We cannot know. D&D is very unspecific on what you are supposed to do with a character once the template is applied. Given that Rich tends to see those things from a general "What is an interesting story?" perspective, I think he's more going with the "World of Darkness" than with, uhh, let's say "Blade".
There's an entire RPG world around the question "What happens if you become a Vampire". Some movies/books explore it, in others the vampire is just some evil thing that needs to get killed.In a lot of vampire stories, becoming a vampire isn't character growth, because the character is dead.