Page 197 - World of Darkness

It’s every player’s job to be lenient and patient with Finally, determined to know what’s happening and
other players and the Storyteller. If mistakes are made, to potentially save someone or himself, a character ex-
point them out (if necessary) and move on. Don’t belabor ceeds the boundaries of logic in order to understand what’s
the point. It’s impossible not to occasionally make a deci- really going on. The character suspects his wife’s every
sion you regret — you’re making this up as you go. Just act and sneaks into the building where he saw her go the
don’t mock someone mercilessly for a mistake. What goes night before.
around comes around. You’ll make your own mistakes soon By stepping outside the bounds of ordinary existence,
enough. a character begins to see past the illusion of everyday life
The point to remember is that you all create a spon- to understand that another reality exists beyond. He is
taneous story experience. That’s an amazing thing. Many exposed to the barest facts of the supernatural, that some-
professional actors, directors and writers would be scared thing is wrong in the world, that the life he leads is a lie
to death to even contemplate the idea. Unlike the mil- and that he has willingly participated in it — until this
lions of dollars that can be lost by screwing up a film, there moment.
are no consequences to screwing up in Storytelling. It’s a So, what is the truth? What goes on in the shadows
game, and in the end you produce a work of imagination and places where humanity is not meant to see? The char-
that outshines any blemishes that go into its making. acters in your game probably don’t get to know just yet.
That’s the stuff for books such as Vampire: The Requiem
Preliminary Story in which characters discover the undead by becoming them.
But the characters can get a taste of the truth now, enough
so that they search voraciously for more. In so doing, they
Any first story for a character or group in the World
of Darkness is a dread initiation. Characters go from ordi- get to know more and more and leave their former igno-
rant bliss behind.
nary, everyday people struggling with hardship and op-
Thus, characters’ first story in the World of Darkness
pression to people who get a glimmer that something more doesn’t involve dead giveaways of what reality actually is.
is at work out there. All the turmoil of the world that was
taken for granted before now gains some context. Hints They don’t discover fang marks on loved ones’ necks and
immediately get to conclude “Vampires!” Rather, you
and allusions suggest that a previously unknown force may
be at the root of it all. Hidden beneath the everyday world, should allude to the impact of monsters on humanity and
allow characters to see those allusions for what they are,
inexplicable activities are underway and strange beings
ply schemes. Something or someone is there that gains rather than as the coverup they’re meant to be. A loved
one may indeed be fed upon by a vampire, but bite marks
from humanity’s suffering, and those forces may or may
not be of this world. Making these discoveries is an initia- aren’t the evidence of it. The truth is far more insidious.
A wife is increasingly distracted; glassy-eyed. She needs
tion into the real World of Darkness.
Your first story ideally does not catapult previously more and more sleep for no apparent reason. She loses
ordinary folks into vampire havens, werewolf packs or interest in her husband and spends more and more time
wizard covens. That immersion may be too much, too soon out after dark “with friends.” On the surface, her activity
seems mundane (if adulterous). The truth of something
for your players, and certainly for the comprehension of
their characters. Driving to work one morning and know- more going on only emerges when she goes from acting
unlike herself to becoming someone altogether different,
ing unequivocally that vampires exist that night is prob-
ably too extreme a transition for anyone to handle. The the plaything of a monstrous, hidden force. The charac-
ters of your troupe should witness this kind of subtle trans-
result is not motivation to explore further, but to run for
one’s life, and that doesn’t make for very enjoyable formation, and as a result grasp that the world is not as it
seems.
Storytelling games.
Instead, your first game ideally introduces the char-
acters to the unknown slowly. They get hints and glimpses The Premise
of the truth — that things stalk the shadows, that people Before you can suggest to players’ characters that the
are not necessary in control of their own fate, that hu- world is inherently wrong, you need a premise for the bi-
manity is not at the top of the food chain. At first, some- zarre circumstances that arise. What freakish, disturbing
one or something in a character’s life is strangely upset or or alarming developments suggest to characters that there’s
not as it should be. The problem could be rationalized more to the world than they know? These plot hooks are
away, but the character notices that there’s a bigger, mys- typically odd events, strange behaviors, circumstances that
terious problem at work. His wife’s behavior is not only can’t be explained easily, or encounters that simply linger
out of the ordinary, it borders on the inexplicable or im- in the mind and won’t let characters rest. Like a scratch
possible. Further exploration reveals cracks in reality. that can’t be itched, these events motivate characters to
Things that should not or could not happen are under- act, investigate and try to comprehend. By doing so, char-
way. His wife seems to have dedicated herself to some- acters scratch the surface of reality.
thing he can’t understand or see, but it definitely has a You can organize such initial stories with a group or
hold over her. with individual characters. A group of ordinary folks needs
a reason to be together in the first place, such as employ-

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Chapter 8- STORYTELLING