Making a Character in WoD

Making a character in the World of Darkness

In a literal sense, building your character takes a few minutes after making the critical decisions of the sheet. After this comes the more challenging part, of coming up with a character that will be interesting enough to bother playing for any time longer than a few rounds. Something that can grow as you play, and engage with other players, instead of relying on a single trope or coolness factor to get by.

Let's break that down to its base components. With the right materials, in the right way, at the right time, you could even produce your Magnum Opus.

The Four Humours of Character

1. The Base - Concept and Foundation
2. Active Ingredients - Major Events and Traumas
3. Temperaments - Habits, Skills, Hobbies
4. The Recipe - Putting together your Character

Concept and Foundation

Unlike many other roleplay experiences within and without our niche, characters do not have as much definition in their page to guide their roleplay. For example a Lawful Neutral Ranger has more of a path definition than a 14th generation punk rock Brujah. When creating a character, they should not be born from a generic concept or a trope you want to play out. A baseline idea of what kind of person is being played is very important. Their entire life leads to their First Change, Embrace, or introduction to the Supernatural World of Darkness. A quick example of some baseline features for a hypothetical character:

• I want my character to be a woman.
• I want my character to be kind of a complete failure, who has lost their job at a brokerage and is wasting her evenings in the bay area nightlife.
• I want my character to be a human, that is embraced by a vampire on the server!

The first steps here are to start considering where they have come from, who they are, and looking into these topics so flesh them out. Someone employed in finance should be able to throw out some legit sounding statement about returns on investment, or derivatives.

Building this foundation might include what kind of brokerage she worked on, what exactly she did to get fired, or if she even really cares about the situation much at all. Since she is still a living human, she is likely paying rent on a lease. We'll go with that, moving on! When considering characters of a race, culture, religion, sexuality, or ethnicity outside of ones own familiarity, some research should be done to ensure it is not a trope heavy design. Unlike a group of players around a table, The Final Nights is ran and moderated to promote inclusivity and respect. We have players from every part of the world, from many walks of life and experiences. Offensive concepts or other potentially offensive stereotypes aren't allowed. Our character is going to be an American with roots to the British Colonies, born and raised in California.

Lastly, the foundations of knowledge for our character are important to know. For her, it is much more simple, as she is fully ignorant of the supernatural, but this doesn't mean she becomes a master of Kindred political life in a few weeks, months, or even years! She would be brought into the Traditions, the local hierarchy of the faction she is embraced into, alongside the struggles to control her Beast and the inability to answer what is happening to her without guidance from others. Important things for vampires of all knowledge levels to consider is where exactly their knowledge ends, who educated them, and what explicit lies and omissions have led to their current cosmology of the supernatural?

Major Events and Traumas

It is a World of Darkness after all! What led our character to her state? Did she had a rough childhood, or did her lover die? Was it a swing of the market, or actual incompetence? You don't need to create a whole life for your character, it is only important to track what would be important to her! This leaves plenty of room to retroactively create features as you flesh her out, as long as they aren't large retcons on play that has occurred. These major events will provide a baseline and personality to her. She grew up super poor, and is still feeling a lot of cushion from her high end job, so she always feel the need to help out financially! Paying for brunch, the uber, anything that she can sneak through before the party is over.

In picking out Major Events or Traumas, the most important consideration is whether the event is impactful upon roleplay and defining the character. Most of the time, one or two defined Major Events or chain of traumatic events is enough to provide a core to build a character around. However, the inverse is also something that can be expressed. If she had never had a fault in her life, and only had gotten fired on a fluke, even better! She hated that job.

What the hell happened?

A single event or chain reaction in her life. It could be average or common, but it should provoke a response from someone. She worked her way up from nothing, and then was flicked off the ladder, like a fly. What you choose to do tells others a lot about your character, so most any choice is valid.

How did it make you feel?

An event in her history that make her feel a certain kind of way. How DID it feel? In a few works, or longer, how did the immediate aftermath feel? It doesn't need to be a logical response. In fact, the road from "event" to "response" can lead to all kinds of unexpected places, if the response is unorthodox as well. She was overjoyed at losing her job, as if she was granted insight and wisdom which was previously hidden.

Why does it itch under your skin?

This is the crucible, the core, and the reason why this emotion matters to your character. If she had processed this and compacted it properly, there wouldn't be any drama to exploit. When the feeling lingers, even long after the event has, it drives the character to action. The event itself does not need to be ongoing, and can be as dead as her future sire, but the emotion must be as alive as she is now. Something, possibly even external, stepped in and arrested your development.

As previously said, one or two Events is enough. If playing a Kindred like our fair lady is expected to be, this is a huge and world shattering event that she would have to unpack on top of everything else! These shifting winds are both boons and curses that others may see any act upon.