How Old? A Query

I personally don't think age is an issue. Vampires are suppose to adapt and learn so not to break the Masq, if they are old the start sheet with no xp doesn't overly support it without time in Torpid.

I personally have an Elder PC by age, barely there that has been asleep for a bit. She is also very adaptive. So I think it depends on the style of rp.

You're making unnecessary work for yourself.

First someone who's been around since the time of Christ will have spent time in Torpor. Probably a few hundred years at a stretch because after a few hundred years Elders get bored. Or they start to grossly lose Humanity and so have to sleep it off. That's part of the theme of the book. So someone around Ancilla to early Elder, 150-250 shouldn't be a major concern. Someone 2000 years old - well look at how they fill out their beatsheets. All the details should be in there and if they're not, staff can still reserve the right to say 'No' and should. Those details are key to the character. And someone apping for a character that old should fill out their beatsheets FIRST before approval anyways. This way staff gets to see if the player has an understanding of what it means to have a character that old.

Now, as an addition to the first point. You could also limit new people to 100 years of age, which is early Ancillae, and let rerolling players make older following the above beatsheet requirement - but that can get into a gray area of unnecessary complaints.

Second. You don't have to set mandates on anything. Blood Potency lists things that are valid reasons for raising Blood Potency and Elders sleeping for long periods of time, 25+ years a stretch lose Blood Potency. So it's quite possible to have a BP 1 Elder who's just woke up after a 500 year dirt nap. And does that mean they can reasonably climb to BP 10? All vampires gain BP naturally with time - 50 year increments while awake in fact. And for other reasons. Use those as your baselines.

Third. Bloodlines are also a non-issue here. You can be inducted into a bloodline no matter how old you are. Age of discovery is a non-issue that it seems like staff wants to make an issue. So there's no such thing as a 'bloodline you can't have' because any Elder could have had an unactivated bloodline for x years and then someone goes 'oh hey you might have the ingredients needed to be one of us' and the introduction begins. Bookwise I have not found anything required to introduce someone into a bloodline but it wouldn't be unreasonable for staff to Houserule that it requires...Vitae equal to twice the Blood Potency of the person doing the introduction, a requirement of ingesting that vitae on the person going into the bloodline, and a Willpower Point. This fits the theme for everything else such as creating Kindred, Ghouls, Learning Disciplines, and so on.

What about a simple requirement that if your char is over 500 years old that you have to fill out the beatsheets first to give us an idea of what that character did alll those years?

Hmm. I like the idea of having the beatsheets in place first so that staff has some idea of the character's background before approving someone who has been around for so long.

In general, I think that 300 years or younger sounds reasonable but I also understand the allure of playing a vampire from ancient times. When we look at it in terms of mechanics nothing changes because everyone starts out with basic creation points and nothing more. So a starting PC is a starting PC. However, someone who is say 3,000 years old would need heavy justification as to why they are not as strong as an elder that age would likely be.

It sounds reasonable to me that if the player is willing to submit the General, Vampire/Ghoul, Clan, Covenant sheets that they might be able to justify that age for their PC. Torpor should certainly be included as part of their background to justify the many mechanical deficient involved. Like they spent over half their age in Torpor or something ridiculous and so they have simply forgotten everything and their blood has thinned greatly.

However, I would suggest that staff ask for a timeline for the PC as well and because of the level of perceived authority, due to their many years of age, and the arrogance that can come with that... I would almost suggest that they need to be a Political Character and nothing less. But that is my opinion!

<3

If Fog of Ages is out, then ultimately I think we really DO need a hard cap. Remembering a lot of stuff from early on is very much a problem, as you could have memories that would justify a massive amount of mental skill, amongst other things. I'm voting no more than about 200-300 years, 250 as a middle-ground. Yes, this does prevent someone from popping up and saying they were drinking buddies with Longinus. But at the same time, do we REALLY want that? Also on a less pejorative and more objective note, I personally don't think we want anyone saying that they had affiliated with a covenant founder in an authoritative manner. E.B. Carth is the only real exception here, since as a pen-name there's no real way to authoritatively say you knew the real mccoy.

I agree that it's wise to keep PCs away from knowing the "truth" of big characters like Longinus and Dracula -- or of the origins of the Strix during Rome, for that matter. I think that until we get some clarity on how OPP ends up handling things in post-Fog of Ages world (which is really to say, until we see some more information on A Thousand Years of Night) it's wise to have a reasonable cap on elders.

As a canon question, the formation of the Ordo Dracul is over by roughly AD 1600. If we have a limit in that range -- say, no birthdays before 1600 -- then that should keep anyone from knowing any big truths. The Carthians, obviously, are younger, but that cat is frankly out of the bag, since Baptiste was around at the time the Movement was founded, as have been several prior PCs. The diffuse nature of the Movement's founding (and the mystery of who EB Carth was) helps that, though.

It's maybe also worthwhile to not allow PCs to have been in Kingsmouth more than a century or so, also -- perhaps even no more than 50 years -- in order to preserve some of those secrets.