Optional Rule: Indoctrination
Characters might want to try their hand at re-educating a confused elder for their own purposes. This is how it works in game terms. Note that if the elder is not suffering from The Fog of Eternity, there isn’t any point even trying this. It just doesn’t work.
Also, characters trying to indoctrinate a confused elder have to act fast: after three nights, a vampire’s blood and psyche have stabilized enough that further attempts to change the old vampire’s ways of thinking have the same effect as they would on any elder: dismal failure.
Failure: The roll results in no successes being added to the total at this time. The only real effect of this is that it draws out the process.
Success: The roll adds successes to the total needed. If the total aimed for is reached, the target accepts the new beliefs and attitudes imposed upon him.
Exceptional Success: If a single roll achieves five or more successes, the target loses a point of Willpower. If the final total of successes turns out to be five or more successes higher than the total desired, the target becomes more fanatical and committed than the characters attempting the manipulation had originally hoped, adopting behavior described one level more extreme than originally desired.
Also, characters trying to indoctrinate a confused elder have to act fast: after three nights, a vampire’s blood and psyche have stabilized enough that further attempts to change the old vampire’s ways of thinking have the same effect as they would on any elder: dismal failure.
Effect
Dramatic Failure: The target is not remotely fooled. No further attempts will work on the target. The target may, if he wishes, fool the individual attempting to indoctrinate him into thinking that he’s bought the lie.Failure: The roll results in no successes being added to the total at this time. The only real effect of this is that it draws out the process.
Success: The roll adds successes to the total needed. If the total aimed for is reached, the target accepts the new beliefs and attitudes imposed upon him.
Exceptional Success: If a single roll achieves five or more successes, the target loses a point of Willpower. If the final total of successes turns out to be five or more successes higher than the total desired, the target becomes more fanatical and committed than the characters attempting the manipulation had originally hoped, adopting behavior described one level more extreme than originally desired.
Dice Pool: Presence + Persuasion – higher of target’s Intelligence or Wits
Action: Extended. Each roll represents one night of active contact with the elder. The character indoctrinating the elder needs a variable number of successes depending on how strongly conditioned the character intends his victim to be. The character has three nights to affect this, and hence may only attempt three rolls. Several characters may act as a team if they so wish (see the teamwork rules on p. 134 of the World of Darkness Rulebook).
Successes | Degree of Indoctrination
5 | Level 1: Target acquires variations on previously held beliefs.
10 | Level 2: Target changes some of his beliefs or allegiances, or changes to beliefs that aren’t wholly incompatible with his old worldview (for example, an old-style Invictus being talked into The Lancea Sanctum).
15 | Level 3: Target completely changes his behavior and allegiances, becoming an enthusiastic patron of his new “friends” and avowing that he always has been.
20 | Level 4: Target becomes blindly devoted to his new Allies, and may kill or die for his new ideological position.
+3 | Subject was in torpor for more than 300 years
+2 | Subject was in torpor for between one and three centuries
+1 | Indoctrination performed by vampire(s) who woke up elder
+1 | Subject was in torpor for more than 50 years but less than a century
-1 | Elder is suffering from some form of future-shock
-1 to -3 | Subject was, before torpor, actively hostile or prejudiced against the beliefs he is now expected to buy into
-4 | Character has access to his own Requiem diary
Action: Extended. Each roll represents one night of active contact with the elder. The character indoctrinating the elder needs a variable number of successes depending on how strongly conditioned the character intends his victim to be. The character has three nights to affect this, and hence may only attempt three rolls. Several characters may act as a team if they so wish (see the teamwork rules on p. 134 of the World of Darkness Rulebook).
Successes | Degree of Indoctrination
5 | Level 1: Target acquires variations on previously held beliefs.
10 | Level 2: Target changes some of his beliefs or allegiances, or changes to beliefs that aren’t wholly incompatible with his old worldview (for example, an old-style Invictus being talked into The Lancea Sanctum).
15 | Level 3: Target completely changes his behavior and allegiances, becoming an enthusiastic patron of his new “friends” and avowing that he always has been.
20 | Level 4: Target becomes blindly devoted to his new Allies, and may kill or die for his new ideological position.
Suggested Modifiers
Modifier | Situation+3 | Subject was in torpor for more than 300 years
+2 | Subject was in torpor for between one and three centuries
+1 | Indoctrination performed by vampire(s) who woke up elder
+1 | Subject was in torpor for more than 50 years but less than a century
-1 | Elder is suffering from some form of future-shock
-1 to -3 | Subject was, before torpor, actively hostile or prejudiced against the beliefs he is now expected to buy into
-4 | Character has access to his own Requiem diary