Resources

Overview

Resources is what your character can spend without explaining themselves. Not the cash in a wallet, but the standing income and assets behind it: a portfolio, a building, a business that runs at night, a criminal operation somebody else manages for you. It shows up constantly once you look for it. Renting a haven, paying off a coroner, buying a car nobody can trace, keeping a retainer loyal, replacing a wardrobe after a bad night: all of that runs on Resources rather than on rolls. Where the money comes from is a story hook too, because every income stream has someone who wants it.

How it works

Dot ratings: One dot is a modest but reliable income and a place to live. Three dots is comfortable, with property and enough slack to solve most problems by writing a check. Five dots is serious wealth: holdings, businesses, and people whose full-time job is managing your money. Effect: Purchases at or below your rating happen without a roll. Anything above it needs time, a deal, or a Storyteller-set roll, and repeated large spending can push your rating down. Cost: Drawn from the 7 Background dots at creation (typical cap 3 per Background, Storyteller may allow more); after creation each new dot costs 3 times the new rating in XP. Interaction: Resources funds the Haven and Retainers backgrounds and makes a convincing Mask easier to buy. Contacts and Allies are often what keep the income safe in the first place.

Tips and playstyle

Character concepts: Trust-fund neonate, self-made landlord, criminal fence, corporate officer whose board never meets before dark, elder living off centuries of interest. When to take: Take at least a dot in any modern chronicle, since a vampire with no money leans on the coterie for everything. Decide the source before play, because an income nobody can explain is a Masquerade problem waiting to be audited.

Frequently asked questions