Almost the Weekend . . .

This week has gone by so slowly, it's insane.

Monday was boring but busy. Tuesday was okay. Yesterday was slow until work was over, then the Vampire game went by at a reasonable pace. I managed to do a bit more than I did two weeks ago (sit there and look confused), but I'm still not quite up on the taboos and traditions and things.

It's not because I can't play RPGs, I know that. I've played D&D now for a month and a half or so, and I've gotten worlds better at that than I am at Vampire right now. The thing is, I actually understand how to play my D&D characters. Some of the characters I've created before aren't human, but I can at least understand their values and such--that's what the alignment system is for.

With Vampire, they have a Nature (how they really are on the inside) and a Demeanor (what they show to the world about themselves), and they really are monsters--they might want to protect humans and/or use them as tools in their machinations, but all the time there's this beast inside of them saying to hurt them and drink their blood. There really is no difference between player characters and non-player characters except for the fact that the GM runs all of the NPCs. Even another PC from the Camarilla could happily kill your character, to say nothing of the NPCs or the Sabbot (if you're playing as Camarilla).

Nerd-to-Norm Explanation: The Camarilla believe that humans should be protected, and enforce the Masquerade (the tradition among vampires that says humans should not know about vampires). They keep self control on their inner beasts, and act as human as they possibly can, using humans to their advantage--as tools. The Sabbot, on the other hand, believe that humans are food and should be ruled over by the superior vampires, so they do their utmost to reject their humanity and have no interest in the Masquerade. In other words, both groups are bad guys, but the Camarilla are more like corrupt, "good" monsters, while the Sabbot are honest monsters. (Not bad for just having had it explained to me in terms I could understand last night, huh?)

That might be true of some D&D groups if you've got widely different alignments in the same group of PCs, but DMs usually make sure that the characters will at least get along unless the game they're running calls for in-fighting or a diverse range of alignments. With this Vampire game, there's constant backstabbing. It's kind of confusing, and makes me wonder if I chose the right Nature (conniver) for my somewhat new role-playing abilities. Maybe I should have chosen a Nature closer to the Demeanor I chose (bon vivant), but then it would've been kind of silly to add in all of those skills relating to subterfuge, and I'd have to re-write the part of my character's history involving spying for the U.S. government during the Sputnik frenzy in the '50s.

I'm hoping I'll be better able to role-play Vampires after I've had a chance to read through the rulebook thoroughly, instead of just skimming and/or researching specific things when I need to know them right away. There won't be a session next Wednesday, since Carl (the GM) has to work late that night, so I'll have extra time to do my "homework."

Anyway, enough about Vampire. Tonight is class again, and we're actually having a lab for the first time since before mid-terms . . . w00t! The teacher was behind on a couple of lectures, so we'd been skipping labs to catch up, which means we haven't been getting out of class as early as we usually do on Thursdays. That will change tonight.