The Saga Continues!
Before Chakan and Hale sleep for the day, Hale calls up one of his vessles, a chick who thinks his drinking her is "makeing out", and asks her to travel to Palos Hills where the Giovanni are supposedly staying, checking for newly bought houses. He tells her to return the next evening and tell him what she finds out, when he will re-imburse her for her 'trouble'.
Night 5! Tuesday April 23rd
The three awaken, Chakan having stayed with the Assamite again. Hale finds himself confronted with a small problem as Nolan, troubled by his schitzophrenia, seeks to put himself into a mental hospital.
OOC: Here I must interject, as storyteller. Fist, I'd like to applaud Kyle's portrayal of a Malkavian. Either he's naturally insane, or he's got the right mixture of talent, brains, and narcotics that makes the perfect Malkavian player.
There are three things that have to come together for any role-playing game to be enjoyable both to the players and for the Storyteller.
First, and most importantly, are the players, the group as a whole. No matter what else that happens, the personality mix of the group is important. If even one bad apple is thrown into the bunch, it can ruin things for everyone. Ask me sometime about "Mouse".
Second is the game and the story. If the characters are forced like puppets down the path the gamesmater leads them, it can ruin everyone's fun. If on the other hand the characters can grow in their world, aquiring the things that are important to them and having the story be an integral part of that, then those are the games that are the most fun, the longest lasting and most memorable. This is a fine line though. Too much freedom, and the story is ruined, too little and the characters are puppets. This is one of the reasons why I try not to force anyone to do anything they don't want too, but will make suggestions to guide you along the way. Again, I've stories on both sides of this.
Thirdly, you have to be playing a character that suits you. More times than I can count, I've found myself in a situation where the character I was playing either didn't suit the game of myself at the time. In one of my White Wolf games, I was playing a bounty-hunter in a high-politics game. This meant that for the most part, my character was shunted to the side, coming to the forefront only when the proverbial fecal matter hit the rotating blades. Then everyone was glad to have a bounty-hunter (or, more or less, ANY combat-oriented character) around. Most of the time, though, I wasn't having fun. What do you do at that point? You can either suck it up, accept it and keep on, or you can have your character take a sunbath, and make a new one. Sometimes it takes a while to find the clan and character-type you want to play. When I first played white wolf, I thought I'd like to play a Tremere. I loved playing Elves and sorcerers in D+D, so I thought they would be best. That character lasted for all of 30 min, and I junked him. Moved on to a Brujah, and you all know how well I like my Brujah! :)
Again, these three elements combine to make a good game. What about when you've got all three and something goes wrong? Most of the time it's a temporary thing.
Yes, I'm getting to a point, though I'm taking the long way around to explain my basis of thought first, in an effort not to be misunderstood.
In my opinion, we've got a great mix of people right now, I like how the story is progressing and how the characters have not only their own goals (i.e. Claudia's dispute with Michael, wich is mostly taking place off-stage) but they have seperate party goals and are working towards both. Or making the two co-incide in Hale's case.
But during the last game session, there was massive disruption and off-tracking. When a member of the party goes off on their own for no other reason than to do it, one has to consider the ramifications. Sure, it might be "In Character" for it to happen, but that does not mean it has to. When Chakan wandered off into the sewers alone, time was wasted. They whole party was eventually going into the sewers, true, but one member wandering of alone means I've got to split up play time to handle that time. I breathed a mental sigh of relief when Hale asked The Blob to locate their lost party member. After they were out, again the group split up. Chakan went off to the asylum to clean up (no problem there, Claudia did the same thing in about three sentances) but then proceeded to wander off alone, wasting game time and causing noticable frustration in the other players. I tried to get the party back together without forcing anyone (and it was a long and awkward process) but player disruption made this troublesome.
Everyone has been guilty of this to some degree at one point or another. We'll go off on talks about this or that, not even talking about the game at all at times. Normally this is not a problem. But disruptive behavior from one party member causes problems for everyone. Trust me, Storyteller's guides and Dungeon Masters guides are full of advise, not story's, and one of the most touchy situations these guides handle is disruptive players. Now I don't see a problem with any single player in our group. We normally have a lot of fun and sometimes we get stuff done in game as well. But there is a time and a place for everything. We've all got to remember that there are three other people at the table who are there to have FUN, just like we are. When one player is frustrating another, or two others, that's when I have to step in. We've all lauhed our asses off at the Malkavian. Like I said before, I applaud Kyle's portrail of a Childe of Malkav. It's hard to do, and I could never hope to do better myself.
This is the time when I have to ask myself, is everyone playing a character they like? Does it fit the story? No one character is integral to the storyline right now. The Assamite could go back to the Middle East, to his clan home. The Toreador could get humiliated, and leave to seek a new unlife in another city, with a fresh start. The Malkavian could have Nolan get his way, and be committed to a regular insane assylum (and be destroyed for risking the Masquerade) or just wander off never to be seen again (or Dre could re-assert himself and go running back to the sabbat...there are THOUSANDS of things the Makavian could do!).
The next time we play I will be bringing this matter up, and I urge you all to think about it between now and then. White Wolf games are, compared to something like Dungeons and Dragons, a completely different breed of game. They involve these near-godlike beings in eternal struggle against other, equally powerfull creatures. Nine times out of ten, a Kindred will avoid direct conflict with his foe, but when the strugle becomes physical, it is a clash between Titans.
Bearing all this in mind, is your character ready for the endless nights ahead of them? Is this a charachter you could play for the next five years? Once a week for five years, think about that. If so, great. If not, then I urge you to talk to me about changing characters or re-working the one you have. I would prefer that you bring in a new character to re-working the one you have for continuity issues, but if you feel you're playing the right 'archtype' for lack of a better word but need to tweak the character, then we'll work it out.
When I said 5 years, I was by no means exaggerating. Here we are after our 4th game session, and not even a week into the story. May will be a fun month, and so too will June, as I have dates that things from the outside world will affect Chicago in both months. I've MOST of '96 mapped out for external events, and I have internal conflicts mapped for the next week or two.
OK, I'm sick of my own Diatribe, click here to get back to the chronicle!