IC Knowledge about Disciplines
The basic requirement for detecting or even conciously pursuing mastership of powers is knowing about their existence. For this purpose LA provides a 'Power Lore' that specifies your character's knowledge on the existence of vampiric powers, depending on your character's Vampire and Clan-lores. This lore should not be used as a justification for detecting or preventing power-use; Knowing a power exists is different from knowing how it works. In general you do not really know how to circumvent a power unless you have the discipline yourself.
Guidelines for Detecting Discipline Use
Q: Another player and I can't agree on whether my character would notice that a power has been used on him. How do we resolve this??
A: There are three ways to determine whether a power use has been noticed by a target (or by an observer).
- The power user ICly tells you that a type of power is being used. In this situation, players should probably be able to come to an agreement without referencing this news file.
- IC Circumstances make it obvious, such as being subject to an obvious dominate-driven interrogation to uncover information against your will. This state of 'obviousness' *always* requires advance, cooperative, negotiation between the power-user and the observer or target. Both parties must be in agreement. It should be noted that this negotiation process will be and should be different for observers and targets. It may not be realistic for a target to realize that they have been subject to, say, Presence, but observers who see the target go from righteous anger to sycophantic subservience would likely be alerted. Players are not de facto "for story sake" obligated to accomodate others, however, in the broad interest of story there are times where allowing power use to pass undetected or power use to be suspected reinforce enjoyment more importantly than benefit the wellbeing and stature of your particular character.
- When you have Vampire Lore 4+, spent 2+ Willpower resisting the power, or when you possess the discipline used at equal or higher level, you may also use the power-detection command listed below. The command will take various +sheet-based factors into consideration and report a result to both parties as well as a staff monitoring channel. Willpower cannot be used to alter this result.
NOTE (1) The subject of a successful Presence effect will not notice this effect until after the power has worn off or been resisted.
NOTE (2) Only ONE attempt at detection may be made (you cannot try to do a lore-based detect and then also a discipline-based detect - you must choose one and take the result.)
NOTE (3) Once you have tried +detect and failed, you cannot subsequently revert to the "It was obvious" option. The detection command result is final unless both players agree otherwise. Compromise between players remains the final say.
| Command | Usage |
| +detect/<how> <power-user>=<discipline> | <how> = one of: 'lore' (You have Vampire Lore 4+), 'willpower' (You spent 2+ wp Multi-resisting), or 'discipline' (You possess the discipline used at equal or higher level) <power-user> = character at your location who recently used the power <discipline> = the discipline (category) you are trying to detect. |
NOTE: You only have a certain amount of time to do the detection. If it is important for you to do so in scene, pay attention and run this. If you did miss the time interval, you can re-request the power-user to flash the card and THEN try the +Detect.
Example:
+detect/discipline frederico=presence
