VtM 30 Day Challenge: Day Eight – Favorite Character That You Have Played

            My role playing career can be summed up by the phrase “Always the Storyteller.”  I chose the word “Storyteller” not because this is a Vampire the Masquerade blog, but because for White Wolf/The Onyx Path games, I am most likely the person who is running the game.  For that reason, I rarely get to play; so I don’t have many stories about VtM characters.  When I did get to play most of the games were one-shots and were usually not much different from a modern first person shooter. The PCs would get a mission, we’d go kill someone, and the game would be over.  So, most of those characters aren’t really memorable.  The one character that I do remember clearly is my first character, but every reader of this blog (both of you) has heard that story plenty. 

            Instead of trying to dredge up some crappy story about a character that I half remember, I’ll talk a little bit about an NPC that I used in one of my most recent games.  One of the problems that I noticed about starting characters as newly Embraced vampires is that they are at the bottom of food chain.  However, that’s not actually the case.  Most PCs start the game as legitimately Embraced vampires.  The Prince gave their Sire’s permission to Embrace a mortal, and then those characters are accepted into vampire society.  Conversely, some vampires such as Caitiff are illegitimate.  They aren’t accepted by the Prince or are accepted begrudgingly.  Adding characters, like Caitiff, who are below the characters in the hierarchy of the city is more realistic and tonally appropriate for Vampire the Masquerade because the one of the themes of VtM  is the war of ages.  Therefore if the Storyteller has some NPCs that the players can lord their power and position over fits within this theme, the city feels more “alive.” 

            Jessie was a Tzimisce Anti-tribu that I created for my Baltimore by Night setting.  She was a former stripper in New York City who had been Embraced and tortured by her Sire.  Eventually, she escaped him, but she was deformed.  Somehow she made her way into Baltimore were she hid until she eventually found and taken in by an Autarkis Toreador named Tasia.  Tasia helped her gain control of her Disciplines and put herself back together again.  Jessie was accepted by the Prince, but only because Tasia, a powerful Elder, sponsored her.  Despite the sponsorship, the rest of the city despised Jessie as an outsider.

            I liked running Jessie because she was the lowest character on the Kindred totem pole.  She was the scapegoat for plans that went awry.  She was the character that every other character, NPC or PC, looked down upon.  It’s easy to run a powerful character who can do anything, and even when something seems to go wrong, it’s ok because those events were all part of the plan.  Even running a weak NPC is a challenge because that character has an agenda and goals, but the struggles to accomplish even the least of those goals are more difficult.  If nothing else, a weak NPC like Jessie, offers the Storyteller a way to test his/her players.  How the PCs treated Jessie was a sign of the character’s level of sympathy and thus their Humanity.  So, that’s why I liked Jessie because she was a useful character and had an interesting story. 

I Order a Pizza.

            In my latest Vampire the Masquerade session, one of the players did something so clever and so brilliant that I was surprised at how simple, how effective, and how obvious it was.  Usually, the beginning of each session starts as the player characters awake just after sunset.  “You wake up.  Spend a blood point.  What do you do after you wake up?”  Is how I being many sessions of Vampire the Masquerade.  And the most common task that players complete first is hunting.  Each character has his or her own methods for successful hunting.  How a character hunts for sustenance is an important aspect of his or her personality. 

Arcterus, a Gangrel con artist, prefers to visit bars in the bad parts of Baltimore where he attacks people in the men’s room when they are at their most vulnerable.  He waits for someone to go to the bathroom, follows them in, and bites the mortal while he is taking a leak.  Arcterus leaves with his thirst satiated, and the mortal is left sprawled passed out on the bathroom floor where most people will think that he just had too much to drink.  It’s quick and simple, and this method doesn’t risk breaking the Masquerade. 

Annie, a 12 year old Gangrel, uses her youth to effectively hunt.  She wanders around Downtown Baltimore and asks passing women to help her find her mother.  With her big blue, teary eyes, Annie uses her skills in manipulation when she finds a potential victim.  Grabbing the victim by the hand, she leads them into an alley where she latches on with her sharp fangs and drinks her fill. 

Both of these methods are really good for hunting.  They don’t require much time to complete, and usually I arbitrate them by having the players roll dice just once.  Arcterus rolls Dexterity plus Stealth, and Annie rolls Charisma plus Subterfuge.  I don’t think that there is any reason to stretch out a hunting scene unless it moves the story forward.  If the player character was exceptionally short of blood or if he or she was hunting in another’s domain, then I would require some additional dice rolls and make hunting a complete scene. 

However, even though I don’t make hunting a big deal for players, sometimes they surprise with me how clever or foolish they can be.  Players will often look to make hunting a non-issue because they don’t want to risk their characters on what is essentially a bookkeeping issue.  If a player doesn’t buy into the setting and tone of the World of Darkness, then that’s all hunting will ever be for that player:  a way to refresh his or her power points to fuel his or her abilities. 

To that end, I have seen players look for a way around hunting.  In almost every instance, the player thinks that he or she can just go to the local blood bank to get the needed blood.  The methods used can vary from player to player, but the two most commonly used methods that I have seen are controlling the blood bank or robbing the blood bank.  Neither of these two methods is very smart to be honest.

A new player character in a city is not going to be able to take over a blood bank because established Kindred already control that resource.  Why wouldn’t someone already own it?  It’s an obvious source of blood that is only limited by the vampire’s self control.  It’s such an important resource that I would expect that only a truly powerful Elder would be able to maintain his grip on this resource since so many other vampires would desire this resource as well.  Because it’s such a desirable resource, a blood bank would be well protected against other Kindred trying to control it.  A neonate would have almost no chance to wrest control of the blood bank away from this Elder.  In fact, he would probably bring down all kinds of trouble onto his own head and the heads of his coterie. 

On the other hand, breaking into a blood bank could be a possibility for a player character that was clever and stealthy or had Obfuscate.  The problem arises when the player character has successfully stolen the blood.  Blood is well tracked because it’s such a valuable commodity for both mortals and Kindred.  Missing blood packs are going to be noticed even if the vampire goes unnoticed during the burglary. A lucky or smart vampire could be successful, once or maybe even twice, but after that, security is going to tighten.  Once the Elder who controls the Blood Bank notices his private stash is being pilfered, he’s going to come looking for the culprits with a vast array of resources. 

With all that in mind, sometimes players really surprise me with their ingenuity.  During my latest session, the players had just awoken.  Each set out to hunt. Arcterus went to a bar, and Annie went downtown looking someone to help find her mom.  Fitz, a Gangrel computer hacker, ordered pizza.  At first, I was confused because I had no idea what Fitz had planned or why he would order a pizza.  Then it dawned on me.  He’d just got take out delivered to him.  I was shocked at the simplicity and effectiveness of calling someone to come to your door and bring you blood.  He drinks some of the delivery driver’s blood and sends him off with tip in hand.  It’s also perfectly in character with Fitz’s back story.  He is a computer hacker who before his embrace lived on energy drinks and take out.  Everything about the who scenario is brilliant, and although use of this hunting strategy over the long term could draw some unwanted attention to Fitz, I was really impressed. 

When it comes to hunting in Vampire the Masquerade, players should develop hunting tactics that fit their character.  Young Annie uses her childish appearance.  Arcterus assaults people in barroom toilets.  Fitz orders out pizza.  Each strategy fits with the PC’s personality.  Rather than looking for the easiest way to hunt or a method of hunting with no risk, these three players have used their wits to develop a fitting hunting strategy for their characters.    Players should keep that in mind when designing their characters.  Answering “How Do I Hunt?” helps define a PCs entire personality. 

How My Last Chronicle Ended

…And Then He Punched the Glass

            In January I started a new Vampire the Masquerade chronicle using the 20th Anniversary rules set.  All of my players were excited because this would be the first chronicle that I had run since February of last year.  We’d played a few other games in between, but most of my players prefer the Old World of Darkness system and setting.

Baltimore Skyline at Night

            Since I returned to running Vampire the Masquerade, I made the decision to set all of my games in Baltimore because it’s a midsized city with a big enough population to support a fully functioning Camarilla city with a Prince, Primogen Council and a few other positions.  Baltimore however is not so big that the players or I would get lost in an overwhelming number of NPCs.  Most importantly, none of my players are familiar with Baltimore, so they are less likely to argue about little details. 

            My version of Baltimore has a very young population of vampires.  Again, this was chosen to make it easier for players to relate to the NPCs.  This is true for both the actual age of the Vampires, all were born in the 20th Century and their generation, all are 8th Generation or higher.  (One Elder does reside in Baltimore but that’s a different story all together.)  Also, Baltimore’s vampire population is more open-minded to things like Caitiff and etc.  than the usual Camarilla city.  Finally, the Prince of the city is a Gangrel. 

Not quite the Coterie from my game.

            Now that you have an idea of the kind of setting that I use for Vampire the Masquerade, maybe you’ll understand how things led to this point.  The new chronicle started with the players arriving at Elysium.  The PCs were relatively new citizens of the city.   Leon was a former private investigator and the childe of the Nosferatu Primogen.  D.D. was a playboy bunny and the childe of the Sheriff, and she was a Ventrue.  Both Leon and D.D. had spent most of the time since they were embraced in Baltimore.  The other three members of the coterie were recent arrivals.  Vincent was a former car thief and a Lasombra-antitribu.  Dexter was D.D’s brother and a former FBI Agent.  Dexter was also a Ventrue.  Finally, Chris was a doctor who specialized in prosthetics, and was embraced by a Tremere.  Most importantly, Chris had taken the flaw:  Haunted. 

            Since Clan Gangrel had left the Camarilla and the seat occupied by the Gangrel Primogen was vacant, the Primogen were trying to decide if they should allow a Gangrel or Caitiff or someone else to represent the independent clans in the city.  Three candidates were available:  the childe of the Prince (a Gangrel), a runaway Tzimisce who’d escaped her sadistic Sire, and a streetwise Caitiff who had recently been discovered in the city.  The players hadn’t chosen who to side with, but they had decided to work against the Caitiff.  

The Caitiff, named Simone, had ghouled a pimp in the slums of Baltimore.  The players decided to capture this pimp and interrogate him for information about Simone.  When they finally tracked down the pimp at a bar he was known to frequent, he had been attacked and kidnapped by a hunter.  The players found only a bar full of corpses and security camera footage of the attacker using military weapons to kill the bar customers.  With a little work they were able to figure out that the hunter worked at a Private Military Contractor (PMC) in Baltimore, and the PMC’s main office was in the Leg Mason Building, he tallest skyscraper in the city. 

So, cut to the interior of the Leg Mason Building with the PCs standing outside the glass walls of the PMC’s office.  They looked in at the security system and cameras, and then they started talking to each other trying to discover the best way to break into the office.  First, they tried to go through the ceiling, but utterly failed that.  They continued talking and then with one sentence, Vincent destroyed my chronicle. 

And then his happened to my whole Chronicle!

He said, “I punch the glass!”  I looked at him and said, “Are you sure?”  He nodded replying that yes he wanted to do that.  He spent blood to pump his Strength Attribute and with his Potence he was able to punch through the glass.  That’s when he noticed the security sensor hanging down that had detected that the glass had been broken.  Vincent, D.D. and Christopher rushed into the room to gather the information they needed to track down the hunter, and Dexter and Leon went back to the hotel lobby to handle the security guards.  However, by the time that Dexter and Leon were able to get to the lobby, the security guards had already called the cops.  Nevertheless, Dexter and Leon were able to convince the security guards to erase the footage of the break in and keep them from going upstairs to investigate.

Upstairs, D.D., Chris, and Vincent were able to gather the information they needed but by then the cops had already arrived.  Warned by Dexter and Leon, they took the freight elevator to the Second Floor to avoid the cops on the main elevator.  Stuck on the Second Floor of the building, they decided to smash out a window and escape into an alley.  They smashed out the window with a chair and jumped into the alley, but when they did, Vincent landed on some garbage and drew the cops into the alley way.  Everyone hid, but Chris failed his Stealth check and the cops noticed him.  He used Dominate Level 1 and told one of them to run, and Vincent did the same to the other cop.  The cops fell all over themselves trying to escape the alley and the monsters inside.

Cover to Wraith the Oblivion

At this point, I glanced over at Chris’s character sheet as it was passed around the table.  That’s when I noticed that Chris has taken the flaw:  Haunted.  I’ve never read Wraith and I know very little about Wraiths in general, but I decided that the Wraith that was haunting Chris would bolster the cops giving them the courage to overcome the Dominate effect.  Instead of running for their lives, they ran back to their squad cars and got their shotguns.  The return of the cops into the alley was foreshadowed by the most frightening sound in the world:  the sound of a shell being loaded into a pump action shot gun. 

D.D. and Vincent heard the sound and hesitated.  They looked to the other end of the alley and saw the lights of cop cars down there too.  They are trapped, but they decided to run.  Chris, on the other hand, decided to play dead.  D.D. and Vincent ran out of the alley way and tried to avoid the incoming fire, but they couldn’t dodge it all.  D.D. is seriously injured and Vincent chose to surrender so that the cops would stop shooting.  He knew that D.D. couldn’t take much more damage and lifted his hands over his head. 

The two cops with shotguns walked down the alley and found Chris’s body, obviously dead.  However, when the cops took a close look at him, the Wraith caused him to exhale a breath of air.  Assuming that Chris is just unconscious, they grabbed his body and drug him back to the squad car and threw him into the back seat.  Vincent was tossed into the back of another cop car, and D.D. was loaded into an ambulance because of all of wounds she’d received.  With D.D. cuffed to the gurney, she had little chance of escape.  While all of this was happening, Leon and Dexter strolled out of the building without a problem using Presence and Dexter’s credentials from the FBI.  

BOOM!  Stop or I'll Shoot!!

The session ended with Leon and Dexter back in their respective havens.  D.D. was taken to the emergency room cuffed to the gurney.  Chris was taken to Baltimore City Jail to be processed.  Vincent was able to escape the cops by using Obtenebration to cause a traffic accident.  He stole the SUV that the cops crashed into and drove away chased by the cops.

We weren’t able to run for a couple of weeks because of an anime convention that we all worked at took up one Sunday, our usual day, and one of the group wanted to run Eclipse Phase for a night.  Over the course of the last two weeks, all of the players have pretty much decided that their characters have been rendered unplayable.  Even if they were able to survive the next session, they would most likely be social pariahs because of their foolishness or at the worst, they would be blood hunted for breaking the Masquerade.  As a group we decided to call an end to that chronicle and start something fresh.

So, what lessons can we learn from all this.  First, I think that player boredom is a dangerous element in any game.  While the others were trying to discern the best way to defeat the PMC’s security system, Vincent became bored and decided that doing anything was better than just standing around.  Second, be careful what flaws you take when you build your character.  Haunted is a 3 point flaw and gives a sadistic Storyteller one more powerful NPC to use against the players.  If you do take a flaw like Haunted, make sure that you have access to some way to deal with that Wraith.  A Tremere, like Chris can’t directly affect the Wraith, but a Giovanni could.  A Giovanni might be able to deal directly with the Wraith and at the very least mitigate some of the damage.  Finally, I don’t think of myself a “killer DM” or even a “mean DM.”  I am here to help the players tell a story.  I think that I got too carried away with being an antagonist to the players rather than working with them.  Next time, I’ll do better. 

I hope you enjoyed this tale from the table.  If you want to hear more about my version of Baltimore by Night, please leave comments and questions below.