THE DICE MECHANICS OF VAMPIRE
For those of you who might previously have been put off by "crunchier" TTRPGs and their many interlocking systems, I have good news when it comes to Vampire V5. The overly dramatic goth LARPers responsible for this edition, for all their many flaws, took an already pretty simple system and streamlined it even further. The result is something I think will suit the format we're playing via pretty well.
Tests in Vampire operate via a dice pool mechanic. Your character wants to do the thing, so you take an Attribute, a Skill and any associated bonuses (Specialisations, Equipment, etc). Tally all of them together, and hey presto: that's the total number of D10s you'll be rolling. Every die that lands on a 6 or higher is considered a success. If you match or succeed the number of successes required for a particular test (a number decided on by the GM), then congrats. Your character did the thing.
Honestly, that's the basic thrust of it. For all there are additional mechanics that come into play, this is the basic system you'll be dealing with whilst playing Vampire. Like I said, nice and streamlined.
Some GMs are more high handed with what attributes and skills players can use in tests, but that isn't really my approach. If I suggest that you should roll Charisma + Persuasion for a test, but you think Manipulation + Subterfuge would suit your character's approach better? Pitch it to me, and if I think it vibes I will absolutely go for it. This is a collaborative form of storytelling, after all.
"OKAY, BUT HOW DOES THIS WORK ON A FORUM?"
It's one thing to use a game system like this when we're all sitting around a table (or using a virtual one), but this is a forum. How the hell is any of this going to work if we're Playing By Post?
Well I'm thrilled you should ask, hypothetical questioner I just made up. Allow me to explain.
Rolling dice is a means by which we can help determine the outcome of a particular scene: I don't want it to become the focus or the millstone weighing the game's momentum down. As such, the general outline would be as follows:
- The GM (that's me) will set up a scene/encounter/conflict/shenanigans via a GM post in the IC Thread.
- In the OOC Thread, players will figure out their characters' actions and what dice pools they want to use.
- Once the pools and actions are agreed upon, the dice get rolled. We'll use Iwaku's dice rolling addon (unless this turns out to be scuffed, in which case I guess I'll need to make a Discord
).
- Based on the results of the roll, we will know how the scene plays out and can write posts accordingly.
OTHER MECHANICS
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"A Beast I am, lest a Beast I become."
- Kindred Proverb
There is a presence inside of you. A wordless, formless entity that you can never escape. The Beast, they call it. Always with a mix of respect and fear. Your inner predator made manifest, forever demanding. For it is hungry. It is always hungry.
And there is only one thing that satisfies it.
Hunger represents your character's drive to feed, their desire for blood that is ever present and ever insatiable. Even Thin-Bloods feel it's pull, and must slake their hunger lest it consume them. It is represented on a scale. A vampire with a Hunger of 0 is sated and satisfied, whereas a vampire with a Hunger of 5 is ravenous and can barely think of anything except their next drink.
Hunger Dice
For each level of Hunger affecting a vampire character, they gain one Hunger die. Hunger dice should be rolled separately from regular dice to distinguish them. When a player builds a dice pool, they exchange regular dice from that pool for Hunger dice on a one-for-one basis. Hunger dice function as regular dice in tests and contests, scoring successes on a 6 or higher.
- Characters never include Hunger dice in Rouse Checks, Willpower, or Humanity dice pools
- If the dice pool for the roll is lower than the character's Hunger, the player must roll a number of Hunger dice equal to the dice pool.
- Rolling a 10 or 1 on a Hunger die carries additional consequences.
- HOUSE RULE - Hunger dice can be re-rolled using Willpower, but you must choose whether you are re-rolling your Hunger dice or your Regular dice. To do both, you would need to spend two points of Willpower.
Consequences of Hunger
A pool containing Hunger dice can incur unintended effects such as:
Messy Critical
A critical win in which one or more 10s appear on a Hunger die is a Messy Critical. The character succeeds as in a regular critical - but it was the Beast's win, perhaps, not the character's. This can have a variety of results, including but not limited to:
- Acts causing Humanity Stains
- Masquerade Breaches
- Compulsions
Bestial Failure
A Bestial Failure occurs when the player rolls a 1 on one or more Hunger die in addition to failing a test. Story-wise, either the character failed because their Beast manifested inopportunely or excessively, or the character's failure angered their Beast into a reprisal. Any of the consequences of a Messy Critical or simply sustaining aggravated damage are possible depending on the scene's circumstances.
Rousing the Blood
Every time a vampire rises each sunset, calls upon their Disciplines, or mends their damaged body, they risk increasing their Hunger by having to perform a Rouse Check. To make a Rouse Check, the player rolls a single die. On a success, the vampire's Hunger remains unchanged, but on a failure, the vampire gains a point of Hunger, and thus, one more Hunger die for their dice pool.
Feeding
In order to keep Hunger in check, Kindred have to feed, usually drinking the blood of mortals. Drinking blood reduces a vampire's Hunger by a fixed amount. Only draining a mortal (or a supernatural creature) of blood, thereby killing them, can reduce Hunger to 0.
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"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."
- Samuel Johnson
You are no longer human. What humanity you have left to you is little more than scraps, vestiges of a life lost. Yet these scraps are all that keep you tethered to the life you once had. They are all that keep you from succumbing to the Beast.
You will fight a losing battle. A rearguard action against overwhelming odds. Every compromise, every failure, every moment you let the Beast in will eat away at the fragments of your old self you have left.
All you can do is fight it.
The Humanity score represents how close a Kindred remains to their human nature, to specific people vital to them, and how easily they slip away from human concerns and instead towards the whims of the Beast. As a character's Humanity rating changes over the course of time, it's important to keep track of the changes that will occur. As their rating deteriorates over time, their connections alter and soon they might find themselves holding the corpse of a human they had originally never intended to kill.
The Humanity tracker contains 10 spaces, with the Humanity rating filled from left to right.
Stains
Stains are what damage Humanity and are caused by significant actions. Those actions may include embracing a new childe, harming others,
or breaching their own convictions. Stains can be negated by a character's Conviction if it was broken in alignment of their Conviction, reducing the amount of Stains gained by one or more. The amount of Stains earned can vary from clear violations giving only 1 and with truly monstrous or egregious breaks netting 2 or more. Fill the amount of Stains exceeds the amount of empty spaces in the tracker degeneration is triggered.
When taking Stains, the tracker fills in from right to left with slash marks to differentiate the Stains from Humanity.
Remorse
When a character has Stains in their tracker at the end of a session they will make a Remorse test. The Remorse pool is composed of how many empty spaces are left between the Humanity and the amount of Stains taken. In the case of a Humanity 7 character with only one Stain, they'd roll two dice. However, in cases where there are no spaces left, such as a Humanity 7 character with three Stains, they'd still roll 1 die. Any amount of successes means that the character has felt enough guilt, shame and remorse than their Humanity will not drop. If they do not any successes, the beast has won and they must drop 1 Humanity. Once the remorse test is completed, all Stains are removed.
Degeneration
In cases where they have taken more Stains than they have room for, the character becomes impaired. This type of impairment removes two dice from all possible pools as they are racked with regret. In addition to this, they take one point of Aggravated Willpower damage for each Stain that did not fit onto the tracker. During this time, the character is unable of further intentional Tenet violations and upon being forced to commit one must test for a terror frenzy with Difficulty 4. This impairment will remain until they test for Remorse at the end of the session, alternatively they may choose to snap out of it by automatically dropping by one Humanity point and removing all Stains.
