Character Starter Kit for Camarilla Vampire: the Requiem Games
http://camarilla.white-wolf.com/MST/requiem/
Purpose:
This kit is meant to give players and Storytellers a few guidelines for how character creation in the Requiem chronicle could progress. At the end of the day, all you really need are a few dots on a character sheet; but what sort of character is that? Where’s the richness, the details, the depth that actually makes it a real persona? Although none of this is mandatory, it can help you flesh out your character, and it gives a couple of pointers that show how some things can be done. Authored by Alex T., 2004.
Contents
1. The Pitch
2. The Concept
3. The Outline/Timeline
4. The Spark of Life
5. City, Coterie, Covenant, and Clan
6. Why?
7. Appendix I: Keeping Track of Things
1. The Pitch
The easiest way to think about a
character – whether it’s a PC or an NPC – is by using a single sentence that
includes all of the key elements of the character’s personality, described in
universal terms. The most common application of this method is a ‘pitch’, the
way screenwriters sell their ideas to film producers and executives. If it’s
good enough for $200mil+ Hollywood movies, it’s good enough for a character
description (and
A typical
For a protagonist in a (sci-fi or fantasy) movie, the pitch could be …
Sure, some of those are very silly and not exactly shining examples of depth and thoughtfulness.
Nonetheless, the first thing you can think about when creating a character is how you can reduce her existence down to a simple layer of description – a single sentence that sums up her existence. If she were to become the protagonist in a film, how would you describe her to the studio executive?
Let’s look at a few examples from the old World of Darkness:
Give it a try. If you don’t have a character concept already, think of the character elements that you’d like to see in your PC. If you do have a concept, think of how you can put it into a pitch. After all, you may be all about connecting into other backgrounds, finding common grounds for having been allies (or enemies), or even figuring out why you’d have ever met.
You could swap lengthy backgrounds. You could painstakingly weave timelines together. Or you could just tell people what your pitch is. If it’s funny, they’ll laugh. And if it sounds interesting, they’ll say “cool, let’s do something with our two PCs.”
2. The Concept
So you’ve got the pitch. What now?
This is where it gets tricky. It’s all-too-easy to go down endless numbered lists of ‘What does my PC think about <insert enemy group of choice here>’ and ‘What is my PC’s favourite type of dragonsbreath round to fit into his semi-automatic shotgun?’
And of course it’s dreadfully easy to fall into well-worn clichés. Are you the last survivor of a fallen tribe? Were your parents savagely murdered by <supernatural race X>? Did your realization that you were supernatural somehow result in your grandparents dying in a fiery inferno? Are you a twin silver-edged Katana-wielding, leather sunglasses-and-trench coat-wearing, double Desert Eagle-packing, witty one-liner spouting badass?
A good concept can include a rough background that describes where you’re from, what you’ve been through, and what’s shaped your life. That can be as little as half a page. It can be as much as 100 pages. It can just be a single photograph of a moss-covered gravestone in a New Orleans graveyard, with you leaning against it in your character’s outfit. It could be anything. But what the concept does is to provide your ST (and yourself) with an idea of what the character is all about. Attitudes help – and first-person narratives describing your likes and dislikes are always a good way of getting to know your own character. Sure, it’s been done. But then, there’s little that hasn’t been done. Originality isn’t everything. Quality counts for a lot. And if it works for you to describe your character well, who cares if it could be right out of the pages of a romance novel?
Perhaps the simplest concept could be written like this:
And that’s pretty much it. Will it make a fully-defined character? Maybe. For some, it’s perfectly sufficient. You can stop here, and never go any further. You can let the game shape your character, or you can try to shape the game with your character – or both. You can just be part of the great flow, or you can try to steer the game somewhere.
But ultimately, do you really know how your character is different from yourself? What are the things that truly distinguish her (or him) from you – how is the persona different from the person? Although we’ll come back to that later, that’s an important thing to consider when writing your concept: how is the character’s concept interesting? Not just to others – after all, you don’t want to spend hours telling other people about your PC, but how is it interesting to you? Why would you want to invest time and effort into portraying this persona? What attracts you to that character? Where do you want to go with it, and why? What are you trying to do?
3. The Outline/Timeline
By now you hopefully know what the basic design of your character is like.
You’ve got a good grasp on the persona, you know how the character differs from
you. And you may even know exactly why that is, and why that attracts you, and
where you’re trying to go with all of it.
Good.
And now, for the optional bit – the one where you think long and hard about where your character has been, what he did there, and how it impacted his life. This could be enormously dull (“James spent 30 years in Manchester as a carpenter. He made chairs. From this period he learned to take great pride in his work, which became a major ethical cornerstone of his time in the Invictus”) or enormously exciting (“Ranulf nobly fought in the crusades, slaying many infidels, and learned that the non-Christian menace had to be destroyed. When he was embraced as he lay dying near Jerusalem, he vowed to cleanse the earth of their filthy taint”).
Why is a timeline important? First of all, it allows you to determine where your character’s been, which helps a lot in tying together character backgrounds, deciding where prospective offspring could be from, finding out if there are things you’d have in common with other characters, etc. It also helps you decide how your character would have acted during some major historical crises: how would a vampire act if the black plague was killing his food by the thousands, and he was faced with torpor – or worse, simply because he can’t find food? How would a member of the Invictus deal with revolutionary movements that seek to overthrow the established aristocratic order in favour of a dangerous, half-baked system? What would a Carthian think of the rise of fascism in Europe in the 20th century, and how would it shape her actions now?
Obviously, the more detailed a timeline, the more you know (or find out) about your character – which also helps your ST a lot to work your PC into storylines, or find things for you to do. Instead of a concept (in 2), you can also meld your character design into a timeline, merely providing major points in a character’s life (or unlife) that were particularly important. You need to be careful, since it’s very easy to turn a timeline into a very dull ‘road movie’ of sorts:
1987 And then I got to Colorado, and stayed for a couple of years.
Fought the werewolves.
1990 Decided to get out of town when they raised taxes, and moved to Britain. Didn’t like the Thatcher government, so my Carthian buddies and I decided to bust some heads.
1992 Ran into rabid Millwall supporters, probably Gangrel of some sort. Ran away, and hid, but my coterie got killed.
1996 Went to Italy and stayed there until that volcano erupted. Moved to the Domain I’m currently in, and am trying to become prince so I can stick it to the Ventrue.
4. The Spark of Life
So you’re nearly done, right? You know where your character’s been, what he’s been up to, whom he hates, and what he’s trying to do.
Well, there’s just one more little thing. OK… about twenty little things. The bugger’s complete, but he isn’t alive. Frankenstein’s monster without lightning is just a corpse, if you’ll excuse the awful analogy. What we’re going to do is to try to capture lightning in a bottle. Make your character breathe. Make you feel like you really, really know what it’s like to be that character.
There are two ways of doing this. One is method acting – it’s to fully and completely become that character, shut everything out, and be utterly unable to see the world in terms other than I Am My Character. This is obviously pretty difficult to do, even for trained world-class actors. Some actors have spent weeks or even months living fully in-character as the persona – the character – that they were going to portray in a movie. Some actors have put on lots of weight, or moved into the right neighbourhoods, or taken up part-time jobs to mimic the lifestyle they need to portray on-screen (or on-stage). Obviously, much of this doesn’t work because we often portray supernatural beings. And if world-class actors need lots of time and preparation to truly become their characters, how much time do we have? We live our everyday lives, and then we go to a game. Is getting in-character a matter of minutes? Hours? Maybe longer?
We don’t have that much time. Often our characters are pretty damn unpleasant, as well. The way to improvise is by attempting to shape our mindsets as closely to those of our characters’ minds as possible. We want to know what our characters think and believe of as many things as possible – even trivial stuff.
If you’re a storyteller, this may be the best place for you to tell your players that a couple of the questions below are what you’d like to see them answer. The more unusual or rare a request or approval is, the more you can require your players to tell you what their characters are all about – and to demonstrate that they’ve really thought about what it means to portray that persona?
Let me put it this way: if there is something special and unique in the game – in whose hands would you like it to be? In the hands of someone who’s only given cursory thoughts to his character, and who thus won’t really have a clear idea of how that character and that rare thing fit together? (And who may very well end up using it in ways that make no sense?) Or would you prefer to see it in the hands of someone who’s given a lot of thought to the character, who knows what makes her tick, and who can truly tell you what her purpose is, what she’ll do with that special thing, and how she’d use (or not use) it?
Making people think about characters, even NPCs, storylines, or perhaps the most basic actions they take … is not a bad thing. The game world becomes richer, deeper. Things start to make sense.
Here are some questions that may help you provide that spark of life for Frankenstein’s creature – sorry, your character. It’s entirely up to you how you can breathe life into your own creation, of course. The given approval levels are merely suggestions and entirely up to those STs to enact who have to approve things; they’re not mandatory, but you can choose to make them mandatory at your level, if you wish (formatted for easy copy/paste into emails, etc).
All character types and item approvals that require Mid
approvals (or higher) of any sort ought to have at least
a minimal background, fulfilling the criteria below. If
High (or higher) approvals are required, the extended
background details are appropriate in addition to answers
to the approvals questions below them. This is not required,
but you can choose to make it compulsory at your approval
level if you’re a Storyteller. Questions related to ‘items’
only apply to approvals.
Background Details:
Minimal Background (a fully-formed answer per question is OK)
- When and where were you born? What did your parents do, and
how did that influence you when you were young?
- What was the main theme of your childhood and adolescence?
- When and how did you become a supernatural?
- Why you? What made you special, or what were the circumstances
of your supernatural metamorphosis?
- How much time has passed between your change and the present?
- Broadly speaking, what did you spend most of that time doing?
- What was your last thought before you became a supernatural,
and what was your first thought afterwards?
- Did your core personality change as a result of your change,
or did you remain essentially the same person?
- What drives you to go out and spend time with others of your
kind?
- When you go to a meeting of supernaturals, what do you want
to accomplish there?
- How do you go about getting what you want: what methods do
you choose, and why?
Extended Background (two or three sentences per question min.)
- How does your character differ from yourself? In more detail,
what are your favourite movies/books/music, and how are they
different from your character's preferences?
- Have you actually seen/experienced those things that your
character prefers? If so, which ones?
- Why does your character like different things from you? How
have your character's experiences shaped those preferences?
- If your character's been a supernatural for several decades
or centuries, how has the changing mortal world in those
time periods affected you? How much of the mortal world's
changes have you experienced? Which ones did you like, and
which ones did you dislike? What did you do in times of great
crisis, e.g. the World Wars, or the various Revolutionary
periods?
- Do you have a detailed timeline of your character's location
and basic activities? If your character's been a supernatural
for 100 years or less, have a timeline entry for every 5
years. If your character's been a supernatural for centuries,
have a timeline entry for at least every 20 years. If your
character's been around for an eon or more, have timeline
entries at least every 25-50 years, but make them more
frequent or detailed during eventful periods.
Approvals Questions (fully-formed sentences required, with at
least one sentence for each questions
within each point)
1. What does your character hope to accomplish in the near
future? Why these particular goals? Specifically, what will
this item do to enhance your character's progress towards
those goals?
2. What are your character's long-term goals? What will this item
do to enhance your character's progress towards those goals?
Why does your character want this item?
3. What is the real reason for the character's residence in their
current Domain? Will this item impact that?
How is your character gaining the item and bringing it into
play in your home Domain?
4. What gives your character reason to continue existing?
How will this item affect those reasons to exist?
5. What are your character's greatest joys and fears?
How does this item play into them?
6. Which emotions are the greatest drives for your character?
How will this item affect those - will it produce joy, sadness,
fear, pride, etc.?
7. How does your character view the mortal world and its events?
How will this item affect the mortals around your character?
8. What major events shaped your character's past that apply to
this approval if it's an item (not a character type)? What link,
if any, does this item have with those critical times?
9. What are your character's relations with his/her Clan/Tribe/
Tradition? How will this item affect those relationships? How
would your character LIKE for this item to affect them?
10. How will this approval make the game more enjoyable for
others? How will you avoid playing an antagonistic character,
and instead enrich the game by drawing others into the venue
using this approval?
11. What will this character, or addition of this item to this
character, add to sanctioned play? How will it add something
constructive to the venue?
12. Why do you want to play this character with this item in
particular? Will other local players be content and feel
safe if they know that you have this character type or
item? What will you do to ensure that others don't feel
that you're using this irresponsibly to the detriment of
others' enjoyment?
13. How will you be like a Storyteller in the play of your
character, and in the incorporation of this item into the
play of your character? How will this item work to enhance
the flow and fun of the game?
05 City, Coterie, Covenant, and Clan
If you’re wondering … yes, there’s the minor issue of not only who you are, but also where you belong.
For a while, there seemed no reason to put a section about those things in here: after all, you’d know much better what you want to play, how to fit in, and what group to belong to. But ultimately, it can’t do any harm to make a few suggestions, to show how you can approach the issue of socio-political (and racial or ethnic, since there’s no other word for it) membership.
The four big C-words will come up a lot. First of all, inevitably, you live in a Domain that’s usually classified as a city. The word ‘city’ conjures up images of skyscrapers and smog, but the reality often looks very different. A fairly small place can qualify as a city these days. Or several smaller towns connected together can form what we’d deem a city. Either way, it’s quite likely that your character will live in – or near – one. If you don’t, then you can safely ignore this. Secondly, there’s your coterie. Inevitably, you’ll need allies. The strong silent hero who succeeds over impossible odds is a movie creation for a reason: those who go it alone usually die alone, as well. Even if you don’t have a close-knit group of friends (and most vampires, for instance, don’t), you still have allies, associates, dare I say it – minions and pawns. Not all of them form a coterie, but they can be part of what you consider your own personal circle of power. Thirdly, there’s your covenant. Some of you may not be in a covenant, and that’s fine. But most of you ought to be in a covenant, for the simple reason that covenants equal power. You will find like-minded Kindred in a covenant, and you’ll know that you have backup (unless you screw up really badly). Not being in a covenant means that the ones with friends and power will treat you poorly, and maybe even kick you out of a city – or force you to join their group, to become a pawn. Nobody will have your back. It’s as simple as that. Fourthly, there is your Clan.
At this point, some of you will scream in absolute agony. They put Clan LAST?!
Yeah. Because at the end of the day (or night), Clan doesn’t really matter. The Ventrue don’t instinctively huddle together to reassign power in the city. The Daeva don’t suddenly burst into song and redecorate the gathering place in lovely shades of Prussian blue and crimson red. The Gangrel don’t all stand in a corner looking standoffish, mouthing something about how nice the woods are this time of year. The Nosferatu… well, the Nosferatu are all hideous, but that doesn’t mean they’re all good friends.
Clans aren’t fraternities. More often than not, they probably can’t stand each other. Just like in real life, strong personalities that are very similar often just can’t be next to each other for an extended period of time. Sure, Clan defines what your blood can do, and how you act in certain circumstances – you can’t help it. But there really isn’t that much more to it – individual power, desires, goals, and the aid from your covenant and your coterie (and your role in both of them) usually far outstrips what your Clan means to you. Or, to be more direct: by and large you know what makes your Lancean ally tick, and that your goals are generally similar, even if the details can very drastically. With your Clanmate, nobody knows.
Is there a single reason I ought to like you more just because you’re also a Gangrel? Hell no. That doesn’t make you any more likely to help me, or not to screw me over, or not to have some sort of weird idea about God and spears and ley lines and magic that may end with me over an altar, being sacrificed. I have no reason whatsoever to trust you or even to like you, just because you’re my Clanmate. Just imagine the same being true in Real Life: do you like other people just because they’ve got the same skin colour as you? Does that make them somehow inherently trustworthy or decent?
Finding your character’s role in the Requiem
Even before you’ve put the finishing touches on your character sheet, you ought to be looking at ways how your PC will be successful. By and large, allies are the key to power and influence in the Requiem. Now several people will be reading this, going “I don’t want power and influence” which is great up to the point when people start picking on you, and you’ve got no buddies to back you up.
Allies are a way of keeping your character alive. That’s really all there is to it. If you use your allies well, it’s a means of keeping your character secure. For supernatural creatures that fear the mortal world, other supernaturals, the sun, fire, and Lord knows what else, vampires are remarkably social beings. But being around others of their type leads to conflict – and plenty of it; without lots of backup, you’re toast. This doesn’t mean that there’ll be fights between vampires every night, far from it. But unless you’ve got allies that have an interest in seeing you kept alive, there’s no reason why someone bigger than you can’t simply make you disappear when you’ve annoyed him in some way. The more relevant you are to others, the less likely it is that you’ll be disappeared. And once you’ve gathered enough allies, you can put them to work for you – and there’ll be plenty of shields between would-be enemies and yourself.
The first place you ought to look for contacts is locally. Once you’ve defined your Clan and Covenant, see which people in your Domain play something that your character would’ve wanted to ally with. Having a timeline is incredibly useful at this point – you can talk to local Camarilla members and see if things match up, or if you can change your timeline to make them match up. It makes sense that a character would go someplace where he already knows someone. Don’t hesitate to make your character somebody’s minion: look for some of the most dominant Kindred in the Domain, and ask their players if your character could’ve been a pawn of theirs at some point in the past, and if they would want to place you back in their service. There’s nothing wrong with working for someone, rather than being a mighty overlord yourself. In fact, there’s a lot you can learn, and if you make yourself valuable, you’ll have a powerful ally right off the bat.
The best way to find your role in the Requiem if you want connections outside of your own Domain is to establish contact with your Covenant, and ensure that you’ve got Covenant (and Clan) tie-ins. First of all, subscribe to the out-of-character and in-character lists for your Covenant and Clan. If you don’t like them, you can always unsubscribe shortly. But as a start, the OOC lists are a trivial way of setting up some contacts. Post a brief summary or timeline of your PC, and ask if anyone was around in the same places at the same time. Explain some of your character’s principles (e.g. die-hard Covenant fanatic, explorer of the Clan’s history, etc). Unless the list is marked as OOC (as of the time of writing this, the Covenant lists were all OOC, but they’ll go IC sooner or later), don’t post OOC messages there. A better place to look for tie-ins would for instance be general-ooc, a general place to talk about OOC things.
http://camarilla.white-wolf.com/mailman/listinfo/invictus
http://camarilla.white-wolf.com/mailman/listinfo/lancea-sanctum
http://camarilla.white-wolf.com/mailman/listinfo/carthians
http://camarilla.white-wolf.com/mailman/listinfo/ordo-dracul
http://camarilla.white-wolf.com/mailman/listinfo/crones
http://camarilla.white-wolf.com/mailman/listinfo/mekhet-ooc
http://camarilla.white-wolf.com/mailman/listinfo/ventrue-ooc-nwod
http://camarilla.white-wolf.com/mailman/listinfo/gangrel-ooc-nwod
http://camarilla.white-wolf.com/mailman/listinfo/nosferatu-ooc-nwod
http://camarilla.white-wolf.com/mailman/listinfo/daeva-ooc
Once you’ve figured out Covenant and/or Clan tie-ins, consider what you want your character’s role to be in her chosen group. Assuming you want to spend most of your time being active in your Covenant, what role do you want to take there?
Some people enjoy being leaders. They want their characters to be in charge. They want to order others around. They want to wield power – and to use it. If you think your character is one of those types, look at your character sheet. In the end, dots don’t really matter – good role-playing can go a long way. But to some extent, if you want to be a mover and shaker, you really need something to back it up. Either it’s lots of influence, the ability to shape people’s minds, maybe just the fact that you’ve got plenty of allies who’re willing to come running at the drop of a hat – all of those things matter.
Other people enjoy being thugs, simple as that. Most covenants can find a role for them. The Lancea Sanctum certainly needs people to do God’s will, no question about that. The Invictus, whilst oh-so-sophisticated, haughty, and aristocratic, needs someone to shore up their powerbase – to keep the lower classes down. Every Duke needs a Knight, after all. Every Queen needs a Champion. The Carthians, despite their populist rhetoric and humane aspirations, occasionally need to defend themselves from those who want to oppress them (did I mention the Invictus already? I think I did). What about the Unaligned? Well, if you’ve got no structure and organization to back you up, you really ought to be able to defend yourself, oughtn’t you?
And then, of course, is the simple follower – the Covenant member who is content with his role, and merely works away at achieving more. You can always try to determine your role in discussion with others before you enter play, or you can see where your Covenant places you once you’ve joined them in your current Domain. Some Covenants will leave you to your own devices, but some will assign you a clear role and give you goals and purposes.
If you find that such leadership doesn’t exist (despite what you believe the paradigm and covenant write-up suggest), you’ve found your niche. Figure out how to become the person in charge; this is quite possibly as easy as simply talking to the other Kindred in the Domain, and persuading them that you’d make a good puppet.
Finding your character’s place in your city
You can figure out this step before your character enters play, or you can figure it out whilst playing. The latter option is likely to be a lot more painful, although it may be a lot more interesting, as well.
Simply put, vampires are in a Domain for a reason. There should be some sort of motivation that drives your character (as you can see in point 06 – Why). You ought to figure out before starting to play why your character would be in that city, and whom she’d be in contact with before arriving. Few things are as awkward as turning up to a game, standing around for a while, and asking someone to be introduced to your Covenant or Clan’s leader there. It’s not just awkward, but it’s also completely unnatural for immortal beings – they’d plan ahead, wouldn’t they?
So, what should you do to make sure that you’ll be successful in local Kindred society?
Playing Clan/Covenant Stereotypes
Perhaps the greatest way of confounding others and keeping people guessing (thus making your actions unpredictable to your enemies) is not to play a Clan/Covenant stereotype. Don’t play a run-of-the-mill cardboard cutout. Not all (male) Daeva are a slight bit effeminate and obsessed with running art galleries. Not all Gangrel are woodsy types that dislike everything that comes with modern civilization. Not all Nosferatu feel at home amongst ugly things, and abhor those who worship beauty. Not all Mekhet slink around in the shadows, being obsessed with secrets and running information networks. And finally, not all Ventrue are stuck-up aristocrats whose sole purpose in unlife is to better themselves at the expense of others. In fact, the Clan names above are easily interchangeable.
As a closing thought, consider the implicit timescale that vampires operate on: Kindred plan ahead for years, decades, maybe even centuries. Don’t get frustrated if you can’t take over the Ordo Dracul in your city after a month or two in play. Don’t be annoyed if the Invictus seem to have an iron grip on prestation and politics in your Domain. Good things come to those who wait – and who plan carefully. If you feel like you’re getting nowhere, reconsider what you’re doing, and what you could do to improve your situation: almost inevitably, everyone’s got a weakness. With more allies by your side, ideally in a bigger coterie, you’re much more likely to make a big impact.
Especially in a global chronicle such as ours, there really
is no way to ‘win.’ You may be able to become the leader of your covenant or
clan, sure. You may be able to oppress all of the dangerous elements in your
Domain, and enact a regime of ruthless oppression. Maybe you’ll manage to
overthrow several regimes of ruthless oppression, destroyed tyrants falling in
your wake. But in the end, there’s always a bigger fish. Sometimes the bigger
fish is an entire Clan. Sometimes it’s an entire country. Maybe the bigger fish
is your inability to weave efficient enough information networks, so your empire
frays at the edges. Maybe your closest allies are already plotting to overthrow
you and give your place to someone else. Who knows? The real truth is that
there’s always something more to aspire to. If you know what the answers to all
of the questions in the Spark of Life chapter are, then you’ll always know what
that ‘something more’ is. Maybe we ought to look at how you can figure that
out, and follow up on it…
06 Why?
Why does your character turn up to a game? Why does she do anything in downtime reports? Why does she keep on existing? What’s the reason that she even bothers to meet up with others of her kind?
Are those annoying existential questions? Can’t you just turn up, be social, and have fun? Sure. And nobody should be able to tell you otherwise.
However, there’s more to it – if you want there to be more. Occasionally, we’ve faced the issue that there’s simply no reason for your character to be at a game, or even a convention. He sits around, possibly with some of his friends, and has nothing to do. There’s no plot that you can follow, no monster you can kill, no enemy to smite. It’s dull. I think pretty much everybody has played Vampire: the Staring at some point, and knows what we’re talking about.
You’ve got your concept. You’ve got your timeline. You’ve got your questions answered. You know what your character is all about. You’ve become your character. You casually engage in conversation about death metal, something you’d normally abhor in Real Life. You know that your character isn’t just you. But what drives you?
The WHY question in the end is what makes games work. It’s what makes for interesting characters, and for fascinating player-driven storylines. The WHY question makes the difference between fun and dull local games, and differentiates between engrossing and uninteresting regional storylines. The WHY question is what makes for a good game. A bold statement, sure – but it’s true.
If you know why your character is at a game, or what she wants to accomplish between games – and how she goes about it – then you have a good character. Period. It doesn’t need ten pages of background, or hundreds of questions that define your opinion of Norwegian poetry. If you know what your character wants to do, and if you go about doing it, then you are acting out your character’s desires: you seek to fulfill your character’s goals. Although ultimately it’s not about goals, they form a major part of what makes a good game: it’s populated with characters that have aims and goals, and that seek to fulfill them. Some goals are easier to accomplish than others, but even the most impossible goals can be worked towards.
How do you know what your character’s goals are? To start with, if you’ve reached this point, then you’ve already got a pitch (which can contain goals), a concept (which certainly contains motivations for defining your goals), a timeline (which may show the way in which you’ve tried to go about achieving your goals before, and what the logical progression is) and the spark of life (which definitely has something that defines your character’s motivations). You already know what your character wants. Now put it down on paper. Don’t keep it in your mind – put it down on paper. Write it down, ideally in the form of primary, secondary, and tertiary goals. Do this at the beginning of every month – your goals for the month, for the years, and for your life, maybe. Write them down before you go to a game, and give the paper to your Storyteller (or email him). If you do the goals every month, send them as a Downtime Report to your ST. If they’re fleshed out and have some detail in them (i.e. if they’re not the same thing you sent the last month), your ST ought to give you some XP for submitting both the monthly goals (as a DTR – a downtime report) and for submitting goals before a game. A list of goals given to the ST before a game is certainly worth 1 additional XP.
What should your goals look like? Firstly, try to not make them ridiculously unrealistic for the monthly primary/secondary goals. Keep the character’s daydreams as tertiary long-term goals that you’d like to achieve, but know that it’ll take a long time to work towards them. Here’s an example –
Monthly Goal (DTR) Submission
Primary Goal: Continue undermining the Carthians, ideally by implicating their mortal contacts, and framing their vampiric leaders for crimes in the mortal world
Secondary Goal: Trick the prince into drinking my blood, thus becoming vulnerable.
Secondary Goal: Destroy the overgrown area of Preston Forest in my Domain. Information suggests that’s where the Circle of the Crone meets for many of their rites, and where they get a lot of their herbs and things from. A confused pilot spraying the wrong area with Agent Orange should do the trick.
Secondary Goal: Dominate that Gangrel to obtain some Agent Orange. He’s said many times that he’s got contacts in the university chemistry department.
Tertiary Goal: Take over the Invictus in my state. I think I can arrange a meeting with our regional leader, and send a tip-off to his Ordo Dracul enemies.
Game Goal Submission
Primary Goal: Avoid the Ventrue Priscus, who will demand prestation from me for supposedly saving my haven from a Lupine attack.
Primary Goal: Butter up the Harpies somehow, to make them less sympathetic to the Ventrue’s claim that I should owe them big.
Secondary Goal: Figure out if that new Nosferatu is really my old Nos enemy, who’s faked his death and is disguising himself.
Tertiary Goal: Finally frame the prince as being
behind those ritual killings that have been going on for a few months now. I
suspect it’s just some mortal ritualists, but if I can get him implicated
somehow, the Lancea Sanctum will disown him, and he’ll be powerless to stop my
Sire from taking praxis.
Appendix A: Keeping Track of Things
A character log that includes a creation log, XP, and expenditures is pretty much mandatory to maintain a sanctioned character in the Camarilla chronicle. This doesn’t need to be anything fancy or incredibly detailed, but it must include the following:
Here’s an example that – although perhaps too detailed for some – gives a reasonable idea of what a monthly XP log entry could look like:
February-2005
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Vampire Game, London, Feb-17 3 XP
DTR given to ST Edmund Gloucester 1 XP
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Remaining from last
month: 9 XP
Total available to spend: 13XP
Spent on: Dominate 2 -10XP
Remaining: 3XP
-----------------------------------------
Total XP earned on this
PC: 286
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March-2005
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