Rules
The official source of rules for The Silicon City Requiem include the following books from White Wolf Game Studio:
Minds Eye Theatre (WW50000) ISBN: 1-58846-522-5
Minds Eye Theater: The Requiem (WW50001) ISBN: 1-58846-523-3
Both of these books can be purchased from www.worldofdarkness.com
While you do not need to own these rulebooks to play the game (The staff of the Silicon City Requiem will provide you with what rules you need to know to play your character), it is strongly recomended that regular players purchase these books and learn the various rules of the game.
Additional Rules Sources: In addition to the two main rulebooks used, some additional powers and abilities from various World of Darkness tabletop books may be allowed on a case by case basis. Often times such powers convert easily to the Mind's Eye Theatre system but some require a systematic rewrite to be functional. In any case, a player who gains approval to purchase such powers should obtain a special card from the staff explaining the mechanics of these powers to any player who wishes to see them.
Rules Changes & Additions
Some changes from the rulebook have been necessary in order to simplify or re-balance them and make the appropriate for the players of the Silicon City Requiem as well as to suit the genre intentions of the Storytelling Staff.
An explanation behind the logic for each change is listed in red.
Index:
Character Creation
Here is the final draft of the alternate character creation rules. The purpose of these alternate character creation rules is two fold: To increase somewhat the starting power if new characters and also to avoid the necessity of min-maxing to compete.
All character features are purchased using straight experience costs.
You may play a Vampire, a ghoul or a human. Thats it.
The Six Month Rule
Any character that has not been played for sixth months will be permenantly retired.
Multiple Characters
Players are expected to play one character at a time and thus may only have one character on the books except with special dispensation from the Storyteller. Special circumstances may include torpor or other in-character reasons that make a character temporarily unplayable. Alternatively the Storyteller may instead give the player an NPC to play temporarily.
Character Creation Steps:
- If you are a vampire, choose a Clan. (You may choose between Daeva, Gangrel, Mehket, Nosferatu or Ventrue. You may not start with a bloodline.)
- If you are a vampire, choose a Covenant. (You may choose between Circle of the Crone, Lancea Sanctum or Ordo Dracul, Invictus, Carthian Movement or No Covenant.)
- *If you are a vampire, choose a Favored Attribute by Clan. Favored Attributes, the bonuses you get from clan, are applied thus: Choose your bonus attribute, you start with 2 dots in the chosen attribute instead of the ordinary 1 dot.
- Spend Points: If you are a Vampire you have 460 xp (experience points) to spend on your character features. Ghouls start with 425 experience.
- Attributes: Start with one dot in each attribute (*2 for Favored Attribute). Choose whether Physical, Mental and Social Attribute categories are Primary, Secondary and Tertiary. You must spend a minimum 70 xp on Primary Attributes, 60 on Secondary Attributes, and 35 on Tertiary Attribues. Cost for each dot is 'New Dots x5'.
- Skills: Start with one dot in Brawl. Choose whether Physical, Mental and Social Skill categories are Primary, Secondary and Tertiary. You must spend a minimum of 70 xp in Primary, 50 xp Secondary and 30 xp Tertiary Skills. Cost for each dot is 'New Total Dots x3'. Attribute specialties cost 3xp.
- Disciplines: If you are a Vampire you must purchase a minimum of 30 xp of Disciplines, Rituals or Covenant powers. Clan or Bloodline Discipline cost New dots x 5. Other Discipline, or Covenant Powers (Coils of the Dragon, Theban Sorcery or Crúac) cost New dots x 7. Theban Sorcery or Crúac Ritual Rituals cost Level x 2. Ghouls get one basic Physical discipline their Regnant knows or has in-clan, this does not cost them anything.
- Merits: You must purchase a minimum of 40 xp in Merits. Incremental Merits cost New Dots x2. Non-incremental Merits (set cost) cost total Dots x2.
- Blood Potency: If you are a Vampire, start with one Blood Potency. Raising Blood Potency costs New dots x 8.
- Humanity: All characters start with 7 dots in Humanity, though you may choose to start with less. Raising Humanity costs New dots x 3.
- Willpower: Start with Willpower equal to your Resolve + Composure. Raising Willpower costs 8 experience per dot (Note: this is a deviation from the New Dots x Value method).
- Health: Record Health as equal to Stamina + 5
- Defense: Record Defense as equal to the Lower of Defense or Wits
- Speed: Record Speed as equal to Strength + Dexterity + 5
- Initiative Mod: Record Initiative as equal to Dexterity + Composure
- **No more than 10 xp may be left unspent at character creation.
A reminder of costs:
- Attribute - New dots x 5
- Skill - New dots x 3
- Skill Specialty - 3
- Clan or Bloodline Discipline - New dots x 5
- Other Discipline - New dots x 7
- Theban Sorcery, Crúac and Coils of the Dragon - New dots x7
- Theban Sorcery Ritual or Crúac Ritual - Level x 2
- Merit - New dots x 2
- Blood Potency - New dots x 8
- Humanity - New dots x 3
- Willpower - 8 experience points
Pugilism Made Easy!
All vampires and ghouls now receive the first dot of Braw Skill for free. This is reflected in the above character creation rules.
In addition, punching or kicking someone is now considered an 'Easy' task and thus receives +3 to the draw. Grappling, clawing or other brawling attacks are not as simple and do not receive this bonus.
This change was made to accomodate an unrealistic flaw in the mathmatics of The Minds Eye Theater system. Initially it was far two difficult for two average characters to simply punch each other. Even two Kindred might be trying for ten minutes to land a punch on each other.Vampires need some skill with Brawling to feed, and ghouls instinctively teach themselves to fight so they can protect their regnants.
The Story System
A Story is a length of time in Minds Eye Theatre. It used to define a refresh point for certain powers and mechanics. For the purposes of the Silicon City Requiem, the length of each story will be approximately one month. This may vary between 4 and 6 games in actuality, and to keep players from being able to know exactly when each story will end (and thus spend all their willpower with abandon in that last session).
Willpower pools completely refresh each Story (In addition to 1 the one Willpower each game, and restoration caused from Virtues or Vices).
Between 1 and 5 additional experience will be assigned to each character that participates in a story at the end of the story.
Resources Merit
The reason for this change is to adjust the resource values to the costs players of the Silicon City Requiem will be familiar with; that is, the prices and values of the real world Coastal California area. Additionally, the rules in theMinds Eye Theatre rulebook are designed to be used in games of varying story length. These adjustments also account for the regularity of game-play and compatability with the Story System used in the Silicon City Requiem.
This Merit measures your character’s material resources, both possessions
and wealth. All characters are assumed to have a job or a source of income (trust fund,
parents) that is sufficient to cover their basic needs: food, shelter and transportation. Dots in this Merit represent disposable income — wealth and assets that can be liquidated
for more money in case of emergency. The number of dots indicates your character’s
general level of wealth.
Each level of Resources has a value for Cash and Assets.
Cash is money that can be spent each Story without any penalty. This money refreshes at the beginning of each Story, see the description of the Story System above.
Assets are the liquidation value of holdings the character possesses such as houses, fancy cars, businesses, stocks, etc, if they were to be sold off for Cash. This is approximately 1/2 the value of the Assets themselves. The Cash gained from liquidating Assets can be increased by approximately 10% for each success drawn on an Intelligence+Finance draw made when the assets are liquidated. Liquidating your Assets will lower your characters Resource rating by one. A character may only liquidate one level of Resources per game, it takes too much time to sell off more than that.
Raising Resources Merit after character creation requires roleplaying the aquisition of the appropriate level of Assets, or approximately two times the listed Assets value. The character may then purchase the additional Merit dot(s) with experience. Certain extraordinary roleplaying acquisitions may receive a discount to experience cost.
Resources Rating |
Cash |
Assets |
1 |
$1,000 |
$25,000 |
2 |
$5,000 |
$100,000 |
3 |
$10,000 |
$500,000 |
4 |
$25,000 |
$1,000,000 |
5 |
$50,000 |
$5,000,000 |
Predator's Taint
For the time being the mechanical effects of the Predator's Taint have been removed from the Silicon City Requiem. A less disruptive and more more roleplaying oriented system is in the works.
Grappling & Vigor
The Vigor discipline is intended be added to a characters Strength score in all situations but 'to hit' in combat. The staff has perceived a mechanical loophole in this intention where Strength is used as a characters defense against someone they are in a grapple with. With combined Strength & Vigor scores, this can make grappling an opponent an essential one-hit-win as an opponent with even a 10 point draw (Strength+Brawl) would still need to draw a 10 to escape from the grapple. Since the offensive grappler doesn't need to make a check to maintain the Grapple this seems to defy the rest of the system, placing the burden of overwelming success on the part of the defender. While it does make sense that Vigor would make it more difficult for an opponent to escape a grapple, without radically changing the grappling mechanics we can see no fair way to apply this.
The effect of Vigor in a grapple has been changed to this: Vigor subtracts from an opposing characters defense while in a grapple, potentially reducing it to 0. This makes it easier to perform an Overpowering Maneuver (see page 218 in the Minds Eye Theatre rulebook). This includes the Damage Opponent maneuver. Additionally a defending character in a grapple may use their Vigor rating for defense instead of Strength, such defense from Vigor may not be reduced by the opponents Vigor rating as above.
