....Our Character Creation Rules....

By the way, these character creation rules assume that you are familiar with the character creation rules presented in Laws of the Night - Revised. If you are only passingly familiar with these rules, feel free to check out our Detailed Character Creation Rules. These detailed rules go into a little more depth than the quick rules presented here. (Also, the various links scattered throughout the Character Creation Rules link to the sections of the Detailed Character Creation Rules that deal with that particular item. Hyperlinking - it's fun!) If you still have problems after reading our Detailed Character Creation Rules, feel free to contact us. We ask that you do not make Tabletop characters for us to convert; there are significant differences between Vampire tabletop and the Mind's Eye Theatre Rules presented in Laws of the Night - Revised.

With that out of the way, let's talk about character creation, shall we? Character Creation can be broken down into five simple stages:

Step One: Identity

• Determine a concept for your character. Please be aware that we are asking for characters that are no older than 150 years old.
If you're having trouble thinking of "a good concept," you might want to check out the Miscellany page, particularly the "Stupid" LARP Tricks for some ideas....
• Choose your character's Clan. Once again, we are accepting only the seven basic clans of the Camarilla (Brujah, Gangrel, Malkavian, Nosferatu, Toreador, Tremere and Ventrue) and Caitiff that are Acknowledged by the Camarilla.
• Choose a Nature and a Demeanor for your character.

Step Two: Attributes

• Prioritize your character's Physical, Social and Mental Attributes into Primary, Secondary and Tertiary areas of focus.
• Choose the Traits for your character's Attributes; the Primary Attribute gets seven Traits, the Secondary Attribute gets five Traits, and the Tertiary Attribute gets three Traits. Please Note: There are additional Traits listed in the Laws of the Night: Sabbat Guide. We are not using those Traits.

Step Three: Abilities, Disciplines and Backgrounds

• Select five Abilities for your character. There are additional Abilities listed in the Laws of the Night: Camarilla Guide and Laws of the Night: Sabbat Guide. We are allowing players to choose those Abilities as well.
• Choose three Basic Disciplines for your character. These Disciplines must be Clan Disciplines. If you are playing a Caitiff character, you may select three "common" Disciplines (Animalism, Auspex, Celerity, Dominate, Fortitude, Obfuscate, Potence or Presence) as your "clan" Disciplines. If you are playing a Malkavian character, you may choose whether to have Dominate or Dementation as your Clan Discipline - but you must make that choice now.
• If your character has Necromancy or Thamaturgy, please be aware of the changes to those Disciplines in Laws of the Night - Revised regarding Paths and what levels of Paths a character can learn. Additionally, your character has Rituals. Your character receives a "free" Ritual for each level of Thamaturgy or Necromancy they have (i.e., a character with two Basic levels of the Path of Blood recieves two Basic Rituals).
• All characters in this game are members of the Camarilla. As such, they all start off with the Status Trait of Acknowledged (except for Caitiff, who must buy this Trait). This indicates that, at some time in the character's unlife, they have been made a formal member of the Camarilla.
• Your character has five Backgrounds Traits to spend. There are several categories of things you can spend Background Traits on. The allowable Backgrounds are Allies, Contacts, Fame, Generation, Herd, Influence, Mentor, Resources, Retainers and Status. (PS: Speaking of Generation, remember that characters are assumed to start at 13th Generation; you can lower this through use of Backgrounds....)

Step Four: Virtues, Morality and Willpower

• It is assumed that your character, being a member of the Camarilla, is following the Morality Path of Humanity, and not any Path of Enlightenment.
• Assign your character's Virtue Traits. The three Virtues are Conscience, Self-Control and Courage. All characters start off with a single trait of Conscience, Self-Control and Courage automatically. After that, you get seven points to divide between the three Virtues. Each Virtue must have at least one point in it, but cannot exceed five points.
• Your character's Morality Rating is equal to the average of your character's Conscience and Self-Control ratings, rounded up. Your character's Morality Rating should range from one to five Traits.
• Your character's starting Willpower is equal to their Courage rating. Your character's maximum Willpower is based on your character's generation.

Step Five: Finishing Touches

• Since no two characters are the same, players are given five Free Traits to spend however they want to improve their characters.
• You can gain more Free Traits by selecting Negative Traits and Flaws. You may only take up to five Negative Traits, but you can only take up to three Negative Traits per Attribute category. You can also take up to seven traits worth of Flaws. There are additional Flaws listed in the Laws of the Night: Camarilla Guide and Laws of the Night: Sabbat Guide; these Flaws are permitted (where applicable). Also, realize that taking certain flaws might cause you to end up wearing a ribbon decorated with Cute Fuzzy Bunnies during the course of the game.
• You can also gain two Free Traits by giving your character a Derangement. You can only take one Derangement at character creation (aside of Malkavians, who must have a Derangement; they can take a second Derangement for two Free Traits, as the mandatory Derangement grants no free traits).
• You can also gain two Free Traits by "sacrificing" one of your Morality Traits. You can only do this once.

Yes, I know it sounds complicated, but it's a lot easier that it looks. If you still have questions, check out our Detailed Character Creation Rules. If you still have questions after that, feel free to contact us. Thanks, and see you at MonCon 2001!