-

Man-nights in Downtimes

-

Rules Revised 2013

Man-Nights System

A Man-Night is the length of one night, so roughly twelve hours, give or take.

The idea of a Man-Night is that it is not set in stone as your characters work on whatever it is for around twelve hours, that is putting roughly twelve hours into the subject over the space of that month. In this document we shall outline how to use the Man-Nights system for the submission of future CAM game downtimes. These are just the ground rules for the system and we are open to suggestions on how, you the players, think it can be improved.

Submission Deadline:-

The deadline of the submission is being moved to midnight on the Wednesday after the Downtime meeting of each month.

Currently downtime meetings are held on the third Sunday of each month.

If any submissions are late, the downtime might still be looked at or the downtime may be treated as no submission. If there is extenuating circumstances surrounding the event of late submission, then the downtime shall be accepted and a result sent when the ST team has a chance.

The address to send your downtime to is: - sbncamst@googlemail.com

Types of Actions:-

Downtimes now consist of different types of actions, with the Man-Night action being the central action used for character and plot development. It is only Man-Night actions that players can receive reward Exp for based on their ideas and the completion of those ideas.

Man-Night Actions

All characters receive 30 Man-nights in which to complete all the actions for that month. A period of one Man-Night may be spilt up amongst a whole month, so it might be the case that one Man-Night placed into staking out a building may be a few nights over the month. Man- Night actions can include such things as feeding, reconnaissance, training, meeting NPC's and influences. It is basically anything that will take a degree of effort and skill to achieve. The 30 Man-Nights are split amongst different actives in order to show us, as the ST, how much time and effort you are prepared to place into an action to achieve a result. The text explaining how your character goes around achieving the outlined action should be proportionate to the number of Man-Nights placed into the action. So, to give a response to an action, we look at the number of Man-Nights you have assigned to the action, cross reference that number with your character sheet (looking at Traits, Abilities and other relevant character information) and you get a response based upon these factors.

Simple Actions

Simple actions, that do not take a great deal of time or effort, can be submitted at the bottom of a downtime. These actions would include such things as writing or posting a note, daily feeding of a pet, et cetera as it would not take an entire night. However, if you wanted to put a degree of skill into the writing of the note, say using your craft: writing or academics: English, then this would become a Man-Night action.

Given Actions

Certain actions do not need to be specified. These actions are referred to as Given Actions. So, actions like maintaining havens and items such as vehicles and weapons would not need to written about in your downtime, as they are granted that your character does them. Also, as long as your character has at least one point of Camarilla Lore, they will observe the Masquerade at all times; this is a Given action. Unless, you are specifically trying to break the Masquerade in some way (this includes if you detail activities in your Man-Night spending that are blatant breaches unless you state how they're not to a satisfactory degree), then this will have obvious IC repercussions and your character would not uphold the Masquerade as a Given action.

Note: - What action does this constitute as?

If you are unsure of what an action would be considered to be, send us an email, and we will try to get around to replying with the appropriate type of action it falls under.

Man-Night Actions Expanded:-

Abilities

Certain abilities can be used in downtimes in order to achieve in-game effects. These effects are outlined in Laws of the Night or you can email us for their effect. Roughly, it would take one Man-Night to use an ability specifically, in order to yield results from it.

Building

Creating anything takes times. Man-Nights must be placed into the building of any item; however, the time it takes is based on the complexity of the project and the skill of its creator.

The factors that will be drawn on when building something will be level of appropriate Ability being used, any possible influences that could be used in acquiring the necessary materials, and traits. Again other relevant character information will be taken into account. If you are unsure of the time it will take to build a certain item, email us before the submission deadline and we can look at your character sheet, and give you an estimation of how long it may take, or you can spend man nights on a month by month basis towards it and we can let you know when it's done.

Businesses and Work

Some characters may have businesses to run or jobs to work at throughout the month. If this is the case, dependant upon the job, Man-Nights will need to be allocated to this end. The minimum of four Man-Nights a month would need to be put into the running of your business. The more Man-Nights you assign to the running of that business, the more successful that business will be. Whereas, the number of Man-Nights allocated to working a job would be dependant upon the job itself, which can be agreed upon by the ST and the player. If you have multiple businesses, and sufficient resources to hire people, you can effectively roll them into a single business greatly reducing the amount of man-nights required.

NPC'S

It takes just one Man-Night to meet an NPC. This includes any questions that need to be asked, any conversations that need to be had; everything can be included in this one Man- Night. Meeting Mentors and Sires is included under this ruling also; however, actions such as learning disciplines from a Mentor would need to be spent under XP training.

- Note: PC's Meeting with another player character would fall under the Given action ruling, as long as you actually communicate some way player to player. Thus, it does not always need to be specified in your downtime that you meet with another player character or attended Elysium throughout the month, though a summary of what you did together would help us keep track of what's happening in the game.

Reconnaissance

To find something out, it takes time and effort. However, you do not necessarily need to have certain backgrounds or investigation to gather information on a subject (though, these would obviously help). You do need an idea on how you are going to go about, and what it is, you want to find out. The more Man-Nights placed into an investigation, the better the result is likely to be.

Exp / Training

It takes the number of Man-Nights equal to three times the amount of Exp being spent on learning anything. If you are learning something from another character, both parties need to assign the same number of Man-Nights in their downtimes. If either party does not assign the same Man-Nights to this end, it will not take place that month.

Backgrounds (expect influences and generation) are once again bought using Exp and therefore the number of Man-Nights equal to three times the amount of Exp the background costs to purchase or improve, is required to gain this trait. How your character is going to go around gaining the background needs to be specified along with the Man-Nights assigned. The ST may deny purchase and refund the Exp if it is felt the explanation is insufficient, fatally flawed, et cetera.

Feeding:-

Basics

Though feeding does come under a Man-Night action, I feel that it needs to be explained in its fullest sense. Feeding will not normally be determined at the start of each game using the feeding test ruling. Instead, a total of 30 blood traits are required from allocated Man-Nights to enter the game with a blood pool of one less than you ended the last game on (the missing blood trait is spent waking on the night of the game). Characters that have a clan weakness such as or flaws specifically regarding feeding, such as prey exclusion, increase the number of man nights required for the month. The Ventrue clan flaw requires a base 32 traits, Prey exclusion requires a base of 31.

Hunting on the night of the game:

Actions can be taken at the beginning of the game to top your blood pool up to full, though this may require a player to take time out from the start of play in order to achieve this goal.

Traits of Herd can be used as described in Laws of the Night.

You may take fifteen minutes out of play in an attempt to feed. This requires a simple test; On a win or a draw, two blood traits are acquired; on a loss however the blood traits are not gained. The hunting ability yields one additional blood trait for every point spent when feeding in this manner.

Hunting during a downtime

For each trait of Herd your character possesses, you gain four blood traits automatically without having to spend any man nights.

Each Man-Night devoted to hunting, standardly yields a character four blood traits. This equates to two successful hunts, which yields two blood points from each, leaving the victims more or less unharmed. Where exactly you hunt, who you target and how you hunt, needs to be specified. This can be written in following downtimes as "Same as before", if you wish to keep the practice the same. You can choose take more from your targets which will leave them injured which may cause complications and, depending on your morality, may cause a morality test at the beginning of the next game. If you drain the bodies dry, killing your targets, which yields 20 blood traits, this may incur a more severe morality test at the beginning of the following game, dependent on the characters level. Feeding from animals is considered less nourishing and as such, you gain only two blood traits for every Man-Night you feed from an animal.

A point of the hunting ability allows a character two additional blood traits on top of the four acquired from one Man-Nights hunting. So, one point of the hunting ability can be used on one Man-Nights hunting. If you choose to drain the victim dry using the hunting ability, it would gain an additional ten blood traits, instead of two.

Maintaining Ghouls

A character with Ghouls must spend at least one blood trait a month feeding that Ghoul or they will revert back to being human. This needs to be accommodated for by extra feeding, or your character will be extra traits down equal to the amount of Ghouls you have to maintain, at the games. You can choose to feed Ghouls extra blood for healing or the use of disciplines. This needs to be specified in your feeding and also accommodated for, or you will down the number of extra blood traits you have feed them.

Surplus Blood

Characters with a minimum of one point in the medicine ability may be able to store surplus blood they have gained from their hunting. However, storing blood is not easy and information on how you are going go around this difficult procedure needs to be specified.

The same procedure can be carried across to following downtimes by simply writing "same as before" next to the number of surplus blood you wish to store. The blood acquired in this manner must be used at the game or in the following downtime; else it will lose its nourishment and become useless.

Using Disciplines and Healing

Disciplines that require the expenditure of blood can be used in downtimes, but the blood used must be accommodated for. If the extra hunting is not accounted for, then the character will enter the game with the number of blood traits down equal to the amount of blood spent.

This also applies to healing damage which equates to one blood trait to one level of lethal damage and one blood trait to two levels of bashing. It takes one man night and three Blood Traits to heal one level of aggravated damage.

However, for each temporary Willpower Trait spent, you may spend three additional Blood Traits to heal an another level of aggravated damage on the same Man-Night. One Man-Night of rest is also required to heal this type of damage, as aggravated is heinous damage and requires an amount of rest devoted to healing it.

Background Actions:-

Alternative Identity

One Man-Night each is required to maintain your characters alternative identities. This is regardless of the level you have in this background. Not assigning Man-Nights to this background may have repercussions on your influences and businesses. The details of how it will affect your influence will be outlined in the influences section.

Allies

Allies do not require any Man-Nights to Maintain, as they are your associates and do not need your monthly attention. Allies may act upon your behalf to follow up actions already started by the character. Each dot of Allies, allows five extra Man-Nights for that Ally to aid your character. They cannot interact with any other backgrounds except for influences. They may also spend a maximum of one Man-Night helping your character hunt. This Man-Night spent helping you hunt yields two additional blood traits from one of your feeding Man-Nights (like the Hunting ability).

Contacts

No Man-Nights are required to maintain contacts, as these are NPC which you have on a "go-to" basis and will not disappear if you do not contact them. Contacts can be used primarily to gain rumours from other spheres of influence you do not already have. The types of influence you want gain the rumours from, needs to be specified and can be changed month to month. Rumours gained in this way, must have one Man-Night assigned to the contact, which counts as your character meeting or speaking with the contact to learn the information. Contacts can never take influence actions.

Fame

Each level of fame requires one Man-Night to maintain, as fame can be fickle and you could drop out of the public eye by not maintaining this background. Fame interacts with Influence, easing the cost of acting over distances.

Firstly though we should clarify the areas that each trait extends the range to (mostly since the ranges in the book are given in American terminology)

Fame 1 (Local scene) Most other local people working in the same field have heard of you.

Fame 2 (City) Thanks to things like having covered in the local media, many people in your local city have heard of you.

Fame 3 (State) People of other cities in the region have heard of you, people within your field may have heard of you nation-wide.

Fame 4 (Adjoining states) Most people in the country are aware of you, people within your field may have heard of you through Europe.

Fame 5 (Entire Country) Most of Europe has heard of you, along with people of your field yet more distant.

Note: This is roughly how many people have heard of you, whether they think you're any good at what you do depends on your ability at whatever it is your fame is based around.

We had to think long and hard over how this would interact with the new influence mechanic. The original fame mechanic detailed these ranges as unimpeded use, this never made any sense given that influence and contacts are generally regarded to be used within your home city anyway which would effectively make the first two levels of fame redundant. So anyway, in this vein we decided that if your fame covers most people in an area, then the costs for using your influence in that area would be the same as if you were using it in your home city. As this still has no mechanical effect until you hit three Fame Traits. However, we have decided that fame will have a secondary mechanical effect. For each point of fame, you gain one extra use of Influence that does not generate threat per month. This extra use can be with any of your characters influences, or any influence you are being loaned the use of and need not be the same influence each month. It is not an extra use per influence, just an extra use per Trait of Fame. You can not conceal or hide the influence usage granted by Fame, as it is the recognition of who you are and the goodwill generated by it that negates the threat. As to the 'less mechanical' impacts of fame, due to the varied effects capable with downtimes this is more of a behind the scenes mechanic, but I don't see any problem with sharing this with you all. Things are generally taken on a case by case basis, and sometimes we have to make adjustments due to circumstances, but generally in the case of downtimes when there is a chance of something being improved through fame, such as sales of items by famous persons, ticket sales for events, that sort of thing, we go with the results improve by a percentage of 10 x Fame (Fame 1 = 10% improvement, Fame 2 = 20% improvement, et cetera). For the sake of interaction with those interested in, or feigning interest in your field, such as pretty much everyone at high society gatherings, each Fame Trait counts as a bonus to your total social traits, much like having the Reputation Merit for the relevant field, only more effective, of course if someone should have both Fame and the Reputation Merit for the same field their effects stack.

Herd

Herd does not require any Man-Nights to maintain, as they will be there whether you use them or not. As mentioned before, each level of Herd equates to one Man-Nights worth of hunting, which yields four blood points without the need of assigning any Man-Nights to it. Herd cannot be drained dry without destroying this background.

You can also use Herd at the beginning and throughout the game to top up any missing blood traits, even if you have used all your Herd in your downtime. Used in this way however, you only gain one blood trait for each point of the Herd background used.

Library

A Library does not require any Man-Nights to maintain, as it will always be there, so long as you don't move it. The Library background can be used in your downtime to gain information on lores, rituals and the occult. Of course, the more points you have in this background, the more esoteric knowledge you will have in your Library. It takes one Man- Night to use your library in this way. You will receive relevant information on the subject requested in relation to the points you have in this background. Library also roughly halves the Man Night's it takes to learn a ritual (1.5 Man nights per Exp rounded up), if the background is at three or more points.

Mentor

It does not cost any Man-Nights to maintain a mentor as they have a vested interest in you that will not be soon forgotten. A Mentors background rating is the amount of time the Mentor is willing to invest in you, not the rank or status of the individual. So, a level one Mentor would have a give the pupil a small amount of attention whereas, a level five Mentor would devote serious time and effort towards your characters goals. However, this does not to mean that your Mentor will carry out actions on your behalf as your Mentor is there to help the pupil grow and learn, not to do everything for them. A Mentor can teach you disciplines or abilities, and lend your character status or backgrounds traits [this is still dependent of level of mentor you have, a Level one mentor might be an elder, but unless he has a real interest he’s still not going to teach you an advanced discipline]. The Man-Nights associated with these actions are dependant on the action. For learning a discipline or ability, it is dependant on the XP expenditure. Whereas, borrowing status or background traits takes one Man-Night. Backgrounds traits borrowed in this way still require the same number of Man- Night actions assigned to them as your Mentor will not do it for you. Mentor background levels can be improved with Exp expenditure and ST permission.

Resources

It takes no Man-Nights to maintain your Resources as it is money that comes to your character without any risk. Liquidating a point of Resources takes a single Man-Night for each point liquidated.

Retainers and ghoul/childe

These are now two separate backgrounds that both work the same, No Man-Night are required to maintain your retainers as they are loyal and work independently of you. Retainers/ghouls/childer are bought using Exp based on the trait level of the retainer in question, you can have up to five retainers and five ghouls or childer on your sheet at different levels.

A basic 1 trait ghoul/childe or retainer costs 1 Exp is built only with the traits allocated for initial creation, we have a template sheet for this. Each extra Exp spent on the individual at its initial purchase grants it 5 Exp to allocate extras to it.

No individual retainer or ghoul/childe will ever be created at higher than 5 traits and it is exceptional for any to be created at higher than 3 traits. ST approval is required for the designing of a ghoul or retainer, a list for the basic creation of one is available from the ST's. As sated you can have up to five retainers, and up to five ghouls/childer (added together) for a total of ten ‘minions’.

Retainers, ghouls and childer each grant 10 Man-Nights in which to act independently or on behalf of the character. Players can assign what they want the retainer to do for that month; if no Man-Nights are specified for that retainer, then the retainer will maintain their own influences and backgrounds specifically. They cannot interact with many character held backgrounds, they can mostly only interact with the backgrounds and influences specifically attached to them, though they can follow up any actions already started by players, like reconnaissance, anchoring an influence or pooling backgrounds with the character. However, if anchoring an influence the retainer would then become the anchor for that influence. A character can also use their own Man-Nights to use any background or influence that their retainer may possess. The main difference between ghouls and retainers is of course blood. When the character statistics are created to represent ghouls and retainers, the ghouls gain the ghoul merit for free, ghouls also require monthly blood expenditure as detailed above under feeding. A Childe is treated similar to a ghoul but has other restrictions, it gains it's generation traits for free, and is one generation weaker than it's sire. If a character creates a childe without the permission of the residing prince the sire and childe, if discovered, will be at the mercy of the scourge. If a childer is created with the permission of the prince, the traditions dictate that anything the childe does is considered to have been done by it's sire who shall be held jointly responsible with the childe dependant on a case by case basis determined by the prince under the Fourth Tradition. Many princes consider ghouls to be included under the fourth and third tradition as progeny to varying degrees, so if you are uncertain where your domain's prince stands on the matter it may be best to consult with him or her first.

Ghouls and childer can be created without spending Exp on them, however the player will have no control over their actions, so this is not advised as it almost always results in a violation of multiple traditions.

Ghouls/childer and retainers each gain 1 individual trait of Exp to spend on themselves for every 12 months of downtime their player submits for their character after their initial purchase. It helps if you can keep track of this yourself and remind the ST when a retainer’s “birthday” is coming up.

Note- Animal Ghouls are purchased with a separate Merit and do not count toward a characters maximum ghouls. Contact the ST's for further any questions regarding ghouls/childer and retainers.

Other backgrounds

Backgrounds such as Arsenal, Generation and Status will never take up Man-Nights except for their purchase with Exp.

Influences:-

For details on how to use the influences in regards to your downtime, please see the Influences and Threat rules document.

No Submission of Downtime:-

If you do not submit a downtime, then your character would be considered to have spent their time hunting and maintaining influences. Thus, if no downtime is submitted, then you will begin the game minus one blood trait for waking and your influences count as maintained.

The downside of not doing a downtime is your character will not advance through downtime play and miss out on learning new information from rumours. They will not get chance to gain new influences or work threat level off an existing influence. And they will not receive any reward Exp for downtime actions, as they did not submit one. It is possible to get around this by discussing your man-night usage with the ST's at a downtime meeting, just make sure they write down everything you want taken into account. So whereas it may be safe to not submit a downtime for the purposes of having full blood minus one and maintaining influences, taking those risks and allowing for those factors to be taken in account in your downtime, allows for the character to advance through downtime play. For any other questions regarding the Man-Nights system, please email us at:- sbncamst@googlemail.com

-Damage-

2013