CGEN: Generation Costs
Generation is always a dicey subject on any MUSH, owing to the tendency to both obsess over it (both ICly and OOCly), and to the perceived economies of maxing it out in CGEN. There are various ways to handle it – and in my opinion, treating it too arbitrarily or freely has an equal capacity to hurt a sphere’s immersion.
Here is how Generation will work on LiberationMUSH:
- Any character can purchase Generation in chargen, on a sliding scale of costs, so as to allow people to realize a whole spectrum of different origins for their characters, without feeling as if they are either min-maxing or handicapping themselves. Generation costs are cumulative, and are as follows:
Generation 1 (12th gen): May be purchased with either 1 Background point, or 1 Freebie point.
Generation 1 -> 2 (11th gen): This costs 2 Freebie points.
Generation 2 -> 3 (10th gen): This costs 3 Freebie points.
Generation 3 -> 4 (9th gen): This costs 4 Freebie points. Neonate characters will require a special reasoning for why their Generation is so low, which might necessitate being paired with certain Flaws (such as Diablerie streaks), but which you’ll still receive the usual credit for.
Generation 4 -> 5 (8th gen): This costs 5 Freebie points. The same restrictions as before, though somewhat more scrutinized.
- You cannot increase Generation with XP during play. You can only increase it via Diablerie, which will be judged as usual. This increase is free, and there may be other benefits of Diablerie besides. Although, there are of course, many risks as well. Diablerie is handled exactly as written in the 20th Edition rulebook.
- If you Embrace a Childe during play, they are not required to buy the Generation Background. It is simply set to one beneath their Sire’s.
Out of Clan Disciplines
There are five methods to acquire Out of Clan Disciplines:
1) Ask for and explain it in CGEN. If you’re asking for a ‘rare’ discipline, like Vicissitude or Obtenebration as a Camarilla Toreador, it will almost certainly be denied. If you’re a Camarilla Toreador asking for Potence, Fortitude or even something that you’d have easy access to, like Dementation from a Camarilla Malkavian, it will almost certainly be approved.
2) Physical Disciplines (Celerity, Potence, Fortitude) do not require teachers in play. Most any vampire with any common sense can eventually figure these out with enough time and experimentation.
3) Most other ‘common’ Disciplines, such as Auspex, Obfuscate, Presence and Dominate, merely require that someone gives you the basic idea of it once. It doesn’t actually take that long. Provided you have the Experience, a ‘teacher’ could teach the level 1 basics of these Disciplines in a couple nights. You can then figure out the rest yourself, after that. A Brujah who is taught Dominate 1, won’t need a teacher to raise it thereafter.
4) Rare, /Clan-specific/ Disciplines (like Dementation, Protean, Obtenebration, Vicissitude, Serpentis, the usual) and Blood Magic require both tasting the Blood of someone possessing those Disciplines, and being taught by them. This is actually a very lengthy process. And they’ll need to teach you every level that you acquire thereafter. (So Obtenebration 0 -> 1 will require a teacher with that level, and 1 -> 2 will also require a teacher). But you only need to taste the Blood once. This is much more arduous, but has been known to happen, especially in the case of significant debts.
IMPORTANT: A PC teacher must have an Instruction Ability equal to the level of Rare Discipline/Blood Magic Path etc that they are trying to teach.
Some very rare Clan Disciplines simply cannot be taught, like Gargoyle Flight. These should be obvious. But I’ll eventually make a definitive list, anyways.
5) Diablerie. Diablerie works more or less just like it’s written in 20th Edition. And it works just about the same way you think it works. Although obviously, Diablerie comes with risks of its own. You cannot diablerize NPCs in PRPs. Since for the most part, only Directors or Producers are allowed to portray NPC vampires, just like in a tabletop game. (If you have a burning desire to run Vampire NPCs, please think about contributing as a Producer, instead).
Ventrue Clan Weakness
- Every Ventrue PC chooses one type of vessel that they prefer above all others (actresses, transients, nobility, etc). They may drink from such prey as normal.
- Ventrue must drink 2 blood points to replenish their blood pool by 1 when drinking from any other human vessel. Additionally, they may never ‘fill’ the last point of their blood pool from such lesser vintage.
- Ventrue PCs take no sustenance from animals of any kind.
- As ever, Ventrue still replenish blood from feeding on other Vampires or supernatural creatures as normal.
Humanity XP Spends
- Raising Humanity to higher than you came in with from chargen (i.e., an original Humanity 6 Vampire going to Humanity 7) costs its usual CR * 2 in XP.
- If there is a particularly profound reason attached, i.e., ‘She taught me how to love again!’, then I’ll give a 1-2 XP discount.
- If there is a particularly profound reason attached, i.e., ‘She taught me how to love again!’, then I’ll give a 1-2 XP discount.
- Raising Humanity that you have lost since chargenning into the game, also costs CR * 2 in XP.
- However. For every scene that you spend wrestling with the implications of your lost Humanity, and trying to find your back to grace, I’ll let you deduct 1 XP from the cost, to a minimum of CR * 1 in XP.
- However. For every scene that you spend wrestling with the implications of your lost Humanity, and trying to find your back to grace, I’ll let you deduct 1 XP from the cost, to a minimum of CR * 1 in XP.
- This is only relevant to Humanity.
Torpor Times
GETTING TORPORED:
- A vampire character is sent into ‘hard’ torpor if they take take enough lethal damage to send them past Incapacitated on the damage chart. Getting beheaded or subjected to extreme physical damage (such as being woodchippered or torn apart) still results in Final Death.
- This kind of torporing from wounds is associated with the long-term dormant period.
- This kind of torporing from wounds is associated with the long-term dormant period.
- A vampire character is sent into ‘light’ torpor if their unable to pay 1 blood point to wake up.
- Being fed a blood point is sufficient to wake a vampire in ‘light’ torpor. Otherwise, they’ll eventually deteriorate into a desiccated corpse (See ‘Deterioration’, V20 p 293).
- Being fed a blood point is sufficient to wake a vampire in ‘light’ torpor. Otherwise, they’ll eventually deteriorate into a desiccated corpse (See ‘Deterioration’, V20 p 293).
- Being staked is a form of torpor.
- The torpor typically ends when the stake is removed. A staked vampire is conscious of what is happening around them, unless they were staked while Incapacitated. If they were Incapacitated, then the ST decides what they perceive (if anything).
- Staked vampires are still subject to Deterioration (See ‘Deterioration’, V20 p 293).
RECOVERING FROM TORPOR:
- Vampires who enter torpor due to wounds must rest for a period depending on their Humanity or Path rating. This is IC time, and so does not fully correspond to RL time. For example, I will often allow PCs to treat an IC week as equivalent to roughly 5-6 RL days, without much concern. It is situation dependent.
Humanity/Path 9+: One day
Humanity/Path 8: Three days
Humanity/Path 6-7: One week
Humanity/Path 4-5: One month
Humanity/Path 2-3: One year
Humanity/Path 0-1: Storyteller’s discretion
- A torpored vampire character may spend 1 dot of permanent Willpower to move their current torpor time into the next highest category.
- Following this period of ‘rest’, the player may spend a blood point and make an Awakening roll (see ‘Awakening’, V20 p. 262) for her character to rise. If the vampire has no blood in her body, she may not rise until she is fed. If the player fails the Awakening roll, she may spend another blood point and make an Awakening roll the following night. If the vampire rises successfully, she is considered Crippled and should either spend blood or hunt immediately.
- You may feed a torpored vampire by dribbling blood into their mouth as you would expect. However, for whatever mysterious reason, no vampire can be bonded more than a single step during the duration of their torpor (which seems, in some mystical sense, to count as a single ‘sleep’ for them, where that particular aspect of the Curse is considered).