Being Talked About

who fulfill the party’s Virtue or Vice receive an extra experience point at the end of the night.

For example, the Ball is all about Veronica’s po- tential defection from the Acolytes to the Invictus. Tonight’s Virtue is Prudence. While she loves the idea of defecting, she’s having difficulty risking her sire’s wrath. The Vice is Greed, reflecting Veronica’s temptation to the power the Invictus offers her.

Attributes

Party Attributes aren’t necessary, but can add interesting flair. Look at your concept for the party, and choose one Attribute that applies the best. It encompasses the intended direction of the night’s events. Using the Debutante Ball example from before, consider how it could be framed with Manipulation. Then twist things a bit. Consider how it could be framed with Composure. To take it in a different direction entirely, consider Stamina. The Prince’s childe Veronica feels spurned. She feels frustrated. She feels tense. The only way to get her mind off these problems is to dance until her feet hurt, and she’s going to take everyone through that gauntlet with her. During the party, any action using the specified Attribute benefits from the 9-again quality.

Skills

So far, most everything has focused on the theme and mood of the party. In selecting a Skill for the event, look to what will grab attention. Look to what would ultimately bring the story arc into a different direction. That Skill is the party’s. If it occurs successfully, the practitioner gains a bonus die to all Social actions for the remainder of the night. For example, this event is about Persuasion. The Invictus are trying to seduce Veronica into their fold, but the Circle of the Crone are trying to protect their asset by convincing Veronica to stay. After any successful Persuasion action, a vampire gains the bonus die for the night.

Merits

Merits serve a slightly different function in the party-as-character model. While the previous traits described the party itself, a party’s Merit reflects what’s at stake. In bigger events, City Status is an easy answer. Vampires get together, and the most

prominent and notorious see alterations in their reputations. This is reflected with subjective judg- ment on behalf of the Storyteller. The vampire who performed best enjoys the chance to raise the chosen Merit at half cost, while the vampire who was most derided loses a dot of that Merit (if they possess it at all). Choose a Merit that makes sense, but offers a quantifiable incentive to add a competi- tive edge to the gathering. Remember, everything is about competition, everything is about hierarchy.

In our example, Covenant Status is the reward. Before the night is through, Veronica’s Covenant Status will change. But the party itself is focused on those who are pulling strings, pushing buttons and making plays. A member of any covenant could impress her peers or earn their derision.

Disciplines

Unlike the benefits of other traits, the party’s Discipline is more of a liability, a drawback. Because it’s a Kindred gathering, there’s a certain expecta- tion that Disciplines will see use. However, most are brash and gauche if noticeable. In this setting, most Kindred are looking for those signs. For that reason, the most obviously functional Discipline sees a penalty due to the scrutiny placed upon it. Most commonly, Dominate and Majesty would fit the bill. Obfuscate is a common choice for secretive meetings. All uses of the Discipline in question lose the 10-again quality for the evening.

In the case of the Debutante Ball, it’s Auspex. The power plays are more subtle than usual, and every Mekhet in the house will be trying to discern motives to direct allies properly.

Challenge

Why does a party have to be the night’s game? A party might have a single, focused goal for your story. In these cases, frame the party as a challenge. A good model is the SAS format (see Chapter Four for examples of SAS scenes.) Determine a basic action to sum up the evening, a die roll to encom- pass it, then the Failure, Success, and Exceptional Success terms. Parties are shallow; sometimes it’s fine to treat them that way. A quick breeze-through serves pacing far better than a boring scene that accomplishes nothing.

53 framing the gathering The opposite side of this fence is to use the

party as a Storyteller character’s challenge against a player’s character. Frame the event around a single action taken—a single effort to affect the character or her coterie. In these cases, you should expect and plan for retaliation. Give the players a chance for a contested defense against said action, then allowing for a follow-up action to comprise the scene.

It’s important, though, that you center the scene around the main actions. Like a real party, it’s over before it starts, leaving participants wishing they did more and different things.

Accolade

A party is a commodity. It’s a group of vampires set in one place, with attention given to a single subject. Considering the potential value in that fact, it’s not surprising that sometimes Kindred gather- ings are handed out as accolades. The permutations on this possibility are infinite. Here, we’ll instead address the Storyteller using the party as a reward for character actions, as opposed to a Storyteller character using the party as a reward.

Constant struggle can be a bore. It gets irritating, frustrating and just doesn’t make for a strong story. Stories need an arc, and at the end of the arc is a cooldown. You don’t even need success to offer a little reward, you can reward struggle for struggle’s sake. In fact, the nature of the reward can make failure worth it.

For example, a Nosferatu has dedicated her life to making a player’s character suffer. He’s killed her retainers. He’s framed her for various offenses. Ev- erywhere she goes, he’s found a way to ruin things. She made an effort to stifle him, but in the end, it fell flat, and he prevailed. The failure was bitter and a little sweetness could help. So the Storyteller sets up a party with the express intention of giving the player a chance to turn the tables, to end on a high note despite the negative tone of events. While

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Harpy Sascha Bauer holds her annual summerset party in public; she likes surrounding herself with humans. This year, she’s holding it at Axis, the new, hippest club in town. A number of Kindred are expected to attend; nobody with standing would miss her party. The characters realized though that the Sheriff has it out for her, and intends to crash her party to bring her to justice for a crime she didn’t commit. The characters have to get her out of the party as quickly and cleanly as possible. Nothing will convince her that leaving her party is a good idea. Dragging Sascha out without too much attention requires a Strength + Socialize roll, with a -2 penalty due to the massive crowd.

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This is a chance to offer contrast with your set dressing. A group of Kindred of the city hold a “fox hunt” annually. The vampires find a mortal the world won’t miss, but one with a strong will to survive and hide; usually a street kid. The hunt is held at a country club. The human is Domi- nated, and told he has an hour to hide, and that he’s not allowed to leave by the gate around the golf course. For six hours, the group hunts. Each Kindred is given a razor blade. When one finds the mortal, his goal is to carve his initials onto the person’s body, then release him. That vampire must give the mortal a ten minute head start before pursuing again. If any vampire kills the human, that vampire is disqualified. An hour before dawn, the group counts the initials, the vampire with the most wins. The human is not allowed to live, and is buried on country club grounds.

Setting

The opposite end of the spectrum from focusing on the nature of the party is to present the party as a setting. There’s no fault in this. In the basest sense, that’s all a party really is. The décor and feel influence the partygoers. If you overlook the chance to evoke mood with the location, you’ve dropped the ball.

Symbolism and descriptions are your strongest tools in this situation. Choose a message. Wrap it up in atmosphere and in metaphor. Is a character feeling the weight of eternity? Broken grandfa- ther clocks and sundials set in shadow emphasize that. Did a character just lose a loved one? Empty spaces, dark rooms and quiet people will highlight that sentiment.

it doesn’t resurrect the dead retainers and fix her reputation, being able to slap him in public has a fulfilling edge to it.