Good evening, my fellow Kindred,

Today, I would like to talk about something important that makes the world more believable and immersive. Characters. World-building is not complete without someone who lives in it. Whether it's a lonely island, a cozy village, or a big city, there is always someone who calls that place home. World of Darkness is even more challenging because supernatural creatures not only exist in these areas but also interact with Mortals and each other. Most usually they avoid their presence to be known, either by a supernatural means or plain wits and intelligence. Of course, there are exceptions, and those need to be treated cautiously, not to the breaking of the fine line of suspension of disbelief.

Characters, like everything, need a foundation. Most usually characters are created to fill a special role, especially in games. Sometimes they pile up when one is created after another to be a one-time acquaintance created as needed, but in the world of supernaturals, certain limitations don't allow such. In the case of vampires, too big Kindred community would be a problem. Not only are they highly territorial, but their activities also tend to get attention. Especially when one makes a lot of feeding mistakes and gets people killed regularly. You can even find in the canon some cities that have strictly controlled Kindred populace! It's not cruelty, it's a necessity.

Okay, but how is that even important? In the case of Vampire: The Masquerade, it's important to think about the bigger picture. While Mortals may have a mostly marginal role, most usually they are not the focus of the story. Vampiric characters often exist in a given place for decades if not centuries. They are also a rather unique occurrence that doesn't happen a lot. Kindred also tend to get their fingers everywhere, and more often than not, they are deeply interconnected with the local community, even if it's oblivious of their presence. It would be weird to give them an episodic role, especially if we paint them as someone really important in the place we're presenting. That's why it's essential to start at the top of the hierarchy and then go down. It helps to establish the zones of influence, interests, and ownership of important places, which creates a political web of connections. And also how big a role the given character will need to fill. Will they be readily available, or maybe it'll be difficult to meet them? Those are important questions that establishing the local hierarchy first solves pretty well.

When this part is settled, one may proceed further, adding more to this map. It's important to start from the general to the detail. I like to start with a broad concept of a given character - what do I want to show with it, what story I want to tell, and what personality do they have. It provides a skeleton on which I can add the next layers. Even if I leave some of them blank, I can fill them in during the game, adding additional depth to the character. It may sound counterintuitive, but blank spaces are important during character creation because they give some amount of flexibility. In traditional tabletop, such blank spaces allow for giving additional traits basing it off the reactions, theories, or opinions the players have about the given character. It's also a great time to consider what relationship the given character has with other people residing in the domain. Some archetypes tend to dislike others, some tolerate each other and so on.

It's also nice to add some touches. The devil's in the details, and this is no exception. At this stage, usually everything is more or less set, so adding them should be very easy. It's all the small quirks that make the characters believable and likable. It may be everything, from their fashion choices to their accent and speech patterns. I always like how games with voice over take the extra effort to add certain speech patterns of an audible accent that reveal the character's origin. Makes the character more unique and believable.

There are also the looks, and let me tell you, this is a topic for another discussion. So let's end this entry here and pick this topic up in the next dev diary, where I'll reveal some mysteries of character design, visually wise. Maybe you have another pipeline you use when you create characters? Share them on our Discord server!

Have a nice day and see you next month.