Page 30 - Chronicles of Darkness

impossible, in the Chronicles of Darkness). Or maybe you
find out that your character’s father is somehow responsible
Sample Short-Term for the eyeless, grinning thing that pulled your mother into

Aspirations that grove of trees the night she disappeared. At that point,
you may not want to reconcile any more.
Find a new job. If an Aspiration no longer makes sense for a character, a
player can change the Aspiration between chapters with the
Find out why my sister hasn’t called me back. Storyteller’s approval. This isn’t an excuse to ditch a goal that
Get beat up by the school bully. is taking too long to accomplish, but rather is an option to
keep a character’s goals in line with their behavior and the
Go on a date with the new guy at work.
overall direction of the story.
Indulge my addiction.
Mug someone. Breaking Points
Put myself in mortal danger.
When a character performs certain actions or endures
See a ghost.
certain experiences, he might reach a breaking point. A
Show myself that I’m not cursed. breaking point simply means that what a character has done
or seen has outstripped his ability to rationalize or handle it.
A breaking point can fall into one of the following
Sample Long-Term categories:
Aspirations • The character performs an action that either violates
his personal moral code or that is considered unac-
Become a parent. ceptable in society.
Destroy the beast that killed my lover.
• The character witnesses something traumatic, terrifying,
Discover what happened when my father or that rattles his understanding of the world.
disappeared.
• The character is the victim of a supernatural attack,
Figure out what happened during those weeks I
can’t remember. whether physical, emotional, or mental.
Find my soul mate. Breaking points are somewhat subjective, obviously. A
homicide detective with 30 years of experience in seeing
Find out what was really living in the culvert near dead bodies and hearing confessions of killers has a some-
my childhood home. what higher tolerance for human depravity than a sheltered
Prove that my mother isn’t crazy. 20-something in a middle-class liberal arts college. During
character creation, it might be advisable for the Storyteller
Put my daughter’s ghost to rest. to come up with several hypothetical situations, so that the
Take over the company. player can determine if, in her judgment, those situations
would be breaking points.
Note that a breaking point is not necessarily something
that the character considers wrong. A character might kill
can try to come up with a few basic ones, such as the simple, someone in a clear-cut, unambiguous case of self-defense, but
easily-accomplished Aspirations mentioned earlier. Or go the experience is probably still a breaking point, even if the
ahead and leave a few of your Aspiration slots blank for player (and the character!) feels the act was entirely justified.
now, and define them while you play the first few sessions. Actions take a toll on the psyche, regardless of whether
Aspirations are not meant to be a straightjacket or a source the actions were righteous.
of stress, but a tool to help you play the character that you During character creation, the player should answer the
want to play. following five questions. Each question provides a breaking
A character’s Aspirations will also likely change over the point for the character. If, during the character creation
course of the chronicle. If you accomplish an Aspiration, for process, additional breaking points become apparent to the
example, you should replace it with a new Aspiration after that player, add them to the list. There’s no limit to how many
session. This is a good thing to work on in between sessions. breaking points a character can have. The list isn’t a strict list
Sometimes Aspirations are no longer relevant to a charac- anyway; the Storyteller can stipulate that a given occurrence
ter, even if they haven’t actually been achieved. For example, is a breaking point regardless of whether or not it appears on
if your character has an Aspiration of “reconcile with my the player’s list. However, the better-defined your character’s
estranged father,” it’s hard to accomplish if he is murdered outlook is, the better your Storyteller’s understanding will
in the fourth session of the game (though certainly not be of what constitutes a breaking point for that character.
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Breaking Points