What is the worst thing your character has ever done? This
doesn’t have to be anything dastardly. If the worst
thing your character ever did was steal money from
his mother’s purse and lie to cover it up, that’s fine.
What’s important here is to consider something that
example vices-breaking points
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appendix-World of darkness Rules Revisions
your character did that made him hate himself. The
superlative “worst” is something that the character
would apply. Choose a breaking point based on the
answer to this question.
•  What is the worst thing your character can imagine himself
doing?We imagine ourselves in various scenarios to test
our own self-image against a hypothetical situation.
When children do it, it’s called imaginative play, but it
fills the same niche. What can you can character reasonably see himself doing, but still know that it would be
wrong? Can your character imagine killing someone in
self-defense? Torturing someone for information? How
about robbing a store with a gun?
•  What is the worst thing your character can imagine someone elsedoing?Of course, we all know that people are
capable of some hideous atrocities. What tops your
character’s list? Serial murder? Rape? Torture? Spree
killing? If your character is extremely sheltered or misanthropic, he might have a skewed view, here; he might
hang on to some lofty, cerebral notion of “dishonor”
or “betrayal” as the nadir of human behavior.
•  What has the character forgotten? In the World of Darkness, it’s next to impossible to grow up without any exposure to the supernatural. Decide what your character
saw and forgot. Did she see a vampire take the form
of mist and vanish? A man turn into a wolf? Maybe
she caught a glimpse of the God-Machine through
a door that should never have been propped open?
Describe this scene in as much detail as you can. This
is a breaking point that already occurred, but it helps
set a benchmark for what your character would have
to see in order to experience one now.
•  What is the most traumatic thing that has ever happened to
the character? No one goes through life with no trauma.
Your character might have been mugged, beaten as a
child, in a serious car accident, been kidnapped by a
parent during a divorce, survived a life-threatening
disease, attempted suicide, been attacked by a supernatural (or natural!) creature, or any number of other
traumatic experiences. The goal here, again, isn’t to
make a traumatized character. It’s to set a bar.