Fate of the Requiem: Setting & Character Creation

In this post I want to outline how I'd go about creating a Vampire: The Requiem game with Fate Accelerated Edition. I've sort of given up on a generic Fate game for vampires, instead focusing on making Vampire: The Masquerade and/or Vampire: The Requiem work with FAE. I just love the setting of Vampire: The Requiem, but I don't really like the second edition of the game. The second edition for the first time tries to be a story game, but in my opinion falls short due to some design decisions (or lack of deeper playtesting). The setting in VtR 2.0 on the other hand is ramped up to eleven thanks to kick-ass writing.

Bruce Baugh has done some excellent work for a VtM or VtR hack of the game. Things I am going to build on:

• General Thoughts on Vampire
• Masquerade Clans as Stunts

The Basics

The game uses the six standard approaches of FAE. The game itself will have three campaign aspects that can be invoked (including hostile invokes) and/or compelled:

• A Hunger Like Fire (representing the thirst for blood)
• The Suns Forgotten Kiss (representing the vulnerability of vampires to sunlight)
• A Beast I Am, Lest a Beast I Become (representing the beast and it's effects)

Setting Creation Part One

The GM picks some of the major players (prince, primogen, head of covenants). They also chose a city to set the game in (simply because the GM should be familiar with the city in question). Then the group sits down together and creates a current and an impending issue according to Fate Core. After that the group fleshes out parts of the city along the lines of Dresden Files city creation: select a location (fictional or real) or a city district, put an aspect to it and create a face for that location or district. It's recommended to let each player (including the GM) one location or district.

Character Creation

The characters are built according to FAE. They have up to five aspects, distribute values to the six approaches (1x good, 2x fair, 2x average, 1x mediocre), and select up to three stunts.

Aspects

The five aspects cover the following:

• High Concept aspect (who are you? what is your character about?)
• Trouble aspect (what is an issue the character has?)
• Masquerade aspect (how does the character interact with mortal society?)
• Requiem aspect (what is the character's place in the Danse Macabre?)
• Clan aspect (fixed and based on the chosen clan of the character)

The character's clan and covenant must either be part of the high concept, the trouble and/or the requiem aspect. As part of the high concept or requiem aspects clan and covenant indicate a character in good standing with those two entities. As part of the trouble aspect, they indicate issues with clan and/or covenant. The player can decide where to put clan and covenant, they don't have to be part of the same aspect.

The clan aspect is derived from the clan of the character:

• Daeva: The ones to die for.
• Gangrel: The ones you can't kill.
• Mekhet: The ones you don't see.
• Nosferatu: The ones you fear.
• Ventrue: The ones you can't deny.

Stunts

The characters get four stunts for free. Three are Discipline stunts designed around the theme of a discipline (either 1st or 2nd edition). Two of those must be from the clan disciplines of the chosen clan. The third can be from any discipline or a covenant specific one for the covenant of the character.

The fourth stunt is based on the chosen clan of the character (which takes heavy inspiration from the clan-specific stunts created by Bruce Baugh).

Examples for stunts and the clan-specific stunts will be listed in a later post.

Setting Creation Part Two

After creating the characters, you continue to flesh out the setting. This time using the section "Climbing the Ladder" from Vampire: The Requiem 2.0 (simply follow the instructions).

Additional Rules

Using Vitae

Vampires are able to use the power of their blood. Thus, a player can decide to take a blood thirst related consequence and gain a bonus to their next dice roll (+2 for taking a mild consequence, +4 for a moderate consequence, and +6 for a severe consequence). If a character is taken out by blood thirst related consequences or stress, they go in a frenzy. The GM is free to decide the results of that frenzy.

The Hunt

In order to get rid of a blood thirst related consequence, the vampire must hunt for blood. This is usually a three part challenge:

• Carefully or cleverly identifying the prey (usually at Fair difficulty)
• Flashily or sneakily approaching the prey (usually at Fair difficulty)
• Forcefully or quickly taking their blood (difficulty depends on type of consequence to be healed: mild consequence - fair, moderate consequence - great, severe consequence - fantastic)

Failing to identify or approach the prey the result in wasted time, as the character has to start the hunt again in another scene. Failing to take the blood usually results in some sort of discovery that forces the character to flee. They have not gained any blood, but also haven't been discovered. Minor costs for a tie include being observed, discovered or disturbed. Major costs to turn a failure into a success could be anything from a Masquerade breach to being found by hunters (see also page 96 in VtR 2.0 for further ideas on major and minor costs for a hunting challenge).

The hunt can also be used to heal physical consequences.

The next post in the short series will cover some examples for discipline stunts.

Fate, Blood & Seven Sins: Conditions

I feel that I need to address stress and consequences first, before going into other parts of the system. How you get stress and consequences informs a lot of design decisions around conflicts, and probably also stunts (i.e. dark gifts & powers) and how to scale humans in regard to vampires.

Instead of stress and consequences, I am going to use a set of defined conditions. Partly because I want to make the game easier to handle (no need to explain how stress boxes work, no need to think about consequences), partly because conditions are going to implicate truths about the setting (both by their description and by how you are removing them).

The Conditions

There will be six conditions in the game, allowing for 14 shifts of stress-soaking as recommended by the Fate System Toolkit, page 19. The conditions will follow all of the rules outlined there. You need to take a specific action (namely, drinking blood) to get rid of the two-shift consequences, and you need to initiate a specific recovery action and roll at a Great (+4) difficulty to begin recovering the four-shift condition.

The conditions are:

• Irritated (1-shift condition)
• Hungry (1-shift condition)
• Angry (2-shift condition)
• Famished (2-shift condition)
• Raging (4-shift condition)
• Ravenous (4-shift condition)

So you are progressing from irritated to angry to raging, and from hungry to famished to ravenous. This implicitly models vampires as very emotional creatures and also dependent on blood. Remember that conditions can be invoked and compelled just like other aspects, and that the first invoke is free after gaining the condition.

NPCs and conditions: It is recommended to treat nameless NPC as an obstacle with a difficulty of Average (+1), Fair (+2) or Good (+3) and not even worry about anymore details (see Fate Core, page 217). Supporting NPC should have a skill column (maybe up to two steps better than the PC), and if they are vampires they get either the irritated, angry, raging or the hungry, famished, ravenous condition track, but not both (decide what you would like to highlight about the supporting NPC: his anger or her hunger). A human supporting NPC will take conditions along the lines of bruised (1-shift condition), injured (2-shift condition) and broken (4-shift condition). Main NPC should get a complete character sheet (according to Fate Core, page 220). If they are vampires, they get both condition tracks. If they are humans, they still get only the bruised, injured, broken track to reflect that they are more fragile than vampires.

How to Gain Conditions

You gain conditions mostly as a result of conflicts,when you push your character to his or her limits. Of course, the GM is still at liberty to assign conditions as a consequence of events in the fiction (Fate System Toolkit, page 18).

When you concede a conflict, you gain one Fate point plus one Fate point for each condition suffered during the conflict, as normal.

Getting Rid of Conditions

The 1-shift conditions (irritated, hungry, bruised) vanish after you had some time to cool down. Usually it takes a scene to recover them.

The 2-shift conditions (angry, famished, injured) need a set of specific actions. A vampire's body and mind are pretty capable of healing themselves, if you have enough blood to recover. Thus, the angry and famished conditions go away, when you have time to drink blood. This can be either freshly acquired at the carotid artery, from animals or a blood bag. How to get blood will be explored later,

The injured condition can be recovered, when you get your injury attended either by first aid or at a hospital. No rolls necessary, just an in-game justification for getting well. It will still require some time to get the treatment, though.

The 4-shift conditions (raging, ravenous, broken) require more effort in order to get rid of them. A broken human probably needs treatment at a local hospital and a Great (+4) roll of someone skilled in medicine. That could either be some nameless Good (+3) doctor or a named NPC or PC with medical knowledge (probably an appropriate aspect and a roll with Greed to represent your knowledge).

To start healing the raging and ravenous conditions, a vampire has to reassert himself as an apex predator who bows to nobody. Starting the recovery process requires exsanguinating a human (an animal will not suffice), and overcoming a Great (+4) obstacle with Gluttony:

• Failure: either you aren't satisfied by one single death and need to continue, or you can start the recovery and erase the first box at a serious cost (typically, someone catches you in the act).
• A tie: you can start the recovery and erase the first box, but the body will probably turn up sometime later, leading to unpleasant news and maybe an investigation into the death. Create an appropriate aspect for the game.
• Success: you start the recovery and erase the first box.
• Success with style: you start the recovery by erasing the first box and can also immediately recover another condition (either a 1-shift or 2-shift condition is removed immediately, or you also start or complete the recovery process of the other 4-shift condition).

The second box of the 4-shift condition is removed at the end of the next game session in which the character participates.

Disclaimer: Remember that Fate is a game where people make up stories about wonderful, terrible, impossible, glorious things. It is not meant to incite you to any real-world action! Vampires are fictional.

Fate, Bloood & Seven Sins: Some More Thoughts

After reading some feedback last week and thinking about the hack (game) myself, I am going to take stock again. Where am I at? What do I want to accomplish? What parts need to be addressed by the hack.

First off, I've decided to drop FAE Hack from the tags of Fate, Blood & Seven Sins articles. Even if the simplicity of the FAE approaches was the first inspiration for the Seven Sins, I want to tap into the wider ideas of Fate as presented in Fate Core and the Fate System Toolkit. I'd also like to push the boundaries of a Powered by Fate game in terms of adherence to the traditional character components (aspects, skills, stunts, stress, and consequences). So I am going back to Fate Core as the starting point and will see what the Fate System Toolkit can offer for my hack.

My current plan is to describe player characters with:

• Aspects: Named to convey specific information about the character, but not tied to a phase model of describing previous adventures.
• Skills: Obviously a condensed list of seven skills that describe how you are approaching a particular situation emotionally. Each skill has a specific application, defined in narrower terms than approaches in FAE.
• Stunts: They will probably be renamed as dark powers or gifts and be from a quite specific list. Currently I am thinking about having five dark powers for each sin, 35 dark gifts in total. This is intended to convey a clear vision about vampires in the game, and also to facilitate faster character creation.
• Stress: Will probably completely replaced by Hunger conditions. I want to address blood as one of the basic facts of vampiric existence, and also replace stress.
• Consequences: Might be dropped in favor of Hunger conditions.

Stuff I need to define (not necessarily in that order):

• The Dark Gifts: This will be an interesting exercise in writing a lot of stunts and defining the way stunts are defined for the game.
• Conflicts: I have some very specific types of conflicts in mind and how to resolve them.
• Conditions: What are they? How do you get them? How do you get rid of them?
• Seven Sins: Each sin needs a more in-depth description than is currently available.
• Character Creation: I will have to tell how everything fits together to create a player character.
• Mythology: What are vampires? Where do they come from? What do they actually do and care about?
• Setting Creation: How the setting creation rules of Fate Core will be applied to the game.
• GM Stuff: To roll or not to roll? How to define humans, NPC vampires and other tricks.

Fate, Blood & Seven Sins: The Seven Sins

The core of Fate, Blood & Sevens Sins are of course the Seven Sins. They describe vampire player characters and what they are capable of doing. They replace the approaches of FAE.

The Seven Sins

Each sin is described from the perspective of someone having a high rating in that particular sin.

• Envy: Wanting, needing, taking. Envy is used to get things, to take stuff away, to get it into your possession. The impulse to grab, to steal, to cheat and to swindle.
• Gluttony: Hunger and thirst. Gluttony is used to drink, to feed, to supply you with blood and thus power. The impulse to gorge yourself, because tomorrow there might be nothing left.
• Greed: Keeping things, defending what is yours. Greed represents your hoarded possessions and your knowledge. You keep them in a tight grip, refusing to let go. Like a spider in a web or a dragon on his hoard, you let nothing escape.
• Lust: Turning someone on, getting them to do what you want, getting them to want you. Lust is used to have your way with people. You are walking desire. They starve for your attention. You are the flame, they are the moths.
• Pride: Turning someone down, refusing them. Pride is your armor. Let others bend knee, let them bow. You are too good for that. You will not bend. You will not do as you are told and fulfill other people's desires at your own cost.
• Sloth: Age cools your blood. With age comes power. Sloth represents that. Your blood  turns cold in your veins. It runs heavy, not easily roused. You are a rock, secure in your own abilities. Let them come, you will prevail.
• Wrath: Violence and the inclination for using violence. Wrath gets you in a fight and sees you emerge victorious. You are uncontrollable, rash, hair-triggered. Always ready to pounce on your opponents and tear their throat out. You don't stop when your opponent is down. You go all the way in your red-hot rage.

I'll post a more detailed description of the Seven Sins later, including the four actions: overcome, create advantage, attack, defend for each.

Fate, Blood & Seven Sins: Taking Stock

It's been a long time since I took a look at Fate, Blood & Seven Sins my planned Fate Hack (dare I say game?) about vampires. Last I did a lengthy write up in German and had one test game. After that game I shelved the project again. My last attempt included options for building mythology, gifts of the blood and most importantly a definition of the seven sins as approaches/skills and how they interact in a pretty specific way. Play testing went reasonably well. Players were complaining that getting blood was too easy mechanical-wise and didn't feel right (basically, it was just a scene played out without any rolls).

By now I had some time to think about what I am trying to achieve and why:

• I want a game that appeals to those of my players who like Fate.
• I want to have a replacement for the current rules set of Vampire: The Masquerade and Vampire: The Requiem available because I find VtM deeply flawed system- and setting-wise, and I don't really like the changes to VtR 2.0. On top of that I find both systems cumbersome.
• I want a game about vampires, because they continue to fascinate me, and they are the Urban Fantasy I am most comfortable with.
• I want to use Fate because it is an OGL/Create Commons licensed game engine that easier to hack compared to PtbA. Also Fate is enjoying quite the popularity.

After defining what I want and why, let's take a look at the Vampire games (Masquerade and Requiem) and see what I think their strengths are:

• A rich and deep mythology, especially VtM shines with its Caine myth.
• Turning vampirism in a struggle vs. self through mechanics (namely humanity and frenzy).
• Emphasizing the dependency of a vampire on blood; portraying the vampire as an addict.
• Faction wars (or rather intrigues) that put the actions of a single character into a greater context.

But I still wanted my game to be different. Therefore I introduced things like mythology and city creation, etc. That was an attempt to differentiate Fate, Blood & Sevens Sins as a toolbox for building your own unique vampire game (kind of like Vampire City). But I realize now that I already have a strong vision of things I want in a vampire game and things I don't want to be there. So, instead of a toolbox the next time around it will be mythology of my own devising. Probably there'll be parallels to existing mythology, but mostly it's planned as a grounding for the game to give it a stronger hook.

What also needs to be differentiated is the genre of the game. VtM and VtR both lean heavily in the direction of horror and intrigue. I know that both games often hit the table as "superheroes with fangs" or an intrigue-load that turns people off. Also, Gothic music still shows its influences heavily in the games. So I am not sure yet, if Fate, Blood & Seven Sins should do things differently. Personally, I like the slick and stylish aesthetics of movies like Blade, Underworld and We are the Night, or the creepy horror of Byzantium and Let the Right One In, or the languid atmosphere of Only Lovers Left Alive.

At the moment, the only thing I have nailed down firmly in my opinion are the Seven Sins. They replace the FAE approaches for doing things. Their definition seems to be valid, in so far that they all do very specific things. Expect to see them here soonish.

That's it. This where I stand, and where my ideas are taking me.

Fate, Blood & Seven Sins: Interesting Discussions on the Web

This is just a short, informative reminder for myself. There are two rather interesting ideas pertaining to my planned Fate, Blood & Seven Sins hack:

How to convert VtR Blood & Smoke straight to FATE Core

How to use the Wild Blue Hack to do vampiric weaknesses

Interesting things to take away from both articles:

• The more powers vampires gain, the more weaknesses they get
• Hunger is basically a trinary state: vampires are sated, hungry or ravenous. In FATE this might translate as having no consequences associated with thirs, one or more consequences associated with thirst and being taken out by thirst.

Now, the only issue is: how do you gain thirst consequenes and how do you get rid of them?

You would probably gain thirst consequences for not meeting the blood requirements of a discipline, as defined by a roll. You would lose them by hunting and feeding. How to emulate that ties-in to the sevcn sins. The sin related to the thirst would of course be Gluttony.

From there, the question is: can each sin be used for all four actions or is each sin tied to specific actions, thus losing a bit of the free format of FAE? Thus, would Wrath be limited to physical attacks and overcoming physical obstacles, Pride to social attacks and overcoming social obstacles, and so on? Most importantly, what would I use Sloth for? Getting other people to do your job? Could it even be the "Age" statistic, thereby implying that older vampires are getting tired and bored?

Drinking blood and satiating your thirst could change internal consequences into external ones. For example, by removing your mild "Thirsty for a sip of blood" consequence, you would create an external aspect: "Drowsy party goer" aspect that symbolizes your feeding and goes away at the end of the scene. Or removing the severe "Thirsty beyond reason" condition creates a "Dead body hidden in the closet" aspect.

Or, drinking blood removes your consequences but creates campaign stress. Campaign stress clears at the end of each session. But stressing out the campaign creates a lasting consequence related to the discovery of vampires.

Enough rambling... as long as the central issue about drinking blood is not solved, I can't really go ahead with FATE, Blood & Seven Sins.

Fate, Blood & Seven Sins: Continuing the Work

I am starting to itch for my go-to-game Vampire: The Requiem, when reading "Reap the Whirlwind", the FreeRPG Day starter kit for Vampire: The Requiem 1.5 called "Blood & Smoke: The Strix Chronicles". But I don't really care for the rules update in God Machine Chronicle. It seems to be a bit excessive compared to the leaner versions of Vampire: The Masquerade and Vampire: The Requiem. Also, I have a long-running chronicle (8.5 years) that shouldn't have a radical switch of rules after such a long time.

But then I remembered my first steps with Fate, Blood & Seven Sins. Back then it was based on White Picket Witches, but before my first playtest I switched to FAE. The first playtest was ho-hum. The player feedback was: you didn't notice that you were a vampire. The playtesters had a lot of experience playing vampire, and the said there should probably be some mechanic to remind you who you are. They said, there was no blood pool of any sorts, nothing to really get you to hunt for blood at all. Something they think is very elementary for the vampire experience. A bit disheartened, I put the design away to be pulled out later. Now I feel later has come around.

Today, I re-read Duncan Bain's blog post on The Thirst by accident. My game needs something similar as the Thirst. Maybe something called the Hunger, which would be nice since there is a vampire movie with Bowie, Sarandon and Deneuve by the same name.

Also this got me thinking. In his Shadowrun 2050 hack for FATE Core, Rob Wieland calls out stunts as spells or as cyberware. In my first attempt, I created the vampiric powers close to the spells from White Picket Witches. But since the stat I associated with these spell-like powers was Age, the players kept failing their activation rolls. Therefore, I am thinking of doing it differently this time. Maybe I'll call out certain stunts as "Powers" or "Dark Gifts" or something like that. These stunts emulate the supernatural powers, work like real stunts (i.e. no activation roll) and you get to have a maximum of Age+X of them. But because you are a vampire, you have to take at least two. Not sure about their power level though. If they work on the same level like regular stunts, they won't feel very vampiric. One way would be to rule that mortals do not get to take any stunts in this game, thus de-powering them compared to vampires. Another way would mean stronger stunts. Stunts that don't balance with other stunts. But I am not so sure I like this. Having only vampires (and maybe other supernaturals) with stunts creates an immediate divide between ordinary humans and vampires. Also, I can still keep the traditional stunt structure in place... hm... on the other hand, the Extras chapter in FATE Core nicely details how stunts can be double or triple-strength. Need to do some more thinking on that. Suggestions welcome.

The next thing to consider: standard vampiric powers as portrayed in popular TV series like Vampire Diaries or True Blood should be baked into the character from the beginning. Things like supernatural strength, speed and resilience (except towards sunlight) should be available to any vampire. Maybe relative strength based on Age, as this seems to be a common denominator when watching or reading about them in a modern context. Using those abilities might kindle the Hunger (much like described in The Thirst). Still need to decide how Age plays into this, how Hunger is handled (e.g. as separate stress track, as mental stress or something else, but stress seems to be a good way to do this).

The last item to consider is mythology and origin. With Vampire City there is already a game out there that allows you to custom build your vampires, their origins, the social structure and so on. Then, there is Vampire: The Masquerade. One of the strongest aspects of that setting was the involved and complex mythology surrounding the Kindred, as well as the easy to grasp war between two vampiric groups. When looking at Vampire Diaries and True Blood, then personally I found the stories involving the origins very fascinating. Same with reading "The Queen of the Damned". In the end I am torn between creating a toolbox that can be used to create a variety of vampire settings or creating a firm background on what it means to be a vampire in my game.

Expect to see some solutions to various quandaries I've pointed out in the not too far future.

WPW Hack: Fate, Blood & Sevens Sins Part 3

Welcome to the third (and most likely last) part of Fate, Blood & Seven Sins. This post discusses some random bits and pieces that go beyond the character & setting creation and powers stuff.

Vampire Healing

The description of Bo from Lost Girl in FATE Core stats finally gave me an important idea: how to handle healing based on drawing life force, blood, etc. from another being. I am going to use something similar for vampires.

A vampire is (only) able to heal consequences by inflicting consequences of equal or greater severity on someone else. Then she spends a FATE point to heal her own consequence. Nameless NPCs can only be used to heal mild consequences.

Alternatively, the GM can rule that all consequences downgrade by one level of severity at the beginning of a game.

Dominance & Submission

Vampires are predatory, territorial creatures. When they meet, they try to establish a pecking order. This can be either handled by a single overcome role with Age, or you can enter special Face-Off. In that Face-Off, the only Asset that can be used to attack and defend is Age. Whoever wins the conflict gets a special Dominance aspect. Each character can only have one Dominance aspect. If a new one is gained, the old one is erased.

Turf War

Vampires defend their territories, but they also like to acquire more. Turf War represents a way to do that. When a vampire declares a Turf War, he first has to spend a FATE point to change the Leitmotiv of the turf owned by another vampire (according to the rules in White Picket Witches). Then he has to announce his claim on the territory and initiate a Face-Off against the current owner. But this Face-Off is rather ritualized. It is up to the gaming group to decide if that ritual carries over into the fiction or not. The attacker has to attack alone. After all, there is only turf to go around. The defender can ask her allies to join her. In a Turf War, the GM uses the turf to attack the challenger. A place will fight subtly against the change of ownership. If the attacker succeeds in the Face-Off, he gains the turf and may switch out any one Asset of the place and select a new Leitmotif. He doesn't gain a new intent aspect. If the owner of the place concedes this Face-Off, she gets to keep her territory, but the attacker gains an intent aspect and a dominance aspect against her. She may subtly twist the wording as usual. If the defender wins the Face-Off, she gains an intent aspect and a dominance aspect against the aggressor.

A vampire may have as many turfs as her Age indicates. When a vampire looses her last remaining turf, she can create a new turf upon reaching the next significant milestone. Until then, her Pride is penalized by -2.

WPW Hack: Fate, Blood & Seven Sins Part 2

This is the second part of my vampire hack for White Picket Witches. This time it's about vampiric powers. The powers are all activated by successfully rolling with Age, usually against a difficulty of Great (+4). The difficulty represents that all vampires have access to the same powers, but older vampires are generally better at using the power of their blood than newly made vampires. The younger ones have to work harder (read: expend FATE points, set up scene aspects or boosts) to make their powers actually work.

Vampiric power often resides in the blood. To emulate this, a vampire character can take a consequence and apply the number of stress usually mitigated by the consequence as a bonus to his Age roll. As a consequence he should take an aspect that alludes to her being hungry, starving, thirsty or worse.

One important note: vampiric powers are inherently nocturnal. They do not work in daylight as long as the sun is in the sky. Your vampire may not burn in the sun, but he is weakened and cannot use his Age score.

Slight change: In the last post, I stated that each vampire starts with one extra at no cost. I think, all vampires should start with two extras at no cost. Simply because Age can't be really used to attack, defend or create an advantage.

Also, the powers listed here are just suggestions. If you or your group comes up with any other ideas, just take those.

Animal Magnetism

The vampire exudes predatory sexuality and lust. By succeeding on an Age roll at Great (+4) or better, he gains a +2 bonus on all rolls with Lust to Overcome or Create Advantages for the rest of the scene.

Claws & Fangs

The ability to grow claws and fangs is a staple of vampire literature. The wounds they inflict in physical combat become more serious. If they succeed on an Age roll against difficulty Great (+4) or better, the vampire grows claws and/or vicious fangs that inflict an additional two points of Stress (as Weapon:2) for the rest of the conflict.

Cold Commands

Some vampires can command lesser creatures to follow their very commmands. Whether by voice or eye contact, if you succeed with Age against a difficulty of Great (+4) or better, you can hand over a FATE point to a player character or non-player character. You ask them to take an action (Overcome, Create Advantage, Attack or Defend) that can be accomplished with one roll. If they take the action, they get to keep the FATE point. If they don't, the FATE point goes to the turf.

Dark Rebirth

This power is a nod to all the sequels where the vampire defeated previously returns. At the end of the session in which a vampire with this power was destroyed, the player rolls the Age of the character. If she succeeds at a Great (+4) or better roll, then the vampire returns from the grave. He looses the power and regains one refresh. The Rebirth power may only be bought again when the next major milestone has been reached.

Daywalker

Your character has achieved a remarkable feat: she can walk in daylight and still access some or all of her vampiric powers. At dawn she rolls Age against Fair (+2) difficulty. For each two points of shift she achieves on the roll, she can designate one of her powers to be useable during the day.

Dreams & Memories

Some vampires are able to project their thoughts into another person's mind. With Dreams & Memories, a vampire can reach into the very core of another being. If this done by telepathic command, sharing their dreams or whispering into their ear is up to the group or even the individual vampire. By succeeding on an Age roll at Great (+4) or better, they are allowed to change one of the aspects of their victims. This can be either the Canon Aspect, the Mortal Days, the Vampire Nights, a Consequence or the Intent Aspect. They are allowed to add or change up to two words of the aspect. The change remains in effect until the character rests the next time.

Heightened Perception

If the vampire succeeds at a roll with Age at Fair (+2) or better, then his senses become very acute for the rest of the scene. He get a +2 on any rolls involving the five senses, but his Defense against loud noises or other forms of sensory overload is reduced by two points.

Hypnotic Voice

The vampire can use his voice to confuse his opponent in a Face-Off. He makes it difficult to concentrate and retain cohesive thoughts. If he succeeds at a Great (+4) or better roll with Age, he can ignore two points of stress generated by a verbal attack (like Armor:2 against non-physical attacks).

Mind Reader

Some vampires are adept at reading another's thoughts and memories. If the vampire succeeds at a Great (+4) or better roll with Age, she may ask another character one question that can be answered with yes or no. The other character must answer truthfully. The truth being as he knows it.

Mists & Shadows

The Legendary (+8) Dracula was capable of transforming his body into an insubstantial mass of fog or shadow. This power allows a vampire to do the very same thing. If they succeed on a roll with Age at Fantastic (+6) or better, they turn into a wraith-like mist or shadow. For the rest of the scene, they cannot be attacked physically anymore, but sunlight will burn the vampire to ashes. Also, it is hard to notice the vampire, requiring a roll of Great (+4) or better. This power is beyond most fledgling vampires.

Renfield

This power can be turned on a nameless NPC. By rolling Great (+4) or better on an Age roll, the vampire turns the nameless NPC into a Fair minion (see FATE Core). The minion gains a name and an aspect. If it is taken-out or overcome, the vampire looses any influence over him. When a Renfield survives his first session as a vampiric minion, the power can be used on him again and turn him into a Good minion. A vampire can have no more minions than his Age.

Shapeshifter

By succeeding on an Age roll at Great (+4) or better, the vampire can turn herself into a bat or wolf. She can choose the form at the moment of transformation. Her canon aspect changes into an appropriate aspect. As a bat she gains the Wall-Walker power (by virtue of being able to fly) and as a wolf she gains the Claws & Fangs power.

Swarm Shape

Some vampires can turn into a whole swarm of bats, rats, cats or spiders. This power emulates this. The vampire succeeds in a Great (+4) or better roll to affect the transformation. A swarm can either completely escape the Face-Off (without the initiator gaining the intent based aspect) or can be used to get additional stress boxes (one per shift generated). The player can choose which effect to gain upon transformation.

Ultra-sonic Scream

An ability that may point to bat-like ancestry. If the vampire succeeds at an Age roll with Great (+4) or better result, any shifts generated are applied as stress to any and all creatures involved in the Face-Off.

Vampiric Resilience

Most vampires are hard to take down. Resilience is the power that emulates that. On a Great (+4) roll with Age, the vampire can ignore two points physical stress from each blow (like Armor:2) for the rest of the scene.

Vampiric Strongness

The antiquated word describes the vampire's knack for supernatural strength. When a vampire rolls Great (+4) or better with Age, he gains a +2 bonus on any rolls related to raw strength for the rest of the scene. This bonus also extends to any and all physical attacks made with the sin of Wrath.

Vampiric Swiftness

Vampires are shown as being incredibly swift. On a Great (+4) or better roll, they get a +2 bonus to Defend against physical attacks in a Face-Off for the rest of the scene.

Wall-Walker

The vampire can walk on ceiling or scale walls with ease. If she succeeds at a Greater (+4) or better roll with Age, she can ignore ground-based and height-based obstacles to movement for the rest of the scene.

WPW Hack: Fate, Blood & Seven Sins Part 1

I just love Vampire: The Requiem. It's my favorite game and I usually gm at least a short chronicle each year. All of them set in the same setting, a small city in Northern Germany. On and off, I've been running the game since November 2004. I am looking for a way to marry the FATE mechanics with my setting. Now, White Picket Witches may have given me the right tools.

In the Requiem Chronicler's Guide there was a hack called "Monsters Garage" that stripped the vampiric experience down to a few essential components. They also did away with skills and instead focused on how you do things not what you do. The focus was on employing the seven deadly sins of envy, gluttony, greed, lust, pride, sloth, wrath. This matches up perfectly with the seven assets used by White Picket Witches. So I am going to use the seven deadlies as the Assets of the game. But let's dive in from the beginning.

Setting Considerations

The game assumes that vampirism is transmitted by blood, as seen in Vampire Diaries, True Blood or Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. It is up to the gaming group to determine when the blood has to be transmitted and which additional steps (if any) have to be taken to complete the transformation into a vampire (e.g. being dead, dying, having to bury out of the grave, etc.)

Also, I am going to assume that vampires gather, be it as packs, covens, clans, bloodlines, a complete undead society with elaborate rituals and rules, gangs, nests, broods, whatever. This will provide the social dynamic. It is up to the GM and players to define this.

Thirdly, I am assuming that vampires require blood to survive. This will be expresses as an Extra and limitation that all vampires share: they can only heal a consequence by inflicting an equally bad or worse consequence on someone else. Stressing-out nameless NPCs is sufficient for recovering mild consequences, but nothing more serious. A vampire can use another vampire to recover consequences.

Your Aspects

Core Concept: This works similar to the canon aspect of White Picket Witches and the high concept aspect of FATE Core. In two to three words, tell the audience who you are. Are you the Trusted Bodyguard, a Ruthless Drugdealer, the Elderly Executive, an Ancient Relic, the Dedicated Elementary School Teacher, a Suave Tattoo Artist, the Curious Archaelogist or a Famous Radio Talkhost?

Weakness: Vampires have weaknesses as varied as the genre. Some are repelled by crosses, some are vulnerable to sunlight, others are prone to violent rage or hurt by silver. Pick a weakness for your character. Something that will impair her when confronted with it. Put it in an aspect. Not all vampires are created the same.

Casting: How do you imagine your character to look like? You can pick a particular actor (even in a particular role) or just cast your character as a "-type". The purpose of this aspect is to visualize the character in three to five words.

Mortal Days: Who were you as a mortal, back in the day when you could still walk openly among humans? What was the life that was stolen from you? This aspect can be about family or friends, habits, occupations and what not. It should solidly connect you to other humans.

Role in Vampire Society: Even though vampires are predators, they connect to other vampires. This aspect describes your role in vampiric society. Are you a newly converted vampire? The advisor to your broodmaster? The ruler of a respected house or lineage? An enforcer of laws?

Your Assets

Your assets are the seven deadly sins: envy, gluttony, greed, lust, pride, sloth, wrath. In this game, you express your actions by describing which sin you are committing in order to get what you want.

As an additional asset you get Age. The asset describes how experienced you are in using your vampiric powers and how powerful you are a vampire. A newly created fledgingly starts with Average (+1) Age, while an ancient vampire alive back in Roman times might have be of  Fantastic (+6) or Epic (+7) Age. Most vampires created since the Middle Ages range between Great (+4) Age and Fair (+2) Age, if they have been around since before WWII.

The group may decide to limit Age to a certain bracket or even require all player characters  to start at the same Age.

Age is rolled, when you are activating your vampiric powers.

Since I don't like spreading points around bit by bit, each player will be able to have one asset at Great (+4), one at Good (+3), one at Fair (+2) and another one at Average (+1). The assets include the sevens sins and Age. At least one of the values has to be put into Age.

Refresh, Stunts and Extras

Each character starts out with one free stunt, three refresh and one extra. Additional stunts and/or extras can be taken by reducing refresh. Stunts can either be invented using the guidelines in FATE Core or by applying an existing stunt to one of the seven sins.

I will provide a short list of extras based upon vampiric powers in one of the next blog posts.

Antagonists

Antagonists are built like in White Picket Witches. Possible antagonists include the vampire who made you, the vampire you created, a rival vampiric gangleader, mortal authorities, competitors for your turf, the usual vampire hunters, other supernatural creatures like werewolves, ghosts, demons or even the devil himself. Just look to the genre for inspiration.

Turf

Each player designs at least one turf. An area her character owns in the world of the vampires. Her hunting grounds, her lair, a place she likes to spend time at or a meeting place for others of her kind. Also, the group should probably design at least one or two turfs that are shared by more vampires, where they can meet, greet and plot.

Turfs are designed along the same rules as places of power. They have a leitmotif, and get three assets (read: sins) assigned. In a given scene, when a vampire is on his own turf, he can invoke the leitmotif once for free (very cool idea by Rob Wieland for The Phaser Chase).

Okay, that's the basics. Next time I'll talk about vampiric powers and then there is this idea about Turf Wars.