Hey!
Just had a question regarding the Vamps healing powers. In our game the vamp wanted to use eternal hunger over and over again until he got full health basically getting full health in a very short time. I think that’s a bit too good and it would not make for a good scene. I guess this is one of those things we can decide within the fiction but since I (the gm) have very different views than the vamp player I’m not sure the result would be that good. The vamp has also set up a situation in which he has a big pool of willing participants to drink from and it’s assumed that he would also get health from them if he drank their blood.
Right now I play it like eternal hunger is all you can heal until your condition changes. For more medical help you need to hit the streets. (seems what the rulebook is saying aswell). I think this leads to more interaction with the world and doesn’t make the vamp shrug of damage.
Another option I’ve considered is to write a custom move for this situation. Something like this:
When you spend some time at a place with willing participants (like your haven or a place with a lot of blood dolls) and you drink until your hearts content roll+blood. On a hit, you regain all your health. On a 10+ choose 2. On a 7-9 choose 1.
All of the involved stay alive.
You don’t draw any unwanted attention.
(and some more options here, you get the gist)
I think the move would reduce the “danger” of drawing wounds and feels kinda like a get-out-of-jail card. It would however give the Vamp player what he wants with some possible consequences so I think it’s a decent compromise.
📌
If the Vamp feeds repeatedly, they still have to roll, and failure is still possible. If they don’t fail at all, that’s kinda awesome!
You can always “tell the consequences and ask”: ok you can feed again, but they’re going to suffer some permanent harm, even if they live.
And if the vamp has a big pool of willing participants, think what other vamps would do to gain access to such a pool; or what rivals would want to prevent access to it. “Hey Vamp, your man Stavros runs in, beaten all to shit. He spits out a tooth at your feet before telling you that Watanabe’s ghouls are out questioning folk about your blood dolls. He knows!”
Yeah, Aaron’s on point. If people are rolling too much in a PBTA game they are also generating all kinds of crazy shit for themselves.
In that game I play in we have a similar “problem” since I am playing a Tainted. One of the transformation options is to heal 2, so I can heal up very rapidly by transforming multiple times. My game master has decided that this is okay because there is risk or cost (I can either take a corruption to transform without a roll, or roll and risk owing my demonic patron a new debt.) Similarly, our wizard has learned the Wolf power to heal with Let it Out and we are comfortable with him doing so since that risks corruption with each roll.
Exactly – totally embracing the “yeah, I heal from everything” is kind of the definition of corruption.
Go on and let them roll – they’ve worked for their herd of humans, you’re bounded to let them roll as much as they can.
This said, consider the herd as a resorce the other may want. Moreover, if they fail the roll, you have free space to do whatever you wish. Maybe there is some blood illness, maybe some antagonist wants the herd or whatever you deem interesting for the chronicle.