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Message: <blockquote data-quote="goblins85" data-source="post: 5805075" data-attributes="member: 57862">--------------------------This is the Plugin in Merit. I will edit it later on. For now, you'll have to muddle through the copied format:[sblock=Plugins]Merit: Plugin (• to •••••)Plugins represent modifications to a character’s body or, in some cases, high tech external gear. They enhance  capabilities  a  character  already  possesses,  or replace abilities she lacks. When buying a Plugin, choose a particular Attribute + Skill or Attribute + Attribute pair to which it applies.While Plugins can push a character’s abilities be-yond normal human limits, they usually don’t introduce entirely new ones.For example, a character’s brain might be modified to  improve  her  hand-eye  coordination  and  ability  to compensate  for  kickback,  environmental  factors,  and anything else a tiny math coprocessor embedded in your motor cortex can help with, all for the sake of making her a better marksman. However, Plugins usually won’t cross over into capacities humans entirely lack. Those are the domain of supernatural powers.We keep saying “usually.” In order to give Plugins a different feel and area of usefulness than most powers in the World of Darkness, we’ve focused, as with other me-chanics in this book, on improving skill rolls. Augmented characters can perform better, but they can’t quite cheat nature in the ways that monsters can.That said, there are some cases that skirt that line. An obvious one is built-in weapons. In the case of, let’s say, a spike that stabs out of a character’s wrist, simply treat the Plugin as Strength + Weaponry and adjudicate as with any other kind of weapon. Do the same with a gun-arm, but use Dexterity + Firearms.Suppose, though, you want a character to be able to interface with computers mentally? Since that doesn’t significantly  cross  over  with  supernatural  powers,  go ahead and implement it as Wits + Computers.If you need a Plugin that emulates a specific super-natural power, it’s best to bypass this system at least in part. If, for example, you want a Dermal Chameleon Layer that approximates Obfuscate’s Cloak of Night, you may purchase the power at the same cost as a supernatural creature. If the cost is increased for not being a member of  a  particular  group,  such  as  a  vampire  clan,  use  the increased cost. However, you do not need to purchase previous powers, even if a supernatural creature of the appropriate type would. In the case of the Dermal Cha-meleon Layer, the cost would be 21 experience points. If the power has an activation cost in supernatural energy such as Vitae (which Cloak of Night does not), pay this cost in Willpower.Plugins adapted from supernatural powers are still subject to Backfires and being Compromised, and Will-power is still given for these events.Using PluginsA Plugin is activated by spending a Willpower point. In addition to the three dice ordinarily granted by  spending  the  Willpower  point,  add  activation  dice equal to your character’s dots in the Plugin. BackfiresPlugins sometimes just don’t work. Sometimes the enemy has a countermeasure. Other times, a circuit blows or a battery runs out. If you attempt to use a Plugin and the Storyteller decides that it fails outright, your charac-ter receives a Willpower point as compensation.CompromisedSometimes, a Plugin can become a full-fledged vulnerability. Your cybercortex gets hacked, the power core in your replacement arm overheats, dealing lethal damage, or so on. The Storyteller may invoke this effect once per story. In exchange, the character’s Willpower refills completely.[/sblock]Here are the Masquerade and Requiem merits. Like plugins, I'm just dragging/dropping; i'll make it pretty later.[sblock=Masquerade](• to •••••)Effect: Your Masquerade is more than a thin veneer. You live it, and invest effort into rendering the illusion more believable. You gain additional benefits as you increase your rank in this Merit. Masquerade is hierarchical, and you can’t gain the benefits of later ranks without getting the proceeding ones, and some lower-rank benefits improve in effectiveness with overall rank. By investing this time and energy in your Masquerade, you are also committing somewhat to have your mask play a role in the chronicle. You may need to take dangerous action to preserve your Masquerade from being blow open, or get involved in some entirely human struggle as the social contacts you maintain to hide your true nature spawn trouble. •    Networking: As you work to improve the depth of your Masquerade, you meet people and form relationships, personal and professional. People start treating you as the role you’re playing, and the more people who know you there are, the more people who you can call on in a tight spot. Networking works like Contacts limited to the scope of your Masquerade, and who you can reasonably meet while pursuing it. Pick a fairly focused sub-set of the possibilities implied with your Masquerade with the first dot of the Masquerade Merit, and each additional dot adds another strata of Contacts.••    Vouchsafe: The point of forming all these social ties is to strengthen the Masquerade, and when you gain this benefit the people you know will defend you against accusations of strangeness or aberrant behavior. If someone from outside your circle of Masquerade contacts comes asking questions or poking around, your peers will put them off, defend you, deflect their inquiries, and if possible let you know somebody was asking. For every level of this Merit purchased (starting at two dots, so maximum of four) you gain another Retainer. Further, every Retainer gains +3 dice on any Subterfuge rolls used to lie about who you are really.•••    Deep History: A careful campaign of records manipulation, influence, forgery, computer tomfoolery, and planted artifacts adds a historical depth to your Masquerade which will stand up to all but the most aggressive background check. You can now present childhood photos, official records like birth certificates, medical records, report cards, college transcripts, criminal records, financial history and credit score, minor mentions in the local media clippings from the place you were supposed to have grown up. If you were recently Embraced, and are still maintaining your mortal identity, this gives you an entirely new and fictional identity to segue into or alternate between.Deep History works like Vouchsafe, but instead deflects research and background checks by imposing a penalty on such efforts equal to your dots in the Masquerade Merit. Further, your background will stand up to any casual inspection, and won’t raise suspicion for any routine review, for example you can apply for credit cards without worrying about revealing your lack of financial history. Drawback: The drawback to being in the system is that you’re in the system. You will occasionally have to deal with the crap mortals spend so much of their time dealing with. Jury duty, identity theft, junk mail, telemarketers, spam promising harder longer erections, and the occasional lawsuit. ••••    Expertise: Do something long enough, and you’ll get good at it. Performing credibly does a long way to making a Masquerade convincing. When using your Asset Skills, you use the 9-Again rule. If some other advantage already allows this, then you instead use the 8-Again rule. •••••    Living Mask: You perfect your Masquerade, and it takes on a life of its own. You surround yourself with a glamour of sorts, an aura of the ordinary and the expected which occults even the most egregious demonstration of your inhuman nature. At the worst, people within your Masquerade’s scope will suffer a psychotic break, and end up institutionalized for awhile as the two incompatible realities smash together in their brains. People caught up in your Masquerade are so conditioned that they simply cannot believe you are anything but what you appear to be. Your nocturnal lifestyle never raises any questions, and people stop wondering why you don’t seem to get any older. Even when these things are pointed out by people outside the penumbra of your Masquerade, those caught within it just shake their heads and dismiss it unless the evidence is both overwhelming and presented with conviction. Getting them to believe you’re anything outside their assumptions requires a Presence + Persuasion roll with a penalty equal to your rank in the Masquerade Merit. Drawback: Being this plugged in means that the humans around you will call upon you for the myriad little things humans rely on each other for. They’ll ask you to help them move, give them lifts to the airport, borrow some money. They’ll try and set you up on dates with their recently divorced sisters. Maintaining the required level of connection to these people is a lot of work, and it’ll intrude into the chronicle fairly often, usually by complicating things.[/sblock][sblock=Requiem] (• to •••••)Effect: Your Requiem becomes more than an inclination, and begins to define you and your actions. As you dedicate more energy to developing the Requiem and you commit to living it, you gain further advantages from it. Requiem is hierarchical, and you can’t gain the benefits of later ranks without getting the proceeding ones, and some lower-rank benefits improve in effectiveness with overall rank. By investing this time and energy in your Requiem, you are also committing somewhat to have your role in undead society figure more into the Chronicle. The higher your rank in the Requiem Merit, the more widely you’re known in the court for the abilities and inclinations the Requiem describes, and the more it defines how other vampires will treat you and what they’ll expect from you. •    The Gathered Flock: For every dot in this Merit you gain another dot of Herd—in this case, the Herd is specific to your Requiem and “flavored” accordingly. The Herd of a Horror is a wretched, wailing group. The Herd of a Manipulator comprises a group of sycophants and yes-men (though to each other they may be incestuous and equally manipulative). ••    Authority: You begin to gain some sway over others of the same Requiem due to mutual respect, fear, or solid rep. You gain a bonus to rolls based on Social Attributes when dealing with others of the same Requiem equal to the dots you have in the Requiem Merit. Further, if your character has more dots than the opponent in the Requiem Merit, it may invoke Predator’s Taint as if that character had a lower Blood Potency (if even if that’s not true). •••    Reputation: Increasingly, you’re known to others of the same Requiem as an authority within the loose association that mutual interests create. Others will being to defer to you, and when vampires of other Requiems seek one of yours for consultation or aid, they’ll be more likely to pick you. The Requiem Merit acts like Status. At one dot, you’re known within your court for a modest authority, and at five dots your name will be known in other domains, and especially within your Requiem.••••    Adept: You gain the use of the 9-again rule for any roll related to your Requiem’s Key Discipline. •••••    Mastery: Once per game session your character may make use of a +5 bonus on any roll related to supporting her Requiem: a Horror seeking to repulse a scene of partygoers can claim that bonus, but a Horror looking to merely leap a fence cannot (as leaping a fence has nothing to do with the theme or nature of that Requiem).  [/sblock]-------------------</blockquote>

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