(Adapted from “Influences Primer” from the Greensboro, NC LARP community)
Kindred exist in a world full of mortals, and mortals outnumber Kindred by huge margins. Savvy Kindred have discovered that the mortals that fill their cities are useful for more than just feeding: they can be influenced to make the world more (or less) liveable for Kindred. Although younger Kindred tend to have more ties to the mortal world, any Kindred can purchase Influences with XP.
Influence is a specific background you can purchase with XP. Each dot in the Influences background represents a character's ability to nudge, persuade, intimidate, manipulate, cajole, or coax mortals and mortal systems to act in specific ways. They can be used to achieve a wide variety of effects in the game world.
Influences are not Downtimes. Although Storytellers will process most General Influence actions alongside Downtimes between games, and the two systems occasionally interact, they are separate and distinct systems.
There are two categories of Influence: Elite and Underworld. They are separate backgrounds, and a character may have up to five (5) dots in each. Elite Influences are all about affecting the wealthy, public institutions, legitimate businesses, public figures, and so on. Underworld Influences are all about affecting things beyond the reach of the law, secret organizations, illegitimate authority, and so on. Where the Elite live in the world of wealth and affluence, the Underworld dwell in the world of deception and fear.
Example: Alice has three (3) dots in Elite Influences and two (2) dots in Underworld Influences.
The distinction between these two categories is important when considering which actions affect what.
Influence specializations divide the mortal world into segments. In our game, there are twenty (20) specializations:
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For each dot a character has in an Influence, they pick a specialization, representing that they are especially adept at Influencing that part of the mortal world. Characters get one (1) Elite specialization for each dot they have in the Elite Influence background, and they get one (1) Underworld specialization for each dot they have in the Underworld Influence background.
Example: Alice has three (3) Elite Influence and two (2) Underworld Influence. For her three (3) Elite specializations she chooses Arts, Finance, and Social Media. For her two (2) Underworld specializations, she picks Finance and Legal.
All General Influence actions must have a specialization assigned to them, and characters’ General Influence actions are more potent when they work within their specialization (see General Influence actions, below).
Each month, Storytellers will post a form for Downtime submissions in the public Discord, and they will state when Downtimes are due. This form will include fields for your General Influence actions. Fill the form out and submit it before the due date and time to have your General Influence actions counted between games.
If you do not use all of your General Influence actions between games, you can bank those actions for use at game.
Example: Alice might only submit 2 Elite General Influence actions and 2 Underworld Influence actions, so that she can use her last Elite Influence action during the game.
To use an Influence action at game, ask a Storyteller. It is sometimes wise to save some influences for game to handle situations such as Masquerade breaches and travel.
Characters start with zero (0) Influence, so the default is zero (0). If you add an Influence background during character creation or you buy more with XP, you get one (1) Influence action for each dot you have. More specifically, characters get one (1) Elite Influence action for each dot of Elite Influence background, and they get one (1) Underworld Influence action for each dot of the Underworld Influence background.
A lot. Here are some of the specific things you can do with an Influence action.
General Influence actions affect the world around your character, providing tangible benefits or causing events to happen (or not happen).
General Influence Actions are sort of like picking off a menu. The rules provide clear effects that you can get for an action. Characters can use any of those listed actions as long as they have dots in the appropriate category equal to or greater than the listed level. If they are working within one of their specializations, they can pick one (1) level higher than their current number of dots. Here is the ‘menu' on the SRD site.
Example: Alice could “Smooth Over” a mistake using the Level 4 Elite action if it’s related to her Finance specialization, even though she only has three dots in Elite Influences.
Targeted Influence actions affect other influences: your own or those belonging to other individuals, and are explained below.
Attacks temporarily lower someone else’s Influence levels. Think of this like using your Influence to tie up their Influence.
To attack another character’s Influence, you must have witnessed the target character interacting with their Influences within the past month, or you must have investigated the results of that character’s Targeted or General Influence action. For example, you can target someone’s influence if you overheard a telephone call between a character and police officers that represent their Underworld Influence. You can also target someone’s Influence if your own Influences were attacked by that character’s Influence. You do not need to be able to identify the owner of the Influence you are attacking, only that the Influence exists.
Declare a target PC, and decide on how many of your General Influence actions you are spending to Attack. If you are attacking your target in the same category (Elite or Underworld) as the Influence you are using to attack, you lower your target’s Influence levels in that category by one (1) for each two (2) actions you use. If you target across categories (e.g. attacking your target's Elite Influences with your Underworld Influences), you lower your target’s Influence levels in the targeted category by one (1) for each three (3) actions you use. Lowering your target's influence levels
Influence levels (and their associated actions) reduced as the result of an attack are lost for two games or one month, whichever is longer. After that time has elapsed, lost levels of influence return.
Boosts temporarily raise someone else’s Influence levels. Think of this as lending your Influence to them. Declare a target PC, and decide on how many of your General Influence actions you are spending to Boost. Boosts cannot be used across categories (i.e. you can only boost another character's Elite Influences using your own Elite Influences, and you can only boost another character's Underworld Influences using your own Underworld Influences). The character receiving the Boosts must receive a number of Boosts equal to their current rating (including other Boosts they may have received), then their Influence level is considered to be one (1) level higher (to a maximum of 10). This affects the level of General Influence Actions they can choose, and it affects the number of actions they may take.
Example: Alice received three (3) Elite Boosts this month, so her Elite Influences are treated as if they were four (4), and she gets a fourth Elite Influence action this month.
Blocks make it harder for anyone to use specific General Influence Actions. They do not target another character like an Attack. Instead they target an action that anyone on the field might take. Here are some examples of what you can do with Blocks and how far a single Block can be applied in each of them.
Blocks can work across Influence categories (Elite and Underworld).
Defend nullifies Attacks against you. For each Defend action you take, Attacks against you are reduced by one (1). Defends do not cross categories (Elite and Underworld). Defends apply to all Attacks received. For example, if Alice uses an Influence action to Defend her Elite Influences, and three (3) characters Attack her for one (1), her single Defend cancels them all out.
Sometimes characters’ use of General Influence Actions can have an impact on other characters.
Example: Alice might use Elite 3 “Bureaucratic Errors” twice to have someone’s car impounded and ghoul arrested.
When this happens, STs may choose to RP the scene with the affected character, and they may (or may not) choose to affect the targeted character mechanically. If STs decide to impose a mechanical effect, they will start by canceling a downtime action for every two (2) levels spent on the Indirect Influence Attack. You can read more about these actions on the clarifications section of the house rules page.
As the number of players goes up and as players start to spend more and more XP, the number of General Influence actions to process scales quickly. To make this process efficient and fair, Downtimes will be processed at the same time as Influences, and they will all be processed in the following order:
Computer Cancels are listed before other Downtimes to be sure that Cancels have an impact on the game, and Computer Observe actions are last to make sure there is a wide range of things to Observe. Getting your Downtimes in early does not ensure that you avoid Cancels.
Downtimes will be resolved over the course of a few weeks, but all players will get their Downtime results back at the same time (more or less) posted in their Discord channel about 24 hours before that month’s game starts. The same is true of Influences.