Convictions and Touchstones

How to Write Good Convictions

You have your dots placed. You’ve picked your specs and chosen your discipline abilities. Heck, you even have an ambition. Now it’s time to stare at the hardest empty box of them all… the convictions field. Each character should have between one and three convictions, each paired to a touchstone. It sounds simple enough, until you start thinking about the details, the implications, the applications of each. We see a lot of convictions which would be, to be frank, stain city. We see others which are too permissive, and would seldom if ever award stains at all. We see a lot of convictions taken right out of the corebook; and honestly, we’ve found that in play, particularly in the large and loosely moderated sandbox setting of SbN, a lot of those convictions just don’t work well either. So let’s start from the beginning. What even is a conviction? In game terms, a vampire’s “conviction” should be a moral imperative by which they live their unlife. This conviction, this moral imperative, in some way reminds them of some aspect of humanity which they prize. Following the convictions, therefore, keeps the vampire more human. Breaking the convictions? Leads to the beast taking more control.

But “moral imperative” here does not mean moral per se. It could be something positive, altruistic even, but a functioning and effective conviction can also be negative or even malicious in nature; humans do have darker sides while still remaining, at their core, human, and very different from the vampire’s predatory beast nature.

A good conviction is something which will come into play often enough to be relevant to the nightly life of the character, and something broad enough to apply in many different types of situations — without applying to all situations. For example: “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” a conviction from the examples in the corebook, is often construed to mean literal neighbors, making it far too specific and unlikely to arise often enough to have a mechanical effect on the character’s progress through their nights. But if “neighbor” is construed to mean “my entire community,” it might well come into play too often, because it would apply to almost every single interaction the character would commonly have.

A good conviction is also something with a carefully calculated degree of specificity to its language. “Protect innocents from harm,” another corebook example, defines neither “innocents” nor “harm.” As feeding is itself harm, given its predatory nature, that would in effect mean that an ST could assign stains to a vampire every time they fed on someone they did not know 100% to be an innocent — nor even how to define what constitutes ‘innocence’ in the first place!

But that said, a good conviction should also not be laden down with “exceptions” clauses or “get out of jail free” stipulations. Try to avoid using “unless” or similar words/constructions; a conviction which reads something like “Offer aid to those in need unless they are bad people/don’t deserve aid” is a conviction providing too much wiggle room and ambiguity of application to specific situations. Equally so, a conviction such as “Always aid those who are desperately in need of it” has added a judgment call clause. Who defines the desperation level, after all?

A good conviction can both award stains to the character’s humanity and mitigate them. If a chronicle tenet is broken in the course of following a personal conviction, one or all of the awarded stains might be wiped away by the conviction. For an example: If the chronicle has a tenet against murder, but your character has a conviction such as “Always act in aid of a coteriemate,” a murder committed in aid of a coteriemate might well award no stains. If, on the other hand, the character chose not to aid their coteriemate in this or even some other, more trivial way, a stain (or more) could be awarded by the ST.

And a good conviction ties very heavily into characterization. While it’s tempting to choose convictions straight from the book and call it done, convictions cut to the very core of who a character is and what they believe in, what drives their nights. Personalizing a conviction to create something which speaks to the history of the character, their upbringing or past experiences, can create a much more meaningful roleplaying experience. Think, as you write them, about why the character believes this. What experience in their past has led to forming this conviction? What aspect of their personality drives or shapes this belief system?

There are many considerations, from characterization to specificity to applicability. Reflect, as you write them, in what situations you would see the convictions arising and applying. Create hypothetical examples. If you can think of several, differing situations in which the conviction might be applied, move on to getting the language of it correct and clear. Remember that the Storytellers cannot read your minds and cannot necessarily know exactly what you meant by a conviction unless the wording of it is clear and precise.

In the end, writing convictions is an art, not a science; there isn’t one right way or some perfect formula to apply. SbN’s mod team has a great deal of collective experience; we can and will offer guidance during your approval ticket if we think the convictions you’ve written might benefit from tweaks!

Touchstones and Convictions

Touchstones are people -humans, who keep you in touch with your Humanity. They could be the old lady downstairs who kindly gets on your case for sleeping all day and partying all night. It could be your doorman whose wife sends him to work with extra chicken soup because he’s told her how you always look sick. It could be the lady next door who “made WAY too much zucchini bread/cookies” and thought you would like them before they go bad. It could be your wife, your child, your second cousin once removed who you use to climb trees with and read your Dad’s Playboy you stole. They are people who you feel close to and want to remain close to and who you treat well and perhaps you even love and care about.

But ultimately, acquiring a Touchstone is an act of selfishness. The penultimate act of selfishness in some ways because you will do anything to protect them because in so doing you protect yourself. That is until it comes down to you or them at some point. Or they age and you don’t so you move on and find another. Or they die. You may even Mourne their death, but then you find another and when that one ages out you find another…then another…ad nauseum.

I’ll repeat what I said above, Touchstones are an act of selfishness. You NEED them in order to SURVIVE and not fall to your Beast. You USE them to cover your tracks to some extent in order to appear human and like you actually care about something. Without them you are a mere ravening Beast who probably will not last long. They convince you that you are not a complete animal. That is why they are tied to your Convictions.

You may strive to protect them, but if they are hurt or killed, and they pass on to whatever lays beyond, you are left with a Stain upon your Soul that you must attempt to erase. If you are the cause of that pain or death, the stain may remain forever. A good way to harm a fellow Vampire- who is hard to kill- is to simply harm or kill the squishy mortal they treasure.

But you can also lose them and acquire stains if they do something you don’t like. That lovely old Widow woman Cougar next door finds the love of her life and wants to marry him. That may mean she moves away or doesn’t have time to bake you banana bread or sit around watching you not eat popcorn as you binge watch the latest Netflix series. You may actually try to convince her that guy is not for her. Maybe even go so far as to arrange an “accident” or some other way of removing him from the scene. “It’s okay…” you tell yourself, “At least she is safe.”

She is also probably miserable and sad but, you put your arm around her and sit down to watch the next episode of House of Cards. This is why having Touchstones is an act of selfishness. You don’t want them so much as you NEED them as they are tied to your Humanity and ultimately, your survival. They are a tool. Like a gun or a knife or your fangs. They all work together to protect you.

You can not make it in this world without them and, you will do ANYTHING to protect them.

Touchstone and Conviction Part 2

So, the question has come up about why have more than one conviction and by extension, touchstones. I’ve done a lot of reading today and think I came up with an answer. As we all know by now, convictions are tied to touchstones and touchstones are tied to convictions. They go hand-in-hand. You have a touchstone that speaks to what the conviction means. For example, if your touchstone is your mortal daughter, you may have the conviction of, “Never expose children to violence.” Convictions can run the gamut and are chosen according to your vision of what your vampire believes in.

Convictions can even be tied to BEING a vampire. You can have the Conviction of: “Those who cross me deserve what they get” and have it tied to a crooked cop or Mafia enforcer. Convictions do not need to be “good” but they do need to be appropriate and have meaning to your vampire.

Convictions and their corresponding Touchstones keep you tied to you Humanity by giving you something to hold onto. In other words, “No Man is an Island.” No one, Kindred or Kine, can stand alone and without mortal (human) contact. They are “soul armor.” Your character, in becoming a Vampire, has lost hold of what made them human. It died with them, they must work to keep their Beast at bay. Even in the example above, where the touchstone is a crooked cop, the Vampire must interact with and protect that cop from harm. Interaction with a human helps remind the Vampire of who they once were, even if it wasn’t the best person ever. I look at that example like a scene in the Godfather. When Clemenza and Rocco kill Pauly in the car, Clemenza quips, “Leave the gun, take the cannoli.” In another scene, as Clemenza heads out to get stuff for the gang to “go to the mattresses” he kisses his wife goodbye and tells the driver to “watch the bike” in the driveway. Clemenza was not a nice guy, he was a killer, a gangster, but he loved his family and cooked Spaghetti for his boys. Clemenza is a good touchstone for a Vampire whose history is along the same lines. Interacting with him would remind the Vampire that while killing is sometimes a necessity, so is caring for and protecting those around them, especially those that keep him tied to his precious Humanity.

Touchstones and Convictions protect your character from sliding downward too fast. Sure, the downward spiral may be inevitable, but it could and should take a long time. Not having that armor makes it happen fast. Yes, chronicle tenets also must be adhered to, but Convictions are an extra layer protecting you. Otherwise, if you have none or only 1 and you lose that, you have little protecting you.

For instance, let’s say you have the following scenario:

Joe-Joe was a low-level Mafioso in life. He is embraced into the Brujah and from the moment he woke he felt his Beast gnawing at his insides, telling him to kill and drink blood. But, he was lucky and had Gianni, his pal in life, his buddy with whom he collected protection money from businesses. He also had his son, with whom he played catch and went fishing. Gianni was as bad a guy as they came. He was wicked with a baseball bat and broke many a knee in his time. His son, on the other hand, had a real aptitude for baseball and could name off random stats of random ballplayers without any effort or Google. Joe-Joe had done everything he could to protect his son from learning what he REALLY did for a living and kept him entirely separate from that horrible world he lived in. Gianni was Joe-Joe’s role model in all of that. Gianni had a wife and three beautiful daughters that he’d do anything for.

After his embrace, Joe-Joe, if he had a character sheet, would have the following on it: “Those who cross me or mine get what they deserve” - tied to Gianni and “Never expose children to violence” - tied to his son.

So, how does this come into play? Here is an example and a contrast to older editions of VTM:

Sam Cooper is a local guy who leads an up-and-coming biker gang. He sets his eye on the area that Joe-Joe and his coterie have claimed as their territory. One of Joe-Joe’s coterie mates reports that Cooper killed two people in that area the night before, which, unknown to Cooper, were ghouls of this coterie mate. Joe-Joe sees red. Those two ghouls were the eyes and ears of the coterie and kept an eye on the bar they liked to hang out at. So, he sets out to find and ultimately, he kills Cooper.

In old VTM, that would mean a humanity check. In V5, the “Soul Armor” of his Conviction of, “Those who cross me or mine get what they deserve” keeps him from acquiring too many Stains on his Humanity. In this case, Joe-Joe would probably only incur 1 stain rather than 3 or so. At the end of a “session” (This time period is to to be determined by the STs, we have not discussed it yet) Joe-Joe’s player can roll to see if he has remorse for his actions and if he gets at least 1 success, the Stains are removed. If he fails, he loses a dot in Humanity.

If Joe-Joe had not had that Conviction of “Those who cross me or mine get what they deserve” he would have gotten a lot more stains and before long, if he kept at this sort of play, he’d have no humanity to speak of and be taken out of the game. The flipside is, if all he had was, “Never expose children to violence” and his son saw him violently kill someone in front of him and then ran away, never to speak to or contact Joe-Joe again, that Conviction is lost and Joe-Joe is rudderless in the storm of the World of Darkness. There is a way in which he can possibly replace the son as a Touchstone but if that roll fails, all Joe-Joe has to protect his Humanity are the Chronicle Tenets and once he violates those- which is easier and easier to do as your Humanity drops- he again has nothing to protect him from becoming a ravening Beast.

Keep in mind that, yes, as your Humanity drops it becomes harder to go lower, but it can happen and it becomes easier to do more heinous things. It is exponential. Killing by accident is bad. Killing on purpose is worse. Killing horrifically is awful. Torturing someone to death slowly is horrific. But that is how it goes and why, at the end of the day, you want to keep to your Convictions and protect your Touchstones.