Good Breeding
(• to •••)
Your character is part of a bloodline or family line regarded as admirable, classy, refined, dutiful or otherwise noble according to Ventrue tastes (and the customs they promote throughout Kindred society). This counterpart to the Bad Breeding Merit carries with it a distinct connotation of poise and excellence to those Lords who concern themselves with ancestry and parentage, but that connotation is subjective – Kindred expect a certain decorum from a well-bred vampire.
This Merit represents your character’s ability to use traditional preconceptions of his social standing to his own advantage. As a creature of fashion and taste, your character might be able to pass off an exposed lie as a polite gesture, present his opinion as something more valuable than it is, or explain away his secrecy as discretion. It isn’t considered rude for your character to miss appointments or excuse himself from difficult situations.
In game terms, this Merit grants a bonus to Social dice pools when, at the Storyteller’s discretion, the reputation of your character, his sire, his clan, or his bloodline influences the Kindred or ghoul he is trying to affect. You may choose to invoke a bonus up to the number of dots your character has in this Merit, depending on how aggressively your character takes advantage of other’s preconceptions. Remember, though, that this is a Social Merit – a white-collar reputation doesn’t actually grant your character any special knowledge of politics or finance.
The bonus from this Merit is useful only when dealing with characters who care about lineage, reputation, and breeding among the Damned. Even then, it is limited by the overriding importance of Status. While your character (through your clever play) may be able to use Good Breeding to distract from his lack of useful Covenant Status, Kindred of great rank are likely to care more about their authority than your character’s breeding. A character with more dots of Status than you have in this Merit is not subject to your Good Breeding bonus. (For example, the Priscus doesn’t find your character’s parentage impressive if you can’t back it up with actual authority.)
This Merit represents your character’s ability to use traditional preconceptions of his social standing to his own advantage. As a creature of fashion and taste, your character might be able to pass off an exposed lie as a polite gesture, present his opinion as something more valuable than it is, or explain away his secrecy as discretion. It isn’t considered rude for your character to miss appointments or excuse himself from difficult situations.
In game terms, this Merit grants a bonus to Social dice pools when, at the Storyteller’s discretion, the reputation of your character, his sire, his clan, or his bloodline influences the Kindred or ghoul he is trying to affect. You may choose to invoke a bonus up to the number of dots your character has in this Merit, depending on how aggressively your character takes advantage of other’s preconceptions. Remember, though, that this is a Social Merit – a white-collar reputation doesn’t actually grant your character any special knowledge of politics or finance.
The bonus from this Merit is useful only when dealing with characters who care about lineage, reputation, and breeding among the Damned. Even then, it is limited by the overriding importance of Status. While your character (through your clever play) may be able to use Good Breeding to distract from his lack of useful Covenant Status, Kindred of great rank are likely to care more about their authority than your character’s breeding. A character with more dots of Status than you have in this Merit is not subject to your Good Breeding bonus. (For example, the Priscus doesn’t find your character’s parentage impressive if you can’t back it up with actual authority.)
A Note on the Breeding Merits
It is not somehow more scandalous for a character of Good Breeding to be caught with a hooker, for example. It may be scandalous for a character of good or bad breeding, but a character with the Good Breeding or Bad Breeding Merit knows how to spin his reputation to protect himself from scandal. With these Merits, your character is better able to escape some of the consequences of his actions by hiding behind his breeding.
“What do you expect,” they say about the Gangrel with Bad Breeding, “they eat dogs.” Meanwhile, when the Ventrue with Good Breeding is caught doing the same thing, they say, “Those fops slum it down here just to see what it’s like, I think.”
Prerequisite: Cannot have dots in Bad Breeding. Only certain bloodlines and clans in the city qualify as “well bred” for the purposes of this Merit, but who is esteemed varies from city to city. The Storyteller has final say on what clans or bloodlines make a character eligible for this Merit in the local city.
Drawback: When you choose to make use of the Good Breeding bonus in a given scene, your character is taking advantage of preconceptions. Those same preconceptions can work against him. Later, the Storyteller may penalize a dice pool by imposing a modifier equal to the bonus you invoked earlier, depending on how other characters in the scene regard yours. The bonus to Socialize you gained from your reputation as a prestigious social accessory might penalize a Subterfuge roll later on, when you try to claim you weren’t at that party.
Associated Clan: Ventrue
Drawback: When you choose to make use of the Good Breeding bonus in a given scene, your character is taking advantage of preconceptions. Those same preconceptions can work against him. Later, the Storyteller may penalize a dice pool by imposing a modifier equal to the bonus you invoked earlier, depending on how other characters in the scene regard yours. The bonus to Socialize you gained from your reputation as a prestigious social accessory might penalize a Subterfuge roll later on, when you try to claim you weren’t at that party.
Associated Clan: Ventrue