Mind's Eye Theatre - Vampire The Requiem.pdf - RoseRed

mystery and intrigue • plot derailment chapter one: • the society commandments
of the damned 333
PLOT DERAILMENT
Now and then, the players throw you a curve by making a choice that takes their characters
beyond anything you planned. Perhaps they ignore the clue you thought would be obvious.
Perhaps they decide to change their relationship to an important Storyteller character without
warning, or to each other. Maybe one of the players has a brainstorm and guesses the central
mystery of your plot long before you thought anyone could — or maybe the players come
up with a completely wrong theory and refuse to accept any evidence of what’s really going
on. Maybe a freakishly lucky draw lets them kill a character who was supposed to remain an
adversary for the next several stories.
Such situations have no easy or consistent answer. When the characters’ choices take the
chronicle in an unexpected direction, you should probably let them follow the new story
while watching for chances to nudge them back to the plot you had planned. Since you did
all that preparatory work to invent the details of your World of Darkness and your Storyteller
characters, you should be able to improvise something to keep the characters occupied.
Changing your plot in mid-story so the characters can’t jump to the resolution pleases some
players and angers others. Some players don’t really want to short-circuit the sturm und drang of
their characters’ unlives. As long as you provide a gripping story, they don’t care if you cheat.
Other players want the Storyteller to act as a strictly neutral arbiter of an objectively defi ned
world. If they anticipate the plot, they want their characters to profi t by their lucky guess,
even if it means ending the story on an anticlimax. Likewise, if they blunder or completely
miss what’s really going on, they want their characters to suffer the consequences of their
mistake, even if it means their characters completely fail.
The same goes for draws and game mechanics. Some players don’t mind if you fudge the mechanics
to keep the plot moving, whether it’s to save the unlife of an adversary not yet scheduled
to die or to help the characters fi nd an important clue. They simply don’t want systematic fudging
to thwart or help their characters. Other players fi nd such fudging outrageous and insulting.
Talk to your players about rule-fudging and plot-shifting before you start the chronicle.
Give them a story they consider both fair and entertaining. If you ever feel you absolutely
must violate the standards they want for your chronicle for the sake of their entertainment…
make sure they don’t catch you at it. Even if the players don’t mind you cheating now and
then, make sure you exercise this privilege as seldom as possible. If you use it too often, the
players will soon feel that their characters can never really accomplish anything because success
or failure was foreordained.
THE COMMANDMENTS
Like any artistic endeavor, Storytelling is a process and a skill you develop with practice.
At fi rst, the task can seem overwhelming. The main elements to remember, however, break
down into these ten commandments:
• Involve the Players Whenever Possible: Work their ideas and their character backgrounds
into your city and chronicle. Not only does this reduce the amount of work you
have to do to build your World of Darkness, it gives the players a greater sense of involvement
in the story.
• Work with the Players’ Expectations: Remember that it’s their game too. Try to get some
idea of what sort of game your players want before you throw them into your chronicle.
• Work Things out in Advance: The better you know your setting and characters before
game time, the more attention you can pay to telling the story and presenting interesting characters.
When the players throw you a curve, you’ll be better prepared to respond if you’ve already
worked through your story’s twists and turns and pondered possible alternate events.