And it serves the goal of keeping stats to a minimum.

I’ll need to dig the book out tonight and refresh myself with the way things were done to see if there isn’t something like that already.
.-= JJ´s last blog… Elric Explored – Part 5: Magic =-.

Hunger… that’s interesting.

Frenzy is an expression of the beast trying to take over and not being able to (throwing a tantrum) OR of the beast taking over for a short period of time (well, ideally, though the tendency is that that time will increase as Humanity dwindles). Not feeding will certainly send the beast into panic (again, survival instinct) and quite probably trigger a Frenzy if the vampire doesn’t voluntarily go and feed.

Hunger could be a timer-like stat that increases as time goes by and vampiric powers are used.

I’m, overall, trying to keep stats on the sheet to a (needed) minimum to reduce distractions. But that’s an interesting idea. I’ll chew on it (no pun intended).

Sometimes I think you already have this all figured out and you doling out these tidbits to keep us hungry for more
.-= JJ´s last blog… Elric Explored – Part 5: Magic =-.

All that said, I do want the feeding to be a feature of the game, so I’m still struggling with that part.

Will, I think, is the right name for this resource that lets you add bonuses (not bonus dice, I think I will cap it at 10 dice) and which would need to be renewed by connecting with that which you are losing, be it your Joy or Sorrow (i.e. your Humanity).

Your banking idea is very neat, and when you think of the traits as Aspects, you’ll see that this is already built into the concept via the mechanic of tags. Going through some Joy and Sorrow scenes (as well as going through Flashback Scenes – more on those when I talk about Immortality) not only refreshes a dwindling resource, but also can potentially create tags that you can later use as bonuses during a poignant moment in play. So, dude, we’re on the same wavelength here.

I like the idea of a resouce being refreshed by a Joy/Sorrow Scene, but I’m going to throw out something that may or may not work as a possible alternative to a refresh for one of those traits. I’ve been kicking around using a trait as a ‘bank’. Player calls for a scene and then says they’re going to ‘bank’, or reserve, X resource points. Later, at a particularly poignant story climax the player can call on those banked points as part of a flashback. Let me explain with a cinamatic example: Speed Racer the movie.

Throughout the movie Speed has these little vingettes with various characters within his familial circle. At the climax of the movie, after he has depleted all his reserves he still needs to pull out more. He flashes back to each of these scenes and pulls out an untapped reserve and bang, he wins the race. This is a form of foreshadowing that can set up some dramatic scenes through those flashback touchstones.

Now that’s a very heroic example, and you’ve established that this is a tragedy. What if the idea is inverted. You can bank points, but you can only use them to complete a task (purposely vague here) IF SOMETHING SORROWFUL HAPPENS. Down the spiral we go. Depending on your intended approach this could also call for a humanity check.

I’m very curious to see where you go from here. Obviously I really like where you are going so far. Great work.
.-= JJ´s last blog… Elric Explored – Part 5: Magic =-.