From: tgt33358@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Deus Imperator)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: VAMP:  Obsession
Summary: An option for those who do not like True Faith
Date: 16 Oct 92 19:49:15 GMT
Article-I.D.: news.Bw8CE5.3r5
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana

Well, enough people on the Vampire Mailing List expressed less than 
admiration for the TF rules, so I kitbashed this.  Read it over, and
tell me what you think...


Obsession:


     "Murph, you're a dinkus.  Ain't no _way_ a warmie can dust us,
'less he's a holy-joe type, and _then_ ya just gotta get him from
a distance."
     Murphy watched as his gaunt friend patted a bulge in the
 pocket of his jacket.  He considered for a moment, then responded,
 "yeah, but you forget...I was there when Gennet got it in Times 
Square, and his head exploded and stuff.  You could _taste_ the 
power comin' offa that hunter.  _That's_ wrath-o-god stuff.  
This...this was different.  He didn't have no crosses or nothing. 
 All he had was this _look,_ this fire in his eyes, like "I _know_ 
what you are and what you can do, but it don't matter, 'cause I'm 
packing too."  Or something."
     His friend laughed at the spontaneous poetry and shrugged.  
"You _sure_ he wasn't a ghoul?"
     "_Positive_"
     "Hm.  Maybe we should tell this to one 'a the muck a mucks.  
Maybe it's worth something.  The last thing we need is another 
Sullivan Dane running around, right?"
     "I guess."  Murphy had been embraced after the reign of terror
 Dane had brought to New York.  Somehow, he found a way to get the 
lupines in Central Park to break their cease-fire, and for about a 
week, it was hell on earth.  Dane had picked off the wounded at his
 leisure.  The Sabbat did too much too late, and almost blew the 
Masquerade in their attempt to get the bastard.  Dane just moved on
 to new hunting grounds.
     They left the alley where they had been chatting, and hit the 
streets, heading for Assault, the dance club that a lot of the 
Sabbat fed at.  Thoughts of feeding entered Murphy's mind.
     "Slug?  You wanna get something to eat first?  You know Calvin
 hates us feeding in the Playgrounds..."
     Slug considered this, then agreed with his friend.  "I saw
 some bums back a few blocks.  A quick chomp, and we'll go, okay?"
     They retraced their steps, and came to an alley they had
 passed 30 minutes before.  Whereas there were six men huddled
 together, now there was but one.  Slug sighed.  He'd have to share
 his bottle again...
     As they approached, the figure did not even look up to see the
 approach of the predators.  Slug noted to himself that the bums
 were making this _way_ too easy.  He reached in for the kill...
     ...and found a bundle of rags.
     "What the f..."
     A sound of glass breaking, and a hissing at his feet.  Slug
 glanced down, and noticed the alley was filling with smoke.  Fire?
     A distraction.  Something large and black landed between the
 two vampires.  Before either could react, the figure drew out a
 speargun, held it against Murphy's chest, and fired.  Murphy was
 propelled backwards by the force of the CO2 charge, landed hard
 against the wall, and found himself stuck as the tip buried itself
 into brick.  He squealed in pain.
     Slug was quick to respond to the threat.  He pushed the
 attacker away from him, and felt something cool and hard covering
 the body.  Was it human?
     The dark figure crouched, ready to attack.
     Slug felt blood burn within him, triggering hidden reserves of
 strength.  This would be quick.  Claws slid out of finger sockets.
 A surprise...
     A surprise the assailant apparently had anticipated.  Slug
 swung the claws down, and they dragged across the fighter's back. 
 But they did not seek the inner heat, as they should have. 
 Something was going terribly wrong.  Armor...?
     The figure leaped over Slug with the grace of a gazelle, and
 landed a kick right in the back of the head that threw the vampire
 to the ground.  He moved no faster than a human...faster than
 most, but certainly not supernatural.  It was all his actions...
 all perfectly placed, perfectly timed.  Slug was a stumbling
 buffoon around him.
     Slug charged again, the fire growing in his eyes.  At the last
 moment, the figure sidestepped, and brought a knife down on the
 face of the vampire.  The blade bit into dead flesh, and gouged an
 eye out.
     Pain...pain sweet and pure.  Pain fed the Beast, and the
 transformation was complete.  Fangs shot out of sockets, and the
 gun was torn from the body in lieu of something more...personal. 
 Slug leapt again.  This time, he would ignore the piddly pig-
 sticker, and rend the cretin's body until Slug's body bathed in
 gore.
     The attacker was unimpressed.  Once again, he leapt over the
 charging monster, and allowed it to collide headfirst into a
 dumpster.
     With measured ease, the attacker extended an arm, and pressed
 a button on the box strapped there.  Two pieces of metal shot out,
 leaving smoking trails as they passed through the cool night air. 
 Both slammed into the side of Slug, and bit deeply.  Slug howled
 in feral pain.
     The man was on him again, kicking and punching with a flurry
 of moves, all designed not to kill, but to knock out.  Slug stared
 about in confusion.  So much, all at once...he collapsed.
     A wooden stake appeared, and bit into Slug's chest.  Slug
 whimpered a bit.  The figure removed a small black box from his
 cloak, and shoved it into Slug's mouth.  He slapped both cheeks,
 and walked over to Murphy, still pinned to the wall.
     "You hurt me, man!  You said you wouldn't hurt me no more!"
     "Murphy, you're a vampire.  I can't ever trust you.  It's
 either this pain, or that."  He pressed a button on his belt, and
 the box exploded, blowing Slug's head clean off.  The body quickly
 degraded.
     Murphy shuddered.  "Shit...what _are_ you?"
     He grabbed the vampire roughly, looked him right in the eyes,
 and spoke, "I'm Batman."  A smile creased his face, and he began
 to laugh.  The terrible mirth filled the alleyway, still stinking
 of C-4 and Slug.
     The hunter grabbed the bolt, and ripped downwards, removing it
 from the wall, and insuring it made as much damage as possible on
 the way out of Murphy.  He cleaned the bolt, began to walk way,
 and turned.
     "I'll be in SoHo tomorrow.  Bring one of your friends.  Keep
 to the alleys.  I promise, this time will be quick.  I'm trying
 out a new napalm ejector.  Should be fun..."
     Murphy began to feel the bile growing within, as thoughts of
 rebellion curled in his mind.  "When are you going to leave me
 alone?!  You spared me ONCE!  How many times am I gonna have to
 _do_ this?"
     The hunter stopped, and slowly turned.  With a burst of speed,
 he landed the spear deep within the center of Murphy's chest,
 sending Murphy to his knees in pain and shock.  The hunter's eyes
 burned with rage, and he slowly turned the end of the spear,
 allowing a larger and larger hole to form.  Murphy was powerless.
     "Every day you live, I spare you.  I know where you hunt, and
 where you sleep.  I know all your bolt-holes.  You could _never_
 escape my wrath.  For the rest of your days, you'll feed _this_
 Beast!  Understand?"
     Murphy felt his chest, felt the long healed scar, where, the
 first time he had met the lunatic, the fight had ended with the
 now familiar spear pinning him to the ground.  The hunter had cut
 him open with the grace of gutting a fish, and inserted something
 too terribly like the small box he had placed in Slug's mouth,
 with but one difference.  Murphy's was larger.
     The hunter had explained how it worked.  If Murphy ever tried
 to betray him, it would go off.  If it was ever removed, it would
 go off.  Every night, the hunter had to hit a reset key.  If he
 did not, for reason of injury of death, or just pure spite, it
 would go off.  There were no second chances.
     "Now run along, my little hound, my judas goat.  Find me
 another monster to hunt.  Remember...I'll be watching..."  He ran
 off.
     Murphy was tired.  Dawn was a long way off, but he wanted to
 curl up and sleep.  His hunger finally stirred him.  He got up,
 crawled over to the body of his friend, and lapped at the blood
 that stained the streets.  It wasn't much...just enough to let him
 see the next dawn.  He then returned to his haven, trying to think
 of whom he could call next.
     "This isn't living, this is slavery," he thought to himself. 
 The hate burned momentarily and died, as he scratched an itching
 in his belly.  "But it's better than death.
     "Right?"
-------
Game Stats:
Okay, for the moment, we're going to forget all the hi-tech toys
 "Batman" used to kill Slug, and instead concentrate on _how_ he
 used them so effectively.  In short, our hero is obsessed.
 
Obsession Points
"I'm the best there is at what I do..."  "The guilty must be
 punished..."  "Criminals are a cowardly, superstitious lot..." 
 "Spoon!"
     Each of these phrases have been uttered in the realm of comics
 by one of the most curious individuals to grace the medium since
 the advent of pulp.  In a world where Superman stops bullets,
 Spiderman swings from tree to tree, and Galactus eats planets, the
 vigilante stands alone as a _true_ lunatic.  Into this world he
 goes with no superpowers at all, some training, and one other
 thing:  a psychosis.
     Most of these anti-heroes are victims on the sidelines.  They
 have either witnessed crime and had enough, or experienced the
 anguish of losing loved ones to random crime, and are pushed over
 the edge.  Whatever the case, they are normal people who have
 stopped walking down the boring path of normalcy, and have allowed
 their obsession to consume their existence. 
     The question is, though, do they belong in Vampire?  Shouldn't
 they be relegated to the realm of comics, and leave them there? 
 I ask you:  what is more horrific than someone who wastes their
 life, in the name of an unattainable vengeance.  It is only this
 kind of all consuming passion which will garner Obsession Points.
     Yet another mechanic, you whine?  Well, not really.  Obsession
 points are a combination of Willpower, Rage (from Werewolf), as
 well as some other stuff.  It is a quicksilver stat, coming and
 going with a whim, dependent on random events to determine "exact"
 totals.  And yet this fly by the seat of your pants approach is
 absolutely necessary, to emulate that moment when your obsession
 blinds you to such an extreme, that you do not know when the well
 has run dry.
     Base Obsession is bought for 7 pts. of freebies, just like
 Faith.  This gives you a Base Obsession Total equal to a third of
 your Willpower Points.  It can be increased with two freebies
 buying you one level.  Later, through advancement, it is increased
 exactly like willpower.
   Obsession Points (OP) are burned exactly like willpower
 points.  They can be used to garner automatic successes, much like
 willpower.  These can be used for anything, including spending one
 to turn an autosuccess by an opponent (# of dice equal or greater
 than difficulty) into a resisted test, with the hunter rolling his
 OP pool against a difficulty of the opponent's willpower.  Hunters
 can also use obsession points (never more than 3) to eliminate an
 opponent's successes.  For every 1 the hunter spends, a success
 must be rerolled, and for every two, a success is eliminated. 
 Another important use is that when bought as autosuccesses, they
 can be applied at any time, even to eliminate botches.  However,
 a hunter can never apply more than three OP to a single action.
     With the ability to buy successes, this seems like Willpower,
 right?  So why not use that?  In many ways OP are the OPPOSITE of
 willpower.  Willpower points allow you to do things you would
 normally be afraid to do, by steeling your resolve.  Obsession
 points allow you to do things you'd be crazy to try, by allowing
 you to ignore the danger, blinded by the madness.
     Obsession points may sound great, but they carry a heavy
 price.  In short, the more obsession points you have, the more
 _potential_ derangements you have.  For every three (or fraction
 thereof), one derangement must be selected.  This is either one in
 the VTM game, or one specifically engineered according to
 background.  Each is assigned to a given rank on the obsession 
pool.  If willpower ever dips below that level, the derangement
 immediately manifests. The levels range from mild (personality
 quirk), Annoyance (annoying to those around him), severe
 (breakdown in interpersonal relationships; hunter goes "on edge,")
 and All Consuming (unable to reason with individual in any way). 
 The levels are arranged as per this chart:
 
     3-  OP    1 Mild Derangement
     6-4 OP    1 Mild, 1 Annoying Derangement
     9-7 OP    1 Mild, 1 Annoying, 1 Severe Derangement
     10  OP    1 Mild, 1 Annoying, 1 Severe, 1 All Consuming
     Example:  Grey has a 10 WP (as a hunter, he'd better.)  Grey
 decides to give his character 10 obsession points.  Thus, he must
 pick 4 derangements (One for every three levels, and one for the
 fraction level left over).  He picks Fantasy, Arrogance,
 Vengeance, and Paranoid.  He must then pick which ones will
 manifest first (having a mild effect) and which ones will manifest
 later (having a paralyzing effect).  He picks this:
WP        OP        Derangement    Effect
10        10        Fantasy        Mild
 9         9        Paranoid       Annoyance
 8         8        
 7         7        
 6         6        Arrogance      Severe
 5         5        
 4         4        
 3         3        Vengeance      All consuming
 2         2        
 1         1        
 0         0        
When WP exceeds or equals OP, there is no effect.  Force of will
 has passively overcome the obsession.  However, when OP exceeds
 WP, that particular derangement(s) manifests, to the appropriate
 degree of severity.  Grey loses 5 WP.  He still has 10 OP.  Thus
 he think he's Batman (mild fantasy) fighting vampires who are
 everywhere (Annoying paranoid) and reassuring everyone how great
 he is, despite everyone telling him to shut up (severe arrogance).
     2nd example:
     Marsha buys 7 WP and 5 OP.  She thus picks two derangements: 
 Fear of Death and Moralistic.  Her chart looks like this:
WP   OP   Derangement    Effect
7    
6    
5    5    Moralistic     Mild
4    4
3    3    Fear of Death  Annoyance
2    2
1    1
0    0
When WP equals or exceeds OP, nothing happens.  But when OP exceeds
 WP, say, when WP is 3 and OP is 5, Marsha starts getting preachy. 
 Even if WP dropped to 2, and OP dropped to 3, she would lose the
 Mild Moralistic, and manifest the Annoying Fear of Death.  The
 reason is that when you're dropping willpower like that, you tend
 to ignore the little stuff.
     Obsession point bases are regained at a rate of 1/3 total
 every 24 hours.
     Determining totals:  Okay, so you have your OP Base figure,
 bought with freebies and experience, right?  So you're about to
 leap in the fray, right?  Well, there's still one more thing you
 can do to add character to your Obsessed hunter:  Triggers.
     Triggers, put simply, are random events which feed or drain
 Obsession.  Examples can be a child hurt, which would add 1 OP, or
 sight of a vampire feeding, which would drain 1 OP (too many
 painful memories...you freeze), according to character history and
 conception.  Every trigger you pick _must_ be paired by a negative
 trigger of equal severity or occurrence, final judgement being up
 to the storyteller.  This goes to the dual, black-and-white nature
 of hunters.  Any positive trigger can be also described as a
 negative trigger, twisted correctly.  However, no more than 5
 "positive" triggers (thus 10 in all) can be selected.
     Examples:
     Fear of (x):  can be specific (Racial group) or broad (cars)
     Innocents hurt:  Can be specific (small children) or broad
          (women)
     Witness to crime:  Can be specific (Rape) or broad (any crime)
     
     Note that if one has a high OP base, one might think it
 wouldn't be wise to get triggers.  Ten is max, right?  So why get
 more?  Well, say you're at the end of your pool, and needing more.
  The only way is to run across a trigger.  They have a tendency to
 save your butt.  Also, many hunters use triggers to psyche
 themselves up for a hunt, by either reading the paper, or watching
 tv.
Example of Obsessed Hunter:
     Gladys Kravitz has witnessed a lot of bizarre things at the
 Stevens home, with people turning into frogs and such.  However,
 because no one, not even her husband, believes her, she has gone
 off the deep end.  It's time, she feels, to take matters into her
 own hands...
     She has force of conviction behind her, to put up with her
 husband constantly mocking her, so give her 6 WP.  She also is
 very obsessed about getting to the bottom of these supernatural
 shenanigans, which has destroyed her life (and sanity).  Give her
 7 OP.  She must have 1 mild, 1 annoying, and 1 severe derangement. 
She picks Mild Honesty, Annoying Whiner, and Severe Depression. Her
 chart looks like this:
WP   OP   Derangement    Effect
     7    Honesty        Mild
6    6    Whiner         Annoying
5    5
4    4
3    3    Depression     Severe
2    2
1    1
0    0
Because her OP always exceeds her willpower, that derangement (Mild
 Honesty) is _always_ in effect.  Gladys wants triggers, so she
 sets up the following:
_Positive_                    _Negative_
Sight of Mrs. Stevens         Sight of Mr. Stevens
Mention of Witchcraft         Mention of psychologist
Sight of "magic"              Husband's reality check
Being called a fool           Proved as a fool
Fear of cats                  Love of romances
The severity of each can be left to the storyteller.  Is it every
 time she sees Mrs. Stevens, or just once a day?  It ought to
 balance in the end.
 
The point of all this, I suppose is to give hunters a non-faith
 option, while allowing them to live, by basically expanding the
 autosuccess pool normally governed by willpower.  Obsession does
 not allow any mystical stuff to happen.  Hunters still must rely
 on various gimmicks to bring the baddies down.  In many ways, an
 Obsessed hunter is a tragic character, and should be played as
 such.
-- 
I don't mind being the smartest	    / Thanatos, DeathUrge, Master of Unknown
man in the world...I just wish it   \ Time and Space tgt33358@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu 
wasn't this one...	       	    / "No, I don't know how much unknown is... 
	-Ozymandias 		    \	...THAT'S THE POINT!" 
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc