Berlin by Night

“The Trait of Humanity is (..) a moral code that allows Kindred to retain their mortal sensibilities in the face of their transformation into parasitic monsters. In essence, it is what keeps a vampire from becoming a mindless animal, enslaved by her thirst for vitae” - Humanity in the book

This description, from the Vampire book, sketches Humanity as a method of judging how far a vampire has traversed from a human being into a bloodthirsty beast. To determine how to handle humanity, we must understand the nature of humanity at a deeper level.

For this document, we presume that both players and storyteller are acting “in good faith”. That is, players aren't deliberately trying to game the system or gain advantages, players don't sabotage one another and the storyteller isn't trying to 'screw over' the players. As such, when we describe conflict or disagreement, we presume that all parties involved are acting in one anothers and in the games best interests, simply disagreeing over what is in this best interest.

Before we continue, let me introduce three terms, ethics, morals and the super-ethos. Each term relates to “right” and “wrong” conduct. We will examine these three and how they interact with Humanity.

Morality in this context is the individualistic view of right and wrong, ethics is the external judgement or the “rules” or right and wrong, and the super-ethos is a theoretical ethical system which is perfect in every way - the ethics of God, as it were.

Based on these three, we can formulate different systems of humanity, which suggest different idea's for how to handle experience and cases such as frenzy and domination.

A morality based humanity system uses humanity to determine how well the characters actions match the characters beliefs about right and wrong. A humanity 9 character might, on occasion, eat a cookie despite being on a diet, while a humanity 1 character may rape a child despite knowing it is wrong. If the pedophile believes raping children is normal and acceptable, they might have humanity 9 regardless.

Each vampire in this model has their own custom made path, usually based upon a path listed in the book. Each level of the path indicates roughly how far beyond their moral code of right and wrong a vampire with a certain humanity would go, and provides both the player and the storyteller with a generic idea of scale. As a point of elegance, this means the rules for “humanity” are universally applied and no different system is necessary for different paths.

In this system, humanity should be adjudicated by the player of the character - they, after all, are in the best position to judge what is and what is not acting in accordance with the characters morality. The task of the storyteller in this would be to act as a neutral observer, providing guidance where required, based on the characters chosen, personalised path. Thus, the story teller may ask the player “Do you feel this lies within the moral ideals of your character?”.

In many cases, it may be better to wait until after a scene has concluded, perhaps even to the next session, to ask a players judgement. That way, the “heat of the moment” will have passed and it will help the player adjudicate the matter from a neutral point of view. In case of doubt, the stortyeller can even suggest rolling a check. However, ultimate responsibility remains with the player, even if the storyteller disagrees and even if the dice come up differently.

In a morality based system, intent is key to the morality of an action. Though negligence plays a role, in principle the characters intentions are central, even if the consequences are bad. If a character is controlled by an outside force, for example while dominated, the characters humanity would not be affected - someone else controlled the characters actions and the character is not to blame. In fact, the controller would need to look at their morality to see if the actions are justified.

As a special case, however, if the character is controlled by an inner force, for example while frenzied (or if they volunteered to be dominated to do something), the character's humanity would be affected, since the motivator is internal and part of them.

In this system, humanity should probably be left mostly independent of the rest of the rules, as the value is determined by the player and by certain dice checks only. As such, an XP cost for raising humanity is not advised. This also means a storyteller does not have the ability to reward or punish with points of humanity.

An ethics based humanity system uses humanity to determine how well the characters actions match with an external system of rules within a society. A humanity 9 character might litter if there is no trashcan in sight, while a humanity 1 character might blatantly murder people who get in his way. Even if the character believes in the justice of his actions, society would not approve of the blatant murder, so the act would be unethical and therefore worthy of humanity 1.

Paths in this model represent the moral codes of various social groups and always belong to a culture, religion or other social group. The levels of the path indicate how far beyond the moral code of society a vampire with a certain humanity would go, and provides a prescription of expected behaviour for the player and storyteller.

In this system, humanity should be adjusted in collaboration between the players and the storyteller, who together form the social group. Thus, players and storyteller may discuss if a certain actions were morally acceptable for a certain level of humanity, with the storyteller guiding the discussion and seeking consensus between the group. If agreement cannot be reached, a check can be made.

In an ethics based system, intent and outcome both play a role in the ethics of an action, including negligence. The discussion can consider all these factors together. If a character is controlled or under influence, this should be taken into account in the discussion. Whether the control factor is internal or external does not matter.

Humanity can be structured with a ceiling value so as to allow it to be connected to the rest of the rules. XP and system basics determine the ceiling and values can fluctuate below that ceiling based on consensus within the group. This works because players have an active say in their characters humanity. Since we presume players are acting in good faith, if a convincing argument can be made that a player violated their humanity level, they will yield the point, and XP is not lost since it can later be regained at no XP cost.

The storyteller does not have the option to directly award or take away humanity, but he can put the matter forward before the group, as can players. At this point, the person putting forward the change in humanity would make their case and the group would attempt to reach a consensus.

A super-ethos based humanity is very similar to an ethics based humanity system, but with an overwriting Super-Ethos that defines certain acts as being inherently unethical. For example, it may say “murder is always bad”. As such, even if a character is behaving ethically in murdering (i.e. society feels his murder is justified), it would still risk lowering humanity because the super-ethos says that murder is always bad.

Paths still represent moral codes of various groups, but are now superceded in certain cases by the super-ethos. For example, a culture may determine that killing the enemy in the field of battle is honourable, and as such, a skilled soldier might have humanity 9 within the ethics based system. But because the super-ethos says “murder is always bad”, his actual humanity might only be 6.

In super-ethos based humanity, the key factor is outcome rather than intent. If murder is always bad, it doesn't matter if the intent is to save 1000 innocents by killing 1 guilty, because murder is always wrong. If a character is controlled or not does not factor into the matter. If you dominate someone and that person subsequently murders someone, both dominator and dominated are guilty of the murder and thus in the wrong.

In this system, humanity should be adjudicated by the storyteller, with players giving their views, but ultimately being bound by the storyteller (the inverse situation of morality based humanity). If the storyteller is unsure, he may call for a check.

The storyteller should provide a very clear and unambigous guideline for the super-ethos, so players know what they have to do. However, it is obviously impossible to write a perfect super-ethos, and it is not reasonable to expect the storyteller to make one, so there is some room for error.

In this case, it is probably better not to have an XP cost for humanity, since players have no way of knowing if their actions will violate the super-ethos, and intentions are not relevant but outcome (which is not generally under player control). Having no influence on the final decision made means that XP costs are unreasonable.