Making a Character in WoD

This guide is for learning how to create a viable character. For how to literally make a character on The Final Nights, check our the guide for working on your character sheet!

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

The Base - Concept and Foundation
Active Ingredients - Major Events and Traumas
Temperaments - Habits, Skills, Hobbies
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.

Habits, Skills, Hobbies

The interests and idiosyncrasies of a character are not lost after the embrace, in most cases! Even an elder with a serious disposition may enjoy their coveted form of horseplay, or creative childsplay. Player characters are not just monsters, they are also human and have to live in human society. Hobbies, developing skills, and habits should be part of a character to bring them to life. While currently limited, as features expand, it plays well to have traits reflect on character sheets as well! Our recently fired woman still has her public broker terminal, speaks a few languages, and has the dead aura of a capitalist in waning. As these develop, it will be a peril to neglect important moments to small dice pools because you didn't reflect your character on their sheet!

Signposts

There is a heavy focus on emotion or lack of for a reason! A flat character without edge is not engaging. Having all the charm in the world, while being stoic as a rock will put off even the most dedicated Lasombra power seeker.

Signposts are guidelines to mark out clear reactions the character has to events around them. They are by nature extreme and abstract, because we cannot control events of the game, and subtlety is often in the form of a 8 foot tall werewolf or a vampire throwing a car at it. You don't need to become a master of acting your character, and every reaction has a more common emotion tied to it. It is a roadmap, not everyone can jump to Rage, but most people have been really frustrated or pissed off.

Once these reactions are build, there is no need to treat them as gospel forever. They are guidelines, a true north to aim at. If you know your character is always looking for an edge, or a side game, that is going to change how she interacts with stranger within the new society she finds herself in, and more importantly a potential sire. Her fish out of water experience will also be guiding here.

Putting together your Character

Now we have more or less produced a character to entice a vampire to bring her into the Night. Her name is Langley Smith. She is starting to come into form, but there are some things at this point we should consider. Firstly, we should avoid cliches. It is possibly controversial to say, but we don't want someone's first run to be someone else's 10th, and lead to sub-par play. If something ends up sounding too common, re-roll it or throw it back in the other direction.

Next, we should make sure she isn't too one note. A unified set of Events, Habits, Signposts, and Foundation, will just be a vehicle for a direction rather than a character engaging in the world. Randomness is a great friend, and provokes you to make choices you wouldn't otherwise make. Interesting people are never exactly what we expect, or singular in purpose. Let your own characters surprise you with their interests!

Lastly, the most important thing is to see if you are interested in this person. If you don't like the concept, or can't make sense of what they are supposed to be, don't force it! Start over, and if you have a few elements that speak to you, take them for the next edition. You don't want to struggle with a character like a cheap suit, you want to inhabit them. Let's get into Langley's skin a little.

She got fired from the brokerage for reasons outside of her control or consideration. A reduction in force as it ever was. A bit of a success story failing while in launch, she came from a poor family that was not of any particular faith and now has a surplus of capital and is more than happy to run it down back to 0. She had a pretty boring education, kept costs low in state school to not be a burden. She has always felt this kind of shame for her socioeconomic status, and is always the first to offer to pay for an entire meal or group event. Not a single soul will ever say she's stingy. She also might be bisexual? Since losing her job she has been at the park a lot, and there is this one woman she sees that is simply captivating. Not that she was particularly active before this budding revelation. A sophisticated actor, she did not rise without intentional effort, and is very quick to spot bullshit from people. She works hard, and plays harder, fully willing to burn her whole nest egg if it keeps this newfound joy going, that's what its all about right?

When I look at Langley, I could see a few clans taking note of her. A Venture could pick her up as a Ghoul, and press her into service eternally if she proved valuable to her sire, and worth the effort to train. Her attitude suits their hierarchy, and her skills in fields they operate in could provide value long term. Clan Malkavian could see a tramp on parade, sitting on a nest egg, and bring her into the troupe. If nothing else, another pretty bird to sing Malkav's ravings. She has a disposition and interest in Tarot, the magpie energy is strong with her. Of course, as her story developed, any clan could embrace her. For existing kindred or Garou, figuring out who a person is is a much stronger way of determining their splat features, than the other way around!

In Conclusion

Some other important considerations in general are the Embrace and First Change. We don't need to have every detail fleshed out, but the how and why are crucial to consider. The lore of VtM and WtA must be taken into account when making the circumstances of these events. For example, a Venture embracing and abandoning their homeless childe would not be lore-compliant. This is because the Venture have a very elaborate siring process, and would not abandon something they went through the effort of making. Another important thing to remember is while creating a badass cool character with a long backstory seems fun, it will cause you endless grief in roleplay. If a character faces something they have no bearing or experience with, they could grow and change. A character that has met every Garou, knows everything, been there and done that, has no chances for growth or change. They tend to fall flat and end up without direction. Leaving gaps in experience allows you to develop them as you play, and have fun while engaging in different situations. An extensive background for a character doesn't make them good or bad, but it should be remembered that the most important part of their story is yet to come, and what could be explored in their story.

It is worth stressing that a character doesn't need to be likable, and often times shouldn't be! This is the World Of Darkness, and not every social character is a friendly one. Overly anti-social characters naturally are harder to play and integrate into the setting. They need reasons to make social connections, and don't need to be genuine in public to get them!

Ultimately, how you choose to play your characters is up to you, hopefully this helps you figure out where to start and how to produce a working concept!