House rules discussion!

I will open up each thread for commenting for a week.
I want the feeling of this game to be as much fun for me and for you guys. Also. If you have any tips, insights or what so ever abiut something that haven't came up just yet, just tell me in this thread!

Well, one thing that I always found to be annoying was Combat. In a forum environment, combat is a nightmare anyway, but many people seem to forget that Vampire is about Socio-political intrigue instead of how hard you can hit something, or how often you can hit it.

I've explored several options for combat myself, to try and streamline it. The first method I tried was everyone declared their actions, then I went away and performed the combat scene, and posted up a summary at the end of each round. It negated the metagaming risk completely by putting everything under ST control, all reactive rolls etc. were done at once without player input.

That first method worked quite well, but I felt I was robbing my players of the ability to make decisions in the blink of an eye, so to speak.

My second method was to do combat as written in the book. This is where a lot of the arguments happened, mainly due to rules-lawyering by players who didn't want to lose. I can understand that, none of us want to lose...ever, but without the real risk of defeat, you cheapen combat scenes.

So far, I've trialled 3 or 4 different methods of combat scenes, and none of them, with the exception of the first, have given the flavour and detail that I felt the players deserved. That being said, as I already stated, it took control of the PC's away from the individual, but did allow for really good (and quick) combat resolution.

In short, there's no catch-all method to streamlining combat, but I'll happily offer opinions here and there if needed.

Sorry for the late answer... I do have a few things in mind.

I would say use caution when making house rules, but do not worry about applying new ones when needed.

1. When it comes to Celerity, having it offer 1 free success to all Dexterity based actions ON the round it is activated to be the smoothest use of the Discipline.

2. For the flow of things, I would also suggest that everyone gets 1 action per round, but gets to Dodge every incoming attack according to X-N+1=D where X is full dice pool, N is which number of Dodge it is for that round and D = Dice. I.E. 4 Dex, 3 Dodge and 3rd Dodge that round would be 7-3+1=5 dice.

3. When an effect is stated in time (Presence 3, for instance) being enthralled for a year in game is horrid and silly. Reducing the time a bit or using real life time for these things seem most appropriate. Something along the line of:

1 year = 1 year IRL
1 month = 2 in-game nights
1 scene = 1 in-game night
1 hour = 2 real life days

4. Building backgrounds, this needs a set example I think. Even if the values IRL maybe aren't exact, for the fairness of the system it should be decided at some point. Example: Bob wants to make his Resources go from 2 to 3, as normal he does the roleplaying bit and runs about selling stock and buying property, leasing it out or whatever. Then he makes an Intelligence + Finance roll (diff. 6) limited to once per in game night. Have total successes needed be desired rank x 5. So in this case he needs a total of 15 (3x5) to raise it. Then the next dot would be 20 (4x5) etc. Obviously ghouling wouldn't need a roll, but some order to things would be nice. Maybe Manipulation + Politics for Influence, Appearance + Subterfuge for Herd or whatever it may be.

5. I know you have mentioned Herd lowers difficulty of hunting by the amount of dots and I can't actually remember, but I feel like I have read that's the purpose of the Fame background. Having Herd give 1 blood point per night per dot (which I have also seen) kind of takes away the thrill of the hunt and some of the main themes of the game. Maybe add the Herd to the Dice pool of perception when hunting could work?

6. Thaumaturgy - if it becomes relevant, I don't know how it normally works, but if it doesn't usually then a 1 exp/level of the ritual for learning new ones might be an idea. If this is already how it works then of course this point is moot (I have never had much interest in the Clan).

7. Define what the weapon regulation rules are, are handguns or knives legal to carry? Is there a need for a permit to own a hunting rifle? Things like that, could be good to define early.

I might think of more things, but I'm getting tired and possibly rambly, so I'll stop for now.