The Vampire mechanics are beautifully simple but I think at times
they are over simple. In particular I'm talking about the dexterity
attribute which combines manual dexterity with physical agility.
Not everyone is equally dextrous and agile.

As an example here's part of a player's conceptual description of his
character:

"Morris Rubenstein is an accomplished cellist with the Chicago
Philharmonic.  ... Physically, Morris is pale, paunchy and balding.
His fingers are long and slender...  He is highly intelligent and
manually dextrous, but not at all graceful physically."

Its easy to form a mental image of Morris yet the mechanics do not
adequately support that image ---> assigning one value to describe
lack of physical grace but also high manual dexterity.

As a compromise between Vampire's simplicity and the desire to
describe agility and manual dexterity I split the attribute dexterity
(which I'll refer to as dex from now on). Obviously, if its not
necessary for character conception to differentiate between agility 
and manual dexterity then no changes need be made.

So, manual dexterity describes ability with the hands and arms such
as for shooting or repairing items; while agility describes bodily
co-ordination, especially the feet and would be used for dancing,
dodging, running etc. Its usually fairly obvious when a dex
roll is called for whether manual dexterity or agility is being
tested and hence which to use.

There's a couple of ways to "split" the dex trait depending upon
how worried about mechanics, simplicity, and costings you are. I'll
suggest a couple that have occurred to me.

Specialisation
==============
Just take the concept of specialisation [rules] and expand it to work for
any value of the dex. That is, have descriptions on the attribute dex
that reflect skill/lack of skill in either manual dexterity or
agility. 

For example a dex 3 (twinkle toes) could be considered a three
manual dexterity with a four for agility. A dex 4 (all-thumbs) is
in effect the same character; i.e. dice pool of three only for
manual dexterity.

This system has the advantage of being extremely simple but still
allowing a division between manual dexterity and agility. I think its
suited to a strongly story telling style. It has the disadvantage
of certain point-fiddles [min-maxers] and by default only allows
a difference of 1 between the two attributes. Of course the Pendragon
idea of directed traits [e.g. dex 2 (twinkle toes +2)] or adjustments
to both stats [e.g. dex 3 (twinkle toes & all thumbs)] are possible.

Averaging
=========
The average of a character's manual dexterity and agility must equal
or be less than the dex stat. Thus a dex 3 character might be:
(ag 3, man dex 3), (ag 4, man dex 2), (ag 1, man dex 5) etc. Players
purchase dex as normal from which ag and man dex are derived. Of course
this requires some extra book-keeping but that could be written in
the specialisation space next to the attribute.

When a character's dex changes (e.g. experience) then the player must
determine the new agility and manual dexterity values. This system
has the advantage of versatility but is open to abuses [ dex 3 --->
ag 0, man dex 6] and likely needs Storyteller supervision (but I
think that should always be assumed). The cost to buy dex should
probably be a function of the highest of manual dexterity or agility
to stop getting high stats cheaply.

Separate
========
Agility and manual dexterity are separate stats and are purchased
independently (at half attribute cost for that level?, maybe a bit more)
and the dex attribute if needed is found as the mean (round down) of the
two attributes. Characters start with a 1 for both attributes.

As for the averaging system very versatile but watch out for abuses
and the system may be un-necessarily complicated for your style of
play.

----

Anyway, I'd welcome comments and suggestions.



							Spike