Question about feeding and the Hunger track.

[Tedronai]

Not entirely sure if you recover your powers with a successful defence roll, but I am sure somebody will be along to answer that any time now.

Just the stress track, I'm afraid.
Though whether the loss of powers is mandatory or just another option alongside consequences to 'soak' the stress is a matter of debate.

[YPU]

Just the stress track, I'm afraid.
Though whether the loss of powers is mandatory or just another option alongside consequences to 'soak' the stress is a matter of debate.

Yea I just noticed a post earlier in the topic actually mentioning it. My bad.

In any case your going to start loosing your powers once your out of stress and consequences your going to loose powers. (unless you want to be taken out...) So even a player who cant help but use his powers is going to start loosing them and make his defence roll easier. Still will need to recover those powers tough.

[Tedronai]

And the quickest way to do that is by killing.
Otherwise, you end up going the Toe-Moss route and spending large portions of your days, for weeks at a time, doing nothing of much importance other than 'safely' feeding (combined with whatever activity you dress that feeding up with/as).

[YPU]

And the quickest way to do that is by killing.
Otherwise, you end up going the Toe-Moss route and spending large portions of your days, for weeks at a time, doing nothing of much importance other than 'safely' feeding (combined with whatever activity you dress that feeding up with/as).

And there is once again that big temptation to do a lethal feeding, which these characters should struggle with.

On a side note, I think campaign model and time-skips in the story are of very big influence on this. The books often go for quite some time between stories and if this happens in game it would be reasonable to have the vampire recover all his powers. However if your campaign does not let up like that at all the character might never really get an opportunity to recover fully.  Really downtime of a month or so would be enough for me to let a player recover his powers if he had the time to rest during that period, but that's really more GM fiat then anything else.

[Tedronai]

GM to pPayer-of-WCV: "You know, it looks like this level of intensity is going to keep up for at least a few more days, and you're starting to get really hungry.  Would it be such a bad thing to just take a few bites out of that delicious piece of...I mean hot piece of...I mean person, over at the bar?  I'm sure they wouldn't mind.  They look like they could use a... pleasant experience, and you can always stop before you get carried away...right?"  *slides FP*

[Mr. Death]

Player of WCV to GM: "Actually, I'll buy that off, since I don't want to kill anyone. Here's a fate point. What are my other options?"
GM: "Oh, you'll have to sit out half a dozen scenes instead."
Player: "So, what you're saying is that I just spent a fate point to either play without powers or not play at all? That sounds incredibly unfair."

Or...

Player: "So I just spent the whole last scene of conflict feeding, filling up all my opponent's stress boxes and causing a moderate mental consequence of, 'Addicted To Love,' just through feeding attacks. How many stress do I recover on my Hunger track?"
GM: "None."
Player: "What?"
GM: "Well, it was on screen and you didn't kill him, so since the rules don't explicitly say exactly what the mechanism is for in-game feeding, you don't get anything out of it."
Player: "Well, that's incredibly unfair."

[Tedronai]

Player of WCV to GM: "Actually, I'll buy that off, since I don't want to kill anyone. Here's a fate point. What are my other options?"
GM: "Oh, you'll have to sit out half a dozen scenes instead."
Player: "So, what you're saying is that I just spent a fate point to either play without powers or not play at all? That sounds incredibly unfair."

GM: No, you were refunded a refresh to open yourself up to the hard choice of playing without (some of your) powers, killing, or sitting out scenes.  The compel you just refused was to limit your options even further.  If you don't like the way this character is working out for you, there should be a Milestone coming up pretty soon where we can try to address the problem.

Or...

Player: "So I just spent the whole last scene of conflict feeding, filling up all my opponent's stress boxes and causing a moderate mental consequence of, 'Addicted To Love,' just through feeding attacks. How many stress do I recover on my Hunger track?"
GM: "None."
Player: "What?"
GM: "Well, it was on screen and you didn't kill him, so since the rules don't explicitly say exactly what the mechanism is for in-game feeding, you don't get anything out of it."
Player: "Well, that's incredibly unfair."

GM: Well, during that scene you also suffered a number of attacks that were affected by your Recovery power, despite the additional speed granted to you by your Speed power, and restrained your victim with your Strength power.  All of that was quite strenuous.

Or
GM: You're right, you didn't actually exert your Hunger significantly during that scene, sp you should gain some benefit.  We'll take a look at the power later for a more permanent solution, but for now,I'll give you the benefit as though you had 'sat out' one scene for the purposes of recovering from your Feeding Dependency.  You won't get more than that  since you didn't actually indulge in a lethal feeding.

[Mr. Death]

GM: No, you were refunded a refresh to open yourself up to the hard choice of playing without (some of your) powers, killing, or sitting out scenes.  The compel you just refused was to limit your options even further.  If you don't like the way this character is working out for you, there should be a Milestone coming up pretty soon where we can try to address the problem.

I'm not talking about character creation. I'm talking about that situation in particular: the GM is offering a fate point to compel a character to do something he wouldn't want (killing an innocent)--and the only way out of it is to pay a fate point to do something the player doesn't want (not playing or playing without powers).

Saying that the only options are killing or sitting out scenes is reading the rules far too stringently, in my opinion. Nothing in the books or in the canon say that the only way to get substantial feeding is through killing--take Thomas and Justine pre-Blood Rites, for example. And forcing a player to only recover non-lethally by not playing for long stretches at a time just plain isn't fair to the player.

GM: You're right, you didn't actually exert your Hunger significantly during that scene, sp you should gain some benefit.  We'll take a look at the power later for a more permanent solution, but for now, I'll give you the benefit as though you had 'sat out' one scene for the purposes of recovering from your Feeding Dependency.  You won't get more than that  since you didn't actually indulge in a lethal feeding.

"So I caused over 8 shifts of effect, but only got one shift of benefit out of it? That still seems pretty darn unfair."

Once more: We see in the canon that creatures can feed, substantially, without killing. Red and White Court vampires do it all the time, and in fact seem to prefer it that way, and always seem to be at the top of their game. A Red Court Infected player would end up with little choice but to sit out long stretches if that's the case, which just plain isn't fun for that player.

[Mr. Death]

The problem with this is that stress is usually meaningless. Seriously, inflicting stress doesn't even require you to hurt the target at all.

And stress goes away very quickly, at no cost.

So your proposed revision would promote munchkin-ish shenanigans in which people inflict small amounts of stress on their allies in order to recover hunger stress.

That's when you break out the compels--and make them really roll for it. Hand out fate points to make it so that the feeder's feeding roll is a lot higher than normal (you're really, really hungry...), or the other is defending badly (you don't really realize how hungry she is and don't put up any resistance...), so there's the risk of the feedee taking consequences over it.

That said, having an ally feed someone is pretty much what happens in canon--see Thomas and Justine, or Harry spilling a little blood for Susan in Changes.

[Tedronai]

I'm not talking about character creation. I'm talking about that situation in particular: the GM is offering a fate point to compel a character to do something he wouldn't want (killing an innocent)--and the only way out of it is to pay a fate point to do something the player doesn't want (not playing or playing without powers).

Then the player should not have, at character creation, chosen to play a character that was likely to be limited to those choices.  Those are the Rules As Written, so barring Houserules, those are the rules the game is played by.

Saying that the only options are killing or sitting out scenes is reading the rules far too stringently, in my opinion. Nothing in the books or in the canon say that the only way to get substantial feeding is through killing--take Thomas and Justine pre-Blood Rites, for example. And forcing a player to only recover non-lethally by not playing for long stretches at a time just plain isn't fair to the player.

So I caused over 8 shifts of effect, but only got one shift of benefit out of it? That still seems pretty darn unfair."

Once more: We see in the canon that creatures can feed, substantially, without killing. Red and White Court vampires do it all the time, and in fact seem to prefer it that way, and always seem to be at the top of their game. A Red Court Infected player would end up with little choice but to sit out long stretches if that's the case, which just plain isn't fun for that player.

A solution to this would be called a Houserule.  And depending on its specifics, one I would wholeheartedly endorse.  The Feeding Dependency rules are not well written, and could definitely use some tweaking, both in terms of having elegant mechanics and in terms of shaping those mechanics to more closely resemble the novels.  But changing those rules?  Still a houserule.

[Mr. Death]

Then the player should not have, at character creation, chosen to play a character that was likely to be limited to those choices.  Those are the Rules As Written, so barring Houserules, those are the rules the game is played by.
A solution to this would be called a Houserule.  And depending on its specifics, one I would wholeheartedly endorse.  The Feeding Dependency rules are not well written, and could definitely use some tweaking, both in terms of having elegant mechanics and in terms of shaping those mechanics to more closely resemble the novels.  But changing those rules?  Still a houserule.

Then how do you reconcile the text of the feeding powers--where it describes the act of feeding as attacks--with the idea that that feeding is meaningless if it isn't fatal? A fatal feeding is described as a possibility in the text, meaning that it's not the default. If a character isn't gaining sustenance from it, then by definition it's not feeding.

I think that was the intention: That feeding would be an in-game action, with fatal feeding as a possibility and sitting things out as another option, akin to doing the same for thaumaturgy rituals.

Otherwise, it's akin to saying that a man dying of thirst won't get any relief by drinking several glasses from a 5-gallon jug, but instead has to drink the whole jug all at once.

[Tedronai]

Then how do you reconcile the text of the feeding powers--where it describes the act of feeding as attacks--with the idea that that feeding is meaningless if it isn't fatal? A fatal feeding is described as a possibility in the text, meaning that it's not the default. If a character isn't gaining sustenance from it, then by definition it's not feeding.

Easily: by noting the fact that the text in no place describes any mechanically-backed 'nourishing' effect of non-fatal feedings apart from their (barely) implicit inclusion in the 'sit out a scene' option.

I think that was the intention: That feeding would be an in-game action, with fatal feeding as a possibility and sitting things out as another option, akin to doing the same for thaumaturgy rituals.

Otherwise, it's akin to saying that a man dying of thirst won't get any relief by drinking several glasses from a 5-gallon jug, but instead has to drink the whole jug all at once.

If that was the intention, then the writers failed.  And as I implied above, I do think the writers failed.
I view the RAW on this matter to be problematic.  I support the adoption of a houserule or houserules to address these problems.
I have yet to see a specific houserule that I judge to fix these problems without also creating more, sometimes worse, problems in the process.

[Mr. Death]

So we can agree, at the very least, that there should be a way for characters with feeding dependency to sate whatever hunger they have, on screen, in a meaningful way?

Then let's figure something out instead of going back and forth on whether it's supported by the RAW.

My proposal, as mentioned about a page ago, is to treat feeding of either type as an attack, whereby the feeder recovers stress equal to the amount of stress caused, minus weapon and strength ratings (i.e., just the strength of one roll against the other). And it has to be a rolled attack, even against an ally.

If this is problematic, how, and what would you do differently?

[Tedronai]

To begin with, an attack that inflicts stress without having any other effect (some portion of stress being 'soaked' as consequences, a 'Special Effect' attack, etc) is not necessarily appropriately described, narrateively, as a 'successful' attack.  The punch likely did not actually land, the bullet highly likely did not hit, the mack truck probably didn't even get all that close.
In terms of feeding, that means it is probably not appropriately described as providing any nourishment.  That attempt at taking a psychic bite out of your target's life force came up with, at most, a chunk of metaphoric gristle.

I would recommend something along the lines of clearing a single stress box of a value equal to or less than 1/2 the value of any consequence inflicted, with multiple consequences clearing multiple stress boxes.

[Rougarou]

To begin with, an attack that inflicts stress without having any other effect (some portion of stress being 'soaked' as consequences, a 'Special Effect' attack, etc) is not necessarily appropriately described, narrateively, as a 'successful' attack.  The punch likely did not actually land, the bullet highly likely did not hit, the mack truck probably didn't even get all that close.
In terms of feeding, that means it is probably not appropriately described as providing any nourishment.  That attempt at taking a psychic bite out of your target's life force came up with, at most, a chunk of metaphoric gristle.

I would recommend something along the lines of clearing a single stress box of a value equal to or less than 1/2 the value of any consequence inflicted, with multiple consequences clearing multiple stress boxes.

This is very similar to what I had in mind. Here's a brief outline on what I was considering:

Feeding is accomplished by inflicting consequences on a target using an appropriate attack roll (i.e. Fists for a Red Court Vampire or Deceit for a White Court Vampire). The results of such a feeding are as follows.

Inflict a minor consequence - The character recovers from one point of Hunger stress.
Inflict a moderate consequence - The character recovers from one mild Hunger related consequence or two Hunger stress.
Inflict a severe consequence - The character recovers from up to a moderate Hunger related consequence or three Hunger stress.
Inflict an extreme consequence - The character recovers from up to a severe Hunger related consequence or four Hunger stress.

I'm going to have to re-read the rules as they relate to the loss of powers due to Hunger and see if I can come up with something for that as well... Also, I'm aware of the asymmetry between the number of shifts in consequences and the number of shifts in stress. That was done because in the absence of a special Toughness style power dealing with Hunger, the maximum length of the Hunger stress track is four.