Character Motivation Help Needed [Vamp the Req]

[Totally Guy]

I was thinking about the way to develop my Nosferatu character.

He's a secure individual in a party of angst. He's got no problem with feeding on people and committing bad acts to ensure his survival. Fundamentally though he's a good guy.

The way he's managed this is by finding a "greater good" to serve. He's got a button in his haven that must be pushed a 3 or 4 times a week or else a "great evil" will (probably) be released. Totally stolen this plot line from Lost but it's still good. He keeps this button secret in order to keep the greater good for himself as it justifies his questionable actions.

But I'm wondering what he might do when this button plot gets resolved, I'm guessing something might happen with it within 3 sessions or so.

I'd like for my guy to become unhinged at losing his "greater good" and try to find something crazy to replace it. The ideal situation for him would be to find a bomb in a dam that he could delay over and over. But maybe he'd go so far as setting up some ridiculous dangerous scenario for him to perpetually solve as then he can justify the benefit of his own existence.

Is this a cool direction to take him?

What kind of ridiculous situation might he be able to set up to allow him to "secretly save the day" on a regular basis. I'm really stuck with this.

[kamikasei]

Lost? I was about to say you obviously took that straight out of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac.

Point the first is that it'll depend on how the button plot is resolved: does the evil escape or not (as far as he's concerned)?

You could make it so that he reenacts his button compulsion on a larger scale. Every time he sees, say, a broken window (a weak point in the fabric of the world!) he has to draw a figure on it in a drop of his blood (repairing the seal!). Imagine he thinks the entire world is a magic circle of some sort and he has to keep patching it up.

[Learnedguy]

Heh, he seems a bit obsessive-compulsive (the fictitious disorder, not the real world one) about his button.

But yeah, I like the concept. Especially the logical continuation of him getting unhinged in his search for justifying his existence.

I'd say calling him "good" is a bit of a stretch though. But he definitively thinks of himself as good. That makes him all the more interesting. What does a man who thinks himself to be "good" do?

[Totally Guy]

Lost? I was about to say you obviously took that straight out of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac.

Point the first is that it'll depend on how the button plot is resolved: does the evil escape or not (as far as he's concerned)?

Never heard of that Johnny guy but a quick search shows the basic similarity.:smallsmile:

As a player I'm not certain how it will be resolved but I can feel a bit of foreshadowing going on. I think that either it's going to get loose somehow or the truth will be revealed that there is no evil or the evil turns out to be more of a neutral. This is sidequest material and it interests my guy more than the others as I've got more info than them.

I think it's a kindred behind the wall trapped in slumber and the button prolongs the torpor but why is a mystery (this fits in with the fact that the "evil" never makes any progress during the day). But the character intentionally concludes it's a great evil in order to think he's the hero.

Anyway the Storymaster Dungeonteller said that he thought my guy was fundamentally good so I'm trying to figure out a new mad angle and I think this is it. But I'm not smart enough to implement it.:smallwink:

Really he's not totally obsessed now but when he's forced to go without his moral crutch then he'll start trying to fill the void.

If you can't tell I'm coming up with most of this as I'm writing in the thread. Writing is helpful! It's a bit of a ret con but the other players will never find out as it's consitent with the character.:smallamused:

[shadzar]

:smallconfused: So he lives his daily life as a button pusher and finds it fulfilling while afterwards may not have a reason to go on unliving?

Any Toreador around he could make fun of, or Brujah he could torment for his own amusement?

Maybe he could train Garou for circus acts? Such creatures bringing joy and laughter to children may be a noble cause for what he himself has to do to survive.

[Totally Guy]

:smallconfused: So he lives his daily life as a button pusher and finds it fulfilling while afterwards may not have a reason to go on unliving?

He pushes it between adventures.

Say we have a girl in a dark alley and the party are all hungry. They'll all go "ooh, I can't solve a problem with violence, I'm all angsty and conflicted." whereas my chap would say "yum yum, I need to carry on with my curse because if I didn't then who else would save the world by pressing the button. It's not as if anyone else knows about it."

I should have mentioned that the air inside my haven is pretty bad so mortals eventually start to suffocate. The kindred don't need to breathe so the curse makes him ideal for the task.

This is the first time we've touched this system and I think we've all come up with cool concepts. Mine's the coolest but I'm biased.:smalltongue:

[shadzar]

"I'm all angsty and conflicted."

Are the rest Tremeire or something?

I am really confused. I might also add I have only ever played any version of Vampire (the Masquerade) as LARP form; as player (Garou Homid Glasswalker), and as ST for the same game.

So I am using that knowledge mixed with D&D tabletop for any ideas I have, if you don't mind that mix so much.

I think if the case was as you just said above, then maybe taking the mood crew under wing and teaching them how to carry on unliving after the button is resolved might be a good reason to go on. That way they wont feed on things needlessly, and violate your core concepts and morals. But maybe make the world of both societies a beter place while still hiding/running it from the shadows.

Which clan is in control of your area, and what kind of things do other clans in your area do, and how do you interact with them?

[Totally Guy]

I'm trying not to be the nice guy. Every character I play turns out to be reasonable. Even the evil character I played one time.

The system sounds ideal for doing something dark and crazy. Not just emo like the others have tended towards.

Another side thing I can do if I persue this path is use this trick as part of a gambit. If I'm incarcerated by an enemy at any point I could ask to be let go as if I'm not then there will be nobody to save the hospital when the Rube Goldberg machine I've put there eventually blows everything up.

Then I could blame the villain for this both to others and myself and have extra motivation for wanting to fight the campaign's big bad, if and when we become aware of a big bad.

The city is in zones each with a dominating clan. There is a prince in the Ventrue zone that claims to be Julius Caesar.:smalltongue:

[Chineselegolas]

You say Vampire the Requiem, not the Masquerade, so assuming nWoD.
Do you have covenant, could become obsessed with progressing along Cruac/Thebian/Coils, constantly focused on that and though it his way of defeating the evil which has snuck out.
Constantly making use of the powers to do 'something' each night/week

[Totally Guy]

We only officially know about the Lancea Sanctum and the Circle of the Crone.

This started out as an idea to foolishly create a dangerous occurrence to give the character an easy motive to stay in the game... But it seems to have progressed in my head into some kind of Dr Strangelove Mutually Assured Destruction plan wearing a deadman's trigger.

Well that would certainly knock my guy out of the nice guy zone. And justify how he gets there.

This plan is looking mightily illegal and I'm actually too concerned with my latest idea to share it here. It's monsterous but not outside the realms of real life villainy.