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The Ventrue CEO stood up from his chair.
‘Why have all our attempts to capture the Magi failed? Don’t we employ the best of the best in our field?’
‘Errr…’, comes the mumble from many undead throats.
‘Well?’ snaps the CEO.
‘Well,’ says one of the braver Kindred present, ‘we can’t actually get the best of the best
with the pitiful amount we offer as wages.’
‘But our mission statement says-‘
‘What we do get is the best of the incompetent. We need to offer more incentives to work for us.’
‘My. How can we fund this in our current state? We’ll need to make several budget cuts. Next item: Are we agreed on our $50,000 bonuses?’
What is the White Wolf ‘party line’ in regards to their games?
Essentially that the characters are Damned, in one way or another, and that none of them are human.
Even the wraiths are exaggerated versions of the living, sustained only by strong passions.
This poses a problem in some ways.
The first is that it is tricky to roleplay the character, whom often has a uniquely alien view on life.
Vampires become dead in emotion, and cease to care about anything.
Werewolves only care about saving the world, and will kill anything in the way. If its not ‘natural’, it’s evil.
The Mages are the most alien of all, following strange philosophies which can be true and false at the same time.
The Wraiths shudder with gloom, and try to fight against almost certain Oblivion.
And the Changelings? They try to cultivate dreams and hope, while everyone else gets on with the practical order of things.
Of course, playing something different can be very interesting. For a while. While some people might like the Anne Rice melodrama of Vampire, not everyone wants to be constrained by the gloomy atmosphere, which is present in all the games to an extent. Some people just want to have fun, whether it is dark or not, and playing an angst-ridden character is not often conducive to that.
Which is not to say, ‘scrap the darkness’. I think noone disagrees when it is said that you can’t play Vampire without an element of darkness. But there are different ways of dealing with it. Note Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Very camp, very funny, very silly. But just as frequently it is dark, and horrific, sometimes in the same episode. It’s also a lot more fun than watching Louis whine all the time.
And that’s my point, that it’s a lot more fun to play ‘human’ supernaturals. Human flaws, human idiosyncrasies. I also think it’s a lot more realistic, in some senses.
Imagine that you’re a thousand year old vampire. Will you really cling on to power at any expense, and fight bitterly with others? Or will you just get bored of it all, and just try doing something random to alleviate your boredom? Or just end it all, when you get world weary? (This is one of the areas where Anne Rice definitely got it right in Interview, with Armand being the oldest vampire. Shame she spoiled it all later…). And what will young vampires do? Will they A) worry about moral issues, or B) go out there causing mayhem and making lots of mistakes? I’ll get to that point a bit more later, but basically I think B) reflects what many of us would do if we were given power, and is a lot more entertaining in chronicles. I’ve heard of chronicles where killer whales were given the Gift, and where insane plots were woven, but I’ve never personally heard of a traditional White Wolf campaign.
So, on to realism.
It is not often within human nature to torture ourselves with questions of right and wrong. For better or worse, we are very good at rationalising what we have done, and what we are. Many vampires will probably figure that what they do to humans is much what we humans do to animals. This means, of course, that there will probably be the equivalent of Green Peace in Kindred society. Some vampires will appease their conscience by only feeding on ‘bad’ people. Somehow it never seems so wrong when you think the other guy deserves it, isn’t that right? This is pretty much the situation in Werewolf – the garou never worry about moral implications, because they always know who the bad guys are (except in unfortunate situations).
On to humanity in Mages. Mages are strange and inhuman because they realise that reality is malleable. Now, let’s be honest, if you could warp reality, would you contemplate the meaning of ‘Purple’, or of moral aesthetics, or would you see if you could really build a robot out of rubbish and washing machines? Maybe some mages will be introspective, as with normals, bt most Mages will probably remain ‘common-sense’ as do many people. Read Descartes, Scruton, Searle, and other Philosophers, and then ask yourself if you would write that crap if you had real POWER.
Since Wraiths and Changelings are almost human, it is easier to alter them for human reality, or realism. Wraiths? It’s hard to see how difficult it could be, with the right powers, to simply finish off business on Earth and then pack it off to the final Reward, a la The Crow, or Ghost. Is it really that hard to say goodbye to a loved one? An afterlife that requires perfection of the soul for progression doesn’t strike one as particularly efficient. But as Wraith works quite well in regards to depression, we’ll forgive it that.
Now, Changelings. Basically they spend their whole lives in Dreams, doing pretty much sod all in regards to the real world. Living in a dream castle with the fairies may be nice for a while, but most people eventually long for a real life. Is it mundane, or just the desire for something real? I believe it is the latter, after all, what would you rather have? A dream of the perfect boy/girl? Or a real boy or girl, who wasn’t perfect, and even argued with you now and then, but was still the object of your real love? Which would you really rather have? Dreams are great, but you can’t have them without the real world. So I think that it’s more realistic to think of Changelings as those touched by the Fae by ancient blood, living normal lives, but with these strange gifts, and sights into the Dreaming. Think of them as fairie super-heros if you will, albeit with a more likely penchant towards chaos. (I dare you to imagine how a Troll, a Pooka, and a Slough would go about working together to prevent a bank robbery… MWUHAHAHAAA!!!)
So that’s it. You don’t have to listen to this, and I certainly wouldn’t dream of preventing anyone from playing Anne Rice Angst if they like that, but I know so many people like to just have fun, in absurd situations, abusing supernatural powers left right and centre. Is escapism, and playing human characters really so wrong? Or just fun? Try insanity, you just might like it.
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