THE HERD BACKGROUND
by Bryan Rendell
(Email via cameron.blackwood@rdt.monash.edu.au)

For every background point a character has in his Herd rating, he can
choose to accept an automatic success on a hunting roll, or indeed
forego the roll entirely and just take the successes afforded by
his Herd rating. However, if a character takes as many successes as
he has levels of Herd rating in a single night, his rating in Herd
temporarily drops by 1. Note that the character can continue to take
automatic successes at hunting with this new level of Herd rating,
again lowering it temporarily by 1, and so on. The Herd rating rises
again by 1 at the start of each night, up to the original level.

Example: The character has a Herd rating of 4. After an arduous
battle, the character finds himself in need of blood, and so calls
upon his Herd. He takes 4 blood points, reducing his Herd rating
temporarily to 3 , takes another 3, dropping it again to 2, and then
takes a final 2 points, leaving him with an effective herd rating of
1, having taken a total of 9 Blood Points. At the start of the next
night, his Herd rating has risen to an effective value of 2, and will
continue to rise over the next 2 nights, to it's maximum value of 4,
provided that at no time does the character take as many blood points
as his current effective Herd rating in any one night.

By this system, any character with a Herd rating of 2 will be able
to indefinately balance the automatic daily loss of blood that all
Kindred must suffer, although such a small herd is obviously incapable
of satiating the hunger of a Kindred with any sort of tendency towards
violence.


A characters Herd rating can drop to an effective vlaue of 0 through
over-use. At this point the character is starting to risk the his
Herd. At the end of any night in which the character has drunk blood
from his herd with an effective Herd rating of 0, the character must
roll his Herd rating at a difficulty level of the number of Blood
Points drunk. A failure of this roll results in the permanent loss of
1 level of the Herd background, reflecting the general disquiet and
unease felt by the Herd, and their desire not to associate anymore. A
botch on the roll indicates disaster of some kind: members of the herd
die, possibly leaving a trail back to the character for the police
or media to follow, the entire Herd is lost as they flee in panic,
or they may discover that the character is a vampire if they didn't
already know.

Even if the character gains at least 1 success on the roll, the Herd
must be given time to calm and recuperate. The herd must be left alone
for a number of days equal to the number of Blood Points taken at
a current Herd rating of 0. If this is done, then the character's
effective Herd rating will begin increasing again as stipulated above.
However, if the character takes any blood from the Herd during this
recuperation period, then a new Herd roll must be made. This time
however, the difficulty is equal to the combined total of Blood Points
taken at both feedings: the initial feeding that led to the need for
recuperation, and the current one. Following this, the Herd must be
left to recuperate for a number of days equal to the new difficulty.
This process can continue to accumulate, adding the amount of blood
taken to the difficulty of the roll, and the recuperation time.

Example: Our character with the Herd rating of 4 has been in a real
hum-dinger of a fight, and must drink 4 Blood Points after his Herd
rating has dropped effectively to 0. Forced to roll to ensure the
survival of his herd, the character takes the automatic success, his
dice pool being equal to the difficulty. 3 days later, after yet
another fight, the character taps his herd for 3 more Blood Points.
He must now roll his Herd rating of 4 against a difficulty of 7,
derived by totalling the 4 Blood Points he drank initially, and then
the subsequent 3. Unfortunately he fails the roll, and his Herd rating
drops to 3. The character must now leave his Herd alone for 7 days to
ensure it's stability. Failure to do so would force the character to
roll his new Herd rating of 3 against an even higher difficulty in
order to avoid further disaster.

HUMANITY AND CONSCIENCE
by Bryan Rendell
(Email via cameron.blackwood@rdt.monash.edu.au)

(Under the official system for the use of Humanity and Conscience,
the underlying philosophy would seem to be that those who are deeply
"human" are balanced most precariously upon their understanding,
while those who are largely de-humanised are relatively safe from
further loss of understanding. For those of high Humanity, every minor
transgression runs the risk of Humanity loss, while those with binary
level Humanity can literally get away with murder.

Having considered the issue, I would say that the system as it
stands in fact runs in the opposite direction to the way it runs in
"real life" . In the end, it is nothing more than the depths of ones
understanding of humanity that enables one to maintain that self same
humanity. Those with little understanding of others as possessing
humanity are in the most danger of sliding further and further away
from attaining such understanding.

A most telling example to demonstrate this contention is the effect
of war upon human beings, in particular the soldiers fighting in the
thick of battle. In transposing the existing Humanity system to such
a scenario, where individuals are forced to kill intermittantly for
months or even years at a time, one would find that everyone would
tend to plateau and a particulr level of Humanity, specifically that
level of Humanity just below the minimum level of Humanity that would
require a Conscience roll for the killing of a human being. Wether
this level is that of premediatated murder, or murder in the heat of
passion, or some other level is another issue.

However, this is hardly the result that we find if we look at combat
veterans. Surely it is more intelligible to expect that those who
are most brutalised by war are those who were fairly brutalised to
begin with. Most people who come back from war, not counting those
who suffered under the most extraordinary circumstances, are by and
large able to continue with their lives - as human beings, and in
relationships with other human beings, which surely must be one of
the most important indications of humanity in an individual. As an
extreme case look at Wilfred Owen, a World War One poet. Without
getting into an extended discussion about the requirments for artistic
expression, I will assert that sensitivity and humanity are necessary,
if not for the capability of writing poetry, then for at least the
drive and motive to do so. As Owen wrote "I came out again in order to
help these boys...indirectly by watching their sufferings that I may
speak of them as well as a pleader can." It seems thus totally absurd
to suggest that under the system as it stands, an individual such as
Wilfred Owen would be writing as he did with his Humanity of 2 or 1
that the system would demand. Either that or else that there are no
war poets at all.

It may be argued that the system already provides this leeway for
those of high Humanity, in that they are more than likely to have
a high Conscience, thus making them more likely to preserve their
humanity. While this is true, I don't feel that it is sufficient on
two grounds. Firstly, that although high Conscience is some kind of
protection, that high Humanity will entail high difficulty levels when
the roll must be made, thus negating the benefits of a marginally
increased dice pool. Simply put, although it provides some saftey, I
don't feel that it provides enough. Secondly, the emphasis of the use
of Conscience is to equate Humanity with Morality, whereas Humanity is
not merely threatened by the immorality of the agent, but also by acts
perpetrated against the agent. It is not morality against immoraity.
but humanisation against de-humanisation.

So how would I cange the system without unnecessary complication?
Firstly, as I intimmated in the second paragraph, it is Humanity
itself which preserves Humanity. Thus instead of rolling Conscience,
Humanity is rolled instead. The difficulties for the roll are still
derived in the same fashion, (The Storyteller's Handbook, pp 116) by
equating the difference between current Humanity and the level on
the hierachy chart and adding to 5. The old system says that success
equals remorse felt. I would broaden this to simply state that success
equates with humanity retained, for remorse may not be pertainent
under some de-humanising possibilities, and it is conceivable that one
may feel remorse, and yet still suffer brutalization.

Under this system, people with high Humanity are able to maintain
it, because they will often be able to take an automatic success to
preserve their humanity, and will have a substantial dice pool to
roll where automatic success is not possible. Conversely, those with
low Humanity will have relatively much smaller dice pools than those
with high Humanity and run greater risks. Admittedly, at low Humanity
levels, the situation remains largely unchanged from the original
system. From the position of game playability, it seemed advisable not
to put characters on an ever accelerating slide towards the Beast.

This system raises the possibilty that characters with Humanity of
10 never risk losing Humanity, as they can always take the automatic
success. I advocate a system where diffuculties over 10 are possible.
One variant is the system given in The Storyteller's Hnadbook pp 116,
where difficulty levels over 10 equate to extra successes needed on
the roll. Another possibilty is for the character to suffer a dice
penalty. In this case the difference (or possibly even twice the
difference) between the difficulty over 10 and a difficult of 10 is
subtracted from the characters dice pool.

Even if this is allowed for, it may be claimed that the system gives
characters to much freedom to run riot, ie the living saint of a
character who regularly steals because he can always take an automatic
success to avoid Humanity loss. This is quite true and is where
Conscience enters the picture. Prevously, Conscience only determined
ones reaction to ones actions. While this is certainly a part of
Conscience, another significant roll it plays is in determining if
one will act in such a fashion in the first place. Under this system,
whenever a character wishes to act in a way which would require a
Humanity roll, given the characters Humanity, then they must make
a Conscience roll at a difficulty equal to the minimum Humanity to
perform that act on the Hierachy of Sins table. If they FAIL the
roll, then they may act in the way they desire. Success on the roll
means that their conscience will not permit the character to so act.
However, a botch on the Conscience roll means that the total number of
botches become automatic botches on the subsequent Humanity roll.

The consequences of a Humanity roll remains unchanged. Success on the
roll means that the character remains unscathed. Failure on the roll
means the loss of both Humanity and Conscience, while botching the
roll means the loss of Humanity and Conscience and the gaining of a
derangement.

Examining this system, I feel that it has two points in it's favour
and one against. First in it's favour is it's simplicity: it involves
a minimum of rolls and calculations, makes use of all the system
apparatus of the old system (Humanity, Conscience and the Hierachy of
Sins), and requires nothing new but simply makes new use of what is
already provided. Second in it's favour is that, in my estimation,
it dovetails with the "real world" more accurately than does the
original system. However, the problem it has is a significant, though
not insurmountable one: that of the loss of the charcters free will.
For enjoyability, the character must have the maximum control of
his character possible, and the Storyteller should limit arbitrary
interferance with this control. For example, players will kick up a
lot less fuss if you tell them that they act in a certain way "because
you are Dominated" than if you tell them "because your conscience
won't let you do that". My reply to this is that as an issue of
free will, it should not come up too often if your players are role
playing in a consistant and real fashion. While it is possible, by the
parameters of this system, for someone with Humanity 10 to regularly
steal from widows without risk to their Humanity, if the players were
at all concerned with role-playing then they wouldn't be acting in
this fashion in the first place if they were playing characters with
high levels of Humanity.

However, there should be a possiblityof challenging the results
of a single dice throw, particularly in cases where one my feel
necessitated to act in a certain way despite the dictates of ones
conscience. Possible examples of this would be stealing to feed
starving children, or killing to save the lives of others. In such
cases, if the character has "succeeded" on the Conscience roll, the
character can choose to spend Willpower to negate the successes of the
roll on a one for one basis. In this case, the character can spend
more than one Willpower point per turn in order to negate multiple
successes quickly. When all successes have been negated, the character
can act against his conscience.

A few words about this use of Willpower. Firstly, NOT using Willpower
to overcome one's conscience in order to save another is not itself
grounds for making a Humanity roll. If it was, one would need to make
a Conscience roll to see if one would spend Willpower, at which point
you might need to spend Willpower to reduce those successes, at which
point you might need to make another Conscience roll, ad infinitum.
Secondly, if one spends Willpower to override conscience, then the
difficulty of the subsequent Humanity roll is decreased by the amount
of Willpower spent to overcome one's conscience. The rationale for
this is that the initial success of the Conscience roll indicates that
the character appreciates the import of the action being contemplated,
such appreciation being integral to one's understanding of what it
is to be human, and the violation of one's humanity. Thirdly, that
the Storyteller should not allow this use of Willpower every time
a character's Conscience gets in the way of his desired course of
action, but only in those cases where the Storyteller feels that
the possible immorality of action is balanced or outweighed by the
possible immorality of inaction.