During character creation, Willpower is equal to your Courage rating (see the section labeled "Advantages," specifically the area of Virtues, to learn more about that).  You can increase this rating by spending Freebie Points, which is HIGHLY recommended.

Willpower from the Pool goes up and down a great deal during the story.  It decreases by one every time the player uses a Willpower point to do something extraordinary, such as to retain self-control or gain an automatic success.  Eventually, the character will have no Willpower left and will no longer be able to exert himself the way he once did.  The character is mentally exhausted and can't rouse himself enough to give a damn; he's expended all his Willpower.

Willpower Rating	Level of Willpower
	Weak
	Timid
	Unassertive
	Diffident
	Certain
	Confident
	Strong
	Controlled
	Iron-willed
	Unshakable

Using Willpower

Willpower is one of the most active Traits in Vampire: The Masquerade, simply because there are so many different ways to employ, regain and change it.  Willpower is such a focus of the game that you will be paying a lot of attention to it, so you had better understand the following rules.

• A Willpower point can be used to give you one automatic success in an action.  Only one point of Willpower can be used in this way on a single turn, but it gives you a single guaranteed success.  In this fashion it is possible to succeed automatically in any simple action, simply by concentrating.  For extended rolls, the extra success can make the critical decision between success and failure.  There are some situations in which the Storyteller may not allow such a use of Willpower.  Only vampires may use Willpower in this way.

• On some occasions, the Storyteller may tell you that your character does something because of instinct, primal urge or gut reaction.  You can use a point of Willpower to avoid this and do as you place.  However, the feeling might return and another Willpower point might be required.  Sometimes it will return more times than you have Willpower, while other times you may completely overcome the urge.

• When one of your Derangements (should you have one) is about to cause you to take a course of action you do not prefer, a Willpower point can be used to control yourself.  However, each time you attempt to overcome the Derangement, another Willpower point must be spent.  Eventually, if enough Willpower points are spent, the Derangement is overcome permanently (at least for the time being).  This is the only way Derangements can be overcome, though this is not effective on a Malkavian's initial Derangement.

Willpower can only be permanently increased by the expenditure of experience points, but the Willpower Pool can go through enormous changes during a story.

Recovering Willpower

A character recovers his Willpower Pool whenever he is able to rest or gets a chance to restore his self-confidence.  It is up to the Storyteller to decide when and how a character recovers Willpower.

Listed below are the three different ways in which a character can regain Willpower.  This does not have anything to do with the Willpower rating, which can only increase with experience, but instead the Willpower Pool.

• At the end of the story (not just the gaming session, but the entire storyline), characters retain all of their Willpower, up to the Willpower rating.

• You achieve some special success during the story that the Storyteller judges would cause the character to recover his self-confidence (and thus all or some of his Willpower).  This is totally optional.

• You fulfill some criterion of the character's chosen Archetype (specifically, the Nature of your character), thus regaining from one to three Willpower points, subject to Storyteller judgment.  This must be achieved through role-playing, and approved by the Storyteller.

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During character creation, your Humanity is equal to the sum of your Conscience + Self Control rating (see the section labeled "Advantages," specifically the area of Virtues, to learn more about that).  This rating can be increased by spending Freebie Points.

The most important Trait your character can have, if they are Camarilla, is Humanity, for as it drops, so does the character's connection to his human nature.  For Sabbat, this is sometimes considered a hindrance, sometimes just a vague annoyance.  A character with no rating in Humanity must either choose a path that will control their actions in this manner (as many Sabbat do), or will become a totally in human monster and is no longer under the control of the player.

There are many reasons a Camarilla character would want to keep their Humanity.  For instance, you cannot roll more dice in any Empathy roll than you have as a Humanity rating.  The less Humanity you have, the deeper you sleep, and the more difficult it is for you to wake up in an emergency.  You also tend to go into a frenzy more often in a stressful situation, as you find it difficult to control your primal instincts when you are in danger.  The actions you take when in frenzy could lead to lose even more Humanity.  Also, anyone with less than a seven in Humanity can be sensed by a Werewolf as having an evil taint on them (and, considering most Werewolves will kill a vampire on site, and even three Kindred on one Werewolf can easily result in all three Kindred meeting the final death, it is best to try to pretend not to be one and hope they go away).

This Trait can be seen as what separates a vampire from a human.  Vampires with high Humanity are the most human, while those with low Humanity are the least (a desirable thing to Sabbat).  Of course, it's not always so clean and cut as that.  Many humans have low Humanity, such as sadistic killers and child molesters.  So it is possible for a vampire to be more human than some humans, in that respect.

Humanity Rating	Level of Humanity
	Monstrous
	Horrific
	Bestial
	Cold
	Unfeeling
	Distant
	Removed
	Normal
	Caring
	Compassionate
	Humane

Effects of Humanity

• To a large extent, Humanity determines how human vampires appear and how easily they can pass for human in the general populace.  The less Humanity a character possesses, the more bestial he appears.

• Vampires tend to sleep very deeply, and, even if there is danger, can be difficult to wake up.  During the day, especially after being awakened, you cannot roll more dice on ANY roll for ANY reason than your character's rating in Humanity.

• Humanity directly affects Virtue rolls when you attempt to resist going into Frenzy.  You cannot roll more dice than your character's Humanity.  Therefore, as you sink into the abyss of bestiality, you can not long resist the call of the Beast.  As Humanity is lost, the character inches slowly closer to the day when he loses all self-control.

• The length of time spent in topor is also directly affected by the Humanity rating.  The lower the character's Humanity, the longer he remains in topor.

Regaining Humanity

Players can raise Humanity as well, but only after prolonged an consistent artistic or aesthetically-based behavior.  A player may spend experience points to raise Humanity only after his character has done a "good deed."  The Storyteller, as always, is the final adjudicator of when this occurs.

As the Storyteller, be very strict about how characters can regain Humanity.  Remember that over the course of the chronicle, the characters should slowly lose more and more Humanity.  Preserving the status quo should be difficult enough for a character, and actually gaining Humanity should be next to impossible.

You may wish to make Humanity gain a specific reward for a particularly vigorous story in which there was no real or practical reward offered or given.  Only the rescue of some unfortunate or the persistent search for some kernel of truth or goodness will be enough to gain new Humanity.  Even then the gain doesn't have to be certain; you could require a Virtue roll to gain the point.

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The chart below lists all of the Health Levels.

A vampire who is Incapacitated can take no action whatsoever.  He is immobilized and the only action he can perform is to heal himself using Blood Points or swallow blood that is offered to him.  A mortal who reaches this state is very close to death; if he loses one more Health Level, he dies.  If a vampire sustains an aggravated wound at the Incapacitated level, he dies the Final Death as well.