Original Document by Erik Randall (Former US ANST Cam/Anarch, Old Chronicle)
Educate Yourself on the Status Quo
Pick up the source material. Devour it. Read every word. Focus on the behaviors, the expectations, and the general function of the sect. This is the stuff that defines the sect; it’s the base upon which all the modern adaptations are built. These are the traditional behaviors. It’s the stuff elders and ancilla cut their teeth on. If your character is more than a hundred years old, that stuff should be sacred to them. Model it.
Source material provides the “norm” of the sect. It is how the Camarilla has functioned for centuries. Don’t be so quick to discard it because it isn’t what is done in our chronicle. Much of it applies to our needs if only we would use it. Many of the behaviors in our game exist out of ignorance rather than preference. Players and Storytellers either never took the time to learn how the sect functions, or they are acting on memory and precedent from years of gaming.
If you want to reject the status quo, that’s always an option. But please do it from a position of fresh understanding, rather than jumbled memory and forgotten sources. Remember also that the anarchs reject the status quo, but they can only do so if there is a consistent norm to reject. There’s no point is breaking down the walls of tradition if they are as flexible and inconsistent as we have allowed them to become.
Play The Venue, Not The Character
A common statement among roleplayers is “I’m being true to my concept”. Character concept comes second. In any game the venue comes first. If your DM tells you it’s a game of swashbuckling high adventure where the PCs are good guys, playing an evil, bureaucratic power-broker isn’t going to fly. Similarly playing a Red Talon who wants to make peace with the vampires so we can all live in harmony isn’t true to the Garou venue.
Roleplaying well isn’t just about playing the character well. It’s also about playing the venue well. If every player chooses to play characters that defy the status quo, then why pretend we are playing Camarilla Kindred, or even anything resembling the World of Darkness? There are two choices: play the venue and make characters who exist as truthful extensions of that venue, or play whatever and just pretend to be playing Vampire: The Masquerade. If the characters aren’t truthful then all we’re doing is giving lip service to the idea that this is the Camarilla/Anarch Venue. The struggle of every good actor is to play a character that is truthful to the world of the playwright. The struggle of every good roleplayer should be the same: to play unique and compelling characters within White Wolf’s World of Darkness.
Be true to the venue first. If you say your Cam/Anarch PC killed seven neonates because it’s true to the concept, then you have a bad concept. Why? Because it doesn’t place the venue first.
There is an opinion among the roleplayers that no one can really be the judge of what is good roleplaying. I disagree. If you’re playing a 300-year-old Camarilla Kindred and you’re starting fights in Elysium, you’re not roleplaying well.
“But,” you say, “that’s what my character would do.” Fine. That just means you’re practicing bad roleplaying from character creation.
If an actor says he’s going to play a Romeo who hates Juliet, we’re going to call it a bad acting choice. When you say you’re going to play a 200-year-old Camarilla ancilla who solves his problems by killing all his enemies, we should be calling it a bad roleplaying choice. Why? Because just like Romeo who hates Juliet, you’ve given me a character concept that bears no relationship to the world in which he exists. We see Romeo sacrifice everything (including his life) to love Juliet. That behavior does not come naturally from the circumstances the actor has chosen (i.e., his hate of Juliet). Similarly, we see your character’s actions and they do not come naturally from surviving two centuries in a sect where violence is proscribed. His expected behavior is one of subtlety and discretion; keeping the Beast at bay and allowing the norms of society to act as a punisher. Violence is an embrace of the Beast, and that is something all Kindred should fear.
Roleplay the venue
That means kindred who respect the Masquerade; they don’t break it and they don’t draw the attention of mortals to those who do. That means kindred who respect Elysium. That means elders who don’t flaunt their power and courtesans who don’t carry broadswords strapped to their backs.
It should be noted that there is plenty of room for flexibility within the restrictions of the game world, just as there are so many variations of people within our own cultures. Even the members of fan clubs have a variety of behaviors, beliefs and backgrounds, but they still operate within the scope of their club. Kindred are the same way. They exhibit a variety of behaviors but they still adhere to the expectations of their sect.
Stop The Violence
This is an extension of the previous point. Get the members of your domain together and agree to stop playing characters who solve their problems by killing things; request that your Storytellers stop running plots that promote that behavior. It will be more true to the venue; it will allow for the development of richer, more intertwined stories; and it will make the deaths that do occur more poignant and important moments in the story.
The Camarilla, as a whole, objects to violence. It uses social structure to restrict violence and keep the Beast away, but a restriction on violence serves another, more story-driven principle:
Character death ends stories.
The stories of characters intersect and intertwine. Longevity of characters is what allows this to happen. It is what builds memorable stories. Obviously, there are exceptions to this principle. Sometimes a character’s death can be the start of a story, or the end of a long ordeal. But it should never be indiscriminate or common.
In a LARP, every player character is equally important; there are no extras. The story is made by everyone. It is the responsibility of every player to not let their character’s story become so important to them that it is at the expense of other stories. That is selfish roleplaying.
All characters drive the story. Not just your character.
Are you playing a character whose presence or choices promote the killing other characters?
Stop.
Just stop. You’re not adding anything to the story, and contrary to what some players put in the justification for special approvals, you are NOT adding to the danger of the World of Darkness. You are just looking for an excuse to play someone who kills things.
Are you running storylines that promote violence, or can only be resolved by violence?
That’s not helping. Find plots that promote character change, mental challenges and inner conflict. Character interaction should be more than Rock-Paper-Scissors and Storytellers have to help promote that.
The point of this is not that violence should be forbidden, but that intentionally violent characters should be. Violence as the result of extreme circumstances is part of a good story. Violence as habit is not. The potential for violence is the reason the sect depends so much on formality and structure. It keeps violence – and by extension, the Beast – at bay.
The Consequences Corollary
There is more to stopping violence than just not playing characters who fight or kill. It also requires not playing characters who give no other options to others. These are characters whose actions are a threat to the other characters and to the sect as a whole. They put others – both players and characters – in a situation where violence between characters has to happen.
Don’t play that kind of character.
Don’t put other characters in a position where they have to kill your PC.
Quit breaking the Traditions. Unless your character is a newly embraced vampire, you have no excuse.
Quit blowing things up. The Camarilla sect is “Dangerous Liaisons” not “Die Hard”. Further, after the first explosion the city will be crawling with every state and federal agency imaginable. You think you have the influences to stop an investigation. How many Influence Traits do concerned citizens, the FBI, ATF, EPA, NTSB, The Office of Homeland Security and a US President, possess? (Answer: More than you and most of the aforementioned powers are legally required to investigate every bombing.)
Quit playing characters whose function is to antagonize other characters or incite violent responses. That means supposedly Camarilla Kindred who bad-mouth authority figures. That means pyromaniacs, demolition fiends, and princes who plot to kill Archons. Camarilla Kindred don’t do stupid things that attract unwanted hostility. They like their immortality too much to risk it. They do not spit in the face of their sect unless they are too young to know better.
Like all creatures, if you push a vampire into a corner, either physically or socially, they will strike back. If you threaten the sect, they will strike back. Commit diablerie and you have to be removed. Kill a creditor to get out of a boon, and you have to become an example.
If you play the venue, this shouldn’t be an issue. If you play a character aligned against the venue, you are forcing other players and Storytellers – and the characters they portray – to do something they don’t want to do. Have more respect for them and the venue.
Reject the Status Quo
Play an anarch. A real one. We need more characters who see the Movement as more than a rest stop between diableries. We have them in the Movement, but the proportion is too low. The Movement is more than a giant army gunning for every elder they can suck dry. Look at any large revolutionary movement and you will see as many politicians, poets and playwrights as you will armed insurrectionists. That number may be lower in the Movement, but it is hardly negligible. Anarchs have Humanity. They know that killing and diablerie – especially diablerie – are immoral and destructive to the cause. We need more of them, and less of the anarchs who are one Vaulderie shy of being Sabbat.
Anarchs are part of the venue. If you’re playing a Camarilla Kindred who likes to vote for the prince and demands equal representation for independents and caitiff on the Primogen Council, you’re playing an Anarch. Lose the Status and join the Movement. If you love Caitiff and think Kindred authority should be judged on merit and not on age, you’re playing an Anarch. Lose the elders and join the Movement. If you want to blow stuff up and commit serial diablerie, play another character, the Movement doesn’t need you.
Popularity: 65% [?]
David has held just about every ST job the Camarilla has to offer in more than a decade in the organization.
David is currently serving as the AMST OWoD.
There were no survivors. 
I can’t say I agree too much with several points made here. I mean I am all for playing the Venue. I love how you phrased that and I agree fully. No offence but the game is a game of gothic horror. I’ll use this first cannon example: Brujah. Brujah are a clan with Celerity and Potence and a clan flaw that makes them frenzy. If people role played the Venue and the cannon then when they are insulted per the rules and slighted they should make frenzy checks. In our system there is at least a 1 in 3 fail chance, and if you didn’t max your self control it could be 2 in 3.
So now you have a frenzying Brujah and the other clans, which out of the box maybe the Gangrel can hold their own against or maybe you have a Nosferatu around and he can quell them, but how were you to know that this Brujah hates Republican jokes because he is some idealist involved in mortal politics. A clan that is meant to freak out, statistically may every 1-5 games and is set with physical disciplines. That screams a game geared for at least some random combat.
Assamites, I mean I don’t need to describe this clan, but let’s see what the book says. This is from Laws of the Night. “As a result the Assamites seek to Convert or slay other Cainites, Attempting to purge the foul curse of Khayyin and bring honor to Haqim’s cause of justice.”
Tremere, a clan of Vampires that systematically killed and Diablerized a whole other clan. Then captured Nosferatu, Tzimisce, and Gangrel and killed a bunch and turned the rest into Gargoyles.
Gangrel, by playing the venue the Gangrel have little want for intrigue or social maneuvering. “Survivors, woodsmen and animal lovers make up the ranks of the Gangrel clan, so its no wonder that they have little use for political infighting or social maneuvering.” In addition they inspire tales of Breserking Norsemen and the terrible Grendel.
I could keep going, not to mention that vampires inherently can boost physicals with blood and not mentals or socials, and that by popping fangs they deal agg. I wont go into how they can frenzy or any of that other stuff.
I get what you are saying though, people that build for combat and tweak their sheets for it and bully other players get to do what they want and everyone else hates it who isn’t on their team. These murderous forces of Nature walk around existing in a land of “I do what I want” and you can only have so many of those and they become stars making others feel like extras.
I would suggest your story teller gear his games to several different play styles and what his players want, then clearly define that in his VSS. If you want a low violence VSS, just add to the VSS “PC death requires VST approval.” Bam dude just solved the issue. People will either rush to your game because they want that, or avoid it like the plague but your players will be happy or vote you out.
It’s not a no one is going to die World of Warcraft game either, it will have consequences enforced by you and your superior ideals on what constitutes a vampire game and will protect your players. But I will warn you other Players Domains may hate when your players get lippy on the internet and whack them if they travel to other Domains so it may limit travel.
I’d say there wouldn’t a need for pc death if the “I hate pc death” superior role players role played punishment and fear. See vampire is a game of fear and fear of punishment. You get publically flogged in front of other kindred people remember it forever, but players they feel no pain and who cares you cut my imaginary characters hands off, I will grow it back next week. A negative status? Well sticks and stones.
Dare I say you come up with something worse than killing a pc, so humiliating it would scar someone for life, you get more issues from that from players, coordinators, and story tellers than if you just killed the character I assure you.
Maybe if that gaggle of neonates role played fear and deference they wouldn’t have been murdered by that elder. Maybe that elder who had never been spoken to in that way in 400 years by anyone wouldn’t have lost his shit?
Don’t want explosions? Remove the mechanics from the system and don’t approve it. Put in the VSS no explosions in my venue.
I mean this really comes down to elect ST’s that make a venue the players want to play in. We role play for fun not technical merit, I agree there is such a thing as good role playing. Good role playing happens when the players of a game all smile afterword and go “Man that was an awesome game I had a lot of fun.” Well damn then you just had some awesome role playing, because it was fun!
I’ll end with this say what you want about Kindred the Embraced as cannon or not but it started with the freaking Brujah Primogen staking a Gangrel to the sun. Caine started as a vampire by murdering Abel. We as players hate pc death, the Venue man it is hella cool with it.