Vamprie 5th Edition LARP Conversion

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For some time, ElmerG ran a Vampire the Masquerade 5th Edition LARP. Though the LARP closed due to local issues, there was a significant playerbase and interest. In the interest of those LARPers out there who want a V5 LARP system, here are the 'beta' Rules for V5 LARP Conversion.

V5 LARP Conversion

For many games, certain aspects of the published material, be it a particularly overpowered supernatural power, something that disrupts the feel of the game or something that was poorly playtested, simply do not fit. Additionally, occasionally certain things simply need to be altered to make things flow more efficiently. With our game using the tabletop rules, this is more applicable to V5 LARP than most.

After review of the V5 Rulebook, we have elected to make the following House Rules to ensure a smooth game (and a smooth transition from tabletop to LARP rules). This document contains both conversions and clarifications to mechanics to account for LARP situations, and rules alterations for overall balance purposes.

Feeding/Starting Hunger

Due to the semi-persistent nature of LARP, feeding is something that can take a lot of time. In lieu of dedicating an exorbitant amount of time at each game, the staff have chosen to instant the following rules (subject to change):

Starting Hunger

Due to the ongoing nature of the game, vampires are assumed to do 'basic hunting' in order to keep their blood stores up. To represent this, at the beginning of game, all characters will begin play at ***Hunger 3*** to represent the 'bare minimum' of hunting and feeding done to maintain. A character may use a Downtime Action to dedicate extra time to feeding for 'better' maintenance.

Feeding

A character may feed in the following manner:

  • Downtime Feeding: Characters may use a Downtime Action to feed safely and keep up your Hunger.
    • Downtime Feeding will provide the following options a character
      • Enter play at Hunger 1.
      • Enter play at Hunger 2, with a standard Resonance of their choice.
        • If a character explicitly kills in a Downtime Feeding, they will begin play at Hunger 0 and will be subject to appropriate Stains and potentially a Remorse Roll.
  • At Game/During Game Feeding: Characters may take a period of time out of game, after game starts, to feed and slake Hunger as follows:
    • Feeding Scene: A character takes 10-15 minutes out of game to represent a short Feeding scene. This will general involve a short scene with a Storyteller or a Narrator. A Basic Feeding Scene can slake 1 Hunger, representing finding a suitable vessel to take the 'little drink' from.
    • Herd: A character may take 5 minutes out of game to use their Herd to slake Hunger. This 5 minutes slakes 1 Hunger, and uses up one 'dot' of your effective Herd.
      • If you have levels of Herd capable of supporting Resonances, you may change your Resonance or gain a Resonance using this Herd, per normal.

Time

Time in the LARP is considered Dramatic Time. A few terms are covered in the book, and have been codified here for the purposes of the real time LARP.

  • Chronicle
    The entirety of the game lifespan, from opening to closing.
  • Story
    An event encompassing a plot from start to finish, as short as a single Scene or a list of interconnected Scenes. It has an introduction, a plot arc that involves rising conflict, and a climax that brings events to a conclusion. A Story is hard to map to real time. Generally staff will declare when a story has ended.
  • Chapter
    A period of interconnected Stories and smaller, individual Scenes. A Chapter covers one real time month.
  • Scene
    A Scene represents a single 'focused' event, typically in one location and usually encompasses a single, specific outcome. For example, the arrival of an important person and their entourage, the discovery of a murdered friend’s body, or meeting with sources to learn about the recent rash of disappearances. A Scene is:
    • One hour of real time
    • A major location change
  • Downtime
    Downtime is any time considered 'off screen,' where a character is taking care of minutiae that, while often important to the story of the game, is not something that needs to be the focus of 'on screen' time. Downtime is one of the other areas that maps to real time: a Downtime maps to the time between the 1st and 3rd weekend games.

Movement

In prior editions of Vampire the Masquerade LARP rules, Movement is necessary to help keep combat under control. This has taken many forms in prior editions. Distances in the V5 core are measured, generally, in meters, but otherwise abstracted as far as positioning and other related aspects. For the LARP conversion, we will be treating all mention of meters as steps, unless prohibitive to the narrative or otherwise stated. For example:

  • The Thin Blood Alchemy power Far Reach gives a distance of 'within 10 meters;' for the LARP, that would be 10 steps from the caster of the power.
  • The Celerity power Blink gives an effective range of 50 meters; for the LARP, that is being ruled as 30 steps (which is often narratively prohibitive, based on space concerns, and could be run either way).

Information on Movement as it pertains to V5 LARP combat can be found in the V5 Conflict Resolution Document.

Combat

Due to the length of the file, information on combat (including a breakdown of the two main types of combat, a Resisted Conflict and a Three Turn Conflict) can be found in the V5 Conflict Resolution Document.

Downtime System=

Due to the nature of Vampire the Masquerade in LARP form, we have elected to utilize a house ruled Downtime Action system.

  • Version: 1.0

Downtime Actions are a unique conceit to many large-scale games. At the most base level, Downtime Actions are representative of anything that does not require a scene, or is considered to happen 'off screen' and most often will not require a challenge, and are often boring and dull to RP. This is going to represent things like research that takes significant time or resource dedication, construction projects, and others (like 'maintenance' feeding for Kindred).

Below are the specifics for the two factors of Downtime: Downtime Actions and Downtime Phases.

Downtime Phase

A Downtime Phase is the period in which a character can perform Downtime Actions. For Bluegrass Anarchy, a character gets two (2) Downtime Phases each Chapter, mapped to real time.

  • A Downtime Phase is the period of time between games (from 1st to 3rd weekend, and 3rd to 1st weekend).

Downtime Actions

Downtime Actions are representations of 'off screen' actions, things that are important and often necessary to a character's life, but aren't the best suited for actual RP scenes. It might be important for a character to maintain her holdings, learn Disciplines, and see to other common tasks, but these are often exceptionally dull to play out during a game. A Downtime Action represents these things without any RP (though you MAY RP them out if you wish, but it's not required). This does not mean no story is happening - you can, and should, have the things that happen off-screen influence the RP.

  • At the end of each Downtime Phase, on the first day of the next phase, the Downtime Actions of a character will reset.

Number of Downtime Actions

However, a character does not have unlimited time -- particularly with the persistent nature of a Bluegrass Anarchy. There are only so many hours in the night for a character to get things done. As such, there are limits to the number of downtime actions a character can take in a Downtime Phase, though there are ways to increase this maximum through the system. The amount of Downtime Actions a character gets is as follows:

  • All characters get a default of three (3) Downtime Actions per Downtime Phase.
  • A character with any dots in the following skills gains an additional Downtime Action:
    • Technology
    • Science
  • A character with the following Merits gain an additional Downtime Action:
    • Day Drinker

So in essence, a character can have a maximum of six (6) Downtime Actions to expend per Phase if they have all of the required categories above.

A character's Downtime Actions should be able to be described in a couple of sentences when submitted. Once received and logged by staff, staff will determine the specifics and necessities for the action, such as if tests, more details, or at game RP are required to successfully fulfill the Downtime Actions. Generally, there will be minimal back and forth RP for downtimes.

Required Downtime Actions

Certain things that a character can do in Bluegrass Anarchy have a Downtime Action requirement. The specifics are detailed in individual news files, but the majority are listed below:

  • Casting an extended (year and a day) Ward

Other Downtime Actions

Below is a list of the most common Downtime Actions that are taken; please note that this is not meant to be an all-encompassing list. Additionally, a number of Merits grant some specific things you can do during Downtimes.) For individual things that utilize Downtimes, there will be details in those entries on their appropriate news files.

  • Investigation
  • Feeding
  • Patrolling Territory

Submitting Downtime Actions

Downtime Actions should be submitted to the following email address: email@gmail.com

Rules Clarifications/Alterations

Below you will find the rules alterations for Bluegrass Anarchy LARP; most of these changes are being made due to balance, clarity of a rule, or need for the game we are creating.

Stains

Based on discussions with the V5 developers, Stains are meant to be covered by 'monstrous acts' and 'acts that incite the Beast' in addition to the general Stains list. Due to this, Bluegrass Anarchy is using the following Stain criteria in addition to the Stain list on pg. 240 of the core book.

  • Performing particularly heinous forms of killing murder or mass murder will cause additional Stains. The number of Stains is based on the heinousness of the act.
  • Something horrible happening to you or to someone close to you, and it affecting you in a profoundly terrifying and unfair manner. The number of Stains is based on the cause of said profound reaction.

Multiple instances of a Conviction mitigating a Stain do not stack; you may only mitigate one Stain on the most applicable Conviction.

Backgrounds

Backgrounds are one of the most important aspects of a character, as they define large amounts of the character's temporal power and connections. Below are clarifications/alterations to the existing Backgrounds:

  • Allies: Allies cannot be members of other supernatural types (Mage, Werewolf, etc.) or mortals with magical powers such as hedge witches.
  • Influence: Influence cannot be taken in federal government-related entities such as the FBI, the military or other related entities.
  • Mawla: Characters may not have a canon NPC (such as Beckett, Smiling Jack or Nines Rodriguez) as a Mawla; this is the purview of Loresheets.
  • Loresheets: A character may begin play with one (1) Loresheet, though they may have as many levels as they wish to purchase. Staff is currently undecided about purchasing more Loresheets and will make a decision shortly after game start.
  • Retainer: Retainers are built using the Templates on pg. 185 of the core book. Retainers cannot be members of other supernatural types (Mage, Werewolf, etc.) or mortals with magical powers such as hedge witches. Retainers may be mortals or Ghouls.
    • If a Ghoul, the Retainer benefits from all the normal rules for Ghouls (pg. 234).

Merits and Flaws

General clarifications on Merits and Flaws are listed below.

  • Living in the Past (1 dot Flaw, pg. 180): If you lose the Touchstone tied to the archaic Conviction you chose to attach to this flaw, you also lose the Conviction per the normal rules. Moving this Conviction to another Touchstone can be done, but is more difficult and requires working with the Storytelling Staff on how to achieve this act.

Predator Types

Predator Types are one of the new mechanics for Vampire 5th Edition. While an interesting mechanic, some aspects of them are not appropriate to Bluegrass Anarchy's chronicle.

  • Characters may not gain the 3rd dot of a Discipline from their chosen Predator Type. If a Predator Type would give you the third dot in a Clan Discipline, you must choose the other option (IE: Consensualist gives a dot in either Auspex or Fortitude; if you have Auspex 2, you would have to take the Fortitude option), or you may take a different Predator Type.

Disciplines

General clarifications and rules about Disciplines are listed below.

Line of Sight

Many powers rely on line of sight between the user and the intended target.

  • Sensory-enhancing powers may allow a vampire to target subjects at a distance (outside the range of normal sight).
  • Technological assistance is not sufficient to target powers at a distance. The target must be observed with the vampire’s own senses or powers. Use of binoculars, sound amplifiers, video cameras, or other such gear cannot be used to target a power that requires line of sight.
Auspex
  • Sense the Unseen: If the Obfuscate user or other supernaturally-hidden thing comes within five (5) steps of an Auspex user with Sense the Unseen, it will trigger the reflexive roll for the Auspex user (V5 core, pg. 249). The Obfuscate user is considered the initiator of the action for the purposes of ties.
Dominate
  • Dementation: The user of Dementation decides the type of Compulsion when applied. Storytellers decide the actual content of the compulsion based on the narrative logic/weight of the scene. A user of Dementation can certainly engineer the social situation in order to, for example, have a different target for a Harm compulsion.

Credits

Author: ElmerG

Other Credits: David McInteer, co-lead ST of Bluegrass Anarchy LARP

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