This article originally appeared in Pyramid #8

Q&A

GURPS Vampire: The Masquerade

  1. Do these vampires have a functioning sex life?
  2. Do vampires always have their fangs showing, or can they make them normal teeth and grow them when they want to (like in Bram Stoker's Dracula)?
  3. Does a vampire's choppers do any sort of damage, maybe based on ST like a critter? I suppose all they really do is break the skin so they can drink. I don't know, what do you guys think?
  4. Someone mentioned to me that in the White Wolf version of the game, that a vampire could lick a bite mark and that would heal it so that there was no mark, to help perpetuate the Masquerade. Is that so? Maybe they use a drop of their own blood?
  5. Can an Anarch still belong to a clan, or are all Anarchs considered Caitiff? Are Anarchs created like a normal Clan character, and then just given the Anarch Status?
  6. Is a kindred's body warm, or cold like a corpse?
  7. Since they have no vital fluids other than blood, do they sweat and cry blood?
  8. The Sixth Tradition strictly prohibits the destruction of another of the Blood. This of course is overridden by a prince who has declared a legal Bloodhunt against another vampire. I suppose you could kill another Cainite in self-defense or at the request of a prince or elder. Hmm? If you killed another in self-defense, could you drink his blood totally and still not be considered a Diablerist?
  9. By the way, how did you get the license to publish Masquerade from White Wolf as a GURPS supplement? It just seems odd that another company would let a competitor publish their product, ya know?

-- Sean Young

  1. Vampires are able to redirect blood to the proper places for sexual activity, but they have little or no sexual drive, and performing the sexual act brings them no physical pleasure, though some may do so to please a mortal.
  2. Vampires can extend or withdraw their fangs at will.
  3. According to the GURPS Vampire Companion, "The bite of a vampire does cutting damage per the Biting Damage table on p. B140."
  4. Yes, this is true and was mistakenly left out of the original book. This is clarified in the Vampire Companion. Licking the wound does not restore any damage done by the bite, it simply makes the bite unnoticeable.
  5. Anarchs can either belong to a clan or not. Their Anarch status does not come through disavowal of clan ties, but from a lack of desire to uphold the Masquerade -- often this goes in the face of what a clan's purpose is, and thus most clan leaders dislike and fight the Anarchs. But the individual Anarchs can still feel strongly about their membership in certain clans.
  6. Vampire bodies are cold like corpses, except for an hour or so after feeding.
  7. Vampires do not sweat, but when they are forced to tears (something that does not happen very often), they cry blood.
  8. This is a good question, and one that has no easy answer. Each case would require review -- if a vampire killed another in self-defense, or while defending an elder or Prince, he might be justified in lowering his generation by diablerie (and the elder or prince might allow this as a reward), but if it appeared that the fight was unfair, or that the defender killed unnecessarily, or any of a number of other reasons (maybe the Prince is in a bad mood), the offending Kindred might be killed himself. Each instance would require a separate review by elders.
  9. (Watch your numbering, pal!) It's actually not all that strange. Both White Wolf and Steve Jackson Games encourage inter-industry licensing as a way to open the market up to new gamers. For whatever reason, there are gamers out there who only play GURPS and gamers who only play Storyteller games -- with this license, gamers are likely to buy products from both companies, creating crossovers that were previously difficult, or very rare. Also, this kind of license (while admittedly difficult to negotiate and harder still to maintain), creates a sense of solidarity in the gaming industry, which is needed if it is ever going to break out of the "hobby" marketplace.

-- Jeff Koke


Car WarsŪ

  1. Is there a maximum HC for cars? For any other type of vehicle?
  2. Which skill is needed to drive a reversed trike? I've seen "cyclist" one place and "driver" in another.
  3. Two vehicles are in a direct head-on collision. The slower one (or is it the lighter one?) is pushed backwards, "conforming" to the faster (heavier?) one.
    If both vehicles remain nose to nose, with the faster (heavier) one continue pushing the other one backwards until one of the other changes course/direction? Or will they just slow by "x" mph per turn and eventually stop?
  4. Do oversized vehicles take any hazard at all from 5 points or less of damage? What are the hazards from enemy fire for oversized vehicles?
  5. Does regular body armor protect from vehicular fire damage?
  6. Is a smart link necessary for right, left and front weapons on a trike to be fired at a target in the front arc, or will a standard link do?
  7. Can you use EWPs with a cycle windshell?
  8. Must a vehicle with jump jets jump higher than the height of another vehicle to clear it, or can it jump equal to the height of the other vehicle? For instance, to clear a compact (1/4" high), must you be at 1/4" or higher than 1/4"?
  9. Do weapons which only affect pedestrians and tires destroy fake accessories? For example, if a flechette gun hits a fake wheelguard, is the wheelguard destroyed?)

-- Mike Schachte, Tom Simon
United, PA

  1. Technically, no. There's a practical limit to HC for all vehicles (I mean, there's only so many gadgets you can pile on), but there is no rule-mandated maximum HC.
  2. Actually, I think either one would suffice, since the trike is a hybrid between the two.
  3. Check the "Collision Procedure" on p. 13 of the Car Wars Compendium, 2nd Ed. Which vehicle does the pushing is determined by the Temporary Speed Table (p. 14), taking into account both weight and speed, not just one or the other (a fast-moving light vehicle can push a slow-moving heavy one). At the end of the collision, one vehicle will be moving forward (at a greatly reduced speed), and the "conforming" vehicle will be moving backward at that same speed, being pushed by the one with the greater Temporary Speed. What happens next depends on what the drivers decide to do, Control Table rolls, etc.
  4. No. For oversized vehicles, 6-12 points of damage is a D1 hazard; 13-21 points is a D2; and 22+ is a D3.
  5. Yes, but after the body armor takes its 3 hits (1 hit per turn), you burn next.
  6. Yes, a smart link is necessary. In fact, this situation is one that the smart link was invented for.
  7. No.
  8. Hmmmm . . . very picky question, you guys. I'd say that if the jumping vehicle was at an elevation of 1/4", it would clear a 1/4" obstacle (like a compact) -- but just barely. The two would probably swap paint or something (but it wouldn't be a hazard or anything).
  9. Good question. You're free to play this either way, but I'd say that even a fake vehicular component won't be affected by weapons that can't effect vehicular components.

-- Scott Haring

  1. When a burst-effect penetrates armor (or hits a location with armor to begin with), do the crew members of the vehicle suffer burst-effect damage?
  2. When a large explosive charge (bomb, kamibomb, C-4) breaches the armor of a vehicle, is the excess damage treated like ram damage, or like a hit from a direct-fire weapon? It seems a little strange that a car could lose its entire side, and then channel the rest of the blast to the opposite armor location, destroying only a couple of components in the process!
  3. In Aeroduel, how does one damage wing-mounted weapons and gas tanks? Besides destroying the whole wing, that is.
  4. Is the modifiers for targeting a wing-mounted EWP cumulative with the modifier for targeting the wing?
  5. Does a pedestrian on the receiving end of a burst-effect weapon suffer an extra die of fragmentation damage? It sounds a bit nasty, I know, but could be useful against the more heavily-armored peds.

-- Michael S. Sipior
West Seneca, NY

  1. No. The vehicle's structure (even with no armor) is assumed to protect the occupants from burst effects.
  2. Treat the damage like damage from any other weapon.
  3. You can target those items at a -2 penalty.
  4. No. If you miss the EWP, however, and the to-hit roll was good enough to hit the wing if you were aiming at it, you hit the wing anyway.
  5. Yes, indeed. Go grease 'em!

-- SDH



Article publication date: August 1, 1994


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