Dominate

Description:

Dominate grants the vampire the ability to control the actions of others, manipulate their memories, and force living creatures into acts they would not perform of their own volition. At its most basic, Dominate enables a vampire to make a victim forget the feed they just endured or enjoyed. At its most dangerous, it allows Kindred to enslave entire crowds of kine. This is the Beast at its most cruel and controlling. Dominate acts as a bludgeon to enforce the Masquerade, create submissive servants, and reinforce the self-assuredness of the vampire. When using this Discipline, Kindred feel omnipotent, although the wisest of them know that this too may be shackles of a kind, slipped upon them by the Blood.

Characteristics:

Most Dominate powers require eye contact with the victim. Once they establish contact, Dominat holds the gaze of the victim until the user conveys their command or commands, barring interference. Catching the eyes of someone actively attempting to avoid the vampire’s gaze requires a contest of the user’s Resolve + Intimidation vs the target’s Wits + Awareness.
Using Dominate in combat or in other frantic situations is limited to people attacking or otherwise interacting with the user directly, as everyone else’s attention is firmly focused on their own peril.
Unless the user has supernatural means such as Telepathy (Auspex 5) at their disposal, they must command the victim verbally. The victim must be able to hear the user and understand their language.
Without Terminal Decree (Dominate 5), commands resulting in obvious death or serious injury fail automatically.
Subjects roll to resist commands resulting in other social or physical harm, such as undressing in public. (See individual powers for details.)
Vampires cannot use Dominate to extract information, as the victim becomes a mindless puppet while under its influence. For example, the Compel command “Speak” results in blabbering word salad, while someone Mesmerized to “tell what you know about the assassin” responds “what you know about the assassin.”
Dominate cannot make subjects do something they could not do on command, such as “Sleep.” Ultimately, the Storyteller determines what the Discipline can accomplish, but they should take care that Dominate remains one Discipline of many, rather than the catch-all solution to every problem.
Dominate cuts to the core of vampiric mastery and predation. Thus, vampires must resist attempts to Dominate them. A vampire of lower (stronger) generation can resist Dominate attempts from higher generation vampires by spending a Willpower point, negating the effect completely. On a total failure on the roll of any Dominate power, that vampire can no longer Dominate that target for the rest of the story.
Dominate threatens Humanity, especially if the vampire has any Principles involving personal freedom or forbidding violations of human integrity. Using it may incur Stains (p. 239).

Type
Mental

Masquerade threat
Low.
Barring someone Dominating an entire auditorium to jump off the cliffs of Dover, it remains one of the more subtle vampiric powers.

Blood Resonance
Phlegmatic.
The blood of the submissive or the dominant, masters and slaves, captains of industry, power trippers, cult leaders and followers.

Powers - Level 1:

Name & Requirements	Description & Cost	Dice Pools	System	Duration
Vampire the Masquerade: Core Rulebook
Cloud Memory	By uttering the phrase “Forget!” the user can make the Dominated victim forget the current moment as well as the last few minutes, enough to mask a superficial feeding or a chance meeting. No new memories are formed and if pressed the victim realizes they have a few minutes missing. Cost: Free	Charisma + Dominate vs Wits + Resolve	No roll is required against an unprepared mortal victim. Clouding the memory of a resisting victim or another vampire requires a Charisma + Dominate vs Wits + Resolve roll.	Indefinite
Compel	With eye contact, the vampire can issue the victim a single-action command, no longer than a short sentence, to be obeyed to the letter. It must be possible to complete the command in a single turn. The Storyteller decides whether to interpret ambiguous commands in an unexpected or unfavorable way; alternatively, the command simply confuses the victim and fails. Cost: Free	Charisma + Dominate vs Intelligenc + Resolve	No roll is required against an unprepared mortal victim. Commanding a resisting victim, a victim the vampire has previously Dominated in the same scene, or another vampire requires a contest of Charisma + Dominate vs Intelligence + Resolve. Commands that go against the victim’s nature also require such a contest.	No more than a single scene

Powers - Level 2:

Name & Requirements	Description & Cost	Dice Pools	System	Duration
Vampire the Masquerade: Core Rulebook
Mesmerize	The vampire can issue complex commands to a victim, as long as they have the subject’s gaze and relative quiet in which to issue instructions. The instructions must be carried out immediately to the victim’s best ability, and must not contain any conditional actions (“...if you see Henry, give him the document”), as this would require the victim to exercise cognition. Cost: One rouse check	Manipulation + Dominate vs Intelligence + Resolve	No roll is required against an unprepared mortal victim. Commanding a resisting victim or another vampire requires a contest of Manipulation + Dominate vs Intelligence + Resolve. Commands that go against the victim’s nature also require such a contest.	Until the command is carried out or the scene ends, whichever comes first.
Dementation Requires: Obfuscate 2	This subtle power requires nothing more than casual conversation, as the vampire’s insidious influence hides between the lines and inflections employed. The victim finds themselves increasingly agitated as their inner demons bubble to the surface, eventually drowning out all rhyme and reason. Cost: One rouse check per scene	Manipulation + Dominate vs Composure + Intelligence	After engaging in conversation with a victim, the user can activate this power. For the duration of the scene, the user may attack a single individual each turn in a Manipulation + Dominate vs Composure + Intelligence conflict, causing Superficial damage to Willpower. A mortal who becomes Impaired by this power experiences a nervous breakdown or psychotic break, the shape and nature of which depends on their personality (and perhaps their blood Resonance). A vampire that becomes Impaired by this power must immediately succumb to a Compulsion, as chosen by the power’s user. If the user wants to affect multiple victims, they need to make a separate Rouse Check for each one.	One scene

Powers - Level 3:

Name & Requirements	Description & Cost	Dice Pools	System	Duration
Vampire the Masquerade: Core Rulebook
The forgetful mind	The vampire can rewrite whole swathes of the victim’s memories, as long as they can keep the victim’s gaze and full, uninterrupted attention. The vampire verbally describes the victim’s new memories, which the victim then accepts as their own. This power does not allow the user to investigate the victim’s true memories; it more resembles blindly painting over the old canvas. Cost: One rouse check	Manipulation + Dominate vs Intelligence + Resolve	The user rolls a contest of Manipulation + Dominate vs Intelligence + Resolve. Each point of margin allows the user to add or remove an additional memory. The victim recalls the edits vaguely, foggy ideations that can fall apart under close questioning. A critical win creates a flawless imprint, as real as any true memory.	Indefinite
Submerged Directive	When using Mesmerize, the vampire can now implant a posthypnotic suggestion, allowing the command to remain dormant until a specific stimulus occurs. This trigger can be anything from a specific date, to a person (“When you meet Roland, tell him these words”), to hearing a specific phrase. The Submerged Directive never expires; people can conceivably walk around with an order buried in their mind for years. The user can only embed one suggestion per victim. Cost: Same as Mezmerize ( One rouse check), no additional cost	N/A	As Mesmerize, though the Storyteller might want to make any rolls in secret. There’s no way of knowing if the submerged suggestion works until the conditions are met.	Passive, upgrade for mesmerize

Powers - Level 4:

Name & Requirements

Description & Cost

Dice Pools

System

Duration

Vampire the Masquerade: Core Rulebook

Rationalize

The vampire’s victims now believe that anything they do under the influence of Dominate was a result of their own free will, and defend their actions, however absurd. Long-term exposure to this power can lead to severe mental trauma in the victim.

Cost:
No additional cost

Wits + Awareness

(Victim)

If pressed on their belief, the victim can make a Wits + Awareness test (Difficulty 5). A win makes them question their own statement, and possibly their sanity.

Passive

Powers - Level 5:

Name & Requirements	Description & Cost	Dice Pools	System	Duration
Vampire the Masquerade: Core Rulebook
Mass manipulation	The vampire can now command entire gatherings of mortals, and in some cases even groups of vampires. The vampire can use this power both to issue instructions and to manipulate memories. Cost: One additonal rouse check added to the power amplified	N/A	The vampire can amplify any of their other powers to affect a group of people, mortal or vampire, at once. All of the victims need to see the eyes of the user. The user makes any needed roll against the strongest opponent in the group.	N/A
Terminal Decree	No longer hampered by the self preservation instincts of their victims, the vampire can now issue commands that directly lead to the harm or death of the victim. Mortals can be made to blow their brains out, jump from rooftops, or swallow poison. Vampires can, with a bit of effort, be made to walk into fire or sunlight. Cost: No additional cost, however the Humanity cost is potentially severe	N/A	Terminal commands now must be resisted (see individual powers regarding rolls involved), rather than failing automatically.	Passive