Tzor's Own Ideas for his own World of Darkness (Vampires)
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Tzor's Own Ideas for his own World of Darkness (Vampires)
I've always liked the flavor of the Old World of Darkness for vampires. There were major problems with the mechanics of the OWOD. Later editions NWOD, and MCWOD simply removed the flavor so the mechanics would go away. I want to keep the flavor, but swap out the mechanics so that they would actually (gasp) work. So here is my first draft of design for such a revised world of darkness (vampires only). (Well I'm going to start with the first reply to my own thread so I can title all my thoughts accordingly.)
TWODV Generations
Note: At this level of design I want to talk about fluff, or more specifically concepts. Once I have the concepts down I can then see if mechanics can be created to represent the concepts that I have envisioned. While adjustments may be necessary it allows the final game mechanics to be true to the setting that I have envisioned, as opposed to the setting being true to the mechanics that I have designed.
The one thing I liked about the OWOD was the notion of generations. There was a certain aura about the notion of generations that set up as it were a hierarchy of sorts. While a level system encourages a do it yourself attitude towards advancement, a generation system encourages a kiss ass attitude towards your superiors. Frankly I like them both, at the same time.
There are a lot of problems with the OWOD system as it was originally written. I’m going to avoid them by doing two things; making generation a lot more flexible than the original system and by cropping. By cropping I mean that for all practical purposes only the latter generations will be discussed.
There are, so it is commonly held thirteen generations of vampires and every vampire is of a specific generation. Vampires of the 13th generation cannot sire vampires and for this reason are sometimes known as “vampire spawn.” (This is a tie in to the D&D vampire.) With each generation of vampire the blood weakens (or conversely the blood is more potent for lower generation vampires) and their abilities and powers are thus limited.
Note: throughout this document I will refer to the following terms; G: Generation. BPL: Blood Potency Level, effectively 13-G, EG: Effective Generation, which is the effective generation of a vampire after generation drain is considered. BPL is for the most part a design concept term because I think it would be too easily confused with Blood Pool.
Any vampire, not of the 13th generation can sire another vampire. The level of the vampire thus sired is greater than the generation of the “father” vampire, but is not automatically one greater. The process of becoming a vampire is not a guaranteed one; the chance of success is based on the generation of the father and the generation of the “son.”
The process of siring a vampire is not without difficulty to the father as well. Creating a vampire causes generation drain on the vampire which could cause a lowering of effective generation. The simple result is that the closer the father wants his son to be to him generation wise the more generation drain he will experience.
Creating a weaker vampire has advantages and disadvantages. With a 13th generation vampire, you can be assured that he won’t go about making more vampires. You can make more of them with less generation drain. Unfortunately, since you put less of yourself into your son, your son is less under your influence.
Note that the question of generation is simpler for the question of PC generation as we can assume the vampire will either be created with the optimal chance for success and was raised over time by his father (or another) through the process described below.
Once created there are two ways to lower your generation. The most common one is through the re-siring process, where the vampire of lower generation gives more of himself to the son. This is similar to the process of siring in that a vampire can only raise a son to a generational level no less than one above his own. The process also causes generational damage.
The second process, which is only included for abstract campaign world settings is through a heck of a lot of time. A vampire can increase his generation on his own but this takes hundreds if not thousands of years. (Since most campaigns will consist of relatively young vampires and only span for years or decades, the question of generational advancement through age will not be a factor unless it is needed to hand wave an NPC or is used as a plot point by an NPC.) The second process also eliminates the need for vampires to have this Old Testament like list of who sired whom. Indeed the lower generations are mysteriously vague for a reason.
I’m going to throw in a mechanic at this point with the understanding that I might change it later. The amount of time for a vampire to go to the next generation from his current generation is equal to the (BPL of the next generation) squared * 100 years.
Note the second process also allows us to look at the system from the BPL point of view. True Vampires are defined as having a BPL of 1 or greater; a vampire of BPL 0 is said to be a Vampire Spawn. If you look at the time method for BPL improvement, it takes 14 thousand years for a 13th generation vampire to become a 7th generation vampire. Indeed given the general nature of human history both a top down and a bottom up method of vampire creation is possible.
Having a higher BPL (or a lower G) has advantages and disadvantages for the vampire. The vampire gets a higher blood pool, but also has a greater daily blood drain which requires him to feed more often. The basic idea is that a vampire’s blood pool is a product of the vampire and his BPL so he doesn’t really have “more blood” but thicker blood that is more powerful and thus less of it can be used in any given situation.
It gets even odder when one considers that BPL is a kind of super blood in and of itself; one might even call it the heart blood, which can be drained (generational damage) like the blood pool itself, although with more dire consequences. (Since BPL loss results in thinner blood which in turn lowers the total blood pool.)
The BPL will come up again when we start discussing clans. This is because clans are just shorthand for saying “vampire classes.” So if you are a 5th level vampire sired as a 13th vampire by clan A and raised to 12th by clan B and again to 11th by clan B you would effectively be a Adv:3/ClA:1/ClB:2. Note the implication is that in order to lower your generation (gain a BPL level) you must have an available adventurer level to swap. Characters should gain in power through adventure because that is the fun role playing way.
The one thing I liked about the OWOD was the notion of generations. There was a certain aura about the notion of generations that set up as it were a hierarchy of sorts. While a level system encourages a do it yourself attitude towards advancement, a generation system encourages a kiss ass attitude towards your superiors. Frankly I like them both, at the same time.
There are a lot of problems with the OWOD system as it was originally written. I’m going to avoid them by doing two things; making generation a lot more flexible than the original system and by cropping. By cropping I mean that for all practical purposes only the latter generations will be discussed.
There are, so it is commonly held thirteen generations of vampires and every vampire is of a specific generation. Vampires of the 13th generation cannot sire vampires and for this reason are sometimes known as “vampire spawn.” (This is a tie in to the D&D vampire.) With each generation of vampire the blood weakens (or conversely the blood is more potent for lower generation vampires) and their abilities and powers are thus limited.
Note: throughout this document I will refer to the following terms; G: Generation. BPL: Blood Potency Level, effectively 13-G, EG: Effective Generation, which is the effective generation of a vampire after generation drain is considered. BPL is for the most part a design concept term because I think it would be too easily confused with Blood Pool.
Any vampire, not of the 13th generation can sire another vampire. The level of the vampire thus sired is greater than the generation of the “father” vampire, but is not automatically one greater. The process of becoming a vampire is not a guaranteed one; the chance of success is based on the generation of the father and the generation of the “son.”
The process of siring a vampire is not without difficulty to the father as well. Creating a vampire causes generation drain on the vampire which could cause a lowering of effective generation. The simple result is that the closer the father wants his son to be to him generation wise the more generation drain he will experience.
Creating a weaker vampire has advantages and disadvantages. With a 13th generation vampire, you can be assured that he won’t go about making more vampires. You can make more of them with less generation drain. Unfortunately, since you put less of yourself into your son, your son is less under your influence.
Note that the question of generation is simpler for the question of PC generation as we can assume the vampire will either be created with the optimal chance for success and was raised over time by his father (or another) through the process described below.
Once created there are two ways to lower your generation. The most common one is through the re-siring process, where the vampire of lower generation gives more of himself to the son. This is similar to the process of siring in that a vampire can only raise a son to a generational level no less than one above his own. The process also causes generational damage.
The second process, which is only included for abstract campaign world settings is through a heck of a lot of time. A vampire can increase his generation on his own but this takes hundreds if not thousands of years. (Since most campaigns will consist of relatively young vampires and only span for years or decades, the question of generational advancement through age will not be a factor unless it is needed to hand wave an NPC or is used as a plot point by an NPC.) The second process also eliminates the need for vampires to have this Old Testament like list of who sired whom. Indeed the lower generations are mysteriously vague for a reason.
I’m going to throw in a mechanic at this point with the understanding that I might change it later. The amount of time for a vampire to go to the next generation from his current generation is equal to the (BPL of the next generation) squared * 100 years.
Note the second process also allows us to look at the system from the BPL point of view. True Vampires are defined as having a BPL of 1 or greater; a vampire of BPL 0 is said to be a Vampire Spawn. If you look at the time method for BPL improvement, it takes 14 thousand years for a 13th generation vampire to become a 7th generation vampire. Indeed given the general nature of human history both a top down and a bottom up method of vampire creation is possible.
Having a higher BPL (or a lower G) has advantages and disadvantages for the vampire. The vampire gets a higher blood pool, but also has a greater daily blood drain which requires him to feed more often. The basic idea is that a vampire’s blood pool is a product of the vampire and his BPL so he doesn’t really have “more blood” but thicker blood that is more powerful and thus less of it can be used in any given situation.
It gets even odder when one considers that BPL is a kind of super blood in and of itself; one might even call it the heart blood, which can be drained (generational damage) like the blood pool itself, although with more dire consequences. (Since BPL loss results in thinner blood which in turn lowers the total blood pool.)
The BPL will come up again when we start discussing clans. This is because clans are just shorthand for saying “vampire classes.” So if you are a 5th level vampire sired as a 13th vampire by clan A and raised to 12th by clan B and again to 11th by clan B you would effectively be a Adv:3/ClA:1/ClB:2. Note the implication is that in order to lower your generation (gain a BPL level) you must have an available adventurer level to swap. Characters should gain in power through adventure because that is the fun role playing way.
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Username17
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Re: TWODV Generations
As soon as "generations" doesn't mean literal numbers of sirings you should abandon the terminology. Seriously, what you have here is Blood Potency THAC0.
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Re: TWODV Generations
Just one minor note: the old Generations system didn't foster a kiss-ass attitude, it fostered an attitude of "How can I get the drop on an older one so that I can diablerise them and lower my Generation"? It also taught players that all PCs put 5 dots into the Generations background. No exceptions.
At one point, I was quoted as saying "Diablerie is the REAL Lasombra clan discipline", and ended up making a special "Lasombra-only" character sheet, with Diablerie added to the attributes, skills, backgrounds, virtues and disciplines list. Clan weakness was "You have to put up with all of the other clans."
At one point, I was quoted as saying "Diablerie is the REAL Lasombra clan discipline", and ended up making a special "Lasombra-only" character sheet, with Diablerie added to the attributes, skills, backgrounds, virtues and disciplines list. Clan weakness was "You have to put up with all of the other clans."
Count Arioch the 28th wrote:There is NOTHING better than lesbians. Lesbians make everything better.