Why did I get yelled at for entering? All I
did was put out my intro!
Intros are an often used, frequently abused "shorthand" for describing your
character in Ayenee. Properly done they're informative and somewhat
entertaining. Improperly done they're spamming and annoying.
However, the problems with using an Ayenee intro in WoD are numerous. One, some
folks consider it a little cheap, and thus tends to get a little groaning from
time to time. Two, actions that are acceptable and even expected in Ayenee are
totally inappropriate to World of Darkness.
Entering a room in WoD by teleporting into the middle, flashing your fangs and
declaring "Dark eve, all" will get you outright laughed at, sorry to say - for
two reasons. First of all for the use of powers that don't exist in WoD. While
there's some teleportation like effects for vampires, they don't generally work
that way, and using them for an entrance in a WoD room doesn't impress the other
players with your originality - it impresses them with the fact that the
character doesn't fit with the rules they've all agreed to play by.
Any display of superhuman physical structure (like wings, tails, tentacles,
horns, whatever) will also be met with a strong amount of skepticism. Remember,
the superhuman races of the WoD hide what they are from a currently-disbelieving
populace. Even added all together, the supernatural races/character types of WoD
are grossly outnumbered by the normal humans, and could pretty easily be wiped
out if they were foolish enough to reveal their existence to the normal humans.
A vampire who flashes their fangs and makes it clear that they are a
bloodsucking member of the undead is asking to be staked and killed by their own
kind, far before anyone human caught on and tried the
torches-pitchforks-an-mob-of-angry-villagers routine. A shape-changer who shows
what they are to normal humans is breaking their "litany" and is asking to be
hunted by their own kind. Mages are highly affected by paradox, which comes of -
guess what - the normal humans seeing the mage do magic.
Remember that the WoD setting is modern and mundane - if a little darker than
our world - and it's not really that far off from where you might live. Such
blatant acts as carrying visible swords or guns would get you stopped by the
cops in our world - and thus it would happen in the WoD too, only the cops of WoD are likely to arrest you out of hand - and fire if you choose not to
cooperate.
Before you yell at me for being a snob, let me explain that the first character
I ever brought into the Yahoo! World of Darkness rooms was much the sort that
I've just been describing. Visible weaponry, outlandish clothes, etc. I blush to
remember it - and I altered her easily, so she fit in with barely a ripple. It
can be done, without damaging the character beyond repair, trust me. I did it -
so can you.
All you need if you want to do an intro in WoD is a) an appropriate character
with sheet, b) a description for the character that doesn't include visible
weaponry (note I said visible. if you want to note weapons so someone doesn't
think you're just making stuff up on the fly, go ahead. Describe it as concealed
- and make people roll to see if they sppot the hidden weapons, if they try
saying they spot it without trouble) or unconcealed non-human body types, and c) acknowledge
the setting (don't say "walks into the room" if the "room" is a full-city
setting - that's the first things people jump on.) Observe those rules, and
nobody will yell anything but "ooh, cool"
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