CHALLENGES
One of the easiest ways to break the "dark mood" of any Vampire game is to have to solve Challenges.... you know, the Tremere sorcerer has the poor Malkavian informant pinned against the back wall where no one else is paying attention. Next thing you know there is a call of "Dominate"...and a judge is needed.
I wish there were some easy way to deal with gaming challenges, but the fact is that this is a role-playing "game", and as such, has rules. As players, we've tried Mind's Eye Theater, and found the characters too limiting. Using Table-Top, we've tried everything from Cards to Fingers, but many lose the percentages designed in the game... the game was made to use dice, and thus...the Dice-0-Matic™ and our Judges.
I know it may take you from the mood, but if you want to use a power or make any sort of challenge, you *MUST* get a judge. At CapChron Nights, we have two kinds of judges... Staff, and Combat Judges. The Staff (Me, Eric, Tony, Eileen, Jenny) not only can do challenges, but know the plot of the game. (Mike Durange, Tim Moyer, and Rich Flynn) are our Combat Judges. They are still regular players, but can handle challenges that don't affect the plot of the game, or have to reveal character "secrets"...
The thing we want to stress the most is that the "dice" are not the game, the "roleplaying" is... so a scene solved with good roleplaying is always and "ace" in our book...and we do try to keep our eyes out for that.
If you see a challenge happenening, be it combat or social...ask how long ago the players dropped into "judge mode". If' it's been more than a minute, odds are that you are far too late to interact with the scene at all. Please be mindful of this... The sad truth is that most Vampire combats, in "real time" take less than 6 seconds... but in "game time" this can be a half an hour, or more... so odds are that unless you were *right there* when it started, it's already too late to join in.
