How to Run a Game (Part 15) - Relevance
An interesting point was raised in an earlier post
There is often a lot of choice and customization when developing a character for an PG session. In most fantasy games you pick a race (which give a range of abilities and maybe a limitation or two), you pick an occupation or class (which defines the way you'll progress with your character in future), and a range of equipment (which give you advantages in a range of situations...like extra damage, the ability to do ranged damage, bonuses to different tasks, etc.) Variations apply for cyberpunk, superhero, and sci-fi games, but on the whole this kind of concept veers into the concept of "front loading the characters".
This is common in heaps of convention game sessions, where the writer of the story module develops a range of characters that fit the type of narrative their trying to tell. It's a very simulationist style of play. The characters fit the narrative, the scenes inform that same style of narrative, and you end up with a fairly consistent play experience. (same narrator pulling the same ways, same rules pulling the same ways, it's just the players that might be pulling in different directions). It's also fairly stereotypical in home groups where the player writes an epic backstory that is basically never used. At the simplest level, I've seen this many times when players in D&D choose a variety of alignments, but basically all end up playing as true neutral (accepting laws some of the time, but not others), or as chaotic neutral (agents of change in the world regardless of whether it's wrong or right). Yes, the players are making choices for their characters, but if those choices have no significant impact on the course of play was there any point making the choice in the first place?
I try to remedy this by making sure those choices made back at the beginning of play regularly come back to haunt the players. In a most generic fantasy games, the standard lore will suggest that humans are the dominant species, usually comprising half the population or more. Elves, dwarves, halfings, and a few key other signature species for the setting fill out the bulk of the rest. So inevitably, there are certain types of players will look for anything that doesn't belong to one of those "common" species/races, or will purely make their choices based on special abilities that the group possesses. If the player is making choices based on the benefits of the race, you can probably be pretty certain they'll make the most of those benefits. So seriously consider the penalties; I try to make sure a penalty comes into play every session or two. If a group doesn't have an explicit penalty or weakness, think of some other reason why the players should think twice about playing the group. If this group is so good, why aren't they more common.
Have they been hunted (and are they still hunted?)
If there aren't many members of this race, do they live in a ghetto? Do other species/races engage in prejudice against them?
If there is no explicit racism directed against them, is there a systemic issue where more populous groups have advantages and privilege?
Are the exclusive group new arrivals to the area? What do the existing populations think of these new arrivals?
Try to think of answers to these ideas before you let characters such as these in your game. It's not necessarily a case of flat-out denying these types of characters, but ensuring the character type is integrated effectively into the setting. Actually, that's not entirely true. Sometimes it actually is about flat-out denying those characters, and I mentioned that earlier when I talked about recipes and making sure the ingredients you add are appropriate for the dish being cooked (otherwise you end up with a foul tasting mash that nobody enjoys...or in the case of the game, you end up with a session that leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth and one that people don't want to continue...it may be fine as a one-off, but be aware of the issues that may arise).
If we're thinking about this from the three-way tension perspective, the aim is to prevent a single player from getting too much control over the flow of the story, and to make sure every character has a meaningful tension pulling against them so their choices are actually interesting and challenging.
A lot of this can be worked out through a decent session zero, where everyone knows what to expect in the upcoming games. If someone introduces a character during a later session, they should either run an NPC during a session to see how the game setting and story is played out, or accept the final decision of the narrator as to whether the character is suitable or not.
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Comments
You *can* learn other clan's disciplines, provided you find someone willing to teach you (and, in V20, that are willing to give you their blood). It lets you "run builds" more suited to your character, without encouraging the obnoxious minmaxxing or meta that are apparent in other systems.
If you wanna play a Tremere with potence, that's all well and dandy, but- assuming you manage to even find one willing to teach you- you run the risk of being blood bonded to a Brujah, losing the respect of your clan, or otherwise
There's also bloodlines, clan variants, antitribu, etc. but they all have their own risks and tidbits associated with them, so it mightn't be as easy as simply pulling an obscure bloodline out of your ass and calling it a day (or maybe it will, depending on your ST and intentions)
Unlike D&D where you have to run with the randomness, and where the chaos of the game lends itself to comedy and slapstick, VtM is a game where you can really hone a character toward a specific purpose and actually be good at things in game. As a form of escapism, this is arguably better. It's also got that factor where things are reined in...there are always bigger things out there, the Masquerade is there for a reason...even mortals are dangerous because there are so damned many of them.
For our lunchtime sessions, I've been pretty careful to pick and choose which types of vampires are present in the game, mostly selecting clans with common disciplines that are easy for new players to understand and play with, there's a couple of obscure ones just because I think they're fun and add some of the flavour I'm going for.
I've also instituted the "Boon Coin" system, because vampire society if all about favours. In the Camarilla there's a position called the Harpy who tracks favours and politics, in the Sabbat these were tracked differently, but those suckers are mostly gone now (either in hiding among the Anarchs, existing as powerful independents, or riding the highways as nomad motorcycle packs.... wink, wink). Soul Coins are used as a currency in the WoD Wraith game, and there are necromancers (Giovanni, Samedi, Harbingers, Hecata) who deal with wraiths, so it kind of makes sense to have coins drawn up from the underworld that are impossible to forge. So, I guess that means there's some kind of necromancer around. The reason I've brought up Boon coins is because when the time comes for players to face a choice of embrace or death (because they know too much and are a walking Masquerade breach), they'll be able to trade some favours for access to more obscure clans/bloodlines, or higher generation. Those without boon coins won't get a choice in their clan and will probably end up as low generation Caitiff or shovelheads. It's an introduction of an element in the game that keeps common clans easy to access, but allows the full range of clans and bloodlines available for those players who are willing to put in the work. It keeps the rare characters rare, because it takes more work to get access to them. It's a mechanism for game play outside the game that reflects a desired dynamic within the fiction of the setting. (We just haven't really had time to explain this in the quick 1/2 hour lunchbreak sessions).
I do agree that there's an interesting dynamic between the various groups in the setting. One of the fun balancing factors with the clans and bloodlines in the old version of the regular game is the fact that obscure groups got quirky and interesting disciplines, while common groups got political influence and power. Lesser groups lingered in the cracks and leveraged their special powers for favours and influence. Lots of balancing factors and relevance occurred in the depths of the fiction and narrative, and these played a strong part of the rules beyond the simple mechanisms of who gets what disciplines. Ventrue had pretty mundane disciplines, but in the narrative had vast access to mundane resources and influence. Tremere had the versatility of Thaumaturgy blood magic, but were balanced by the strict hierarchy that governed their clan. The rules were always pretty simple, but the lore of the setting governed a whole lot more of the narrative potential...