Clans as mirrors
In The Requiem there are five clans of Kindred: Daeva, Mekhet, Gangrel, Nosferatu and Ventrue. All of them are created to portrait a certain archetype of the various vampire myths. For example, the Ventrue are created from the archetype of the lordy, business-y and corrupt Vampire leaders, and the Daeva are the hedonistic, emotional and thrill seeking poseurs.
Now, from a certain viewpoint these clans can seem a bit too archetypal — a bit too set in stone, a bit too generic. One could claim that the clans encourage clichés and impedes creativity. Indeed, that is often the case. Many players choose their clan for their favored disciplines(supernatural powers) and out of very dry, generic templates of “I want to play a CEO type character, so I’m Ventrue, I have refined tastes and live in a penthouse appartment” and the like.
The clans, however, can also be used as a tool of reflection — mirrors into yourself, a method of exploring your own personality as percieved by yourself as well as those around you. Consider yourself a new player, only now learning of the different clans and their identifiers. At this point you are struggling to try and identify yourself with one or some of the clans, as to better make a choice. You take online quizzes, ask those around you which of those descriptions fit you best and so on and so forth. You then settle for a couple of favored clans that you identify with better than the rest. But what happens when you choose a clan that fits your own view of yourself, but you then fail to roleplay it in a way your peers find feasible? Perhaps then you realize that the way you think of yourself is not the way you are percieved by your friends. Perhaps you see yourself as a social predator, feeding on your lust and your passion and seducing your way to recognition like the Daeva — while your peers perhaps see you more like a leader type, dominating your will onto others and forcing recognition your way like the Ventrue. This kind of testing out your own and your peers’ views of your identity is great, unobtrobsive and unconfrontational way of reflecting upon yourself. And a great opportunity to scrutinize your peers’ view of themselves in turn.
As you go on and become an experienced player you grow bored with archetypes, however. You start exploring roles completely contrary to yourself. You want something different. This experience not only helps you define your identity through defining what your identity is not — it also helps you understand the mental workings of those you normally do not approve of. If you are a staunch conservative, not accepting dilly dally, being of the firm belief that only he who works may eat, and you try to play the role of a street bum, you are forced into someone else’s mindset. You are forced to think as they would. And all of a sudden you understand them better. You probably won’t change your opinion, but your understanding will increase out of your usual range. What’s more interesting is when you start making comparisons to your own identity. You might be incredibly different persons, but there will probably also be places where your outlooks and views intersect or even overlap. Finding out those is another great revelation.
Lastly, once you’ve been over both archetypes; yourself and your opposite — you start growing bored of archetypes altogether. You start, deliberately, creating characters that act and think in ways that are not typical for their clans. A mekhet might not care for knowledge and secrecy at all, living the good life with sex and drugs and rock ‘n roll. This is where the clans have served their purpose. This is the final lesson they teach: how to combine aspects of personalities into feasible, interesting new concepts. To boldly go where none has ever gone before.
But it is a journey that never ends. The human psyche is a well without a bottom. The limits to what you can learn from roleplaying lies at the far reaches of space. Good luck out there.
A Requiem for San Francisco
Being an avid World of Darkness player, and having been so for years on end, I often write settings for my chronicles. I have recently created one for use with Vampire: The Requiem, set in modern day San Francisco, with offset in the city’s history as a cultural capital, economical mecca and a gathering place for liberal activism. As such, the city explores the Requiem mainly from the Carthian point of view, but with the twist of having lots of intrigue in that the Carthian government of the city has lasted for centuries, slowly crumbling beneath it’s own corruption and power. Below is a link to the PDF I’ve written. Feel free to use the setting in your own chronicles, but please notify me if you plan on redistributing it with changes.
I’d be happy to hear any comments on this.
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