PDA

View Full Version : VtM: What's a reasonable number of vampires?



KillianHawkeye
2010-05-31, 03:43 AM
I'm getting ready to start running Vampire: The Masquerade next month and am currently working on fleshing out the setting where the game will take place. Rather than a large city, it will be a smaller-to-midsize one (more like a major suburb I guess you could say). However, I'm finding the estimated ratio of vampires to humans that the book recommends is unacceptable.

The book (Vampire: The Masquerade, Second Edition) indicates that there is usually 1 vampire for every 100,000 humans in a given city. It seems that vampires only live in major metropolitan areas. Following those numbers means that there should only be a few vampires living in the region I've chosen to set the game in, which I think is stupid and boring.

What I'm looking for are suggestions for a more manageable number that would still be realistic, in the opinion of the playground.

What I have is a location with a population of around 100,000 with an extra 100,000-150,000 spread about in smaller towns nearby. What I want is for there to be at least a few members of the 7 major Camarilla clans, plus the PCs, plus the Prince. This will provide a modicum of vampiric society for my players to explore while still allowing me a manageable, interesting setting that isn't too big to maintain.



So what do you think? Is 1 per 10,000 alright or would that be pushing it? How many vampires is too many? How many Malkavians does it take to screw in a lightbulb??

Dracons
2010-05-31, 03:45 AM
Really depends on how much you feel comfortable with.

Don't know your story, or ideal. Maybe your Prince went slightly crazy and allows more vampires then normal.

I'd say 20-25 (not including your players, and any prince/leaders of clans) should be decent. With backup coming from other cities.

Yora
2010-05-31, 03:53 AM
1 in 100,000 is more an average than an actual hard number. Supposed you have a country with 100,000,000 people of which 20,000,000 live in cities with more than 100,000 people. That would give you a total of 2,000 vampires for the entire country, instead of the 10,000 it should be.
In some place you have a much larger number of vampires than expected, in others there are much less.

If you want vampires of 7 clans, it's probably goinf to be a really big city that has a number of vampires significantly above average. Make it 2,000,000 people and 1 vapire for every 10,000, and you end up with 200 vampires. That's about 30 vampires per clan. I'm not too familiar with WoD, but I would assume most clans hire a lot of humans, so 30 actual vampires is quite a lot.

Quincunx
2010-05-31, 04:22 AM
I agree with you on the population numbers being disproportionate. With those ratios, we wouldn't even have Dark Ages games due to lack of other vampires to interact with.

Non-lethal feeders can live off of a smaller human population--rule of the city or unspoken agreement your PCs didn't realize?
Animal feeders (Nosferatu for sure, and various other grungy types, surly about the lack of flavor) ditto.
A high attrition rate would allow more vampires than the population can sustain. Leave the ashes of unstatted ex-vampires where PCs will find them.
The "crazy, ecologically blind" prince idea is also a good one, as is the "out-compete rival progeny with my own" prince.

Oh, and: Fire the Malkavian. Get a Toreador to hold the light bulb while the world revolves around him. *rimshot*

Reluctance
2010-05-31, 05:10 AM
1/10,000 is sustainable if you explain what makes the town such a hoppin' hangout for the undead, and what makes it so attractive when compared to the resources and anonymity a big city has to offer. Give a reason why vampires would want to be here, and you've got both an excuse for the population boom as well as an insta-plot.

Although as a heads up, even 30 vampires is not much of an undead society. Brujah can't make much of a show of solidarity when there's only four of them in town, ditto Ventrue calling on each other for resources, and there's not much point to a Nosferatu information network when the social scene is about the size of a small class. I'd suggest looking at the roles/personalities you want covered, making just enough licks to fill them out, and not worrying about making sure every role and archetype is covered.

KillianHawkeye
2010-05-31, 06:28 AM
Although as a heads up, even 30 vampires is not much of an undead society. Brujah can't make much of a show of solidarity when there's only four of them in town, ditto Ventrue calling on each other for resources, and there's not much point to a Nosferatu information network when the social scene is about the size of a small class. I'd suggest looking at the roles/personalities you want covered, making just enough licks to fill them out, and not worrying about making sure every role and archetype is covered.

You may be right. My concern is mostly that I want to have enough vampires in town for my players to interact with so that they have the opportunity to make a few friends and a few enemies within the community depending on what they do and how they behave.

I'm not planning more than the occaisional interaction with other supernatural creatures, and I'd rather not focus entirely on vampire-human relations. It ought to be much more interesting to make my players balance their new lives in vampiric society against maintaining some presence in or relationship with the human community. Besides which, since I expect to have around 4 to 6 players, I don't want them to feel like they can go wild and take over the town or something. They definitely need to be outnumbered. Not to mention that I need to account for their sires, as they'll all be starting out as fresh vamps.


As for there being some special reason why there's an unusual number of undead in the city, I really don't need one. I'm actually more interested in having the higher number just being the norm in my own version of the World of Darkness, and I don't intend to explain it. My query is more about how many more can I have such that the Masquerade is still believeably possible.

Project_Mayhem
2010-05-31, 07:35 AM
By the time a vampire becomes an elder, he knows the most reasonable number of vampires. One. Him.

Kish
2010-05-31, 07:40 AM
I seem to remember that the 1 per 100,000 humans number is for the world, counting Kuei-jin, and that nowhere smaller than the world actually has that proportion, as cities are much more densely populated with vampires and rural areas usually have 0 vampires.

comicshorse
2010-05-31, 07:52 AM
I seem to remember according to the first Vampire books 1 in 50,000 is the IDEAL number of vampires to humans. As such it hardly ever happens, 1 in 10,000 was quoted as being what most cities actually had with some having even denser populations of vampires ( every Ventrue worth their salt is going to want to live in Washington).
This was doen to add a source of conflict : RESOURCES, the Elders have the prime feeding grounds the young kindred have the scraps. You can hunt through the Elders discards for enough to keep you barely alive or you can take it off them. Wether you do it through revolution ( Viva the Anarchs) or play the game and depose them politically was up to you

A city of 250,000 would be 25 Kindred with presumably the younger Kindred mostly int he outskirts where the feeding is harder

Riffington
2010-05-31, 09:01 AM
30 is more than enough for a vampire society; 3 vampires in a clan is all you need, with 4 (or 5) if there's something crazy going on. And there is no need to do all 7 clans, so I'd say a society does fine with 20 plus PCs. But you want 30, so be it. Just figure out two things.
*Why the heck are all these vampires so interested in this tiny locale. Well, you have an answer already: the whole world is overcrowded with vampires, so they come here. Fine, that works.
*How can you maintain a masquerade? Well, there's a few answers to that.
First, what should a death rate be? Let's say the average vampire kills one person a year in a fashion that may look like homicide. Chicago is 18/100k/year, whereas El Paso is 3. So by Earth standards, vampires make a huge dent in the homicide rate. But it's the World of Darkness, no reason we can't multiply homicide rates by 10. Since it's throughout the world rather than "oh, 30 vampires just showed up", violence is just a bigger problem than it is here. Alternatively you can have the government/police of every city actively engaged in coverups - which is an interesting take on the Masquerade.
Second, what about the people going to the ER with blood loss. You secretly drink from someone, they're going to act "sick" for a bit. The CDC could track this, or it could just be a "normal" thing (everyone knows about this "viral" illness that resolves pretty quickly, nobody really found a cause, and nobody's really that freaked out).
Third, are you spreading diseases by blood? Do vampires spread Hep C? That one's ST fiat.
Fourth, let's say the vampires really run the show - how small of a territory can a vampire have and still be an inefficient hunter rather than an efficient gatherer? Say a vampire uses 2 blood/night. He needs to take 350 victims/year. If he's properly specific about his "type", he'll go after 2% of the people in his territory; hitting each 1/2years means he needs 35,000 people in his territory. You are going below that, which means either that
*vampires have to have herds rather than just loose territories
*there are some people getting constantly sick and thinking it's normal
*being bit is a thing that happens to most people at some point(s) in their life, rather than just to certain groups.
Now, of course you can do that. Just be aware that now we've got to the point where "presents to the emergency room with weakness, orthostatic hypotension, and a decreased hematocrit" is a standard chief complaint.

comicshorse
2010-05-31, 09:09 AM
Posted by Riffington

If he's properly specific about his "type", he'll go after 2% of the people in his territory;
But only Ventrue have a 'type' everybody else can bite how they like. Also Gangrel and Nosferatu can feed off animals and I've played Giovanni who lived exclusively off the blood of corpses in his morgue

Amphetryon
2010-05-31, 09:14 AM
*obligatory "Over 9000!" comment.

Riffington
2010-05-31, 09:16 AM
Posted by Riffington

But only Ventrue have a 'type' everybody else can bite how they like. Also Gangrel and Nosferatu can feed off animals and I've played Giovanni who lived exclusively off the blood of corpses in his morgue

I should have clarified that better. 2% for a regular vampire, 0.2% for a Ventrue.

If you are nonspecific, and just say "I'm hungry, let's eat the first person I find", you will get caught. The only way to reduce the chances of being caught to near zero is to be very specific about the kind of situation you feed in. You need to know the church scene (or bar scene or whatever) very well in order to know "ok, this guy is going to end up being trouble" in some way.

It is certainly true that vampires can feed off animals or the dead. But then they stop being a hunter of the night and start being a farmer.

comicshorse
2010-05-31, 09:25 AM
If you are nonspecific, and just say "I'm hungry, let's eat the first person I find", you will get caught. The only way to reduce the chances of being caught to near zero is to be very specific about the kind of situation you feed in. You need to know the church scene (or bar scene or whatever) very well in order to know "ok, this guy is going to end up being trouble" in some way.


Ah by type I thought you meant the Ventrue clan flaw but you mean hunting in social area's where you underatand the rules and so can minimize Masquerade disasters. I understand and agree with the provisio that some times kindred are going to be so desperate they will have to hunt outside their 'comfort zone' .

Riffington
2010-05-31, 09:34 AM
Ah by type I thought you meant the Ventrue clan flaw but you mean hunting in social area's where you underatand the rules and so can minimize Masquerade disasters. I understand and agree with the provisio that some times kindred are going to be so desperate they will have to hunt outside their 'comfort zone' .

Yes, exactly.

Note that you can get away with many more vampires in a city if you maintain herds properly. Herds are dangerous though. First, you have to maintain them pretty well to avoid masquerade breaches. Second, they're a great way for an enemy to hurt/kill you.

Aron Times
2010-05-31, 11:06 AM
20 to 30 vampires in a city is more than enough for a good story. The fewer named characters there are in a game, the more detailed and fleshed out you can make them. You don't really need more than a handful of vampires for each clan.

Umael
2010-05-31, 11:57 AM
1) Have as many vampires as you think you need for your story. If the city has 100,000 with 150,000 in outlying areas, then by the hard numbers, that's only two, maybe three. But overcrowding has been an issue. Harsh conditions make it easier for the various vampires to multiple - so you can justify more by making sure the police are corrupt, there are plenty of homeless, people get involved in drugs and hedonistic parties, cut funding for certain research facilities and hospitals when the budget including areas that threaten the Masquerade, and so forth.

2) The Dark Ages say that conditions were such that a number of vampires could be found within a city of only 10,000. There is also mention of a vampire who ran across an autakaris vampire who had absolute control for a small village, one of those population a few thousand. So you can have more.

3) As was mentioned, the 1 per 100,000 number was more a total estimate. Some place like Oregon has a population of 3 million, about 75% of it in the Willamette Valley. That means that Oregon should have 30 vampires total. I imagine the number in the Willamette Valley should be closer to 27 (90%) than 22-23. Of course, if I want to include a more gritty and tough conditions due to overpopulation, I would put that number higher.

4) Don't think of the clans as contained units. There is no reason for all 7 of the Camarilla Clans to be evenly represented. It's like different ethnic groups - Oregon has a number of Hispanic and Asian people, but not that many African-Americans (except in Portland). Similarly, why should there be an equal distribution of each of the Clans.

4b) Don't go with the stereotypes too much. Just because the Ventrue are known for this financial acumen doesn't mean you can't have a Ventrue who runs with the gangs.

Jack_Simth
2010-05-31, 12:25 PM
If you want to figure out what the reasonable limits are, first figure out how often your vampires feed, and how heavily they feed.

If a vampire needs a pint of blood per month, then you can actually get by with a fairly small supporting human population: A healthy adult human can safely lose a pint of blood every two or three months, so you could have one vampire for every three adults.

If a vampire kills an adult human when it feeds, and needs to feed once per month, then you need enough of a population that the losses won't matter. If every family has three children, and everyone gets married and have kids, your population goes up by 50% per generation (call it 20 years, or 240 months). You need to recoup your losses - so you need to increase by 240 people every 20 years... and as that's 50%, you need at least a base population of 480 per vampire. If that's "every night" rather than "every month", multiply that by about 31 or so - 14,880 humans per vampire, give or take. If the breeding rate is higher (everyone has four kids?), you can reduce that number.

It's fairly simple math, really - by figuring out how many people a vampire needs to feed on to be sustainable, you can tell how many you need. And as the storyteller, you can tweak the mechanics to match what you want.

LibraryOgre
2010-05-31, 12:37 PM
One in ten thousand shouldn't be too bad. If they were very tightly controlled, you could go as low as 1:1000 ratio, but at that point, they'd almost have to be primarily from a single, tightly controlled, family (Tremere could do that ratio).

If you want more interaction, consider other groups. Maybe there's some human magicians (not necessarily full Mages, but hedge wizards and the like) in the area who can stand up to vampires, and interact with the Tremere. Or some hereditary ghoul families that run a local sector of the economy. Even a singular, outcast Lupine (i.e. can stand up to vampires, but doesn't have a whole pack to call upon).

Riffington
2010-05-31, 12:54 PM
If a vampire needs a pint of blood per month
A vampire needs 1.5 pints of blood per day for bare subsistence, assuming they don't exert themselves.

But the main thing isn't the mechanics. The main thing is "how are we going to have so many hunters while keeping their prey unaware of our existence". And the answer to that can include some combination of extreme caution, small numbers, and government coverup. The more of any one of those factors you want, the less you need of the others.

Semidi
2010-05-31, 01:06 PM
It's possible. What I would recommend is this:

Everyone who doesn't know forgetful mind owes at least one minor boon to a Ventrue or Tremere who does (or Giovanni if there are any).

Lots of Media, political, police, and health influence. A lot.

Zero tolerance policy on masquerade breaches. If one happens and you don't clean it up (have the person mind wiped or have enough influence so the prince and sheriff don't find out about it) immediate final death.

Anarchs and clans without a lot of pull in the town get crap feeding territory. Like off of animals. This has the added benefit of giving the Prince an excuse to start killing starving Anarchs who screw up.

Have an extremely powerful and active scourge.

Killing of mortals is strictly forbidden without explicit permission from the Prince.

--

In other words, it's an extremely controlled state. This could provide an excellent sort of setting for a game as it has both political implication (better territory, getting people out of jams, trading of boons, and so on) or revolutionary ones (I bet those Anarchs are pissed...).

Now just wait until the Sabbat come rolling in... That'd be really fun to attempt to keep the masquerade then.

Worira
2010-05-31, 03:18 PM
It is certainly true that vampires can feed off animals or the dead. But then they stop being a hunter of the night and start being a farmer.

A farmer of the night.

Aron Times
2010-05-31, 03:55 PM
How fast do humans heal lethal damage in Masquerade? In Requiem, mortals heal 1 lethal damage every two days, and 1 lethal damage = 1 vitae. Therefore, a vampire can feed on a minimum of two vessels without killing anyone. Those with the Coil of Blood have an incredibly efficient "digestive system," and can easily feed on a single vessel without killing him.

I know there is a merit that gives a Masquerade vampire an efficient digestive system, but the name escapes me right now. That would help a lot in keeping vampires from killing their vessels.

comicshorse
2010-05-31, 04:20 PM
I know there is a merit that gives a Masquerade vampire an efficient digestive system, but the name escapes me right now

Ironically its called the 'Effiecient Digestion' merit

estradling
2010-05-31, 04:22 PM
In Masquerade a vampire needs (blood point spent*2) reliable victims, to not harm them, and not spiral down in to hunger. (ie assuming feeding on a victim again as soon as it can be safely done)

Thus a vampire that only lives and thus only spends 1 point needs 2 victims
one using 2 points need 4 victims.
one using 3 points need 6 victims.
one using 4 points need 8 victims.
one using 5 points need 10 victims.
one using 6 points need 12 victims.

Keeping that kind of tight control over the victims to keep the numbers to this level would most likely require Ghouling or powerful long term Domination.

The more vampires you have in a city the more likely its going to be that the smarter ones aren't going to want take the increased risks of a hunt. They are going to want to grab their dozen or so victims permanently.

Of course this also opens of new avenues of play. Going after a vampires permanent supply, or trying to get rewarded a already prepared victim. Humanity checks for keeping what is in essence slaves etc...

Set
2010-05-31, 04:32 PM
In Masquerade, a human recovers from losing a single blood point overnight.

In theory, you could live off of a single person.

Ignoring this completely, we ruled that it wasn't really safe to feed off of a single person more than once a week, and that it was ideal to not feed off of them more than once a month. (House rule that they would remain at risk of opportunistic infection and / or slightly more susceptible to illness during that time.)

Even then, that's something like 1 vampire / 30 people.

There are also plenty of sources of blood that don't involve biting people on the neck.

Have a ghoul that works at a blood bank, where they have to destroy blood after X number of days.

Have a ghoul that work at a kennel / animal shelter, where cute little puppies and kitties that don't find homes are ganked after seven days, and all that lovely blood can be removed from them before or after that process.

Have a ghoul that works at a butcher shop or at an actual slaughterhouse, where dozens (or hundreds) of gallons of blood may get sluiced down a drain during the course of a day.

Have a ghoul that works on a farm or zoo, and can get you access to all sorts of non-human necks.

Again, we house ruled that non-human blood was less 'filling' (and most definitely did not 'taste great'), to prevent this sort of thing from making vampire existence *too* easy. Really old blood about to be destroyed at the blood bank might only provide 1/2, 1/4 or 1/5th value, requiring multiple pints to count as a single 'blood point.' Animal blood was less valuable, with herbivore blood the least valuable of all (making running a dairy and drinking blood from cattle a nauseating final option, as one might have to drink *gallons* of blood from a half dozen cattle to get a single blood point worth of nourishment, and the bled cattle would, naturally, produce less milk, making it a singularly unproductive dairy...). Omnivores would be next up, and mammalian carnivores the best of all (cats and dogs being common, but also, generally, not that big, making it either difficult or impossible to feed off of them without killing them, meaning that the Nosferatu everyone calls 'Crazy Cat Lady' has a big pile of feline bodies buried in her backyard...). IIRC, the actual rules were more generous, and one could get 5 blood points from a cow, which would make the 'farmer of the night' a much more viable professional choice.

Still, a vampire who doesn't have Dominate and didn't purchase a Herd can still get by, with the right Follower or location or circumstances.

As a result of all these options, when I designed a city for Vampire populatin' (I used Miami and Denver for my two games), I put in the exact number of vampires that I wanted to round out the clans and provide the appropriate story hooks. The mortal populations of Miami and Denver were non-issues, since a vampire can provide their own blood resources by just jotting down 'Herd 4' or 'Follower: runs an animal shelter' on their sheet.

Relatively few vampires just wander around Camarilla run cities biting random people on the neck, after all, and killing mortals via exsanguination is frowned upon in any event (barring careful 'framing' of the event, such as giving the victim some nasty wounds and leaving them in a river, so that the forensics would conclude that they bled out and the blood washed away)...

KillianHawkeye
2010-05-31, 04:52 PM
Wow, this conversation is giving me some great ideas!



Don't think of the clans as contained units. There is no reason for all 7 of the Camarilla Clans to be evenly represented. It's like different ethnic groups - Oregon has a number of Hispanic and Asian people, but not that many African-Americans (except in Portland). Similarly, why should there be an equal distribution of each of the Clans.

I don't necessarily need an even distribution, but I do need (at a minimum) at least 1 member of each Clan to serve as a possible sire for a PC. My players haven't made their characters yet, but I'm allowing them to choose from any of the 7 clans in the main book (or to be a Caitiff if they really want to).

Right now I'm considering the main clans of the city will be Brujah, Ventrue, Gangrel, and Nosferatu, with a few Malkavians, a couple Toreador, and not many Tremere, plus a few extras from other bloodlines (such as Caitiff, or a lone Samedi just to freak my players out).


If you want more interaction, consider other groups. Maybe there's some human magicians (not necessarily full Mages, but hedge wizards and the like) in the area who can stand up to vampires, and interact with the Tremere. Or some hereditary ghoul families that run a local sector of the economy. Even a singular, outcast Lupine (i.e. can stand up to vampires, but doesn't have a whole pack to call upon).

There will be were-wolves eventually, but I'm going to introduce them slowly since it's unlikely that fresh characters will be a match for one. But there are definitily wolves living in the surrounding wilderness. I'm also planning on having a Glass Walker and maybe a couple of Bone Gnawers living in the city which the players might run into sometime.


How fast do humans heal lethal damage in Masquerade? In Requiem, mortals heal 1 lethal damage every two days, and 1 lethal damage = 1 vitae. Therefore, a vampire can feed on a minimum of two vessels without killing anyone. Those with the Coil of Blood have an incredibly efficient "digestive system," and can easily feed on a single vessel without killing him.

They have a scaling healing rate that depends on how many health levels they've lost, ranging from 1 day to 3 months or more.

Lord Vukodlak
2010-05-31, 04:55 PM
Another factor to keep in mind that as immortal beings there is little need to have one adventure happen shortly after the next. For most adventures its not getting by that's the problem its recharging your blood pool after some tough fights.

Aron Times
2010-05-31, 05:52 PM
Replenishing lost vitae by draining your unconscious enemies goes a long way in keeping your vampire from getting hungry. Many STs don't ding Humanity for self-defense, so if those bastards were trying to kill you, hey, it's not your fault they're in a blood loss-induced coma.

comicshorse
2010-05-31, 05:56 PM
Though that will make you one step Blood Bound to them

Aron Times
2010-05-31, 06:47 PM
Final Death makes the Blood Bond irrelevant. If you stake them and leave them out for the sunrise, there won't be any trace of them left (ashes + wind = Nobody will find Kubota).

comicshorse
2010-05-31, 07:02 PM
Posted by Joseph Silver

Many STs don't ding Humanity for self-defens

True but.....

If you stake them and leave them out for the sunrise,
That's not self-defence, when they go down they cease to be a threat. Leaving them to die would be worth a Humanity roll ( in my opinion)


(ashes + wind = Nobody will find Kubota).
That's what Giovanni are for :smallsmile:

NekoJoker
2010-05-31, 07:33 PM
Though that will make you one step Blood Bound to them


That is only if they were kindred or actually ghouls.

Yes it is not likely that you will be fighting human-only-targets; so a house-rule could be done that you need to feed off a ghoul a couple of times before taking your first step into the blood bond.

at any rate... it is true that recharging the blood pool is a difficult thing after a couple of fights, specially if you are a Ventrue or any other character that has some demerit about feeding (like a specific type you prefer or a specific type you avoid).

This could be solved by the character not spending blood points or being a higher generation so as to have a higher blood pool.

This is a good question I want to ask btw... I only played VtM a couple of times before... but since i have played D&D for maybe a bit too long I do not know how to gauge the fighting... do you intend to have many fights on your story? if so, how many per erm... let's call it chapter (or sessions)

comicshorse
2010-05-31, 08:14 PM
Posted by Neojoker

do you intend to have many fights on your story? if so, how many per erm... let's call it chapter (or sessions)
That;s obviously down to each G.M.'s prefered play-style. From my experience we usually had a combat once every 3 sessions or so

Also can you get Blood Bound to ghouls ? Do you get Bound to them or their vampire master ? I'd assumed neither but it is a interesting point

Kish
2010-05-31, 08:19 PM
If you drink a ghoul's human blood, you don't get Blood Bound (of course). If you drink another vampire's blood from a ghoul's system, you get one step Blood Bound just as if you'd drunk the other vampire's blood any other way.

KillianHawkeye
2010-05-31, 08:19 PM
This is a good question I want to ask btw... I only played VtM a couple of times before... but since i have played D&D for maybe a bit too long I do not know how to gauge the fighting... do you intend to have many fights on your story? if so, how many per erm... let's call it chapter (or sessions)

I have no idea, since this will be both my first time playing and my first time Storytelling.

I hope to impress upon my players the lethality of combat and the various dangers of pissing off the wrong people, but ultimately it will be up to them. Ideally, there wouldn't be more than 1 or maybe 2 fights per story arc, and possibly none at all if they play their cards right. If the campaign is a success, I do eventually have a couple adventure ideas that will probably require combat to resolve (such as the Prince calling a Blood Hunt or a pack of Lupines running amok).

comicshorse
2010-05-31, 08:26 PM
If you drink another vampire's blood from a ghoul's system, you get one step Blood Bound just as if you'd drunk the other vampire's blood any other way.
But how do you seperate the vampire blood from the ghoul's blood ? Or do you mean if you drain the ghould dry you get the point his master would have fed him ?

Kish
2010-05-31, 08:32 PM
If you drain the ghoul dry, you certainly get all the vampire's blood. For how you determine whether you get any of the vampire's blood while drinking from a ghoul but not draining the ghoul dry...I don't remember and I don't have access to my copy of Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand (the 2ed book which specifically says you can get Blood Bound through a ghoul) at the moment, I'm afraid.

But you don't need to drink an entire undiluted Blood Point to move one step toward Blood Bond. Just one drop, mixed in with any amount of human blood, will do it.

Balain
2010-05-31, 08:34 PM
I didn't read all the posts, so not sure if I am repeating anyone. You need to remember, it is a game. You can have as many vampires you need to tell a good story. If you need start with 5 or so or 13 what ever, as you need more introduce the players to the new vampires. If there are too many, well hunters come to town and thin out the numbers. Don't follow a set number do what the story needs.

mostlyharmful
2010-06-01, 02:17 AM
Personally, I really like the source material where knowing what clan another vamp is is unusual. In some books everyone seems to introduce themselves like a prisoner of war, name, clan, generation, rank, shoesize, etc..... bleh!

I'm not like my brother, we were raised together, share a lot more genetically than any two random clanmates would, went through a far more important formative period together and guess what, we like differnet things, are interested in different things... clan stereotypes should be just that and little more.

Say you've got vampire bob, he's four hundred years old and when he arrived in this city two hundred and fifty years ago he told the ruling prince what his clan was. The Princedom has changed twice since then and each time he's been in a more secure position and so has to give away less and less. He's interested in art history, the revolutionary discipline of psychiatry and has a great deal of influence over organized crime and the police force in the city.

You tell me if Bob is a Ventrue, a Toreador, a Gangrel that's mastered Obfuscate, a functional Malkavian or a Caitiff..... If he can't create a distinct identity for himself in four hundred years that's kinda sad, and if he has created a real role in the city then his personal abilities and habits are far more important than what his clan weakness is.

Put as many personalities in your city as you need and once your characters sheets are in fix one or two of them to a particular clan but don't worry overmuch on what's going through the vamps veins, it's what's in their brains that matters.

Chen
2010-06-01, 07:33 AM
Ironically its called the 'Effiecient Digestion' merit

They overlooked what happened if two people with this merit fed off each other. You end up with an infinite blood supply since each person can drain the other 2 points but gain 3. Add in Unbondable (or just be bound to each other) and you have a pretty strong team :P

KillianHawkeye
2010-06-01, 08:16 AM
Personally, I really like the source material where knowing what clan another vamp is is unusual. In some books everyone seems to introduce themselves like a prisoner of war, name, clan, generation, rank, shoesize, etc..... bleh!

I'm not like my brother, we were raised together, share a lot more genetically than any two random clanmates would, went through a far more important formative period together and guess what, we like differnet things, are interested in different things... clan stereotypes should be just that and little more.

Say you've got vampire bob, he's four hundred years old and when he arrived in this city two hundred and fifty years ago he told the ruling prince what his clan was. The Princedom has changed twice since then and each time he's been in a more secure position and so has to give away less and less. He's interested in art history, the revolutionary discipline of psychiatry and has a great deal of influence over organized crime and the police force in the city.

You tell me if Bob is a Ventrue, a Toreador, a Gangrel that's mastered Obfuscate, a functional Malkavian or a Caitiff..... If he can't create a distinct identity for himself in four hundred years that's kinda sad, and if he has created a real role in the city then his personal abilities and habits are far more important than what his clan weakness is.

Put as many personalities in your city as you need and once your characters sheets are in fix one or two of them to a particular clan but don't worry overmuch on what's going through the vamps veins, it's what's in their brains that matters.

I agree that clan isn't everything, and that many individuals don't exactly live up to the stereotypes. But then again, there is also a lot of politics between representatives of certain clans, and sometimes a person's clan is fairly obvious (such as with Nosferatu or Gangrel that've frenzied too much). Also, I think that the reasoning why a character differs from their clan stereotype should be developed into something interesting that helps to say something about the character.

Bharg
2010-06-01, 10:02 AM
I think the total number of vampires in an area does not matter. You will not meet and get to know everyone of them anyway. Just let as many vampires appear in your campaign as you need to.
Clans are cool and all, but I like the image of a lone, solitary vampire living in a crappy (I can write crappy here, can I?) appartment and is simply trying to survive and not to get into too much trouble, what obviously never works out in the end.

Could it really considered to be inhuman to kill a vamp if your are a human, prey, or a vampire yourself in self defense?

comicshorse
2010-06-01, 10:31 AM
Posted by Chen


Quote:
Originally Posted by comicshorse View Post
Ironically its called the 'Effiecient Digestion' merit
They overlooked what happened if two people with this merit fed off each other. You end up with an infinite blood supply since each person can drain the other 2 points but gain 3. Add in Unbondable (or just be bound to each other) and you have a pretty strong team :P

Yep I know a ST whose players created a Sabbat Pack ALL with Efficient Digestion to use that particular loop-hole. Infinite blood and they're Bound by the Vaulderie anyway.

mostlyharmful
2010-06-01, 05:41 PM
I agree that clan isn't everything, and that many individuals don't exactly live up to the stereotypes.

I'd go so far as to say that a stereotypical member of a clan should be a minority, except for certain specific clans (Tremere/Malkavian) due to lack of personal volition.


But then again, there is also a lot of politics between representatives of certain clans, and sometimes a person's clan is fairly obvious (such as with Nosferatu or Gangrel that've frenzied too much).

Hence why Obfuscate becomes useful. If the Nossie showers regularly, never goes into the sewer and hasn't shown his 'real' face in the city since before there were streetlamps then clan can still be a dicey piece of guesswork.


Also, I think that the reasoning why a character differs from their clan stereotype should be developed into something interesting that helps to say something about the character.

See, I'm not sure it should even be that. If you have a series of individuals bound together by nothing more than genetics and seperate them across time, continents, generations, whatever they'll drift apart without SOMETHING else to hold them together. For Tremere it's sorcerous bonds forged by a team of co-operative, unusually active methuselahs bent on if not world dominion then something close and for Malkavians it's that their founder lives inside their heads but for everyone else it's possible to just walk away, change your name, reinvent your identity and live a whole new life somewhere far far away from daddy and his expectations.