"God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of his own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players, to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time."
 - Terry Pratchett, "Good Omens"

There are several hand signals that are common to live-action role-playing venues, but the ones below are what is common parlance at Emerald City Chronicles.

The first and most important signal you'll learn is the Out of Game signal. Simply place one of your arms across your chest as if trying to touch your opposite shoulder. At EC this is easily recognizable as "I am out of game."

EC has a no contact without permission rule, and as a player it's your right at any time to step out of play if you become uncomfortable. Use the Out of Game signal, wisely and well however, by trying to stay in character in the In Character areas, such as Elysium, and out of character in the Out of Character areas, such as smoking areas and near the Bookkeeping Storyteller's table.

The rest of the common and more esoteric hand signals are listed below:

The Basics: RPS
Rock - Stop the Rock? Can't stop the Rock. That is, unless you're paper, or The Bomb. Regardless, for those about to Rock, we salute you.	Paper - It may be true what they say about the pen, but the Paper is mightier than the Rock, and therefore gets recycled back into play often.
Scissors - The mighty Scissors is a classic choice for STs doing feeding tests and those who want to defeat both  Paper and The Bomb.	The Bomb - Only the STs may bring out this super rare big gun, and only Scissors beats it. And only really sharp scissors.
Status Signals:
Give Positive Status - The Prince and some court positions give Positive Status with a big thumbs up. Hint: Suck up to your Primogen.	Strip Positive Status - Not to be confused with Strip Poker, the Harpy usually does this when your character is about to get screwed.
Give Negative Status - Almost worse than losing a status, this symbol brands a character with a bad word. Sucks to be you "Stinky".	Remove Negative Status - After you've bribed the Harpy you can sometimes get them to make this signal and remove that 'Stinky" status.
Communication:
Language - If you're trying to indicate that you and another character are speaking in a language other than English or French, hang loose!	Language French - If you're trying to indicate that you and another character are speaking in French, well... you get the point Moinsur.
Peeking: Should your character be watching a scene remotely via video camera, Scrying or somehow peeking through the Umbra (why?) then look through your two fingers like so.	Heightened Hearing: Cup your hand over your ear as if you were having trouble hearing, even though you really are using Heightened Senses or some other listening ability or technology.
Disciplines:
Obfuscate - Put your hand over the bottom part of your face. Whew! Nos Breath. Those using this signal are to be treated as invisible until seen through by Auspex or Ob is dropped willingly.	Astral Projection and Shadowlands- Auspex users in the Astral Plane, and Wraiths and Giovanni walking in the lands of the Dead use this signal.

Below is an explanation of the "Mod-Dot" System that we use instead of Dice at EC. First there will be explanations, followed by examples of single and contested rolls. All examples given are suitable for all non-combat rolls, and certain types of Combat rolls. For complete rules on how to conduct a combat, please see the Combat link (under construction).

Basically, all rolls are determined by a simple formula:
Attribute + Ability = Dice Pool
Dice Pool cut in half and rounded up = Base Successes
Two Rock/Paper/Scissors tests (win +1, tie +0, loss -1) = Extra successes gained or lost
Base Successes +/- test results = Total Successes

So, to determine your Total Successes, take your Dice Pool and divide it in half, rounding up. Throw rock-paper-scissors twice (either with an ST or the person you're attempting to use the action on). Any time you win, you add one success; every time you lose you subtract one success. Ties do not change your success total. The resulting number is how many successes you have on your action.

However, the total number of successes for any action, be it attack, ritual enacting, discipline usage, damage soak, etc, may not exceed the initial dice-pool, before difficulty modifiers, unless the character has an applicable specialty. Willpower may still be spent to give an extra success not subject to cap.

Pretty simple so far. It then gets a little more complicated when you take alternate dice pools, difficulty, secondaries and specialties, botches and contested rolls into account.

Alternate Dice Pools: While most actions use the standard Attribute + Ability, there are other possibilities including Willpower, Courage, Self-Control, Conscience, and a few clan specific others. This does not change the way you test; just use the number of dots in the required field as your Dice Pool for that test.

Difficulty: Difficulty modifies your Dice Pool directly by adding or subtracting dice BEFORE you cut in half. The following chart shows how many dice you should add or subtract based on the difficulty of the action. 

Unless explicitly stated, difficulty modifiers do not stack. Players will choose the single most advantageous modifier to their difficulty. If in a situation where multiple modifiers would raise difficulty, only the largest modifier will be used. At most one modifier will raise difficulty and one will lower it.

• * Difficulties may not be reduced below 2.  The world of darkness is hard that way.
• ** For each difficulty over 10, an extra success is required on your action.

Stacking Dif Modifiers: Anything that favorably modifies a difficulty (lowers it) as per the Vampire rules will NOW LOWER THAT DIFFICULTY BY 1 ONLY (this changes the acute sense and computer aptitude merits specifically). Players may stack UP TO 2 favorable modifiers for a total of -2 difficulty to a given roll (Auspex is the only exception to this rule) to a minimum of diff 2 . These modifiers will modify the BASE DIFFICULTY (which is not always 6!). Situations and environmental modifiers that raise the difficulty will never do so above +2.'

Secondary Abilities: Secondary Abilities are specializations of primary abilities and operate under a slight modification of the general rules:

 1. Secondaries are rolled with attributes in tests, REPLACING the primary ability they are based on.
 2. Tests with secondaries are made at a -1 difficulty from the base test.
 3. A character MUST have at least 1 dot in the primary ability the Secondary is based on to purchase any dots of a secondary (see list in Connect the Dots Section).
4. Secondaries cannot be used in place of primary abilities to activate disciplines.
In cases where a secondary could apply to multiple primary abilities (ONLY at ST discretion), you MUST have at least a dot in the primary ability to make a test with the related secondary.

Specialties: When you acquire the 4th and 5th dots in an Attribute or Ability, you choose a Specialty. After you have cut and rounded your dice pool, if you win both of your rock-paper-scissors tests AND you have a specialty that applies to the situation, you may continue testing for additional successes. You gain additional successes for each consecutive win, but must stop testing after the first tie or loss. Losses in this case do NOT subtract anything from your successes.

Botches: A botch is defined as testing down at least twice, and having a negative number of Total Successes. If you fail both of your rock-paper-scissors tests, you continue testing until you tie or win. Wins do not modify your total, but if you continue failing, you continue subtracting successes.

Negative Starting Successes: Regardless of difficulty modifier for an action, the minimum starting successes for an action is -1.

Contested Rolls: These are rolls where one character is taking an action directly opposed by another player. In this case, each player must calculate his or her Base Successes the same way that they would for a non-contested roll, then make two tests each (preferably with a third party) to determine their Total Successes. The Total Successes are then compared and the action with more successes succeeds with a number of successes equal to the difference in the two totals... welcome back to algebra 101, there’s an example below.

Examples: First we will look at a basic non-contested action- looking for stuff. This is a Perception +
Alertness roll, and the difficulty will be defined by the environment you are looking in.

So, lets say Vincent Ventrue wants to look around and see what he can see. He has a Perception of 3 and an alertness of 1. He's in a fairly well lit room, so we'll say it’s a diff 6. He doesn't have any specialties because he doesn't have either stat at 4 or 5. And he has no applicable secondaries. His Dice Pool is 4, making his Base Successes 2. But he looses both tests and must keep testing; in the end he looses 2 more times for a total of -2 successes. As a result of this Botch, Vincent is CONVINCED he just saw Elvis walk by.

Now, lets say Betty Brujah wants to find herself a hunk in a nightclub to feed on. She has Perception 4 and Alertness 1. She has a Specialty in her perception that applies here, and its dark and smoky, so the Storyteller assigns a diff 8. Her Dice Pool is 5, but we must subtract 2 dice for the higher difficulty, making it 3. She wins both her tests and manages to win one more before tying and has to stop testing, giving her a total of 6 successes. She just found the hottest guy there, and two or three of his brothers.

Now, to see secondaries in action, let’s look at an attempt to sing at the big party. This is a Charisma + Performance roll, but Tina Toreador has a secondary ability in Opera, and it just so happens, she wants to sing some Wagner. So, the difficulty is based on the song itself, lets say its not too bad, but hey its still opera, so 7. Then her charisma 3 and performance 4 would give her a dice pool of 7, but her Opera of 4 also gives her a dice pool of 7 (but at a minus 1 difficulty), giving her a final difficulty of 6 and no lost or gained dice to her pool. This, cut and rounded, leaves her with 4 base successes. But wait! She also has an Opera specialty of WAGNER, so if she wins twice, she can keep testing. She doesn't, she only wins once, and loses the other, so her total successes remain 4. Maybe not The Aida herself, but a damn good show, nonetheless.

Now for contested rolls. For this we will use a Hide and Seek example. Gina Gangrel is trying to find Nevil Nosferatu, but he doesn't want to be found (this example does NOT include the use of any Discipline). Thus it is a contested roll between her Perception + Alertness and his Wits + Stealth. Gina has Perception 3 and Alertness 2, while Nevil has Wits 2 and Stealth 4. This gives Gina a Dice Pool of 5 and Nevil 6. Assuming standard Difficulty (6), both will have Base Successes of 3. However, remember that in a dark room or a space with a lot of cover, Gina's difficulty may rise while Nevil's drops because it is easier to hide than seek. Also, Secondaries of either character may affect their relative difficulties as well. In this instance, we're going to stick to the basics, and leave them both at three. They both test the ST or Advocate and Gina winds up with a win and a tie, while Nevil gets two ties. This gives Gina a total of 4 over Nevil's 3, and she succeeds in her action with 1 success (not 4, since Nevil's efforts reduce how effective her action is).

Hopefully this makes enough sense that when you come to game, you don't feel totally lost. But remember that STs and Advocates are there to help so don't be afraid to ask either at game or in an email.

In general, character creation is done according to Vampire: The Masquerade Revised (tm). If we don't mention a specific attribute or background, that just means they are by the main book, unchanged. This document will change however, as we decide some of our clarifications are silly, or we want to add new ones.

While we do allow some things from other Vampire books such as The Guide to the Camarilla or the individual Clan books, anything not in the main book that you would like your character to have must be reviewed by the staff prior to approval. Even if the rest of your character is approved, any additions not from the main book may be disallowed after review. Nothing from the Vampire Dark Ages books, any of the Sabbat books (with the noted exception of the Alternate Identity Background) or any non-Vampire White Wolf (tm) publications such as Kindred of the East, Mage, Werewolf, etc. will be allowed.

Sect Caps: The Emerald Domain is the Camarilla stronghold for the Northwest region of the United States, and as such, its presence and control over the area is a beacon to politically like-minded Kindred. Conversely, it is also a general repellent to those Vampires that either detest, or have little interest in butting heads with, the "Ivory Tower." It is also well-established that if the Camarilla sees too many members of an opposing viewpoint flooding such a valuable piece of real estate, it is only logical that they will spare no expense to ensure that they come out on top. Other Vampires are aware of this. EC reflects this inherent political reality by placing limits on incoming characters "political ideology." Your choice of Sect (Camarilla, Independent, or Anarch) needs to be explicitly stated at the paperwork table at the time you are having your character sheet approved.

Clan Caps: We reserve the right to place limits on how many members of certain clans may be played at one time. It would be silly to have a city full of Samedi, for example. In addition to the obvious goal of wanting to limit rare or uber-powerful clans, sometimes a gazillion people decide they want to play Tremere, or Brujah, or whatever, and allowing such would create a pretty unbalanced game. While the storytellers agree that good-role-play can definitely be had from a major disparagement like this, it can lead to all kinds of logistical problems, for example, if half the city is made up of Toreador, what happens when they all decide to have a clan meeting? The answer is that role-playing options dwindle and the game becomes less diverse and less interesting. Because of this, all playable clans have a limit that is based on the overall population of the game. These could change as more or less people join or leave the game, but here are the current guidelines.

* Requires strict ST approval

All other concepts need to be submitted in an e-mail to storytellers at storyteller@emeraldcitychronicles.com and will be approved only on a case-by-case basis.

For Caps in General: Be warned: if you are basing your character concept heavily on any political allegiance other than the Camarilla, or a rare (low cap) clan, it behooves you to check with an ST first before submitting a concept for approval. Otherwise all of your hard work may easily be for naught if a particular Sect cap is already at its limit.

Consequences of Breaking a Cap: Coming into a capped clan as a ghoul then getting embraced into that clan is not cool. Your embrace will fail, do not pass go, do not collect 200 blood points. Similarly, coming in Cam and converting to a capped sect is also dicey for a couple of reasons. 1) if the STs think you did not have sufficient RP to support this change, we may retire your character. 2) The Prince maintains a Camarilla City, and if you become the Anarch that broke the camel's back, you and even your buddies, may find themselves Scourge-bait. The same goes for crafting a Caitiff with all of the same flaws and Disciplines as X clan and expecting to get away with it.

Restricted Clans: Aside from the somewhat obviously restricted rare clans mentioned above, because of their rigid higherarchical nature (in the case of the Tremere) and the unique magical powers of Thaumaturgy, Assamite and Setite Sorcery and Necromancy, the following clans require Head Storyteller approval for the character sheet, rituals and character history: Assamite Sorcerers, Giovanni, Followers of Set and Tremere.  

Go to the next Rules section: Character Creation