| Rules of Prestation |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
| Prestation |
| Trivial Boon |
| Minor Boon |
| Major Boon |
| Blood Boon |
| 1 Status |
| 5 Status |
| 3 Status |
| 4 Status |
| 2 Status |
| Examples |
| ~ Protecting someone for the evening ~ Aiding someone with the use of discipline ~ Providing a minor peice of information ~ Expending a small amount of your resources for someone |
| ~ Allowing safe passage through a hostile city ~ Providing a piece of crucial information ~ Teaching someone a basic discipline ~ Supporting a minor political maneuver ~ Expending a large amount of your resources for someone |
| ~ Teaching someone an intermediate discipline ~ Supporting a major political maneuver |
| ~ Teaching someone an advanced discipline ~ Shedding your blood in someone's defence ~ Saving someone from physical harm |
| ~ Saving someone from mortal danger |
| Life Boon |
| You guarantee each point of a boon with a point of your status. If you do not honour a minor boon you lose two points of status. You are also expected to treat the person you owe the boon to as if they have two more points of status than they actually do. As a note: 2 trivial boons are equal to a minor boon, 2 minor boons are equal to a major boon, and so on. Negotiating Prestation Two kindred who agree upon a boon have the option of registering it with the Harpy. If they do so they run the risk that the Harpy will discuss this matter with others ( Although this is bad etiquette on the part of the Harpy) if they do not, however, there is no guarantee that the Harpy will enforce the boon. If you believe that someone owes you a boon for what you have done for him or her and they do not believe they do or you disagree on the degree of the boon owed, the dispute can be brought to the Harpy to resolve. Be warned though, that in doing this you make yourself subject the whims of the Harpy. For purposes of enforcement the Harpy's word is binding. A boon held in private is still expected to be honoured. Unlife becomes very difficult for a Kindred known to break prestation. Breaking Prestation If you are found to have broken Prestation to an individual on a boon that has been registered with the Harpy, the Harpy will likely strip you of the number of points of status that is indicated by the boon. If you do not have enough status that the Harpy can strip, often the Prince will remove you from your position and strip you of acknowledgement. Prestation is the foundation on which Kindred society functions and few Kindred will tolerate an individual who breaks Prestaition. It is not uncommon for a Prince to give the life of an individual who breaks a life boon to the individual that he owed. NOTE As you see Kindred will go out of their way to not owe and to be owed. Many things are done without the use of formal Prestation to avoid cumulative effect and to avoid the security of the Harpy. Playing Boons Properly by Halvaresh As a vampire, especially for older vampires, you're likely not to do anything at all for someone unless you're getting a boon out of it, or at least an on the spot favor in return. Not only are they not being used as much as they should be, and they're also being incredibly undervalued. We all think a trivil boon is of no real consequence (pass the salt, here's your trivial) but what may be a trivial matter to a vampire is different than what is trivial to you and me as mortals, so I've never really seen very much use of minor and trivial boons; everyone just goes straight for a major because they see it as the first one that's actually worth anything. Trivial boons are actually a lot bigger than I had thought, and they just get bigger as they go up. Here's a breakdown below, and in line with WW's rules about using copyrighted text on the internet, it was taken from page 221 of the Laws of the Night LARP Guide. Trivial Boons are one time favors, such as protecting someone for the evening, aiding someone with a Discipline or supporting another's political move. ---Summoning someone or reading an Aura for someone else who can't do it themselves. A primogen putting thier support behind a new harpy they otherwise wouldn't be voting for, or helping someone else's ghoul attain a political position. Protecting someone to keep the riff raff away for a few hours during or after an Elysium (though should the situation become life threatening you can quickly turn the repayment of a trivial boon into the recieving of one, depending on the circumstances and how you responded to events). Minor Boons can last more than one evening, and they usually entail some sort of inconvenience, such as allowing safe passage through a hostile city, revealing crucial information or disposing of a threat. ---Minor boons seem to be open to the most interpretation, but it does specify a debt that can take many days to pay off, or something really big information wise. Borrowing someone's influences for a few days might fall in around here. Major Boons usually entail a great expenditure of time or resources on the bestower's part. The effects of the favor usually last for many game sessions. An example of such a boon would be teaching the reveiver a new Discipline, or purchasing a nightclub to serve as the receiver's haven. ---This probably means any discipline that isn't a closely guarded secret of the clan. Any of the Caitiff eight (Potence, Celerity, Fortitude, Animalism, Presence, Obfuscate, Dominate and Auspex) can be taught to anyone else with no political repurcussions. All it is, is a major investment of time; one week per XP being spent to learn it if I remember correctly (so an intermediate out of clan for 7 XP, would take approximately seven weeks to learn). Other such uses for a major boon, are those that would entail a large permanant expenditure of resources, influences, or other backgrounds. That means giving away ghouled retainers, putting yourself in financial hardship in order to come up with the money for someone else's endeavors, permanantly burning or otherwise losing influence to accomplish something really big for someone, etc. Blood Boons occur when the bestower places herself in a potentially life threatening situation in order to help the receiver. Thus the name Blood Boon: The bestower is willing to shed her blood for the receiver. ---Pretty self explanitory for the most part. If you're asked to get into a situation that could get you a royal beating by something big and nasty, perhaps having the potential to end your life, then you're totally in your rights to demand a blood boon for doing it. Here is probably where learning a specialty clan discipline such as Protean or Thaumaturgy would fall. The person teaching you could end up in some serious shit with thier clan, suffering all kinds of punishments and repurcussion if the clan finds out. Life Boons involve the bestower actively risking her immortal life for the receiver so that the receiver may live. ---You've just narrowly escaped final death in order to save the unlife of another kindred. You were a health level away from being torped in the middle of a Sabbat stronghold, as you valiantly dove in and carried the unconscious elder Toreador to safety. Now you get a life boon. I've seen situations where people here try to demand two life boons (one for risking thier life and one for saving the other kindreds while doing it) but it's all part and parcil of a life boon, and in situations like the one above you could only demand one. If you're saving someone else's life but not really risking your own, it would probably fall under a blood boon. Boon Traits Now there are actually some other rules that go along with boons that I have never seen played in any game. First is boon traits. When you give someone a boon, both you and the other kindred agree how many status traits are associated with that particular boon. From the description on page 220, it looks like a general rule of thumb is one trait per level of the boon (trivials are one, majors are three, etc.). When I give someone a boon, I also hand over a temporary amount of my status as well, that the kindred can use just like any other temporary status. The only difference is that you can't ask for it back until the boon is paid. You don't have to assign boon traits to boons, but it's an option if you really want to. Could lead to some interesting situations, where people with lots of boons, may posess a lot of status as well (though like temp status they disappear when they bid it). This seems to me to be a purely Camarilla thing, though I'm not quite sure. Reneging on your Debts This is big, and not an action to be taken lightly. Even before the existence of a Harpy, reneging on one's debts would land you in serious trouble. First off, you risk incurring the wrath of the kindred you owe the boon to, and quite possibly his allies as well. You could instantly earn some enemies and a little bit of retaliation, though all that should be left to roleplaying and just how offended the kindred is who went through all that trouble for you. The next consideration is that you can get snubbed by the rest of kindred society. Ignoring some of the smaller boons might not get the attention of anyone but the Harpy, however if you ignore something big other kindred may refuse to deal with you in future. They won't do you favors because they know your boons are worthless to them. If they do deal with you, they may from that point onward require you to render your services in advance of them giving you what you want. Depending on the nature of the political situation at the time, the level of the boon you reneged upon, and how public it was made, I would rule you may even pick up a negative trait of untrustworthy, though only in the most extreem of cases or for repeat offenders. Lastly is the bitchslapping from the Harpy. In a Camarilla city, the Harpy is the final arbitor of boon disputes, and again depending on the situation, the offending kindred can lose status, own more boons or perhaps even have thier boon upgraded to a higher boon. It also says very specifically "Regardless of the standing of the bestower, if the receiver ignores a major, blood or life boon, the receiver always loses Status -- nobody likes a vampire who brushes off someone who just went through serious hardship on his behalf." So one status, joe average neonate with a major boon over an eight status prince can easily get the prince stripped of a point of status if the prince refuses to pay the boon. Prestation debts take precidence over actual city or Camarilla standing in these cases. Basically, even the powerful must bow to the conventions of the Camarilla. Trading Boons Nowhere in the book does it say (that I am aware of) that you may give away a boon that you have earned from a third party, but as a general rule most games allow this. A boon is a boon, no matter who it's from. If I posess a major boon from the Brujah primogen, and I want a Ventrue to teach me Fortitude, then the option exists to give the Ventrue either a major boon from myself or the major boon I own from the Brujah, provided both parties agree that is. Now based on who the parties are that are involved, this Ventrue may rather have a boon over an ancillae Brujah who is primogen, than a neonate Toreador with no status. The value of the boon itself is theoretically the same no matter who it's from, but it's a certainty that some kindred are just more powerful and influential than others and are more likely to be able to aquire what you want in less time. Also to be taken into consideration is the nature of some of your possible future requests. If you think in the near future you might want to learn some Potence, then taking the boon from the Brujah is probably a good idea. If on the other hand, you know that sometime down the road you'd like dancing lessons, it's probably best to have a boon from a Toreador. If the free transfer of boons in this fashion is allowed (and I see no reason why it shouldn't be since it does nothing but create roleplaying opportunities) there is the added worry of whose hands your boon might end up in. You may give a major boon to that Ventrue to learn fortitude, thinking he won't ask much in return because he's such a nice guy, but later he trades it to some enterprising young Tremere known for her desire to experiment on both living and unliving subjects. Or, it could work the other way. You give a boon to Mr. Big Evil because you have no other way out of a desperate situation, spend months worrying about what kind of payback he's going to want, then you discover your boon has been traded to that lovely Toreador who's always been admiring your taste in clothes. Either way, opportunities for roleplay abound. Upgrading Boons Some games play that if you have two (or in some cases three) minor boons over someone, that boon gets upgraded to a major boon. Personally, I don't like this, and I can't see a precident for it in the books anywhere, so I'd be inclined to say no to this. Getting a life boon or even a blood boon out of a kindred is no easy task. You have to actively do something worthy of earning that particular level of boon. I can't just teach someone four levels of a discipline, then all of a sudden I own thier life (4 majors become 2 blood become 1 life). I don't think there is any standard scale of exchange for boons. Now if I owed someone a ton of trivials, and offered to exchange all those trivials for a couple of minors or a major, then that's acceptable, but there is no instant upgrade to a boon. Same applies for paying off a boon. If someone posesses a major boon from you and they want you to do something worth a trivial boon, they can either offer you a trivial boon of thier own or cash in the major from you. Demanding Your Due There are two ways of aquiring boons. The usual way is to bargain for them, whereby I offer or request a service in exchange for an appropiate level of a boon. I get something, you get something, everybody wins. This requires the explicit agreement of both parties, the conditions of which are set at the transaction of the boon. The other way is through Camarilla justice, usually as a result of a social bitchslapping by the Harpy. For example, a one status neonate calls the prince "Uglier than the average Nos, and dumber than the average Brujah" in the middle of a crowded elysium. Well that was stupid. Up strides the Harpy, and for gross disrespect of a much higher status individual in his own domain, said neonate now owns the prince a minor boon. Then later on the Nos and Brujah hear of this, and they may want a boon too. Harpy decided that the neonate owns each of the two Primogen a trivial (more to shut them up than because it's really warranted) and now the neonate owes more boons. He has just been hit with the Etiquette Stick. Other city officers may get involved in certain situations that require investigation of suspicous events and mediation of justice, which can include boons. Most notibly the Sheriff, and to a lesser extent the Keeper or Elysium. If a kindred violates any of the six traditions or elysium, he is to be brought before the prince by either the Sheriff of Keeper respectively (or both if the offending kindred is particularly reluctant). The Sheriff brings forth someone who created progeny without permission to the prince, lays out the evidence and waits for the prince to make his judgement. Now the prince can administer any form of punishment from loss of property, to blood bonding, to torture to even final death, and yes, the owing of boons as well. In the above situation, the prince may order the childe destroyed, and the sire to be bloodbonded to the Sheriff or Primogen council, and to owe the prince a blood boon. In different situations the prince may decree that the kindred owes a boon to another kindred, but he usually get's it himself. One of the perks of being prince. (By the way, there's a full list of happy fun punishments on page 105 of the Camarilla Guide). As far as I'm aware, those are the only two situations where you can get a boon. Either through mutual trade or through someone else's punishment. One thing that you most certainly can't do is demand a boon after a service has been rendered for free, at least not if you want any form of Camarilla backing on it. Let's say something nasty happens, like a cabal of mages pops out of nowhere and starts getting all medievil on the cities collective kindred ass, and you just happen to be in the right place at the right time to save the life of the Senechel, so you do. Once you've rushed her to safety, you have no call to ask for a blood or life boon. What you've done is a spontanious act of goodwill towards your fellow kindred, and you have zero Camarilla precident for going to the Harpy and demanding a boon for it. The Harpy will just laugh and say "You should have worked out the details of an arrangement before you saved her life." Now you're not likely to stand there in the middle of a lightening storm (or whatever else mages can do) and negotiate terms, so sometimes it must be done on the fly, with the hope that you are not risking your life for nothing. As with reneging on a boon, there is a certain social stigma to not offering one when it is warrented. If you save the life of the Senechel, she is well within her rights to just stand up, dust herself off and walk away without so much as a thank you, however other kindred will look at that funny and it will affect her dealings with them. That would be another roleplaying opportunity, when word spreads around elysium about what an ungrateful bitch she is. Again it's a politics game. Even though you're not required to do anything in return for a spontanious favor, it's usually in your best interest to do so if you want to maintain the trust and respect of others. Misplaced Boons So you forgot to register your boon with the Harpy, and now the other party is claiming that they never owed you a boon, that you're just making it up. Well, they're right. If it's not registered, it doesn't exist, at least as far as the Camarilla is concerned. Now if you have more status than the other kindred, then it might warrant an investigation, where the Harpy will talk to witnesses or perhaps even Aura Percieve you both (with your consent) to determine the truth. But probably not, because that's a lot of hassle and city officers have better things to deal with. If you don't have more status you're definately hooped. Boons have existed between kindred long before the formation of the Camarilla and before there was a Harpy, but until the Cam. came along there was nobody to enforce it. It was all done on the honor system, which oddly enough worked, back when kindred were embraced from a nation of people that were honorable. Nowadays, people aren't quite so noble as to keep thier word all the time, so if it's not registered by both parties, it doesn't exist. Both parties are necessary to be present otherwise kindred would just be able to walk up to the Harpy and claim boons left, right and center. The Harpy may make note of it if one kindred registers a boon himself, but will surely check with the other party before making it official. Boons as Final Death Insurance If you owe a boon, you are suddenly valuable. The bigger the boon, the more valuable you are to the person who owns it. Therefor they have a direct interest in protecting your welfare, because they put some time and effort into you and don't want to lose that if you're killed off. So they may be keeping an eye out for you which can help keep you alive. It can be annoying and intrusive as well, but that's part of owing a boon. Owing a boon keeps you alive in another way, since less people are willing to risk killing you off and enraging the person you owe a boon to. That someone will be especially pissed at you if you've just killed off a really big boon like a blood or life boon. They may want to retaliate, which is never a good thing. Now some games have this funny "pass the buck" system where if a kindred is murdered, the murderer automatically inherits all thier debts. That's not entirely true. If a kindred is caught murdering another kindred, the prince may state that taking on his old debts is one of the punishments to atone for it (likely in addition to many other things if he isn't going to outright kill the offender), but it is not an automatic thing. Thusly the reason people you owe boons to are so protective of you, because if you die, thier boon is gone. That's what keeps you alive. If it were passed to the kindred that killed you then your debtor would be far less interested in your welfare, and would probably just be hoping for you to get killed off by someone powerful and important so they can get a boon from someone more useful. Despite the complexity of boons, they can be a lot of fun and lead to great roleplaying opportunities if they're well used in game. Halvaresh |
 |