Mmm. Cheddar...and maybe some strawberries and a nice glass of pinot noir. Good thing dinner is almost ready or I'd be in trouble.
The three team approach is a good one. It offers more than just two options for people and opens up a lot of opportunity to slide over to another team as the story permits. Who knows, maybe gray team gets sick of being stuck in the middle and stages some form of protest against black and white teams. Having a character or two on more than one team is also a great way to go if for no other reason than ensuring there are enough participants at any given time. Back when the redeemers got started, the people playing them were encouraged to have their normal magic user or two and keep an anti-magic zealot in their back pocket for rainy days.
On the subject of the designated victims and being pathetic, I tend to think of the victim as pathetic if they just bare their neck all the time. There's supposed to be something dark and kind of sensual about getting bit in the neck. Plenty of material suggests that anyway, and plenty of people whose real life fetishes swing that way as well. I'd imagine that after a while the vampire would get bored and look for a neck with more challenge and fewer marks in it. Of course just because a player signs up a character to be a designated victim in no way implies that they go easily into that gruesome embrace.
I think that's the spot where I am reluctant to move from my opinion. Usually I'm pretty open minded, but the fluffy terms attached to a vampire's feeding just don't sit well with me. If I'm playing a character that goe in for the dark delight angle, then I can bury my personal feelings and play with the role. Terms like "embrace" are way too nice for what is essentially a violation, although in some cases where the victim is willing and there is no violence then perhaps it is just a desecration.
The aspect of a vampire retaining their sense of who they were and what they were about isn't so concrete in my mind though. The knowledge of what a vampire was and the shock of what they are forced to do to survive is a turbulent struggle worthy of tales. I tend to think of that kind of individual as the rarity among vampires. Call me a purist, but in my book most of the time when someone dies from a vampire bite they wave bon voyage to their soul as what is left afterwards is rarely more than a crude reflection of the person they were and at worst is a suit where a demon took up residence.
The three team approach is a good one. It offers more than just two options for people and opens up a lot of opportunity to slide over to another team as the story permits. Who knows, maybe gray team gets sick of being stuck in the middle and stages some form of protest against black and white teams. Having a character or two on more than one team is also a great way to go if for no other reason than ensuring there are enough participants at any given time. Back when the redeemers got started, the people playing them were encouraged to have their normal magic user or two and keep an anti-magic zealot in their back pocket for rainy days.
On the subject of the designated victims and being pathetic, I tend to think of the victim as pathetic if they just bare their neck all the time. There's supposed to be something dark and kind of sensual about getting bit in the neck. Plenty of material suggests that anyway, and plenty of people whose real life fetishes swing that way as well. I'd imagine that after a while the vampire would get bored and look for a neck with more challenge and fewer marks in it. Of course just because a player signs up a character to be a designated victim in no way implies that they go easily into that gruesome embrace.
I think that's the spot where I am reluctant to move from my opinion. Usually I'm pretty open minded, but the fluffy terms attached to a vampire's feeding just don't sit well with me. If I'm playing a character that goe in for the dark delight angle, then I can bury my personal feelings and play with the role. Terms like "embrace" are way too nice for what is essentially a violation, although in some cases where the victim is willing and there is no violence then perhaps it is just a desecration.
The aspect of a vampire retaining their sense of who they were and what they were about isn't so concrete in my mind though. The knowledge of what a vampire was and the shock of what they are forced to do to survive is a turbulent struggle worthy of tales. I tend to think of that kind of individual as the rarity among vampires. Call me a purist, but in my book most of the time when someone dies from a vampire bite they wave bon voyage to their soul as what is left afterwards is rarely more than a crude reflection of the person they were and at worst is a suit where a demon took up residence.
