We play by the Mind's Eye Theatre rules for the Camarilla, with the house rules below. Where the book and this page disagree, this page wins. Where this page doesn't say, ask a storyteller. Where the storytellers disagree with each other, I win, and I buy everyone coffee to make up for it.

There are three of us running the game: me as head storyteller, and two assistant storytellers who handle new players, downtime and the Nosferatu, who generate more paperwork than every other clan combined.

† Camarilla clans only. New characters come from the seven clans of the Camarilla: Brujah, Gangrel, Malkavian, Nosferatu, Toreador, Tremere and Ventrue. Independents and Sabbat appear in Night Harbor as storyteller characters and occasional, very bad news. Not as player characters, at least not this year.

† Every character needs a sire and a reason to be in San Francisco. You can make your sire up with us, or we can give you one, which is usually worse for you and better for the story.

† A storyteller approves every new character before its first game. It takes about twenty minutes and it's where we find the hooks to tie you into the plot.

† One character at a time. If your character dies or leaves the city, you can bring in a new one the next game, and you keep half of your old character's unspent experience.

When characters come into conflict, it's settled by a challenge. Each player risks a Trait that fits what they're doing, a Physical Trait to throw a punch, a Social Trait to bluff, a Mental Trait to see through a lie. Then rock-paper-scissors on the count of three. The winner gets what they were after. The loser loses the Trait they risked for the rest of the night.

On a tie, whoever has more Traits of that kind wins. If that's even too, it's a tie, and nothing happens, which is sometimes the most dramatic outcome of all.

House rule: challenges happen quietly, off to the side. If you need a storyteller to referee, raise your hand with two fingers up and one of us will come over. Group fights get a storyteller every time, no exceptions.

You earn experience by showing up and by playing well. At Night Harbor, every game night is worth:

That's four at most in a night, and three is normal. Our house costs to spend it:

To learn a Discipline from outside your clan, you need a teacher who knows it, found and persuaded in character, and that Kindred will want something from you in return. That's not a bug. That's the plot.

You can spend up to six experience between any two games. We've seen characters go from fledgling to terror in a season, and it isn't fun for anyone, including them.

What your character does between games, investigating, feeding, building influence, following someone they shouldn't, goes in a downtime report. E-mail it to the storyteller address by the Wednesday after game. Keep it to three actions. You'll get an answer by the next game, sometimes in an envelope handed to you at the door, sometimes in the form of someone walking up to you in character, smiling.

† No character dies without a storyteller in the room. Final death is serious. It happens, and it happens with someone there to make sure it was fair.

† Romance fades to black. Characters can fall in love, seduce, betray and break each other's hearts. Anything past a kiss on the hand happens off stage, described in a sentence, if at all.

† Feeding is described, never acted. "I feed from the bartender" is all anyone needs to hear.

† No playing outside the hall. Game ends at the door. Nobody wants to explain to a neighbor or a police officer why you're telling someone their soul belongs to you in the parking lot.

† Leave real life at the door, both ways. Don't punish someone's character because you're angry at the player, and don't take it personally when a character is cruel to yours. The best villains in this game are some of the kindest people I know.