Storyteller: vampire@cairoafterdark.com

As a storyteller and as a player in fact, I prefer low- to mid-power games. I like the struggle of the underdog, the confusion of a newborn and the ominous view of those that can crush you towering above. I guess I'm kind of weird like that. As a storyteller I use a series of "house rules" to try and limit the game, to keep the characters in check without really hindering their abilities in development. Some of them apply only at character creation; others are actually in effect at all times.

Note: Making a Vampire character is done according to the rules found in the Vampire 3rd Edition Core book. Here are the rules that apply to each section.

Character Creation Restrictions
In order to try and keep the characters in a somewhat early stage at character creation, no players are allowed to raise any stat above 3 before the freebie point stage. I realize that this is in line with the standard White Wolf rules, but the next part is my alteration. During freebie points and merits & flaws, the only stats that may be raised above 3 are Attributes and Backgrounds. All other stats are limited to a max of 3 dots through the entire character creation period.

Stories vary in power, and thus the players within the plot - the PC's - must also vary in strength. In the case of a low-power game (of which I am very fond, both as a player and a Storyteller), you may sometimes need to restrict some aspects of character creation. Vampires, even starting ones, can be pretty powerful. In the time that I've been running, I've heard a lot of disgruntled mumbles specifically dedicated to backgrounds. You can often maximize a background or two (especially Generation and Resources) and make up for any limitations that result from being a fairly young PC.

Note: Characters coming from Free Forum Chronicles will be required to start a fresh character sheet according to White-Wolf stats. No points will be carried over from your Free Forum game.

NO starting character, unless an extensive 10,000 word history is given, can take any rites but starting creation rites and one other. If a extensive history is give character maybe granted stats, rituals, rites and etc.

Concept:
The Concept is quite important, so give it some thought before you move on. Stay away from obvious combat oriented concepts.

Attributes:
Attributes: 7 | 5 | 3
Attributes of 4 and higher need special approval at this point.

Abilities:
Abilities: 13 | 9 | 5
No ability above 3 at this point, but you can raise it using Freebies later.

Secondary Abilities
First off, before we get too far into this, be aware that unlike the default abilities on the character sheet, all Secondary Abilities must be approved by the Storyteller before purchasing.

Secondary Abilities are used exactly as standard abilities are, only because of their specialization and limited purpose, cost less than standard abilities. The cost to buy a Secondary Ability is two (2) experience points. To raise a Secondary Ability costs current rating in experience. Again, be sure that the Secondary Ability is available to you before you purchase it.

Backgrounds:
Backgrounds: 5

These Traits describe advantages of birth (or rebirth), circumstance and opportunity: material possessions, social networks and the like. Backgrounds are external, not internal Traits, and you should always rationalize how you came to posses them, as well as what they represent. Who are your contacts? Why do your allies support you? Where did you meet your retainers? How exactly do you make enough money to justify your four dots in Resources? If you've put enough detail into your character concept, selecting appropriate Backgrounds should be easy.

Although it's uncommon to make roll involving Background Traits, the Storytellers might have you do so to see if you can obtain information, goods or favors. For example, you might have to roll Wits + Resources to keep your stock options healthy, or Manipulation + Contacts to wheedle that extra favor from your smuggler "associate".

Generations:
We recommend, characters start no lower than 10th generation. To play a 10th generation character, you must purchase the background points to lower your character generation to 10th from 13th. The only exceptions to this if you're sired by someone in the game, or looking to play a Clan Primogen. If sired by someone in the game, then you become one generation above your Sire's. See, we are encouraging you to interact with one another. To bring Mortals and Ghouls into the game and start Sire/Childe relationships not only allows better generations, but it makes for great RP and dynamic Storylines and isn't that the point of playing?

Generation cap is at 10th generation for all characters. NO exceptions!

Disciplines:
Disciplines: 3
These dots must go into the clan specific Disciplines.

Discipline Advancement Restrictions
First off, standard discipline experience costs apply (current rating x5, x7 for out of clan, x6 for Caitiff). The game gets tricky when trying to either learn new disciplines or develop known disciplines beyond basic abilities (levels 1 - 3). If a character wishes to learn a new out of clan discipline, they must have another Kindred teach them. A vampire can learn a clan discipline on her own, but to learn something beyond the instinct of her clan's blood, she must have a teacher. So it all breaks down like this: Celerity, Fortitude, and Potence are defined as physical disciplines and can be learned by any Kindred with practice and no formal instruction. They can be developed to any level desired by simply practicing and "exercising" However, alternate powers would require instruction.

When a vampire wants to pick up a new in-clan discipline, there is a "blood instinct" to learn it. But when a vampire wants to try to pick up a discipline from outside her clan, then she must find a teacher to begin her development on that new discipline. That teacher must have at least level 2 in the discipline; that implies a relatively competent understanding, enough to teach another.

If a vampire wishes to advance her disciplines beyond the basic comprehension (level 3), then she must again have a teacher, this goes for in clan and out of clan disciplines. It is at levels 4 and 5 that disciplines move from being simple tricks to powerful forces. These forces need guidance to direct. The only exceptions to this rule are the purely physical disciplines (Celerity, Fortitude, and Potence). All others require special training to advance past level 3. Additionally, a teacher must always have one level higher than he is trying to teach, again, to imply competence in the ability taught.

As you can see, trying to learn level 5 of a Discipline can get pretty tricky, and can even turn out to be the topic of a series of sessions. A note on alternate abilities: these are developments of standard disciplines in non-conventional directions. Presence is not known to work through electronic media, but perhaps an inventive Toreador wants to be a TV personality, so she works to develop a televised Presence ability. Alternate abilities are the realm of the vampire taking what she has learned, and striding off to the left with it. As a whole I leave these in the domain of the Storyteller. I allow them in the game, but the player has to do some fancy footwork to get their character to learn them. There has to be a clear-cut, story-based reason for it. Also the learning or discovery process must be either played out or detailed in an interesting way. All vampires have the power to develop themselves in new and interesting ways; it's up to the players to show us how.

Upon recollection, I suppose most of my changes are to the setting or the system. I don't have that many hard and fast rules. I see myself as pretty relaxed when it comes to being an "enforcer". I think that's best anyway; the rules need be flexible in the interest of the story. We play the game and when something starts to get in the way, sometimes I have to rule it out or reshape it to not be so awkward.

Merits & Flaws:
Only 7 points can be spent in Merits and Flaws.
No additional Freebie points can be gained from Merits & Flaws.
Restricted Merits & Flaws: None at given time.

Merits and Flaws are optional Traits that the Storyteller may choose to include, or prohibit, in his/her chronicle. Properly used, Merits and Flaws help players create and individualize their characters. Merits are special abilities or advantages that are rare or unique in the general Kindred population, while Flaws are liabilities or disadvantages that pose challenges to a character's nightly existence. These Traits can provide player characters with added depth and personality, but the Storytellers should be careful to ensure that any Traits chosen will not adversely influence the course of the chronicle or give one character an unfair advantage over the rest.

Advantages:
No present restrictions.

History:
History is as important as always and since you will only have a handful character its recommended that you spend some extra time on it. Not only does a great background earn you more freebies, it also define your character and give the staff something to work with during the games. Your history should explain who you are, what has formed you to that person and an explanation of all the odds and quirks that makes up your character.

Freebie Points:
This method allows you even more flexibility of the development of you character. The value of all the dots that would appear on a character sheet, can be located on page 104 of your Vampire: the Masquerade core book. You, as the player of your character are allowed to distribute the 15 points where ever you desire. Remember that disciplines purchased with freebie points need not come from the character's clan disciplines (although purchase of some disciplines may require explanation about how he/she acquired them).

Adjusting the Cost:
White-Wolf allows us, the Storytelling Staff, to alter the costs for specific traits. Though after much consideration and hours of conversation, we have decided not to allow this into our setting of Cairo. We feel that what White-Wolf has listed in the chart on page 104 of your Vampire: the Masquerade corebook, is more than fair for the development of characters.

Adjusting the Total:
Once again, White-Wolf allows us the chance to alter the starting total of freebie points. During our consideration of adjusting the cost of each freebie, we brought this up as well. We have also disagreed with this as well, and feel that the current stats for character development are more than suitable.

Special Notes: Additional Low-Power Character Creation Limitations
In order to create a low power game, I have come up with some additional limitations for character creation. All of these, of course, are debatable to a point. Remember, a good story can be a great defense.

No character may have more than two dots in Generation or four dots in Resources (unless the character background is very detailed and very convincing as to how the character came in to that much money).

Players may opt to take no points in Generation and instead choose a currently active NPC to be their sire. In that case they gain the appropriate Generation based on the NPC.

Even if a character is not the direct descendant of an active NPC, each must in some way be associated with one. They must be in a position to receive requests, orders, or assistance from one or more NPC. This is to basically guarantee a point of contact for a character that is too young to have any real influence of his own.

Thin-Blooded is an acceptable option. They are weaker, yes, but have strange and unpredictable abilities (for those of you who are unfamiliar with them).

Of course some of the restrictions above are campaign specific, but even if you aren't running a game in the city of Cairo, you can modify the rules to fit you campaign. Everything on this site is stuff I came up with for my game, and even I don't use it all, some of it is just brainstorming. Also, I know the books state this more times than is probably necessary, but I'd like to restate that the Storyteller always has final judgment on all character creations. If you want to restrict clans, don't let a player talk you into letting them play something because they think it would be cool.

The game is moderated by the storyteller; you are creating the setting, the world, the life of the story. The players are filling in the protagonists. They need to fit the story comfortably. Of course as a control freak, I had to find some way to limit their advancement progress.

Again, recalling the standard rules, you can not advance more than a single dot in a specific stat per session. It is also suggested that you apply experience to areas that you have used and/or practiced in recent sessions and can feel justified in advancing. If you aren't sure, check with the Storyteller, they can help you along.

Botching Initiative
When a player rolls a '1' for initiative, they then roll a second time. If the second roll comes up as anything other than a '1', they simply add 1 to their initiative rating and go during that phase. However, if the player rolls a second '1' then they have botched their initiative. This results in that player doing nothing for that round. They can perform simple reflexives, soak damage, etc. They may not, however, dodge, use disciplines, speak (IC), or move.

Note: Players are people, no matter how hard they try to get into character. Often times there are things they don't wish to say to the group aloud.

After reading the rules section, it's obvious that I tend to find lots of ways to limit the progress of my characters. So I felt that I needed a way to focus their learning to compensate. I looked to the Trinity system for inspiration. A character in Trinity can buy multiple specialties in both abilities and attributes (to a maximum of three), whereas in the World of Darkness, you earn a specialty when you reach 4 dots in something. I decided then that rather than letting the characters get more powerful, I would try to let them get more specialized.

Specialties
Some character is especially good at particular applications of their Traits. For example, a painter might be particularly good at portraits, a baseball player might be adept at catching fly ball, and a brawler might be infamous for his/her low blows. To represent this, characters with scores of 4 or higher in Attributes and Abilities may choose specialties for those Traits.

A specialty is a particular subcategory of an Attribute or Ability - thus, a character with a Strength 5 might choose to be especially adept in "dead lifting," while a character with Investigation 4 might be a whiz at "ballistics". Whenever a player makes a die roll involving an activity in which his/her character has specialized, she may take any die that comes up "10", tally the success normally, then re-roll that die in attempt to accumulate extra successes. If the re-rolled die also comes up "10", he/she may continue to roll for still further successes. This process continues until no further "10s" are rolled.

Multiple Specializations
In order to develop laterally and to enhance their abilities without becoming all-powerful, characters can specialize in specific skills and abilities.

As per the standard rules, when a character reaches 4 dots in an ability or attribute, he may choose a specialization for that attribute or ability. For example, with 4 dots in firearms, the character may specialize in handguns. From that point on, the player may re-roll 10's to acquire additional successes on any roll involving that quality or specialization. But with all the time in the world, couldn't a vampire learn not only to specialize in handguns, but also rifles?

Thus, I bastardized the multiple specialization rules from Trinity. Upon reaching the 4th dot in an attribute or ability, a character earns a free specialization, as expected. If the player wishes the character to broaden their talents, they may later spend experience to buy a second specialization. If again the player wishes that the character become even more knowledgeable, more experience may be spent to buy a third specialization, but only after buying a fifth dot in that ability. No more specializations may be purchased beyond 3. This may be done in both attributes and abilities to a maximum of 3 specializations per attribute or ability.

I like skills, no kidding, I really like skills. There aren't nearly enough skills, talents, or knowledges on the character sheet so as a result, I'm a big fan of secondary skills (as offered in the Players Guide for 2nd Edition or the Storytellers Companion in Revised Edition). Unfortunately, both sources only give rules for buying secondary skills at character creation so I had to come up with my own system for buying them with experience, because I think (for example) anyone can learn Area Knowledge after they've been in a city for a while. I offer this option mostly because people are not aware of Secondary Skills at the time that they are creating their characters.

New: Automatic Weapons
I'll be honest here. We don't like 'em. But I'll also admit people with connections CAN get a hold of these. So instead of putting a flat ban on automatic weapons, we'll just make it tough to get one. If your char wants an automatic weapon, then he/she needs to have a streetwise of 4. A final note: even though the World of Darkness in Cairo is larger, it's not New York City. There are consequences to letting loose with an automatic weapon--from the cops, as well as ...other... people. This list is an attempt to be exhaustive. Likely, however, it isn't. Thus, we reserve the right to make additions. Players will be informed when such additions are made.