A house rule we sometimes use is to set the Conscience roll at difficulty 8 minus the sin rating. For example; if you have a rating of 7 and commit a rating 4 offense, your difficulty would be 8 - (7 - 4) = 5. The reason for this, as one of our STs put it, is that "You're much more likely to go down for the 'little things'." Not that someone with a Humanity of 7 should just up and murder somebody because the difficulty's easy.

We use a slightly different die-rolling method for older (2nd edition) books. The new Revised Edition rules are kinda cool.
• You may re-roll 10s.
• This rule allows for the possibility of a character with less than five dice to get a Phenomenal success (which can happen in real life)
• 10s will cancel 1s, but you may not re-roll that particular die unless you're specialized (see below).
• Two 1s will completely cancel a 10.
• In other words, if you roll a 10 and two 1s, you will neither succeed nor botch.

When you are specialized, 9s cancel 1s (you can still re-roll 10s, of course). If you are doubly specialized (for example; Dexterity - Nimble, Streetwise - Pick Pocketing), then 8s and 9s cancel 1s.
• In other words, if your roll two 1s, an 8, a 9, and a 10, the 8 cancels the first 1, then the 9 cancels the other 1, leaving a success which may be re-rolled.
• It may seem excessive, but we've found that it tends to even out 'bad luck' when rolling dice.

The Chantry Background trait should also allow a Mage to roll for 'extra experience points'. The reasoning behind this should be fairly clear; if the Mage is a member of a chantry but has no Library or Mentor background, he should still be able to use the Chantry's library in order to study.
• Now, I wrote should in italics for a reason; certain cabals/mages may not have access to a library. This one is entirely Storyteller discretion.

There is another way to use the Chantry Background trait; you may use it to gauge the Mage's standing in said Chantry instead of merely using it to gauge the Chantry's strength or Creation Points.

We've always operated on the premise that, since Auspex is diametrically opposed to Obfuscate, all those possessing the former Discipline should, under normal circumstances, have a chance of spotting an Obfuscated character. The character would not realize that Obfuscate was at work, however.

Comparing dots on a character sheet and determining that the one with the highest level automatically wins is problematic at best. The best way to determine who 'wins' is to simply make a contested roll; Perception + Auspex vs. Stealth + Obfuscate.

1st edition Mage had a target of 6 successes for permanent Effects (for example, a diamond or a banana). 2nd edition Mage merely says it's Storyteller discretion. This makes it easier on the ST; the simple truth is anything beyond 6 months requires 6 successes. Let's keep in mind that when casting an Effect, the player is the one who specifies the duration and the table's there as a handy guide for all involved.

Who smells of Wyrm? Easy!
• Of Vampires.
• Humanity 6 or lower vamps show up.
• Our rules have it that the Vamp should be judged if he's borderline. A Humanity 5 vamp may not show, depending on his motivations and on whether he's on the rise (path wise).
• Players Guide Paths (any level).
• The Ravnos' Path of Paradox is a special case; Ravnos on this path should almost always show up as Wyld. Thanks to Michael Wyatt for pointing this out.
• Sabbat Paths (any level).
• We exclude the Path of Harmony almost all of the time.
• Dark Ages Paths (any level).
• The Road of Chivalry and Road of Heaven are easily excluded.
• Tal'mahe'Ra Paths (any level).
• The Path of Self Focus is excluded.
• Of Werewolves.
• Black Spiral Dancers show up, so would any Garou 'exposed' to some Wyrmy substance (but we all know that already, right?).
• Of Mages.
• All Nephandi show up.
• Especially evil mages should show up.
• Of Wraiths.
• Wraiths that are buddy-buddy with Oblivion show up (Spectres and the like).
• Of Changelings.
• The Unseelie might show up, but it all depends on the individual.
• Humanity
• Humans count as Mages do, even if they do have Humanity ratings.

There have been a number of good ideas for this Discipline, and we've come to adopt two of them.
1. Take the amount of successes on a normal Wits + Alertness roll to determine at what 'point' he would normally go in (say 5), and then subtract 1 (or, optionally, 2) for every point in Celerity the character has to determine when in the turn the extra actions take place. The example character would go on 5, 4, 3, and 2, provided he had a Celerity of 3 (or 5, 3, 1, and '-1'). Normally, all characters get to go, and then the extra Celerity actions take place at the end of the turn, which makes little sense. Using this rule, someone with Celerity wouldn't go once and then, about 2 seconds later (provided a standard 3-second combat turn), go three more times. To me, it just seems wrong.
2. Optionally, your players could opt not to take extra actions, but to do something that only Celerity would allow, such as quickly covering a large distance (without rolling Dexterity + Athletics continuously), juggling (those plates would seem to move rather slowly), or automatically getting the drop on someone (can't dodge if you didn't see it coming).
And, of course, these rules can be applied to Rage actions and Time Magicks.

This was sent to me by Porthos Fitz-Empress (hehehe); it sounded really good to me.

I was mulling over this on my way to work this morning (my 12-block trip turned into a 50-mile one). This applies to Hunters more than anyone else (probably because I was thinking of them at the time), but here goes:

Resources (1 to 5 PT. Merit)
    This merit assumes the character once had the equivalent dots in the Background of the same name, but actually liquidated them. This is especially true of characters who are running away from someone (or something) or have, for good or ill, removed themselves from 'normal' society because of extrenuating circumstances (such as some Hunters) or because they just don't feel that they belong anymore.
    Each point spent gives the character the same amount of liquidated money that the Background gives ($1000.00 for a dot, $5,000,000 for five), however, this money is all the character has -- there is no allowance of anything per month. When the money is gone, it's gone for good.

    One final note, however; if the character has $5,000,000 in a 5% APR savings account (compunded quarterly), the return is a little over $20,000 per month. That's pretty damn good (unless you don't enjoy making $250,000 a year). Of course, owning the actual items would be better, if the money was, say, 'accidentally' frozen...
    This Merit assumes the character has decided to hide the money in a mattress, piggy bank, or anything that is not a bank (of any sort). If the character insists on investing the money halfway through the chronicle, it would be a simple matter of either seizing the assets or forcing an additional cost (experience or freebies) of 3-4 points for Resources (no more than that, since seized/frozen assets would eliminate the merit and the background).