Hello Again: Character Development Techniques

Hi! It's been a while, but I thought I'd post something I saw.

Kung Fu Monkey, which is a writing blog, talks about developing characters. I think this is valuable both for developing PCs, and developing NPCs.

Techniques discussed:

360 Degree review. IE, how does the character's bosses, peers, and underlings view him.

Flipping characters from villian to hero, or hero to villian.

And my personal favorite:

Years ago another writer taught me a simple exercise -- describe a character, hero or villain, as his best friend would describe him while setting up a blind date. Then do it from the point of view of the co-worker who hates his guts and is unloading to his wife after work, or finally has a chance to sink him with a job recommendation.

Upcoming

I realize it's been a while since I've posted. I'm working on the following two blog posts (titles tentative).

House Rules that Don't Suck: Or what I've generally learned about Writing House Rules that players will actually read
We Screwed Up: Fixing ST mistakes

I'm also considering a post discussing how to communicate players to figure out what they want in terms of plot and theme, but I haven't started work on it.

If there is one you would prefer me to put out first, sound off in the comments.

Advice for New Ventrue Players

Somebody on the OWBN Ventrue OOC list asked about playing a Ventrue. I've edited it a bit, expanded it a bit, but this was my response. In case this isn't clear, this is for Masquerade Ventrue, though it's possible that it's applicable in parts to Requiem.

Playing a Ventrue is hard.

Lineage wise, I don't regret not having a PC sire, but I do wish I had picked a lineage at least partially shared with other players. Hopefully the Coord team and the wiki can be helpful in that. Incidentally, if they'd be interested in being related to my PC, I'd love that, and I'm sure there are plenty of other PCs who would be happy to share a lineage or even be a PC sire.

Lineage is incredibly important for Ventrue RP. It colors many things. Having a screw up childe, or a famous sire or grand sire creates new facets for characters. There is also a PC I know of who's sire was killed by another Ventrue, and the hatred that's there makes for awesome roleplay.


For playing a Ventrue, you could do worse then recommending they pick up a copy of Tai-Pan and/or Noble House by James Clavell. Possibly Shogun, though I haven't read that. Strategy books like the Prince, art of war, how to make friends and influence people or vampire: the Masquerade books like Guilded Cage etc. might help them being good at being a Ventrue IC, but the Clavell books books will show them how to play a Ventrue, whether a strong leader, a cunning manipulator, a brutal monster, a career politician, or a weak willed patsy. It also teaches you about rivals, and how Ventrue won't kill their rivals off the cuff... they want everything their rivals have built torn down, destroyed or taken over, and they want their rival to see it, and their children take up the cause. In Noble house especially, you realize a rivalry from the 18th century has continued for at least a hundred years between two families.

TV/Movie wise Tai Pain was also a movie, which I haven't seen. I'd also highly recommend HBO's The Wire.... The police dept functions a lot like the Directorate, and many of the characters are excellent examples of Ventrue, The worst of them often are promoted. Loyalty is established by protecting one's subordinates, or taking the fall for one's superiors. The best of them are good police because of their flaws.

Flaws. Flaws make Ventrue Ventrue.

Lots of people will tell you to that Ventrue are supposed to be great leaders, astute businessmen, honorable knights, and masters of influence. This is all at least somewhat true IC, and every Ventrue will likely be expected to to try to live up to that. But OOC playing a Ventrue who isn't perfect is best. A Ventrue who is flawed, who has weaknesses. First, because it's impossible to play perfectly. Second because Ventrue, like all of the best PCs, are made interesting by their failures.

Having said the above about failure, few Ventrue PCs should be complete failures and total disappointments to their elders. On the other hand, that doesn't mean that one's elder's shouldn't be disappointed in you... living in the shadow of other Ventrue and under the weight of their expectations is a large part of Ventrue genre. Breaking under that weight can be good RP.

The most important way a Ventrue can fail is by arrogance and pride. Hubris and entitlement are in many ways really the Ventrue Clan flaw. Seriously, if your Ventrue is screwed over because of their unwillingness to lose face or to admit defeat, your probably RPing just fine. That's why neg traits like callous, violent, impatient and condescending are great for Ventrue.

That pride colors competition in clan. Ventrue compete not by doing things well (that's to be expected) but by trying to get each other to lose face. In fact each Dignitas claimed is like a target telling your Clan to test you there. There is also noblesse oblige, and the paternalistic part of Ventrue arrogance. If you replace White Man's Burden with Ventrue's Burden, and have the other people be other Kindred, you start to get an idea.

The second is tradition and the clan's institutions. Ventrue genre is holding to tradition even when it's the wrong choice, and it's breaking from it when it's the right choice (or even the only choice) and being punished for bucking the system or failing the tradition. The best stories I've seen in the Clan have often come from this. The best way to get a Ventrue to lose face is to point out a way they failed the clan traditions, or failed to live up to their Dignitas. The best place to do so is in a Directorate meeting.

Speaking of the Directorate meeting, I've also had Tremere players tell me that the clan has better genre, and much better clan meetings. Some people hate Directorate meetings... personally some of the best RP I've ever seen has been in them, especially when you have a rival or an agenda. Tribunals as well can be awesome, as can Death Nights. New players should seek directorate meetings, should push for them.

So again, playing a Ventrue is hard. It's also amazingly fun.

Later on in the thread I said.

I'd add to that thatneonates, nobility, honor and obedience are part of the same package. They are encouraged to be ambitious, but being honorable and noble means ambition must be tempered with respect for the good of the Clan.

A noble neonate understands how little of the Elders they understand, and is thus willing to trust their elders, to sacrifice their personal ambitions, and possibly themselves if required for the good of the clan. That's honor. That's rewarded.

An ignoble neonate pursues his owe interests, doesn't trust or respect his elders and superiors, and sells out his clan for short term gains. He dishonors himself. He will find himself on the outs. A CEO can thus be noble and well rewarded by Elders, and a Ventrue descended from royalty with an aristocratic bearing can be ignoble and dismissed.

That's how the majority of neonates should likely see it. Ancilla and Elders, those with twisted upbringing, those who are left to their own devices... well they may notice some hypocrisy in the above.

Plotting about Plots

I've seen it happen again and again, but as an ST and a player. The STs will introduce a plot, perhaps with interesting NPCs, perhaps specifically targeted toward new players.

And older players with powerful PCs, (powerful meaning either politically in terms of position or physically in terms of experience points) will jump on it, demand that nobody go after it but them, for everyone's safety.

I've explored this problem before, in my Plots for New Players post. But recently something occurred in a game I ST for, Shadow's Crossing, that has changed my perspective. I've suggested targeting plots for new players, but on reflection, there may be another way to go then in trying to segregate players.

I was running a plotline for a player, and after I was done, he thanked me for giving him a plot he could do investigate. But the thing was, I hadn't targeted the plot toward him. In fact I hadn't known he would even have been played, or glanced at his sheet before the game started. The fact was other PCs were pursing other plots, both PC and ST created, and he just happened to be the one going after this plot.

Instead of trying to keep players involved with specific plots from the get, and other players out, the thought occurs to me. Why don't I simply introduce more and more plots, until everyone is involved with something if they want to be.

Now I know what your thinking, at least if your an ST. If your running 5 or 10 or 20 plots, aren't you going to be too busy to run everything?

Well yes and no. I've found that the more PCs going after a plot, the longer it takes to run, exponentially. The inverse also seems to be true. That means if I run 20 plots for 20 players, I may actually save time over running one or two plots for 20 players.

Why this may be isn't totally clear to me, but it seems that the more info I put out, the more things going on, the more it leads to PCs roleplaying with each other, sharing the information, trading things they have for things they need, etc. Making the game world richer with more to do means that PCs have more to do not just through interacting with STs, but with each other.

There is a time loss however. It's in prep time and downtime responses. However if face time with STs at game is at a premium for players, this is often better then the alternative.

So I'm going to be exploring this in upcoming games, and seeing how well it works.

The Horror of Ventrue

A while ago, I talked about the Horror of Setites, quoting a post I'd made to the owbn-st list. Well a few days ago on the ventrue ooc list (owbn-scepter-ooc) I posted about what I consider to the be the Horror of playing Ventrue.

To me the core on Ventrue horror, at least based on the fiction and the clanbook is that we are The Man. We are the government. We are the elite few in control of the society. It's the horror of the boot stamping on a human face forever, of royalty abusing the commoners, of fear of those in power, and power corrupting. It's treating people like chess pieces. Hell, our signature PC from the clan novels had a feeding preference for rape victims, so he dominates somebody to rape a person so he can feed. That's Ventrue horror.

I'm not sure that's wrong, but thinking about it there is another element I may have failed to talk about. The horror is not just that the Ventrue are monsters who devalue individuals, who think of others as less then them. Part of the horror is that people want Ventrue in charge. They want safety and security, and if that means putting monsters who think of them as pawns in charge, all they ask is those monsters act like leaders and politicians. a Kind word, a good speech, even a smile and a nod, and Kindred will go and die for the Ventrue.

People want leaders they can love and politicans they can believe in. They will submit to the illusion of compassion in a leader.

And that too is part of the horror of Ventrue. That people obey and follow them, not out of fear, but out of the will to submit.

Losing to Win: Why Screwing up in Character is good for your Roleplay

It's been a while since I posted, for which I apologize.

in MET (at least the original version) taking flaws or negative traits (such as being cowardly or obnoxious) gives you points to make your character sheet more complete. I often see individuals picking flaws based on which will least inconvenience them.

To me that ignores the beauty of what flaws are. Flaws don't limit your character. They make your character better.

An Example: Shanghai Kelly is a Gangrel PC based in San Francisco. He happens to be a funny and clever conversationalist. But he is incredibly tactless (or obnoxious maybe, I'm not going to say what is on his sheet, and I really don't know). He'll say rude things he shouldn't, and get shushed for it. He'll piss people off. He'll yell at people, or question people who don't like to be questioned. He'll get mad for no good reason.

Now that might seem like a bad thing, if you play larp to play the perfect vampire that makes no mistakes and destroys his enemies. But that's a pretty boring PC to play. You can play that PC sitting in your haven, and not come to game, and nobody will miss you. People miss Shanghai. It's an occasion when somebody doesn't give him a roleplay nod. His roleplay is entertaining. He helps make game fun for others.

Flaws do that, much more then advantages. There are also Derangements, which are the way the game handles some mental dysfunction or disorder. I know several people that pick the derangments that effect their behavior the least. Or individuals who's derangement manifests only in downtime, or only when in the presence of NPCs. While I don't believe the any character should be defined by their derangement, if it doesn't effect your roleplay, what's the point?

Another Example: The Herald, a malkavian PC in Berkeley. He's clearly schizophrenic, to the point where people wonder about the player, until they chat with him after game. But his madness comes out in his interactions.

Of course screwing up in character doesn't have to be about what's on your sheet. Sometimes you can make a choice that you know OOC may cause your PC problems. Fun problems, that require lots of interactions with other players to work through. A PC I know got captured by the Sabbat, and turned into a Mole. The player volunteered for this to happen. Her character got punished severely for it. And yet that's changed the dynamics of the Sabbat plot from being lead by her Prince to being run by Archons, and created at least three new plots from the fall out(that I know of).

Of course screwing up in character works best if you have support from other players. If a Prince's immediate response to an IC screw up is to kill the character, well that may create future plot, but it puts an end to the screw-ups story. PCs who die silently unnoticed in back rooms with no one to miss them don't make for good plots. Though sometimes killing the wrong character is a form of screwing up in and of itself.

So I guess my point is, play your flaws, in ways that make you interact with others. When others have IC problems, get involved if you can, and try not to put an end to their story inherently. Doing so can lead to great roleplay, and great stories, and most importantly, fun.

How Bad Guys can be Good Genre

In OWBN, the word genre has a specific meaning, that needs to be explained to non OWBN players. Being "In genre" is being consistent with the setting materials in terms of of character and story. The idea is, there are certain established norms regarding certain IC groupings, such as Clans, or Tribes or Sects, and these should be portrayed by the PCs appropriately. The easy example is Black Furies. Black Furies are a tribe of amazonian werewolves with Grecian roots. Playing a male Black Fury would probably be considered "out of genre" or outside of the genre conventions for Black Furies.

Of course if it was always that simple, I wouldn't be writing this. Lets take a look at a more complicated example, and one, in OWBN, which will hopefully upset some people. The Tremere Clan.

The Tremere are a group of vampiric magic users organized as part of a hierachical "Pyramid" which is supposed to be merit based in outlook. Also they are protective of their magic, and strongly discourage teaching them to outsiders.

Since the Tremere are a meritocracy and a hierarchy, often people feel that a dutiful tremere that obeys their superiors is in genre, and a Tremere that, say, rebels against their superiors or teaches their magic to others, is out of genre.

I think this suggests that only good in character behavior is consistent with portrayal. I think that's a simplification. Certainly, not every Tremere should be rebelling and/or teaching magic to passing strangers. It's important that there be a norm. But I believe that so long as that norm is present, characters that rebel against it, or undermine it are consistent.

In the case of the Tremere, the published source books list spells and magical effect that help detect rebels. They list punishments for individuals that cross the line. These are often pointed to when people say things like, "No Tremere, In genre, should be teaching magic to outsiders."

I think they point out the opposite. The fact that the genre goes over consequences means its something that happens often enough to have normal punishments. The fact that there are spells that are helpful in dealing with these issues, means those spells are meant to see play.


So I don't think Tremere, or any group, rebelling against the norm is "out of genre." There are other issues with characters doing so, but they aren't inherently violations of the setting expectations.

I do think that characters that do so will likely be caught and punished, since that's what usually happens when you buck the norm in a strict hierarchy. Characters getting away with breaking the IC rules of the clan that tweak their superior's nose about it and generally broadcast their presence will get slapped. I also think that a norm has to be maintained. Such characters need to be treated as abberations. IC, characters that toe the line need to be clearly rewarded for doing so, and characters that break from it need to be punished, or you risk changing the norms themselves. And characters that break the rules need to be watched to make sure they don't spoil the fun of players of characters that cleave closer to the IC expectations.

But there are opportunities for stories consistent with the norms of the setting where characters deviate from those norms. Not just rebels... tyrants are another good example. A tyrannical Camarilla Prince might abuse the laws of the Camarilla for their own benefit, grant unfair rewards to their sychophants and heap abuse on those who question them to silence critics. These aren't the only types, there are thieves, liars, traitors, subversives, spies.

Is that in genre? Yes, there are tyrants that break the laws, or twist them to their own benefit. There are bad guys. Sometimes the bad guys win. Usually they lose.

Why do I bring these up? It's not because I want to justify some guy teaching his friend magic when he shouldn't. It's not because I think that rebels and tyrants shouldn't ever be held accountable for breaking rules.

It's because I think that bad guys make for good enjoyable stories. Dealing with somebody who's betrayed your group because it's abused him, who forces you to question your loyalty, can be a good story. Taking down a tyrant who claims they acted out of the best interests of your sect, or even with the sect leaders blessings, is a good story. Being the rebel, and trying to make a change happen, that can be a good story, win or lose.

And I'm usually a fan of a good story. If it's in genre.

What do you think?