Elder Character Creation

How do vampires come to be? How many dots should a Sabbat priscus have? How strong is the prince? White Wolf has established a system for creating setting-specific Vampire Storyteller characters, and we'll let you in on the secret.

The formula, such as it is, for creating a vampire of a given age is quite simple. For Abilities, start with the standard battery of 7/5/3 dots, and allocate two more dots for each century of age the vampire has achieved (between all Attributes, not each section). Vampires older than a few hundred years should receive only one additional dot per century after the first five or so - when you're that old, it's very hard to improve your timeless body.

Abilities should accumulate in like manner - start with the basic 13/9/5 dots and add five dots for each century of unlife the Kindred manages to survive. With Disciplines, take the square root of the time the vampire has spent undead (which again reflects the difficulty of learning new things when one has been dead for more than a millennium) and distribute that many dots wisely among the character's powers.

Concerning Backgrounds, Virtues, Humanity (or Path) scores and Willpower, consider the character's role in the story. Is the character a powerful prince? Stock up on Backgrounds. Is the character and ancient wanderer? Set her Humanity very high or very low and add a significant Willpower trait. Is the character centuries old and weary with the sins of unlife? Keep all of the aforementioned Traits low.

Elder character who might be expected to have strings of derangements may instead have none, as part of their back stories involve overcoming those dangerous mental states. (It's also worth a mention that the act of adopting a Path of Enlightenment may sometimes have the same effect as a Derangement, as any Path's precepts are so radically different from the cultural norm. Who's in a more precarious mental state: the Malkavian with blackouts or the Lasombra who believes it acceptable to flay his ghouls and make them fight for their skins? This is not an encouragement to players to seek Paths instead of derangement; rather it is an indication that characters' psyches have far greater depth than simple lists of Traits.

Naturally, there are exceptions to these rules of thumb. Some archons have spent almost all of their unlives in vigorous training, whereas a given priscus may have devoted centuries toward cultivating a strong network of Backgrounds. Certain paragons of vampiric terror may have developed a fearsome array of Disciplines. That's just how it is.

How does this formula reconcile with the players' characters' power levels? Quite easily, given a bit of consideration.

First, the frenzied activities of the modern nights as Gehenna approaches is a recent development. Whereas it might be common now for a vampire to engage in a firefight, or other unlife-threatening activity almost weekly, most elder vampires have led (by comparison) relatively inactive existences. Vampires who brawl nightly in the streets and set each other's havens on fire don't make it to elder status - they die amid the flames or with looks of horror on their faces as the sunlight greets them in their prison cells (explain that to the prince, arrogant anarchs). The wise - and old - vampire chooses his fights carefully. The static unlives that most elder vampires lead involve fairly little commotion, which means they garner experience slowly in game terms.

Second, elder vampires spend a good deal of time in torpor. Whereas a young (say, 120 years old) vampire might have learned 10 dots worth of Disciplines in a century, a slumbering Methuselah might have learned only one. This comparison is slightly misleading, however - the Methuselah may have learned his eighth level of Dominate in that century, so don't take him lightly.

Third (and finally), experience becomes harder to gain and expend the older a vampire gets. A veteran of a hundred sword duels (assuming he survives them all) isn't going to learn much from those confrontations unless he continues to fight people better than him. Little insight can be gained from trouncing yet another upstart, as the vampire will have little call to test himself to his limits, which is a requisite for improvement.

As a side note, consider the function of the Storyteller "dot" system. Dots are geometric increases in the character's prowess, not arithmetic increases. Five dots is a maximum human capacity for most Traits - a character with Computer 5 is literally one of the most capable computer programmers or power users in the world. Think about that next time someone tries to justify another character with Firearms 5 who "spent time in 'Nam as a sniper." Characters with scores of 4 in given Traits are rare enough, and the character with a 5 in the same Trait is far and away their superior. Strength 5 is an Olympic weightlifter; Dexterity 5 is a professional ballet dancer. Traits of this magnitude are hardly appropriate for Anonymous Shotgun-Wielding Brujah Thug Number 312. Vampires are rare. Traits above 4 are rare. Vampires with Traits above 4 are exceedingly rare - or they've had the time to cultivate them, which doesn't bode well for their lessers.

That said, there's nothing wrong with the players' characters having some significant Traits of their own - your troupe's stories should focus on those characters, so they should have some interesting and noteworthy characteristics. Just beware letting the Traits define the character. It's fine for a character to be among the strongest (smartest, most gorgeous, etc.) people in the world, but there's far more to a true character than a handful of penciled-in dots on a character sheet. Roleplaying and storytelling involve far more than enormous dice pools and godlike powers. Find the balance that fits your game and run with it. Keeping things fresh and surprising for the characters demands that a Storyteller make each new piece of information her own - who cares what we say; we don't run your game!

From Children of the Night
Typed out by Patrick, whom I thank greatly.