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

quickly as possible. Their characters quickly become little more than the sum of their parts
— or in this case the sum of the dots on their character sheet. If players start equating power
with character success and good roleplaying, you might need to take a look at the direction
your game is heading. Collecting vampiric abilities and Disciplines can become an arms race
among your players. Once one person gains a capability or strength that others lack, those
players might feel that they need to make that kind of investment in order to “keep up” and
the race is on. They start to abandon all other concerns and stockpile dots until soon the
game has devolved into He Who Has The Most Powers Wins.
If this becomes an issue simply ask players, “Why?” Why do they really need more power? Why
not just use the powers they have more effi ciently? Point out to them that emotional investment
and a dedication to making a better story is really what brings a character to life. The game is about
exploring the nightly existence of these beings called the Kindred, not about having the ability to
obliterate all that stands in one’s way. While it can be argued that vampires can grow paranoid
when it comes to matters of personal protection, the wise ones understand that power takes many
forms. While raw physical might can be handy, it’s a last resort at best. After all, if your enemies
have gotten so close that you need your physical powers, you’re in deep trouble already.
If players are turning to their vampire Disciplines for character fulfi llment, address the direction
your chronicle is taking. Has it become the type of an environment where this is somehow
necessary? Perhaps you need to include more scenarios where roleplaying and politics is more
important to solving the issue at hand. You might want to consult your Narrators to establish
a few goals and scenarios where the players’ vampire Disciplines serve no real use, or at least
do not offer instant solutions to the problems coming their way. After all, the ability to turn
into a bat does a character little good when the Elysium has been purchased by a company
that is sending a mortal wrecking crew over on a sunny Tuesday afternoon.
Indeed, Storytellers should be aware of one critical component in preventing an arms race
of Disciplines and combat Skills — their role in making that characters do not need these
traits to survive and prosper. If the players know that combat characters can simply walk up
to them and destroy them no matter what amount of political power or social infl uence they
have, then there’s no reason for them to build those connections in the fi rst place. If you
want politics, rumors and intrigue to be the primary ways the Kindred strike at each other,
you have to do your best to make sure that physical power can seldom be used to bully or
destroy characters. By presenting an alternative system to strike at other characters and build
their own power, and highlighting the strict in-game penalties for Kindred who engage in
violence, diablerie and wanton destruction, you can craft a game where characters approach
confl ict with precious information, dirty secrets and political pull.
This is not to say that making a physical- or combat-oriented Kindred character is automatically
a useless concept, much less an automatic mark of bad roleplaying. Someone has to be
the Hound, for one thing, and among such apolitical or nomadic vampires as the unbound,
the social graces that other Kindred rely on often don’t mean much compared to the raw ability
to survive. Likewise, many vampires spend time studying the nuances of the Disciplines,
whether with a scholarly mind intent on plumbing the secrets of how they function or simply
seeking to push the limits of their new existence. And let’s not forget the many other threats
to the Damned that might require swift and brutal action, such as mortal witch-hunters,
foreign Kindred or marauding Lupines. Physical power is not useless in The Requiem, nor
should it be completely discouraged. After all, any traits can be part of a good character, if
the player develops a strong personality and history.
All that having been said, however, players who are used to the combat-oriented reality that
exists in many other roleplaying games should take note that in The Requiem, the primary
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mind’s chapter eye four: theatre: storytelling requiem