A general note regarding the acquisition of merits: Merits, especially social merits, item merits and location merits, can be acquired during play or by paying experience points. There is no hard and fast rule in this regard, but a general rule of thumb is that actions to gain one of these merits taken during the course of actual roleplay will have a reduced to eliminated cost to acquire the merit, while merits acquired during downtime or off-screen will cost the full Exp amount.
For example, if a character or group of characters wishes to acquire an enchanted item or protected location merit, such as a shared Sanctum, they have two choices; they may simply say "We are gaining a six dot Sanctum, costing us two merit dots apiece, during downtime," to which the GM replies that it will cost them 6 Exp each. Or they may chose to roleplay it out in the game sessions, looking for a place to build a Sanctum, putting thought into design and selections, and generally making a story about it. In these cases, the Sanctum would have a reduced Exp cost, perhaps down to nothing.
However, as this option allows for characters to gain large numbers of merits quickly, Easy Come, Easy Goes applies; note that the GM will have no guilt in removing or destroying these merits if it is felt that such an action would improve the story.
Sway is a mechanic for social and mental combat. It roughly parallels the mechanics of physical combat, with some notable differences.
Sway is measured in points of Casual, Intimate and Unnatural Sway, which can be thought of as roughly analogous to bashing, lethal and aggravated damage.
Sway is generated by a Social skill roll.
| Interval | Modifier |
| Two Days |
+1 |
| One Day |
+0 |
| One Hour |
-1 |
| Half Hour |
-2 |
| Ten Minutes |
-3 |
| Five Minutes |
-4 |
| One Minute |
-5 |
Trustworthy Face (•)
Effect: You just have one of those faces people tend to trust, without any particular rational reason for them doing so. If they stopped to think about it they might reconsider, so don’t give them the chance. Gain +2 bonus on all Casual Sway attempts.
Once Burned (••)
Effect: You used to trust people, until betrayal (or your base suspicious nature) got in the way. Now, it is extremely difficult to Sway you. You double your Composure or Resolve when resisting Sway.
Drawback: Trust is impossible, even when it might serve your character in the long term. If you have Will-power, you must spend it to resist Sway, and can never willingly go along with it in order to gain the bonus experience.
Magnificent Bastard (•••)
Effect: Even people whose trust you’ve abused, who’ve been warned against you, or who catch you in the most compromising situations just can’t, for some reason, bring themselves to condemn you for it. You suffer no circumstantial penalties for your Swaying actions. Even if your target knows you’re a no-good lying sack of shit, the knowledge won’t help them at all.
It’s Like I’ve Known You My Whole Life (••••)
Effect: You form rapport with strangers and acquaintances with astonishing speed, rapidly striking up warm and sometimes intimate conversations with people you’ve only just met. The time it takes to move a relationship from Casual Sway to Intimate Sway is halved (see table above).
Cut to the Heart (•••••)
Effect: You have an insight into human nature (either studies or intuitive) that is so profound you can use Intimate Sway with anyone — strangers, cellmates, taxi drivers. Nobody is safe from your uncanny manipulation of mind.
(please note that the following list is incomplete)
Sin-Eater Manifestations:
The Passion Boneyard •• and up
Gives a bonus to Sway attempts that align with the intended emotion (the emotion is fear and the Sway is to scare the target) equal to the activation successes, or penalizes Sway attempts if the emotion is contrary (attempting to reassure the target).
The Passion Curse
Offers an appropriate bonus or penalty to Sway attempts.
The Passion Marionette
Passion Marionette •: Allows a bonus to Sway attempts as given.
Passion Marionette •• and up: Inflicts Unnatural Sway
The Passion Oracle
Passion Oracle • and •• offer a bonus to Sway attempts as given.
Passion Oracle ••• and •••• can offer situation bonuses based on the information gained.
The Passion Shroud
Passion Shroud • does not increase Resolve or Composure against Sway attempts.
Passion Shroud •• gives the appropriate bonus to Intimidate Sway attempts
Passion Shroud ••• gives the appropriate bonuses to Presence or Manipulation based sway attempts.
A mechanic that allows the players to fill in undefined elements of the setting and scene and use those for their own benefit. It is a special kind of mental skill roll that has the character suddenly notice or recall something relevant and useful, at a rate of one fact per success rolled. This mechanic enables the PCs to simulate characters that are highly observant or extremely knowledgeable.
Sometimes, Declarations might contradict things the Storyteller has already plotted out, planned, or built into the backstory or personality of a significant one of her characters (note we didn’t say, “things the Storyteller has already established” — if he hasn’t put them into play yet, they don’t “exist”). A Storyteller can always decline a Declaration by saying it is contradictory. This itself gives the player some useful information — there’s something there to be uncovered! Some secret to be wheedled out! But further, the player gets to make another Declaration instead of the declined one, so it all remains equitable.
Ear for Gossip (•)
Effect: You have a catalog of secrets and scandals in your head, and are always hearing more. If someone is well-known or famous, chances are you’ll know some-thing about them. You can add a target’s Status or Fame Merits to your rolls to make Declarations about them, so long as the facts you declare are those you could reason-ably know by word of mouth.
Holmesian Deduction (•••)
Effect: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” You have a knack for uncovering (via the Declaration mechanics) the bizarre, macabre, and unlikely. You do not suffer penalties when your Declarations stretch probability so long as they come with sufficiently strange details the Storyteller can use to complicate and embellish future drama.
Injuries Last: Any single attack that inflicts more damage than a victim’s Size has the potential to do lasting damage to the character. If the character does not receive medical attention or supernatural healing within one hour of the wound being inflicted, the player rolls the relevant trait(s), applying any wound penalties. If the roll fails, the character either loses a dot from that Attribute or gains a Flaw relevant to the injury (player’s choice). If the damage was bashing, the trait returns (or the Flaw fades) in one month, or in two weeks if the character receives appropriate medical care. If the damage was lethal, the effect is permanent, but a lost Attribute can be repurchased for half the normal experience cost. A Flaw fades after the character has devoted appropriate energy and time into getting rid of it (Storyteller’s discretion; at least one story). If the damage that caused the injury was aggravated, the effect is permanent and the player must pay the usual amount of experience to get the Attribute back. The Flaw can be phased out as described for lethal damage, though the Storyteller should feel no compulsion to make it easy. Rationale: Injuries don’t fade just because the checked boxes on the character sheet got erased. Recovery from serious injury can take months or years, or permanently alter a character’s life.
Knife to a Fistfight: When an unarmed character is attacked by someone wielding a melee weapon, the defender applies a penalty to his Defense equal to the weapon rating (the dice bonus given by the weapon) against the attack. Merits or supernatural powers that add to Defense are not affected. Rationale: Even master martial artists will tell you that if you’re unarmed and your opponent isn’t, the likelihood that you’ll get royally fucked up increases exponentially, and your best bet is to dodge like hell and try to get away. This hack makes Merits like Brawling Dodge considerably more useful when the bad guys break out knives and lead pipes.
(Concept for a 1 dot merit that allows for applying Defense when the defender is armored or psychologically prepared to be hurt)
Aggravated Called Shots: A called shot to the head, using any kind of weapon or firearm, inflicts aggravated damage. An unarmed strike to the head still inflicts bashing damage, unless the character has some way to inflict lethal hand damage. Targeting the head imposes a –5 modifier. Rationale: Damage
to the head with anything hard or fast enough to crack the skull often causes brain damage, and that’s a pretty sure way to kill a person.
Bleeding Out: Any wound that causes at least two points of lethal or aggravated damage, and is inflicted by a firearm, blade, claw or any other source that causes deep tissue damage, begins to bleed profusely. The victim suffers one point of bashing damage each minute the wound is left untended. Bleeding victims can be stabilized with a successful Dexterity + Medicine roll, with a –1 dice penalty for each point of lethal damage caused by the initial wound. Any sort of supernatural healing will stop the bleeding. Rationale: A gunshot might not kill a person, but the resultant blood loss very easily can.
Slower Healing: Similar to Injuries Last (above), this hack increases the time necessary for characters to recover from wounds. Healing time for bashing damage is now one point per hour of rest. Healing time for lethal damage increases to one week per point. Healing time for aggravated damage increases
to one month per point. Getting stabbed, therefore, can easily take a month or more to heal to the point that the character is no longer inconvenienced. If damage “wraps” from lethal to aggravated, or if the character suffers some kind of supernatural attack, he can easily feel the effects for several months. Note that medical attention can and will reduce these times. Rationale: Our bodies heal, given medical attention and good treatment, but it takes a while. Anyone who’s suffered a sports-related injury can tell you that even years later, the body doesn’t forget.
GM Note: After some consideration, we've reworked the primary social mechanics--Allies, Contacts, Status and Resources--to be more cross-compatiable, and allow for greater player management, while reducing the number of GM judgement calls. Essentially, at the end of this rewrite, the social merits will share a single unified mechanic, that of Favors and Services.
Additional Note: This section is still being worked on for full detail and balance. It has been put on this page for transparency and to inform the players that it is intended to be used, but, at present, will not be used until it is more fleshed out.
Money is ultimately a means of exchange; it isn't worth anything unless everyone agrees that it is. True currency is getting someone else to do something for you. Whether that medium of exchange takes the form of coins, bags of spices, a napkin with IOU written on it, or some other fashion is really up to the circumstances between two or more parties. But it all boils down to "how much will this get me and what will it cost me?"
The social merits of Resources, Status, Contacts and Allies (as well as Retainer and Mentor, to a lesser degree) all effectively measure how much currency a character has with capitalist society at large (Resources), within their specific subgroup or subgroups (Status), within those willing to trade information (Contacts) or with those willing to come to their aid in a more material fashion (Allies). Each of these merits will have an associated "damage track,"generically referred to as "credit points" or "credit boxes", with a number of these as follows:
These credit points represent the "bank" that the character has to draw on socially and financially with money and the organizations that they have associated themselves with.
As a character makes purchases, or gains the services of others, they spend these credit points, marking off the credit boxes of the appropriate track that they used to acquire that item or services. If a character would ever need to check off a box in a given merit's track and cannot, they have overdrawn at that "bank" (literally, in the case of Resources) and the merit is reduced by one dot to reflect the reduction in status or financial liquidity. At the end of each in-game month or at the end of every story arc (GM's discretion) the character clears a number of credit point boxes equal to their merit dots.
It is also possible to refresh credit point boxes during the course of the story, by doing favors for the associated group, which will clear up a number of boxes equal to the favor. Additionally, when PCs execute a service that is two or more levels in excess of their current level, they may be rewarded with an increase in the appropriate merit's dots, as well as getting a number of credit point boxes cleared for executing the favor.
Brokerage; "I'll scratch your back if you'll scratch mine."
It is possible to "pay" for a favor with credit point boxes on a different track, so long as there is an appropriate rationale. For example, a private detective needs some help from an organized crime syndicate, in which he has Allies 2 and a nearly filled Reputation track; instead of filling or exceeding his reputation track with the syndicate, he can instead offer "to talk with my friends at the police station for something for you," where he also has Allies 3 and an empty reputation track. If the syndicate accepts that he'll talk to the police on their behalf, he can instead mark off the credit boxes on his Allies (Police) track instead. Typically when this is done, rather than it being done in a strict deferral to another track, the characters engage in negotiation, and the dot cost can shift up or down as a result.
Favor Ratings:• - •••••
| Rating | Service |
| • | Trivial favor. Getting someone to perform minor services for a few hours. Delivering a package elsewhere in the city. Passing a message. Give a ride to someone elsewhere in the city. Get a cop friend to not give a parking ticket. Borrow a small amount of money. Acquire a one-dot mundane item. |
| •• | Minor favor. Getting someone to perform services for a day. Criminal activity that will result in censure or moderate fines. Roughing someone up. Providing an alibi. Borrow a decent amount of money. Acquire two-dot mundane items. |
| ••• | Moderate favor. Getting someone to perform services for a week. Criminal activity that will result in major fines. Serious beatings. Industrial espionage. Borrow a moderate amount of money. Acquire a three-dot mundane item. |
| •••• | Significant favor. Getting someone to perform services for a month. Criminal activity that will result in jail time. Homicide. Industrial sabotage. Borrow a large amount of money. Acquire a four dot mundane item. |
| ••••• | Major favor. Getting someone to perform services for a year. Criminal activity that can destroy someone's career, life or reputation such as terrorism, major embezzlement, mass murder. Borrow staggering amounts of money. Acquire a five-dot mundane item. |
Universal modifiers:
Favor level being sought (- level of favor),
Resources (• - •••••)
A character's Resources represents their general lifestyle and disposable income. A character with 0 dots of Resources is living month to month with room mates, basic public public transit, and near no discretionary spending. A character with Resources 5 is rich with a nice home, expensive cars, and a great deal of available cash to fund their interests.
Every character has a number of Savings boxes equal to their Resources + Resolve and Debt boxes equal to their Resources +1 squared. When making purchases, the character simply marks off a number of Savings or Debt boxes equal to the dot cost of the item.
At the end of each (story/month, Storyteller's discretion) a character clears a number of boxes equal to their Resources dots between the Savings and Debt tracks. They may also check off Savings boxes to clear more Debt boxes. After this if the character has not checked off any Savings boxes the entire (story/month) they may clear an additional box as interest grows and bits saved here and there add up. For every multiple of Resources Debt boxes checked off, round up, the character checks off another Debt box due to interest.
If a character ever would need to check off a Debt box and has no more remaining nor any free Savings to check off they have surpassed their credit limit. At this point they generally need to take a long term form of debt, such as a mortgage, that lowers their Resources dots by one due to monthly payments, or (at ST discretion) sell off significant assets such as their home. In such cases, a number of Debt boxes appropriate to the situation can be cleared.
It is possible to have multiple resource merits, each with their own associated track for recording expenditures. Typically, these are associated with other instances of the New Identity merit, but it is possible to have multiple Resource merits tied to a single identity; these can be interpreted as shadowy or anonymous accounts.
(GM Note: Given the rewrite of the Resources merit, the concept of having Resources that extend beyond 5 dots is a possibility worth future consideration)
The Contacts merit (WoD 114) is a bit too abstract, as written, for this game. It allows a maximum of five dots, and each dot represents a person or group from whom you can attempt to gain information. The rules presented here allow more contact people/areas to be chosen and grant more fine-grained information about the relationship between a character and their contacts.
Instead of a single Contacts merit, the new system allows you to have any number of Contacts merit entries on your sheet. Each entry applies to a different person or group whom you can ask for information. The first dot of the Contacts merit gives you the same access to information as is possible with the original merit. Further dots net you access to increased detail and possibly more restricted info. So, you can get the same effects of Contacts 5 in the old system, by purchasing Contacts 1 in five areas using the new system. Dots in this merit still only get you information. If you want someone to perform services for you or come to your aid, look at the Allies or Retainer merits.
Contacts
| Rating | Effect |
|---|---|
| • | You've met before and have an understanding. The contact is willing to give you information if you ask right. |
| •• | You have a comfortable working relationship. The contact is easier to persuade and more likely to give you detailed info. |
| ••• | You've built up some trust and may have some favors to call in. The contact is likely to go out of his way to find details for you, and might occasionally stick his neck out to get you behind-the-scenes or otherwise restricted information. |
| •••• | You have a serious history with your contact, be they a group or a person, and you know you can rely on each other. The contact will reliably give you all sorts of useful details and doesn't mind taking a few risks to get you the classified down low. |
| ••••• | You're in it together, come hell or high water. The contact will regularly supply lots of details, including classified or otherwise unobtainable tidbits. The relationship is still limited to information-passing, but you should seriously consider investing in Allies as well. |
This roll remains unchanged from its description in the core rulebook, except that you gain a bonus on said roll equal to your dots in the pertinent Contacts merit: Manipulation + Persuasion (or Socialize) + Contacts. The core book lists various equipment and situational modifiers.
A contact merit's credit point track is equal to three times the dot rating of the merit.
GM's Note: We're being much more informal about contacts and allies in our game than the book assumes. All the socializing and good roleplaying means that everyone has a few secret Contacts and Allies merits that don't get to show up on their sheet. So why buy them at all? So that you can actually use it. Roleplaying happens no matter what, but you can't make an abstracted Contacts roll if you don't have the merit on your sheet.