New Players Primer: Tips

First of all, welcome to Camarilla Invictus! We've probably said that already, but Hi again!

So, you're thinking of joining our game are you? Awesome! It's apparently very good, our players love it.

In their own words it's “world of darkness done right” and “just the right amount of social terror to make you keep coming back”.

Just a few words of advice.

Advice
When the Ref Team give advice listen to it, you'll enjoy the game more that way.

Ignore what the Ref Team suggest and you'll either become a glove puppet for some one else or die within 4 weeks of ignoring the advice.

Character Creation
Our Co-Ref, Sarah, is also our Character Coordinator Ref, which means she handles character creation with all players.

Doesn't matter if you've been with us for 1 day or 100 years, you will need to make your character alongside Sarah.

She'll offer lots of advice along the way about your character and remember what we said about Advice…

She helps people make the characters to ensure the understand exactly what attributes and abilities they have, she ensures that you don't get the odd “i'm a social butterfly with firearms 4…” type of characters that creep in to the game from time to time.

She makes sure that each of the characters is a fully rounded person.

Weak characters tend to come from people ignoring her advice.

Character Backgrounds
Once you've made your character you'll then have just 2 days to get a Background to us.

However, if you've been listening to Sarah you'll have a good idea of what you need to put in to your background…

First Character
You won't be able to play some 15th century noble, nor a viking warrior or even a victorian lady of the night.

Start small and discover the world around you in game.

Whilst we are a World of Darkness Larp we're also very different to other WoD games. This is OUR interpretation of the World of Darkness.

All the things you knew are probably not correct any more. There will be some differences both minor and major to other games you will have played before.

With that in mind here are some pointers about what your character will be when you join the game..
 * You've been a vampire for no more than 10-15 years.
 * You don't know much about Vampire politics.
 * You don't know much about your Sect or Clan, enough to survive but thats it.
 * You've been in kent for atleast 5 years because Kent was rumored to have been a “politics free zone” under a former Prince.
 * Try to have one or two Attributes or Abilities with a Speciality, they really add some flavour to the character.
 * Don't try and be perfect at everything, theres nothing worse than a thinly spent character who struggles to chew gum and walk at the same time.
 * You're coming to Court because apparently lots of other vampires meet once a month and those who don't go get punished by something or some one called The Scourge who hunts rogue vampires…

Who Were You
Before you make your character think about what sort of thing you want to play. Mess about with the cha-gen stuff on the wiki, knock up a rough draft of the character. But make them Mortal first. Instead of 7-5-3 have 5-4-3 for attributes, for Abilities have 9-6-4. Try and think about all the skills and things you'd need to be good (not Great or Perfect) at what you do.

Think about your life as a mortal, and then think about how the embrace Changed you. Because thats what it does, it strips you down and rebuilds you. Add on those unspent points to show how it really did change you.

It heightens your senses. It makes you more desirable or stronger or even faster. Think about the Dark Gift of the vampires blood.

Goals
Make sure you know why you're coming to Court. Don't just turn up because you've been told to. Go there to make trade deals, to discover who the competition is, to earn prestige and status. Make sure you have a few short term goals and a couple of long term goals. Even if the goal is “learn the history of my clan…” or “find out why I was embraced…”.

Goals should be flexible, you should keep reviewing your Goals based on what you do each game. And just because you achieved a goal it doesn't mean you can't work for something bigger as your next one..

As soon as you stop setting goals and dreams for yourself you start to fail as a character and become lazy as a player, an thats where you start not enjoying the game. And just because you failed a goal it doesnt stop you from playing, if anything it gives you more reason to keep playing, to find out why you failed, who caused you to screw up and so on.

As a WoD game we'll tell you now it's not going to be pretty, it will be emotionally challenging at times. We cover a lot of things in our game, anything from dead babies howling in your nightmares through to homes being burgled, you being attacked or you killing loved ones in a fit of rage over which you have no control.

It's a dark and nasty world and you might not be top of the food chain despite what you've heard from other vampires..