Well, this is what Vampire the Masquerade is about! You are the villain, a parasite sustaining itself on the life of humans around you.
I think this is why I dropped L.A. by Night; the story was cool, but the longer it went on, the main characters appeared less and less as monsters, and more as humans with superpowers.
This brings me to the session I played yesterday (@comfyhell was our Storyteller). It was full of certified banger moments, one after another. You know why? Because it challenged the humanity of the monsters we play as (and because there was a lot of player interaction, there is a lively world and other things, but shhhhh).
Doing all that was fun, but I was morally hung over.
It was fun because it is exciting to just let yourself go wild, to do fucked up shit and face no consequences in a game, where no real people are hurt.
I was morally hung over because I still played the part. For a few hours, I was a smug motherfucker that only cares about himself, and will not back off even from something horrendous.
↓ For the detailed description of what happened, take a peek below the fold ↓
CW: fucked up shit that happened during the session below. Bodily harm, manipulation, gaslighting and more.
We found an old Sabbat crypt. While we were trying to get through it, we encountered a hostile ghost that blocked our path. Turns out we knew the ghost – we've seen a photo of that man!
A few nights before, we found a body of a girl missing a whole arm, killed by someone trying to open the crypt. She had a few photos of her family members in her wallet, and the ghost is her grandpa. He disappeared around 40 years ago, never to be found again.
Luckily, we encountered a Hecata that was willing to help us get rid of that ghost. To do that, we'd need someone from the ghost's family.
So we go to the bar that the guy is operating, and we tell him we found her. We get him under our discipline powers to follow us underground.
At first, everything was going smooth, but this was only the human part of the world under the city, the usual sewer and water infrastructure. But the moment we stepped towards the crypt entrance, our spells broke.
He started screaming and tried to run. So we had to drag him inwards, while he tried his best to escape, clawing at anything, losing nails, and screaming so much, his voice gave out, and he could only grunt intelligibly, broken by the nature of that place.
When we arrived at the place, he was already beyond saving. The madness had overtaken him, he was weak and voiceless, but he still tried to get away in any way possible. We didn't let him. We restrained him and watched him suffer while the Hecata did a ritual inviting the ghost to possess his body.
After that happened, we just killed him, getting rid of the ghost.
And my charming Toreador (named Max) was totally okay with it! He didn't even flinch. You know why? Because he is an evil being. The Sheriff ordered him to explore the damned place, so he was going to do that. After all, this was only a mortal. His life means nothing.
This wasn't even the only fucked up thing he did that night!
The night before, he noticed that his usual fan club was missing one person – Lena. She is his favorite one and has been missing for a week already. So he decided to go meet her.
Knocking at the door of her flat, he felt this was going to be difficult. She opened and tried to cut the conversation short: she's going back to her husband.
But my Toreador can also be scary. He used his powers on her to get her to back off and get into her home. And she wasn't lying! Max noticed partly unpacked boxes, the husband's things, a photo of them together.
Sensing, that he can't just keep her tethered to him with his powers only, so he decided to change direction. He told her that she was happy with him, and if she changed her mind, she knew where she could find him.
Then, the next night, he found her husband in a bar. The man wanted to confront him, and Max did his best to get him as angry as possible. He lied to him that he visited his wife and implied that they had sex.
After that, he mocked him, threatened to hurt him and scared him away. The husband stormed out of the bar, humiliated and angry. You can probably see where it leads.
A few hours later, while at the club, one of the employees comes to Max to notify him that Lena is here. The husband has beaten her heavily and she ran away. Max gave a great show of care and help and ordered someone to get her to his home. But inside, he was just happy to get his toy back.
There are many good tips out there for getting better at role playing, but the majority of what I've seen are related to what I'd call the technical side of role playing. The standard stuff like "Yes, and", adding quirks to your characters, allowing yourself to make mistakes. These, or vague, tips to think about your character. You know, putting yourself in their shoes.
But what does it actually mean? I had trouble doing that in depth, besides the most superficial layer. I tried thinking about it, but I always drew blanks. Then one day, I got a random idea in my head – what if I wrote a journal entry from their perspective?
This was my breakthrough. Words just poured out, and they were full of insight from my character. He didn't like that person because of a weird thing. That event that happened unexpectedly? Turns out he liked that for a reason.
My main issue was that I couldn't figure out my character because I was always thinking about them in a vacuum. But they have an existence in a world, with relations to other people in there! This helped me realize what kind of person they really are, what they think of others, how they plan their next move and what they feel when things go wrong.
How to create a character that you can naturally role-play as?
Beginner TTRPG players often struggle with accurate portrayal of their characters during sessions. From what I could have seen so far, it often stems from what kind of character they created.
The main tip is to balance the similarities between you and the character you're creating.
It can't be too similar because that may become a self insert. If that happens, you'll not only like your character, but you'll heavily identify with them, which is an unhealthy relationship during play.
You might excessively shield them from the consequences of their actions, or avoid certain actions that would lead to trouble, but also more interesting stories being told. This may also lead to inter-player trouble; if there is a conflict between characters, you may take offense over things that happened in the game.
On the other hand, unexperienced players should not create characters that ale wholly unlike them. If you create someone who is totally opposite to who you are, you might struggle during dialogue or when important choices are presented to you.
I see this issue as a lesser than creating a self insert, since it less likely to lead to emotional struggles. But it is not one to be understated either because it can still lead to you having less fun during the sessions.
How to approach balancing these things? While you're still sketching things out, try to imagine your OC in a dangerous or otherwise difficult situation. If you feel overly protective of them or have no idea what they might do, the balance may be off.
Omfggg they’re talking about church crosses and all the Vikings are so Confused. They’re all “that [the cross] is the thing that killed their god and they use it as a symbol?????”
Eivor is all “well we make idols of our gods like Odin”
And the guy is all “buT WE DONT WORSHIP THE WOLF THAT KILLED HIM, that’s fucked up” 😂😂😂
We sailed past a baptism and they’re just “ritual drowning? 👀👀👀”
I forgot how much old game just threw you in no tutorial no help just you and god as your witness who fucking knows how to get these round duck creatures off the mirrors i sure af don’t
I’ve literally just been grinding nonstop in the wild area and am like 20 lvls higher than i need to be and all i can think of is like in game wise how exactly this looks because like imagine you’re hop and you say goodbye to your rival and you hope to see them sometime later and they just disappear for like weeks or months and when they finally resurface they’re like half feral from living out in the wild area for so long they’ve literally fought wild pokemon with their bARE HANDS ate nothing but weird berry curry the whole time and all their pokemon are now like level 80 holy shit
