House Rules and Important Notes
for use by
Blacklight Productions

If you want, you can download these House Rules by clicking here. They're a 47KB file in *.RTF format. They're short and easy to read. However, these house rules do not include the recap of challenges or examples - those are another matter altogether.

Think of the Big Rules as ways to keep things relatively safe and sane while allowing everyone to have a good time without problems. These aren't rules about the minutiae of the game - they're meta-rules, the rules about how the game itself is played. These used to be considered the "unwritten rules" of the game, but we figured that we might as well make them "official," and tell everyone about them instead of keeping them as unspoken universal assumptions.

Big Rule #1: We Are Not Alone Here....

We're in a hotel, during a sci-fi convention. There are, believe it or not, people here who don't like LARPs and aren't involved in our game. There are people at this hotel that are going to sleep at 9:30 p.m. on a Friday night. There are dealers and hotel staff and wedding parties and other people here who really don't want to hear your gunfight at 3:00 a.m. outside their room. Please, folks, be considerate of other people at the hotel. Try to keep the noise down. Don't force people who aren't in the game to be involved (i.e., don't randomly embrace people at the convention even if you know them and they're okay with it, don't "go feeding" in the Magic: The Gathering rooms, and so on). Respect the other people at the convention and just be cool, okay? The last thing we need is for the Hotel and the Convention to get a complaint about "those damned Vampire Gamers." It wouldn't be pretty, and we could probably kiss our butts bye-bye.

Big Rule #2: This Is Fantasy, After All....

Now, you and I both know that your character is capable of incredible feats or strength and daring. And hey, maybe you can, in reality, do some of those feats. However... We're in a hotel, and there are real people who aren't in our game walking around. So please, don't scare the non-LARPers. Don't run around, perform somersaults, swing on chandeliers, jump down three flights of stairs, and so on. You can hurt yourself, you can hurt others, and that's not cool. Also, doing things like this gets us in trouble with both the Convention and the Hotel, diminishing the chances that we'll be back for another game. So, folks, role-play these things. Role-play running with Celerity through the hotel. Role-play jumping around and killing people. This all ties in with the Big Rules #1, so please, don't actually try to do it. Thanks!

Big Rule #3: We Trust You. Please Be Trustworthy In Turn.

We're on the Honor System here, folks. This is a game. You're here to have fun. Everyone here is here to have a good time. The Staff of Blacklight Productions are here to help you have fun and keep things going smoothly. We're not policemen or authority figures here to keep things in line and oppress you. We're not going to oversee every single challenge and check to make sure everyone is doing things by the book. We trust y'all do that yourselves. Don't abuse it, folks. Don't screw over the other gamers by being dishonest and cheating. If we find out you've been doing so, we'll ask you to back out of the game. Okay?

Big Rule #4: Know When To Say When.

This rule really boils down to one thing: don't argue with the GMs. We know, we know, emotions can run high and people can get very impassioned about the game. We love that, really. However, not all of a player's plans will work, and sometimes you're going to lose, no matter what. It's one thing to disagree with a GM, question their ruling in a situation, and maybe ask for another opinion from a GM. Ask for another GM's opinion if you think that one GM really messed up a call. The other GMs usually won't take over the situation or "redo history," but they can talk with the first GM and make sure that the problem doesn't happen again, or they can try to explain things further to you and make you see that there really isn't a problem. What isn't okay is refusing to accept a ruling, arguing for hours about a ruling, screaming, yelling, or threatening violence when it seems like things aren't going your way. Know when to say when, know when to stop arguing for a lost cause, and things will be okay. If you keep arguing, questioning every single call, or even progress to screaming, threats and the like, we'll kindly ask you to never play in our games again.

Big Rule #5: Why Go Out Of Your Head?

Again, I know, it's a convention, it's a big party, so let's all have fun. However (and you knew this was coming), you don't need to get smashed to play and have a good time. It's a pain to have to role-play when you're the only sober one in a gathering. Please, don't get drunk or stoned or baked or whatever euphemism you'd like to use. It causes problems, makes the situation difficult, and just makes people annoyed. If the staff thinks you're drunk or stoned and being disruptive, we'll kindly ask you to leave the game, just so you don't ruin it for others. Please be equally kind and respect our decisions. Okay? Okay. Now, on to the Rules Recap!

Colored Ribbons:

During the course of the game, you might notice some players with bits of colored ribbons on their character badge. These ribbons are indicative of special powers or things about that character that you (both the player and the character) should be aware of. Here's a brief guide to the meanings of the ribbons:

CHANGES TO THE RULES PRESENTED IN LAWS OF THE NIGHT - REVISED

There are places where Blacklight Productions disagrees with what's presented in Laws of the Night- Revised, and there's one place we are ending a long-held house rule and going with what's in the book. So, in no particular order, here are the few changes, minus the character creation stuff.

Change #1: The Dominate power of Possession still works on Kindred and other supernatural beings. For some reason, White Wolf decided that while all other Dominate powers work on all creatures (Mortals, Kindred, Ghouls, Werewolves, Mages, etcetera), Possession would only work on Mortals, stating that with supernatural beings, "their wills are too strong to be completely overcome." Well, we at Blacklight Productions disagree with this decision.

Therefore, in our games, Kindred may still attempt to use Possession on other supernatural beings. Of course, they might not always win the Challenge, but they can try. A character possessing another being still needs to spend Mental Traits to use other Disciplines while in the other's body; see page 148 of Laws of the Night - Revised for more details.

Change #2: The Obfuscate power of Vanish from the Mind's Eye allows Kindred to talk to others while still remaining "invisible." However, in order to do so, a character must engage in a mass Mental Challenge against everyone who might possibly be in the room and hear them speak. Anyone who wins the mass Mental Challenge becomes aware of you and sees you normally. Now, in White Wolf's Mind's Eye Theatre Journal #6, Carl Bowen (the Mind's Eye Theatre Line Developer) suggests an alternative way to handle this challenge. Instead of winning a mass Mental Challenge in order to utter a single sentence, a character can expend a single Mental Trait to speak a full sentence and remain hidden. We like this change, and we are using it.

Therefore, if a character who is currently Obfuscated (and is using Vanish from the Mind's Eye or a higher-level power), wishes to speak a single simple sentence and remain hidden, they can expend a Mental Trait not have to perform any challenges to remain hidden. A hidden character cannot remain invisible if they wish to speak more than a single sentence, and, as always, attempting to interact with the environment (running, attacking, exerting Presence powers, holding conversations, screaming, etc.) renders a person visible to all, regardless of how many Mental Traits they spend.

Change #3: This is an instance where Blacklight Productions is overturning one of their long-held House Rules. According to Laws of Night - Revised, a person can use the Potence power of Might to gain a retest in a Challenge involving physical strength. Furthermore, Laws of the Night states that once Might is invoked, "it is the last test of the challenge; no further retests are allowed " (page 166). In the past, we had allowed people to continue retesting after their opponents had invoked Might. Well, no more.

Therefore, in our games, once Might is invoked in a Challenge, no further retests are allowed, regardless of whatever Disciplines, Merits or advantages an opponent has. The only exception to this is Might itself - if two people have Might, one can use it to gain a retest after the first uses it. No other Disciplines, Merits or advantages can be used to gain a retest.

Change #4: Laws of the Night - Revised states that a character that successfully commits diablerie gains two Experience Points at the end of the session. Blacklight Productions disagrees strongly this. Therefore, in our games, there is no additional experience granted for diablerie. All other benefits (lowering of generation, for instance) still apply; these benefits are listed on page 216 of Laws of the Night - Revised.

CLARIFICATIONS TO THE RULES PRESENTED IN LAWS OF THE NIGHT - REVISED

What follows are five clarifications of particular rules presented in Laws of the Night - Revised that the Blacklight Production staff wanted to make sure that everyone was aware of. These are changes to the Mind's Eye Theatre rules that White Wolf has made, and we just want people to be completely clear on these things, so as to minimize questions during the game itself.

Clarification #1: Please be aware that Laws of the Night - Revised specifically spells out what Abilities can be used to gain retests when using Disciplines. We are making no changes to what Ability is used with each Discipline, but we want to be certain everyone knows what to use when. So, here is a small listing of the Disciplines you are most likely to see/use, and the appropriate Abilities to gain retests when using them.

Discipline	Appropriate Ability
Animalism	Animal Ken
Auspex	Investigation
Celerity	No specific Ability; use whatever Ability would normally be used for the action
Dementation	Empathy
Dominate	Intimidation
Fortitude	Survival
Necromancy	Occult
Obfuscate	Stealth
Potence	No specific Ability; use whatever Ability would normally be used for the action
Presence	Leadership
Protean	Usually, no retests are needed when using Protean; use Survival when applicable.
Thamaturgy	Occult

When using Celerity and Potence, you are modifying things that your character would normally be doing (i.e., trying to punch something, trying to run, etc.). Therefore, you would use whatever Ability would normally be applicable for that action (i.e., Brawl for punching, Dodge for escaping an attack, etc.) when using Celerity or Potence.

Clarification #2: A person can use Auspex to see people who are hiding with Obfuscate or to pierce the illusions created by Chimerstry. For each power class difference between the Kindred using Auspex and the Kindred using Obfuscate/Chimerstry, there is a one-for-one Trait modifier to the appropriate challenge. So, if a Kindred with Advanced Auspex is searching for a Kindred with Basic Obfuscate, the searching Kindred gains two additional traits (there are two power class differences between Basic and Advanced, so there are two bonus traits) for purposes of ties resolution and overbidding. When using Auspex or Obfuscate, we ask that you hold up fingers to indicate your power class level (One for Basic, Two for Intermediate and Three for Advanced) so that others can calculate the difference in power levels between you and them, and therefore can calculate the trait bonuses accordingly.

Clarification #3: When using the Presence power of Summoning, please remember that you can only Summon someone you know. At bare minimum, this is defined as "someone that you have had the chance to talk to for a few minutes, or someone who has been the target of your Presence powers before" (Laws of the Night - Revised, page 168). If you attempt to Summon a false identity (for instance, an identity that was created with Mask of a Thousand Faces), you will still Summon the appropriate individual (although you might not realize it, as they do not need to come to you as that identity). If this false identity has been used by more than one person, you will bring the closest user of that identity (i.e., the first person the GMs can find who used that face) to you. Further Summons will bring the others who have used that identity.

Please realize that a Summons compulsion lasts until the victim arrives at the location they were Summoned from and makes him or herself known to the Summoner (so, presumably, the victim must be physically present, not Obfuscated, and must alert the Summoner to their presence), or until daybreak. Also, a person who has been Summoned will take steps to get to the Summoner in a reasonable amount of time, and try to avoid complications (such as locked doors or overprotective allies) that might hinder them. Finally, if the only way to reach the Summoner would potentially kill the victim (such as walking through a wall of flame or an explosion), the Summons compulsion will dissipate. However, if there is no immediate threat to the Summon, the victim will go, even if they can assume that the location they are going to is dangerous. They can, additionally, bring allies with them along the journey, but will avoid those allies if they attempt to prevent the journey.

Clarification #4: Please be aware that the powers that be at White Wolf have changed the way that the Presence power Majesty works. Majesty is no longer an "always on" power. Instead, Majesty must now be activated in order to use. Once activated, Majesty lasts for an hour, or until it is cancelled by the user (which can be willingly done at any time). All people who can see you are affect by your Majesty (yes, this does mean that, technically, blind people are not affected by Majesty). A person can attempt to "break" your Majesty's effect upon them by spending a Willpower point and winning a Social Challenge against you, but otherwise they are affected as normal. More details on Majesty, including what exactly it's effects are and what actions can "break" Majesty, are found on pages 168 and 169 of Laws of the Night - Revised.

Clarification #5: Certain Discipline powers (Rapidity and Vigor, for instance) allow people to use an additional hand signal known as "The Bomb" in specific challenges. If you can use the Bomb, you must inform your opponent during the challenge, before the game of Rock, Paper, Scissors used to resolve the challenge. If you do not inform your opponent that you can use the Bomb, you cannot use it during that particular challenge.

Clarification #6: Damage has changed in Laws of the Night - Revised. Instead of there being just normal damage and aggravated damage, there are now three types of damage - Bashing, Lethal and Aggravated. Bashing Damage is usually inflicted by brawling attacks and it cannot kill. In fact, all Bashing Damage taken by Kindred is halved (Bashing Damage taken by Mortals and Ghouls, however, isn't halved). Bashing Damage can render someone unconscious, but it cannot kill. Lethal Damage is caused by most "hard" weapons (guns, knives, axes, and things like that) and enough of it can kill you character eventually. Fire, sunlight, certain Disciplines and other similar things cause Aggravated Damage. Aggravated Damage is always killer damage.

You can heal one level of Lethal Damage or Two Levels of Bashing Damage by spending a single Blood Trait. This healing can be done at any time, even while in combat or using Disciplines, provided you can spend that blood. Aggravated Damage, however, takes more effort to heal. Healing a Level of Aggravated Damage (if you don't have Fortitude, which modifies how you heal) requires spending three Blood Traits, a Willpower Trait, and getting a day's rest. You can heal more than one Aggravated Damage level at once, provided you have three Blood Traits and a Willpower Trait to spend, per level of Aggravated Damage. You still have to rest for the day, however.

A RECAP AND CLARIFICATIONS TO THE RULES GOVERNING STATUS

Just so people know, we plan our game to be very political; as a result, Status is an important thing to consider. Now, since Status has been neglected in most LARPs (including our past games), we feel it might be necessary to quickly summarize Status - what it is, how you can use it, who can grant and remove it, and so on. This will be a very quick recap and explanation; for more details, check out pages 216 - 221 of Laws of the Night - Revised and pages 97 - 147 (i.e., all of Chapter Four) in Laws of the Night: Camarilla Guide. We are, incidentally, only dealing with Camarilla Status - we are not dealing with Anarch or Sabbat Status at all in this recap.

What Can You Do With Status? Well, here is a sample list of things you can do with Status:

• Temporary Status may be used to add to your Social Traits during an applicable Challenge. For the most part, this does not apply to Disciplines that use Social Traits; this applies to simple things, like intimidating people, seducing them, etcetera. Also, in applicable challenges, a Temporary Status Trait may be bid instead of a Social Trait. Please inform your opponent if you wish to use Status instead of a Social Trait, as they can always ignore your Status (but will undoubtedly pay for it later). If you lose the Challenge, the Temporary Status Trait is lost.
• Status is a measure of a character's credibility. In a situation where things come down to one Kindred's word against another, Status can be the determining factor. In cases where there is no other evidence to affect judgement, characters with high Status will be believed and trusted more than characters with low Status.
• You must have at least one Trait of Status (i.e., be Acknowledged) in order to petition the Prince or a Primogen, incidentally....
• You can loan Temporary Status Traits to another character, which will enable them to use that Status (as above), until you ask for its return. This is usually done as some sort of boon arrangement. Also, this is how the Sheriff, Scourge, Keeper of Elysium and Lead Harpy make Deputies and Lesser Harpies - they loan them Status. More on those Offices in a bit.
• Finally, Status can be viewed as a rough estimate of a character's standing within the Camarilla. A Character with high Status is just viewed better than a character with low status. For instance, characters with incredibly low status are seen as pond scum, not worth the time to talk to, while characters with high Status can sometimes have flunkies and are the center of parties.

How Do I Gain or Lose Status? Status can be taken away from you by anyone with more Status than you. Your character can remove Permanent or Temporary Status from any character that has less Status than your character. Removing a Status Trait costs one equal Trait - Permanent Status can only be removed with Permanent Status, and Temporary Status can only be removed with Temporary Status. Certain Offices (more on that in a bit) can remove Status much more efficiently, and sometimes for free. Only certain Offices can remove the Status of Acknowledged, just so you know.

You can grant Permanent Status only to members of your Clan, provided that you have at least double their Permanent Status. If you wish to do this, it will cost your character one Temporary Status Trait, so get a good deal out of the bargain, okay? You may not grant Status to people outside of your Clan.

The only way to gain Temporary Status during the course of the game is to have it loaned to you by others. All Temporary Status, incidentally, is restored at the end of the gaming session (i.e., the end of the LARP weekend, not the evening's session). So, if you lose your Temporary Status or have it stripped away, it's gone. Unless people loan you Status, or someone with an Office grants you it....

What Are These "Offices" You Keep Mentioning? Well, in a Camarilla city, there are usually eight positions that can affect Status above and beyond what is described above - that's the "Offices" are. The eight standard Offices are The Prince, The Seneschal, The Sheriff, The Scourge, The Primogen, The Whips, The Keeper of Elysium and The Harpies. Each of these offices can grant or remove Status in ways different from the rules above. Not every city has every position, incidentally - New York City in our game, for instance, does not have a Seneschal. Here is a quick summary of how these Offices can affect Status:

The Prince: Can grant and remove the Status Trait Acknowledged without any sort of costs. Can also grant or remove up to three Permanent Status Traits from a single character at the cost of one Temporary Status Trait. Can grant or remove more Permanent Status from a single character than that, but at the cost of one Permanent Status Trait per trait granted or removed.

The Sheriff: Is charged with maintaining the Masquerade. May remove a Permanent Status Trait from a character for free if they refuse to accompany him for questioning or submit to his judgement. Is immune to Status manipulation by the Keeper of Elysium.

The Scourge: Patrols the city looking for Kindred who are unknown in the City or were created without permission. Can strip a Permanent Status Trait from a Kindred, for free, if they aid, abet, or harbor Kindred who have not been presented to the Prince or were Embraced without permission. (They can, incidentally, kill such unknown Kindred without any penalties). They are also immune to Status manipulation by the Keeper of Elysium.

The Primogen: May grant or remove Permanent Status from any Clanmate at the cost of one Temporary Status Trait per trait granted or removed.

The Whip: Has the same Status-granting or removing power as their particular Primogen.

The Keeper of Elysium: May remove a Permanent Status Trait, for free, from any Kindred who breaks the Masquerade or their Rules of Elysium. If they do not witness the violation of the Masquerade, they may remove Status if presented with enough evidence of the violation (from high-Status characters, of course).

The Lead Harpy: May remove a Permanent Status Trait, for free, from any Kindred who is involved in a scandal (as defined by the Harpy). May return Permanent Status that they removed at the cost of one Temporary Status Trait per returned Status Trait. The Lead Harpy can also sponsor Lesser Harpies, who may remove a Temporary Status Trait, for free, from any character involved in a scandal.

I hope that helps you understand Status a little bit, folks! Like I said, it's not something that been used in a lot of games, so it might be confusing, but I hope we've made it a little more clear.

"TURN TIME" - WHAT IS IT?

Folks, there are occasions when things might get a little confusing, and it will be hard to figure out what's going on, and who's doing what (say, like in a very large-scale combat or other large-scale situation). In those instances, the GMs might invoke something I'm calling "Turn Time." All that means is that everyone involved in the situation slips out of "normal" time and into a turn-based time-scale. A turn, by the way, is approximately ten seconds long.

During a turn, your characters can do a few things. Your characters can take three steps (towards or away from the situation), spend Blood Traits (up to the per-turn maximum determined by your Generation), activate or use Disciplines, attack or challenge a single target and, of course, talk normally. So, when a GM asks you what you are doing during that particular turn, remember what you can and can't do. You cannot change you declared action.

Initiative is determined by the number of Traits a character has; those characters with more Traits go before characters with less traits. So, a character with Nine Physical Traits would be able to punch someone with Six Mental Traits before that person could Dominate them. Be aware that certain Disciplines are described in Laws of the Night - Revised as going at the "end" of a turn. That means that the use of that power goes last, no matter what, regardless of the number of Traits you have. Other Disciplines mentioned that you can speed them up by using Celerity, which might change when they activate; check Laws of the Night - Revised for more details.

Now, certain Merits, Flaws and Disciplines will modify what you can and cannot do during a turn. Certain Flaws, such as Short or Lame will limit the number of steps you can take. Celerity, on the other hand, increases your "movement allowance" radically, depending on your level of Celerity. See pages 140-141 of Laws of the Night - Revised for more on how Celerity affects travel time.

Additionally, people with Celerity can gain extra actions during a turn. For fairness sake, all characters will Celerity active will gain their extra actions at the end of the normal turn, but before the next normal turn begins. Celerity actions will all go at once, but only at that level of Celerity. So, for instance, everyone will be able to go. People with Alacrity (the first level of Celerity), will be able to use Alacrity to act before certain people, thus preempting their actions regardless of Initiative (hey, it's what Alacrity does!). Then, after everyone has gone (and people have used Alacrity if needed), everyone with Swiftness will be able to perform an additional action. After everyone with Swiftness acts, people with Legerity can perform an additional action. After everyone with Legerity performs their additional action, a new turn starts, and everyone can take an action, and the cycle continues.

Eventually, the GM will declare an end to Turn Time (usually, when the scene is over), and normal time begins again.

A FINAL WORD