms 3 + Dexterity 3 + Pistol 2 = Attack pool of 8. Minus a Defense of, say 2, leaves you with an attack pool of 6. Assuming you get, on average 1 success per 3 dice, you are looking at 2 damage (though it could range higher, but baring the Dice Gods smiling upon you, isn't likely to get too high). In 2E, weapons don't really modify the attack roll (that is, chance to hit), they add bonus damage. So in the above example (Firearms 3, Dexterity 3) your pool is only 6 - 2 = 4. This means about 1 success, on average but then we add the weapon damage. A Pistol is 1L in 2E, so that's 1 (successes) + 1 (weapon). Still results in 2, right? Well, if your weapon damage is 2 or 3, you are looking at 3 or 4 damage minimum per hit.

In 2E you are less likely to hit, but do more damage when you do. More like Rocket-Tag.

[Satchel]

As for damage and its dangers, combat is a very rare thing in my games (we generally like to IC talk our way into and out of problems), but for the 10% of the time when there's imminent physical violence, I've noticed that almost everything deals bashing damage to vampires now, which would in theory make them twice as durable than before. Of course, I'm not accounting for revised combat mechanics...

It's not so much combat I'm talking about as it is the fact that accidents happening forces the Kindred to accord themselves a safety margin if they intend to act independently — surviving a bad car accident not only risks your Humanity, but cuts into your Vitae buffer, and if it's early in the morning then you have a very awkward multiple-choice question to ask yourself about what happens next.

Without Resilience, a Blood Potency 1 neonate emerges from a single turn of contact with a flame the size and intensity of a torch with either a proportionally massive Vitae deficit or an effective reduction of their Health dots, to say nothing of what frenzy might bring to your doorstep.

Speaking of which, provocations to frenzy have long-term consequences even if you hold it back; unless you opt to play Willpower-chicken to angle for an exceptional success or ride the wave, every time you resist frenzy makes it harder to resist frenzy again, and being wounded and/or hungry makes it that much harder — and the PCs are not the only ones who're subject to this problem.

Basically, as with a lot of other 2e gamelines, the early days give you more flexibility because that makes it easier to let it snowball further down the road — neonates may be able to wake up in the middle of the day and jog across the street without too much worry, but what they get up to in that time might follow them for months or years in a way that thoroughly impresses upon them the importance of staying safe and fed. (Hunters, Strix, and run-of-the-mill rivals all have that much more dramatic heft when you're not as fresh as you used to be and your hunger-induced rampage of fifty years prior gave birth to a local legend.)

[Yossarian]

So, this happens even with the potential increase in Defense in 2e (due to adding Athletics to the number)? Interesting. I really need a deeper look into the system.

I find that with the changes to the violence system and the physical disciplines, confrontations in Vampire are less about whittling down Health and more about who runs out of Vitae first. Whoever manages to hold onto her reserves the longest is usually the winner; if your rival is running on empty, it doesn't matter if she's only taking bashing damage. Vampire fights in the new edition are a lot more strategic and resource manage-y. It really adds to the idea that Requiem's Kindred play at politics to avoid violence. Losing a fight just because you didn't feed enough is humiliating at best, catastrophic at worst.

That's of course assuming that the opponents are roughly matched (Blood Potency, etc.), but even an elder has to feed.

[Thorbes]

Plus lets remember that physical confrontations as are not neccesarily fights to the death by default.

[Malkav's Weird Cousin]

Of course. For fights which are not to the death, so just plain old fisticuffs, I think it's laughably easy for a vampire to simply avoid the fight altogether, regardless of edition. All it takes is a bit of roleplay and an Intimidate or Persuasion roll, maybe a dot or two in a relevant Discipline, and that's it. Now, if the character gets jumped by a group of people with no time to talk or the character initiates a confrontation by themselves... That's a different story.

[Thorbes]

I was talking more about the first step of combst: Declare intent. People tend to skip it.

[Khanwulf]

The others have posted thorough suggestions, I'll simply reinforce the thoughts with some explicit advice:

1. Enforce frenzy checks and the system of stacking penalties that eventually results in a hot mess.

2. Make Willpower hard to get. Vamps do not regain Willpower through a daysleep--a change from 1e I think and certainly a MAJOR difference between the characters as vamps and their mortal days. You get run-down, emotionally tired, faster, and sleeping doesn't help with it. You need to indulge your Vice or Virtue, or work the conditions system, to get Willpower back, and that can really drive home the suck.

3. Enforce humanity checks. At 7, they will happen often, and that painful smoking sensation when they go outside for a dash to the car will quickly progress to spontaneous combustion. Banes will appear, and players may take additional banes to avoid having to roll for a certain inhumanity.

On conflict: vamps are killing machines that are human enough to realize that fighting ALL the time--despite what their beast tells them--will run them out of blood and Willpower. The social structures exist to channel what would otherwise be an orgy of throat-slitting into something... slower... and the structure minimizes complications during hunting by attempting to separate the predators. By the way, running through Vitae fast means having to spend most of your time hunting, risking more Humanity rolls and complications with strangers (even mortals).

So yeah, you should have enough ammunition at your disposal to make their early nights hell.

If you want to be really mean, however, just start them as Revenants and make the first story arc about uplifting them to full-vamps. They won't arrive at that goal with intact Humanity, for sure!

--Khanwulf