(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 Influence actions alongside Downtimes between games, and the two systems occasionally interact, they are distinct systems.
There are two types of Influence: Elite and Underworld. They are separate backgrounds, and a character may have up to five 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 may have 3 dots in Elite Influences and 2 dots in Underworld Influences.
The distinction between these categories is important when considering which actions affect what.
Influence categories divide the mortal world into segments. In our game, there are 20 categories:
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For each dot a character has in an Influence, they pick a category to specialize in, representing that they are especially adept at Influencing that part of the mortal world. Characters get one Elite specialization for each dot they have in the Elite Influence background, and they get one Underworld specialization for each dot they have in the Underworld Influence background.
Example: Alice has 3 Elite Influence and 2 Underworld Influence. For her three Elite specializations she chooses Arts, Finance, and Social Media. For her two Underworld specializations, she picks Finance and Legal.
All Influence actions must have a category assigned to them, and characters’ Influence actions are more potent when they work within their specialized categories.
Each month, Storytellers will post a form for Downtime submissions in the public Discord, and they will say when Downtimes are due. This form will include fields for your Influence actions. Fill the form out and submit it before the due date to have your Influence actions counted between games.
If you do not use all of your Influence actions between games, you can bank those actions for use at game.
Example: Alice might only submit 2 Elite 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 Influence, so the default is zero. If you add an Influence background during character creation or you buy more with XP, you get one Influence action for each dot you have. More specifically, characters get one Elite Influence action for each dot of Elite Influence background, and they get one 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 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 equal to the listed level. If they are working within one of their specializations, they can pick one 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.
Attacks lower someone else’s Influence levels. Think of this like using your Influence to tie up their Influence. Declare a target PC, and decide on how many of your Influence actions you are spending to Attack. If you are attacking in the same category, you lower your target’s Influence levels by one for each two actions you use. If you target across categories, you lower your target’s Influence levels by one for each three actions you use.
Boosts 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 Influence actions you are spending to Boost. Boosts cannot be used across categories. The character receiving the Boosts must get a number of Boosts equal to their current rating, then they are considered to be one 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 get.
Example: Alice received three Elite Boosts this month, so her Elite Influences are treated as if they were 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. For each Block action, you nullify one attempt by other characters to use the targeted General Influence Action. Blocks can work across categories. For example, Alice can spend one Influence action to Block the Elite Level 5 “No Party Crashers.” Another player wishing to use “No Party Crashers” would need to spend two Elite actions to do so, because their first would be nullified, but Underworld Level 5 “Lockdown” would be unaffected.
Defend nullifies attacks against you. For each Defend action you take, Attacks against you are reduced by one. Defends do not cross categories. Defends apply to all attacks received. For example, if Alice uses an Influence action to Defend her Elite Influences, and three characters Attack her for 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 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 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) by email about 24 hours before that month’s game starts. The same is true of Influences.