Vampire The Masquerade - Generation House Rule

  The news of a fourth edition of Vampire: The Masquerade coming in 2016 has me pretty excited. So excited that I grabbed my 20th anniversary edition and started re-reading it, and it really put me in the mood for playing it again. (Especially now that we're in October!)

  That said, one thing that cannot be denied is that the rules for a vampire's Generation at character creation are broken. There's no reason not to max out that background, as it makes you so much more powerful. I remember reading one of the books in the early 2000's that discussed this, and the argument that the book had was that someone who put all his points in Generation would have no allies, no contacts, etc. That they would be sorely missing in other backgrounds. And I remember thinking how false that rang with the existence of bonus points.

  Vampire: The Requiem has fixed the problem since then by using Blood Potency instead of Generation. But we're talking about Vampire: The Masquerade here, where Generation is a strong story element. Changing Generation basically changes the very lore of the setting.

  Making Generation cost more points could be the simplest solution, but that's boring, let's make the solution more interesting here. (And all the while keeping an 8th Generation vampire just as accessible as it would normally be during character creation!) A player who chooses that background has to take a supernatural Flaw for every dot he puts in it, without getting any bonus points from those Flaws. You want to put three dots in Generation? O.k, but your vampire won't be able to cross running water, will be vulnerable to silver and will cast no reflection in a mirror. (Just a quick example, the book has plenty of other flaws which make this house rule very viable, it wouldn't run the risk becoming repetitive anytime soon.) Or to make things more interesting, the Storyteller could choose them, or they could be picked at random. (While of course dismissing choices that would break a character concept.)

  I wouldn't apply that rule to Generation lowered from Diablerie since that comes with its own drawbacks, the first of which is that you actually have to manage to do it to another vampire.

  Expect more Vampire posts during the month of October and as always feel free to leave some feedback!