10V: TRUST
Having talked about trust among players and GMs in my main post, trust among characters. The Darkness family of games give PCs a lot of reasons not to trust each other.
Vampires are inherently untrustworthy due to their addiction, and their cardinal rule of the Masquerade is about lying to the world about their existence, even before you consider the array of mental and emotional powers they can use, the effects elders can have on them, and more.
Like all criminal enterprises they count on honour among thieves, knowing that it’s not something to be counted on. The more organised sects and covenants have rules in place to stay agreeable, the smaller ones have to actually keep their word more reliably.
MET parlour LARPs tend towards political plotting and scheming. Redemption is about a close-knit group if fire-forged friends and one still betrays them, while Bloodlines involves an array of hidden agendas. One of the two board games and all of the card games are competitive, with Prince’s Gambit being a find the traitor game. Trust is hard to come by in this setting.
This makes coteries like the traditional player character group seem dangerous. They need more reason to trust each other than the PC Glow.
Some of this is out of character - saying you don’t want a lot of infighting in the chronicle should cut it down, and when setting up a game about backstabbing court politics you should lay out how much trust is to be expected.
Consider the differences in character versus character conflict when the players are all in on it. Is everybody happy to scheme against each other in character while knowing about it out of character, to lean in to the drama and irony of having their characters misplace trust deliberately? Not all players are, so check before starting to sharpen the daggers.
And some more can be done in character as well. For one thing, show other coteries. It often seems like the only groups of unrelated vampires in a setting who work together are the PCs and the Primogen. Every other vampire is a loner. Part of this is for the sensible reason that the Storyteller then only has to speak for one SPC in a conversation, but getting around that through description can help. So have the Ventrue Sheriff work with a Toreador detective and a ghoul factotum, introduce an Anarch gang with a mix of clans, give the brooding Gangrel autarkis a Nosferatu ward, bring in that band founded by a Toreador guitarist and Tremere saxophonist joined by a Brujah on bass and a Malkavian frontman. Show that some other vampires trust a few of their peers... at least to an extent.
(Note that the second World Of Darkness game Werewolf: The Apocalypse made the pack a default structure with five Auspices as ‘classes’ as well as Tribes. Mages are voluntarily organised and the following games didn’t take it as far, though.)
And see what happens when that trust is tested.
1.10: I Trusted You
Shane’s broodmate stumbles into Nocturne after closing time, badly wounded and seeking sanctuary - and accuses Paris of setting her up.
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