Vampire 101

Hunting on Masquerade is managed by code, but considered to be completely in-character. Only run the +hunt command in a grid square your character would actually hunt in.
The +hunt code will emit to the room that you are hunting there. Avoid witnesses!
You can only hunt on the main grid (not in private rooms). If you would like to hunt in a particular room which is not set up for +hunting, please contact building staff.
Not all rooms are set with the same hunting difficulty. For example, a room described as being very affluent and busy may have a higher difficulty level than an abandoned alley.

"Too Much Blood" Hunts

Because +hunting is considered IC, the amount of blood points you take off your victims in a hunt is also considered IC. Taking more than 5 blood points in a single hunt is assumed to have damaged your victim to a dangerously low level, potentially even killing the victim!

To avoid this fate and limit the amount of blood you take, use +hunt/cap <style> where <style> is your huntstyle of choice (read +help hunt for more information). Like everything in the World of Darkness, +hunt/cap is not a sure bet -- there is a self control check involved in the code to determine whether the vampire has the control necessary to take a smaller amount of blood while dangerously hungry.

If your vampire does take too much blood, a job will be automatically submitted to staff, and staff will coordinate with you to run a scene involved your 'too much blood' hunt. You can RP normally until staff runs your scene; the event won't be considered to have occurred IC until after the scene is run.

Staff will dismiss 'too much blood' rolls on the "animal stalker" hunt style, because nobody cares if you eat fifty rats.

Botches

+hunt rolls, just like all other +rolls on the game, have a chance of botching (the roll results in negative successes). For +hunting, botches reflect the fact that being a vampire is complicated and difficult, and that preying on the blood of the innocent and preserving the Masquerade is sometimes not easy to do. As in "too much blood" rolls, if your hunt botches, a job will automatically be submitted to staff and a scene will be run around what went wrong. While a botch is unlikely to kill your character, he may find his corpse and/or his pride a little damaged by the end of it.

You can RP normally until staff runs your scene; the event won't be considered to have occurred IC until after the scene is run.

Preserving the Masquerade

+burn Masquerade

A special merit is not needed to bring your temperature up to a warm and "human-ish" level, adopting some of the mannerisms and affectations of life. Instead, use the command +burn masquerade:

This command allows your character warmth, heartbeat, breathing, etc. Burning blood wouldn't fool machines at the hospital designed to read vital signs, but it creates a passable likeness of life for most social situations.
+burn masquerade burns one blood point each time it's used.
Because vampires don't have circulation from a beating heart, your character will not bleed in a humanlike way unless you +burn masquerade.
Your character cannot be assumed to be showing any signs of life as described above unless you actually run the command and spend the blood for it. Humans may notice the vampire is cold and odd. RP accordingly!

Food and Drink

Human food is abhorrent to vampires, and the "Eat Food" merit is required to make it palatable. Without Eat Food, vampires can spend a blood point to prevent themselves from throwing up human food or drink for the duration of one scene. However, without the merit, the food will still taste abominable, and should be roleplayed as such.

To spend the blood to hold food down, use +burn masquerade as described above. However, one burn only covers the illusion of life, and a second burn will be needed if consuming food is specifically involved.

Out of Clan Disciplines

"Out of clan" disciplines are considered to be any discipline not commonly associated with your character's clan. Out of clan disciplines can be learned, but certain conditions must be met along with the relevant XP costs (which can be determined by reading news xp).

Clanned vampires

In order to learn an out of clan discipline, vampires must find a teacher who possesses that discipline, roleplay the teaching, and drink a sip of blood from this teacher (or another Kindred who possesses the desired discipline). Because clans strongly align themselves to specific disciplines, external blood is necessary to bind a vampire to another clan's power.

PCs are encouraged to learn via RP from other PCs whenever possible, but if you cannot find a suitable teacher for the discipline you want to learn, please contact staff to see if any NPCs are plausibly available.

Caitiff

Because they are clanless by nature, no disciplines are either "in clan" or "out of clan" for Caitiff. Caitiff require a teacher in order to learn new disciplines, but do not have to consume blood.

Getting to the Elysium

Your character can be automatically transported to the game's current Elysium by typing +elysium from anywhere on the game. It is ICly assumed that anyone who is able to make his or her way into the Elysium is either a vampire or a ghoul.

Rules of the Elysium forbid violence and the use of disciplines while in the Elysium. Breaking the rules will result in IC consequences.