Influences

As influences are one of the most important components of a Camarilla game, this thread will be used to explain the rules that we are using around the gain and use of influences.

We will start with gaining Influences.

You may attempt to gain one point of influence each month. This does not cost experience, as it can easily be removed from you.

This will take a number of months equal to the level of the influence that you are attempting to gain since you last gained or lost that influence.
For example, Munchkinius Maximus has Finance 2, Health 2 and Law 2. He gained Finance 2 last month, lost Health down from 3 two months ago and gained Law 2 three months ago. Thus he is not able to gain Finance 3 until two month's time and Health until next month but can attempt to gain Law 3 this month.

Whether or not you succeed in gaining influence is based on the amount of that influence held by active PC's or NPC's in Auckland.
If there is available influence, you will succeed in gaining influence unless someone is deliberately blocking you or removes your influence in the same month. The mechanism for these actions will be covered later.
If the influence is full, whether you gain or not is dependent on you are more skilled in that influence than those already holding it. Our method of determining this is Influence+Relevant skill, with ties falling in favour of the status quo. If you exceed ANY of the individuals currently holding that influence, the least capable holder (After all loans are taken into account, this being covered later) will lose influence and you will gain it. Note that this makes it handy to have a reasonable amount of skill in the area that you wish to hold influence in.

The list of influences and skills is as follows:

Influence Skill
Bureaucracy Bureaucracy
Church Theology
Finance Finance
Health Medicine
High Society Etiquette
Industry Repair
Legal Law
Media Expression
Occult Occult
Police Law
Political Politics
Street Streetwise
Transportation Drive
Underworld Subterfuge
University Academics

You are limited to a total amount of influence controlled (Including loans) equal to your total number of traits + your total points in retainers that are able to control influence. (If you have a ghouled lion as a retainer, it doesn't count here)

Note regarding the definition of "active".
You are active if you gained XP for the last game or you are a normally active player and have given us a week's notice that you won't be showing up to that game. NPC's are always considered to be active unless they are "out of the city".

You may take an action in a month which is Loan my X influence to Y vampire. They need to accept this loan as the loaned influence may exceed the maximum level of influence that they can control.

It is possible to gain effective level in an Influence by being loaned said influence, or help ensure the safety of a weak influence by loaning it out to another individual, but this has its downsides.

If you loan influence to another individual, they may automatically reduce your influence if they wish to, so it pays to make sure you can trust them. They will also automatically win any influence contestation with you until you have increased your influence regardless of skill, as they know exactly where your holdings are.

If you have been loaned influence, your effective level of influence is the greatest of your influence & loaned influences. This effective level can be further raised if you have loaned influences equal to twice the level of the highest portion of influence you control.
For example, Munchkinius Maximus has Law 2. The Camarilla decide that he's the man for Law and four people loan him 4, 3, 2 and 1 points of influence respectively. He has an effective level in Law of 5 as he takes the highest level he currently holds (4) and 3 + 2 + 1 + His 2 = 8 which is twice or more the highest level that he holds. To have an effective level of Law 6, he would have to be loaned another 10 points of Influence (Effectve level 5*2) and be able to control it.

Note that for the purposes of maximum amount of influence you can hold, these levels are added separately so in Munchkinius's case Law is taking up 12 points of his total capacity.
All loaned influence is treated as being held with the skill and level of the recipient. for example, Munchkinius loans his Health 2 to a Kindred with Health 4 & Medicine 3 to protect it. He will retain it unless an influence attack could get through Health 4/Medicine 3. (A fairly unlikely scenario)
If the combined influence would be lost due to an influence attack, the loaner of the smallest component will lose influence as we assume that all Vampires will selfishly hold on to their own influence rather than loaned influence.

You may take an action with your influence to try and find out who has that influence.

You will find anyone with less than your current Influence + Skill. You will not find anyone with equal or higher Influence + Skill including loans in this month. You will get some idea as to the nature of the individual holding the influence (Such as active during the day or based in South Auckland) but may not work out exactly who they are if you do not know them personally. The better you know the holder, the more likely you are to know exactly whose influence you have found.

If you wish to avoid taking Influence off someone, you will need to know where it is either via this method or if they have loaned it to you. They can have told you specifically where their influence is, but theyn will need to give a specific instruction to us that they have done so as this will make them vulnerable to your influence attack.

Attack a specific influence:
To attack a specific influence holding, you need to know exactly where it is by using one of the previously outlined methods. Once you have this information, you may reduce that influence as an action provided that you have a higher Influence+Skill than your target. If they have a higher Influence+Skill than you for whatever reason, your influence is reduced instead and they will know who attempted to reduce their holding.

Block someone gaining an Influence:
If you know where an individuals influence is and you have a greater Influence + Skill than them, you may block them from getting any more influence as an action. It will appear to them that the influence is full in this case.

What's in the rulebook:
You may of course use your influences as oulined in the MET rulebook.

Note that when your influence is attacked by someone else, you are assumed to defend it to the best of your abilities as long as you have attended the last game or given us fair warning that you were not going to attend. There is no "Defend Influence" action.

just a few thing from the influence list that are missing/different to book
Law Influence is written in book as Legal
you're also missing
Transportation influence - keyed off Drive?
Political Influence - keyed off Politics...

Indeed, done off the top of my head & now corrected. It gave the general idea though. I think most people could guess that Law was Legal.

Please note: You are always assumed to be defending your influences. There is no point in putting in an "Influence action" that says you are trying to protect your influence as this will do nothing additional. Please stop doing this, we're tired of seeing it as it serves no purpose.