A piece of AST: Playing an Elder

[Kevin K]

So, you'd like to play an ancient creature of the night, established in the upper eschelons of Kindred society, commanding respect for her age and understanding? Great! Here's some things to keep in mind.

First: Elders hold each other to certain standards. They expect each other to look down on the younger generations, to do things as they have been done in the past, and to give respect to the thing that gets them respect: age. Age has its problems, and the standard one is the hordes of of bloodthirsty neonates who don't have a way to advance that doesn't involve dead Elders. Getting chummy with the neonates and pretending like age doesn't matter tends to make the other elders think badly about you. Very quickly they decide that the only thing more dangerous than the standard problem above is a soon-to-be-bloodthirsty *elder* leading a pack of neonates who've been given more hope than is healthy. And that becomes a problem that needs to be dealt with. It's also a problem that can lead to Elders cooperating against the one leading those neonates. And cooperating , scared Elders can pull off some amazing stuff. See "Death and Punxors" for more information on that.

Next: why did you come to Seattle? As much of the sourcebooks point out, Elders are paranoid in the way that only centuries-old creatures with a "death-optional" clause can be. Seattle's reputation of death and danger keeps most Elders away.

So now you've got the mindset. Next you need to get your Lores in order. You'll be held to a standard of knowledge as well. If you've lived for hundreds of years, you're expected to know just what the hell a Lupine is. You'd better know something about the Sabbatt, and you'd better have some knowledge of the occult. If you're going to harken back to earlier days of tradition and culture, then you'd also better know something about politics and the Camarilla's history and practices.

Next up, who do you know? If you've been around for centuries, where have you been? If you've passed through many cities, but nobody there talks to you any more, what the heck is wrong with you? Elder Kindred realize that it's not what you can break, but who you know that can break it for you. You should expect to have contacts or allies in at least three cities outside of Seattle, or several in the last city, if that's been your home for a very long time.

Now, for god's sake, buy some status. If you arrive in the city as a four hundred year old Kindred that nobody thinks very highly about, then questions are going to arise. Just what have you been doing with your time? Whose rock have you been hiding under? What have you been screwing up? Surviving itself tends to lead to respect.

Worry about your Disciplines last. You can learn your in-clan abilities without a teacher. Some background time in torpor can easily explain any "temporary loss of the powers of the blood". These are all temporary situations. If, however, you're short on lores, you're forced to look quite foolish in public while you ask the Gangrel neonate, "So.... what do you know about these furry thingies that seem to be killing people around here?"

-ASTKevin

[David Price]

If you've spent any long amount of time in any wartime city (which generally includes any Elders), and especially if you're trying to justify that your character got status through wartime feats of daring, consider what you would've learned there. And how it would've changed you.

Anybody who actually gets into combat learns very quickly that they are not invincible. Realize that you could die, and that you will die. Being ages old and surviving through all the combats you've made it through this far does not change this fact. You would have almost certainly made it through many, many scenarios by dumb luck. Realize this, and that everything you have worked for in the centuries of your life could come crumbling down with one lucky shot (Also, see Punxors). Keep this in mind when volunteering for missions. Know _why_ you're volunteering for missions. If your character has the goal to die doing something noble, that's all fine and good. If they don't, figure out what they want out of the situation (and don't say "I want to kill something").

When you're an elder in a wartime city, there's another term for neonates. "Cannon fodder." This is not necessarily the Sabbat version of the term- the Sabbat embrace people and rile them up into combat in the front lines. Camarilla... well, okay, so the neonates get riled up and sent into combat in the front lines. But they're nicer about it? Anyway. Neonates are the most likely to end up dead, or screwed up in such a way that they have to get killed anyway. If you go into torpor or take a nap or just decide to not go to elysium for a month, a third of the city will have completely changed. Whether they left or died, it'll happen. Try it at SBC, it's fun. Make a list of everybody you see in Elysium one night. One month later, make another list. Compare and contrast. Realize that your character would have seen _decades_ of this (although since Seattle tends to have a high death/leaving rate, probably not _quite_ as fast). Consider whether the new neonate to the city is even worth the time of learning their name until they live/stay through a few months. Disposable, really. Pointless to even give them nametags.

Disciplines are really not necessary to make an Elder. Knowing when not to use disciplines actually gets more and more important the older you get. Elders do not get to casually breach the masquerade just because they think they know when they can get away with it. Elders are even more paranoid about the masquerade than everybody else- they might even remember the Anarch revolts. When you're paranoid enough to not use disciplines anyway, you'll notice that you don't really need them. However, those extra dots in subterfuge are _really_ handy when you need to BS your way into saving the masquerade.

And yes, get lores. At least get enough kindred lore to know _who_ you need to go to for help, if you find yourself needing something. There's nothing more embarrassing than the elder asking _everybody_ in Elysium if they could use a particular ability or know a bit of information to share with them, when they could quietly go ask the one person in the city that they know has it. Get enough Camarilla Lore that you know what Archons are. Really. If you were around when the Camarilla was formed, you really should know things about it.

[Kenneth Ashland]

Problem: Coming in as a character with an Elder background while only having either basic chargen or chargen + minimal XP to back-up the established age.

Consequence: you cannot back-up IC almost anything you do/say if you are ever challenged on it.

Correct mindset is exceedingly important. Being a wuss on stats that should, in reality, be UBER detracts from reality.

Solution: Uhhh...I dunno. Only allow players with known/demonstrated experience come in with Elder concepts? Give these players a few extra freebies at Chargen?

[David Price]

Elders can be pansy. The person who sits back and makes lackeys do all the work, and never works on bettering themselves, will not have much exp to play with. Just as you can be old but have a horrible gen, you can be old and not have much exp.

The thing is, if you're playing an elder without much exp, play an elder without much exp the way they should be played. Don't go challenging people to fights (Yes, I know how silly this sounds with Arlo's background. His derangement is a special case) until you've actually got the exp to back it up. What age should give you is the understanding of what strength you've got and how to use it well. Elders can fail at things. But they should know better than to be demonstrating this. They should be getting other people to do those things for them. There generally aren't dicerolls for socializing in Elysium, relaying information, politicking and manipulating people (there's dice _pools_, so you should make sure you're at least in the right range, but the _rolls_ come up very infrequently). You can go months without making a single test. This is what Elders should be doing.

Age, Gen, and Exp are all parts of what make a character powerful and respected. It's easier to play any of them once you have any of the others, but you have to know how to use them. Some characters don't respect age, and some players just feel it's part of a background and don't really mean anything to the character.

That said, I'd suggest if you want to play an elder that you bring in a temporary neonate character to get some exp in your pool to use when creating your elder.

[Lady Daniels]

Speaking of pansy, Victor Morton had a whopping one dot in Strength. Just enough to wave his stick around. =D

[Thornstar]

Yes, but he could wave your body around with his mind.

[The-Most-Compact-of-the-Kyles]

There is a background located in a book called, Dirty Little Secrets of the Black Hand (I think) called Age. It helps represent the age of Elder characters. For each point of freebies spent on the Background, the character becomes older and gains more Exp. However, if the ST's decide to use this Background it should be monitored intensively. At four dots, the Age of the Vampire and the Exp gained can be rather staggering. I will try to find the actual rules for the background and edit the post. I think the background is a great way to help build Elder characters and give them the experience and the "active age" that comes with an in depth background.

-Kyle

[O'Keefe]

This background as well as the Elysium rules are not used in our game to avoid from having silly things happen like a new character walking in and taking out the whole city.

[Chilli]

^^ YUP!