I’d like to say I’ve made a lot more progress on Cold Streets than I have. The fact of the matter is, this week has been pretty disastrous in terms of time management in general and working around the dayjob in particular. Thankfully, there’s a long weekend ahead and I plan on taking advantage of the time to get more work done on Cold Streets.
The good news there is that I do have an outline for it, and sketches in my head of the new characters, along with expansions on the established ones. I need to keep up the quick pace of the story and maintain the noir feel of things while increasing the scope and raising the stakes. I’m pretty sure I have ways to do that, and I am looking forward to writing more of it.
Time, unfortunately, is always in motion, and it can be difficult to carve out chunks of it for yourself when the target keeps moving. I’ll get it, though. This week was just bad.
I’ve had vampires on my mind lately. Between writing the draft of Cold Streets, seeing the season finale of True Blood (that’s another post entirely…) and chatting via Twitter with Justin Achilli, I’ve been wondering how Vampire: the Masquerade might be improved. I don’t see Vampire: the Requiem as an improvement, merely a sequel or perhaps another permutation of the game. It’s not strictly better, in my opinion, nor is it discernibly ‘worse’, it’s just different. Masquerade has been my jam for many a year, and I still remember games played within that world fondly. I do think some things could be done to make the setting more interesting, however, and allow for more character exploration and nuance without sacrificing atmosphere.
Get Rid of the Sabbat
As much as I appreciate a good villain, the Sabbat really aren’t good villains. Whenever the idea of blatant rule of humans by vampires comes up, it’s always a bad one. In a game where the notion is to explore mature subject matter such as temptation, the degradation of humanity in the face of power, and what it means to be a monster wearing human skin, an establishment of monolithic evil undercuts the purpose. You can still have dramatic tension and meaningful moments of powerful self-discovery, along with power-mongering, scheming, seduction, and betrayal, without needing to conjure a boogeyman that likes skinning babies for fun. The Sabbat are completely unnecessary, superfluous to the crux of the gameplay, and actually kind of silly when you think about it.
That said, while the antitribu can easily bite the dust I still appreciate the two major clans involved with the Sabbat. So what becomes of them?
Refine the Tzimisce
The fact that the vampires of the Tzimisce bloodline exhibit a mentality and behavioral code far different from any other creature is a lot more interesting to me than their role in the aforementioned Sabbat. When I think Tzimisce, I think classic figures such as Dracula or Elizabeth Bathory. They’re the kind of creature to hide in plain sight, to prey upon those who least suspect them, and cloak their predatory nature with designer clothing or Stepford smiles.
In short, I think the Tzimisce should live in the suburbs.
Think about it. In classic tales the vampire always has a secluded, sprawling manor house. You really don’t know there’s something weird going on until you step inside. A cunning Tzimisce, in my mind, would wear a human skin the way you or I wear slacks to a day job – as soon as you get home, you change into something more comfortable. Sure, it’s fun to dress in fetish clothing and march around to Rammstein, but it’s not very subtle or nuanced. And since subtle and nuanced is what I prefer to go for, that old viewpoint of the Tzimisce needs to go the way of the Sabbat. Instead of shaking a mailed fist at the Camarilla for foiling their plans once again, I much prefer the image of a Tzimisce living a quiet, genteel life of grabbing meals and experimentation subjects out of golf clubhouses, high-end cocktail parties, and corporate gatherings, available to impart some ancient secrets on the curious and the daring… for a price. Some may still maintain chambers of horrors under their gated communities, and others may simply prefer to read a good book by the fire after an evening meal. Don’t limit the clan to a single stereotype; establish some parameters and let the player fill in the blanks as they see fit.
They would tend to stay out of the cities because of the Tremere, which I’ll get to in a moment.
Isolate the Lasombra
Without the Sabbat, what becomes of the Lasombra? One of my absolute favorite clans, their powers over shadows and penchant for manipulation behind the scenes makes them excellent schemers and hidden threats. As much as a member of the Lasombra might crave power, it often takes the form of having influence over the supposedly powerful, rather than being in charge themselves. An ideal Lasombra, in my mind, is not the kind to bark orders at neonates like a drill sergeant. They’re more (you guessed it) subtle than that.
They’ve always been good rivals for the more traditional political leaders of the Camarilla, the Ventrue and the Toreador. My inclination is to underscore that by, in essence, putting a single Lasombra at the opposite end of a chessboard from a given city’s Prince. The Lasombra test those in power, evaluating their worthiness through challenges, manipulations and even threats. Not direct ones, of course, but threats manufactured to see what the Prince and their city are made of. If the Prince proves themselves worthy, reward them by manipulating others in the city to their benefit (and the Lasombra’s); if they don’t, engineer their replacement. This change could make the Lasombra out to be some kind of dastardly arch-villain, and some of them may lean that way, but again, the notion is to establish unique parameters and let people fill in the blanks themselves. Sure, some may go for the Moriarty or Hannibal Lecter angle, playing up the superficially antagonistic role, but others may approach the city as an experiment, a giant living Petri dish in which the behaviors, reactions, and merits of those in control are to be tested. Still others may see themselves as performing a vital service for the Prince, ensuring they remain in power. Hell, why not conspire with the Prince directly if the Lasombra in the city considers them worthy? There are possibilities here, more than might be afforded by the Sabbat.
Galvanize the Tremere
Justin posed this question: why aren’t the Tremere the good guys? If order is good for society and vampires, and chaos is bad, why is an ordered clan like the Tremere seen as a bad thing? “When you hear about the Tremere ‘searching for an artifact,’ you immediately conclude, ‘someone has to stop them!'” The Tremere are usually seen as gaming for political positioning, trying to get one up on the Ventrue or the Prince or somebody else who’s in power, and while this is traditionally vampiric behavior, with its structure and clear hierarchy, I think the Tremere are more suited for another role entirely.
Basically, I’ve always though the Tremere would make great cops.
There’s a lot of ways this could go. The Tremere in one city could operate like detectives from L.A. Confidential or Law & Order, while in another they are essentially the Gestapo. But the overarching mentality of the clan would be to protect the Kindred of the city, safeguard the innocent, and enforce the Traditions. They have powerful tools to investigate crime, pursue offenders, and bring them to justice. Instead of using these powers to get an edge on other Kindred, they could be used for a greater good, which in and of itself becomes an edge. And the dynamic within the city remains fluid. Some may respect the Tremere and what they do, while others harbor a deep hatred for authority figures and especially cops. And there are a slew of stories in which cops go bad; a corrupt Tremere would be an anomaly, but would also be a dangerous quantity. If a Lasombra gets some dirty on a Tremere, or the Giovanni name the right price, how will the Tremere’s clan mates find out and deal with them? And what about a member of the Tremere going undercover to investigate whispers of conspiracy among the other clans?
Some things to think about when it comes to vampire storytelling.
I’d like to think that most of the audience of this article is familiar with the television program Whose Line Is It Anyway? be it in its original BBC format or the American version. What makes the show so memorable, funny, and watchable are not necessarily the host, the games themselves, or even the “contestant” comedians. It’s the people we don’t see much of. In this case, that isn’t the production crew or the camera operators. It’s the audience. The audience, through participation and excitement and laughter, make the show much, much more than the sum of its apparent parts. It has all the trappings of your standard television program, but once it begins, the differences become glaringly apparent.
If you were to show a theorhetical time-traveler from the 30s a game like Uncharted, Assassin’s Creed, or Mass Effect, they may mistake them at first for films. Then, they’re handed a controller, and the protagonist they just saw cracking wise, stabbing Templars, or shooting (or snogging) aliens is suddenly obeying their commands. We don’t just watch these stories unfold; we become a part of them. The difference is in the controller we hold, the keys we press, the gestures we make. Flailing at a movie screen or television set used to have no influence on a story’s outcome. Now, however, the player is invited to join in the storytelling experience.
I am, of course, speaking of games that go into the design process with this level of interactivity in mind. Not every game is going to set out to create an immersive environment for storytelling. To be honest, not all gamers want that, either. Some just want to blow things up, like some TV viewers just wanting to watch rich people slap the spray-on tans off of one another. There’s also the fact that things like Heavy Rain exist, which many people consider a film you occasionally interact with through your controller. As in all things, there are extremes on both sides.
The fact remains that video games present creative minds with new ways to tell stories, just as films and radio and books have done for years. Even when video games were somewhat nascent and confined mostly to standing cabinets in arcades, among the flashing lights and rudimentary sounds were games like Missile Command, trying to do more than simply bilk kids for quarters. Much like the pioneers of literature, visual art, and motion pictures, early gamesmiths realized the potential of the medium and started pushing boundaries. Naturally, there have always been those who have pushed back, and video games have no shortage of those voices.
Apart from the general alarmists decrying violence and sex in video games, there are other alarmists who would have you believe that the medium would be ruined if the audience for a given game has too much influence over it. Once a game is on shelves or available for download, they say, it’s a work of art like a Monet or a Kubrick, and should be treated with the same respect. Opponents of the Retake Mass Effect movement in particular are fond of this argument. They are on recoard as saying the movement is not only a cabal of craven crybabies craving a creamy cake conclusion to their beloved franchise, but also that its success means nothing short of the degradation of the medium as a whole.
Whenever I hear this argument against changing a game’s story after publication, I think of the film Kingdom of Heaven. The film that was released to cinemas had a great deal of issues in its plot and pacing. Director Ridley Scott would later release a Director’s Cut of the film, smoothing out many of the rough patches and turning a mediocre entry in the realm of historical drama to a highly enjoyable and quite adept film on the nature of faith and religion set against the backdrop of the Crusades. There were still historical inaccuracies but they didn’t get in the way of the story. As satisfying as it is to see a work of this magnitude change for the better after its release, imagine how much more potent that satisfaction would be if there was a more direct emotional investment, say if we were assuming the role of main character Balian instead of just watching Orlando Bloom be that guy.
Part of the reason video games matter so much to their audiences is because the audience are active participants. Deus Ex: Human Revolution or Bastion would be excellent stories on their own, but the investment made by the player makes their plot points even more important, their twists even more shocking. The compulsion exists for the players to push onward, to find out what happens next, to see how the threads of character and setting weave together to underline the themes of the work. And if at the end, those threads begin to unravel, the player can become confused, or disappointed, or even angry. Unless this was intentional on the part of the designers to provide some sort of commentary on player expectations or some other greater meaning, the designers may be called upon to address the issues, to in essence fix something the players feel is broken.
This is where video games truly differentiate themselves from other media. Games have been patching for decades, as developers and players discover bugs that escaped the QA process. The advent of DLC has upped the stakes, allowing companies to monetize new material and also provide updates that there may not have been time to fully complete before launch. While monetized DLC is a subject for another discussion, in this instance the potential is for new content to be added not just to supplement the storyline, but to bring it to a more satisfactory conclusion if necessary. I will agree with some of the alarmists that if developers always caved to player demand, games would suffer for it. However, savvy developers will be able to look at their work after the fact, see the flaws being pointed out by players, and if the game overall would be improved by changing something, it will be changed. It works for game mechanics, it works for NPC behavior, it works for weapon balancing, and it can definitely work for storytelling.
Art is constantly changing. I’m sure there were those scoffed at the notion of a pointilist or a cubist painting because the artists did not subscribe to traditional ways of putting oil on canvas. When motion pictures started talking, supporters of vaudville and those seeking tight censorship over films were dealt a nasty blow over their protests. Video games, in this day and age, are also facing a time of change, as players and developers move closer together thanks to the Internet and the dissolving of barriers between the producers of this art and its audience. With players being active participants in the execution of the art, excluding them from the process and holding up the game divorced from player input as sacrosanct cripples any progress of the art form. The playing’s the thing that makes video games so singular and wonderful.
Prompted by Terribleminds’ “Another Random Word Challenge”.
His opportunity came when the office door opened. She was in a hurry, so he quickly matched her stride. Fortunately, he was twenty years her junior.
“Senator, one minute please.”
“I’m on my way to the floor, Pete, you better make it quick.”
“Lockheed has been on the phone trying to get to you. I’ve fed them every excuse I can think of. Their lobbyists are pissed.”
“They can take a number. I’m not changing my mind.”
“I didn’t think you would, Senator, I just wanted to let you know.”
“Is that all?”
“No. A lot of Blackwater employees have been emailing in. And more NRA members. They’re… getting nasty.”
“Send the usual response. Remind these gun-crazy wanna-be ‘Rambo’ junkies I didn’t just put on a cape one day and jump in to save the hippies from their guns.”
“Already done, but I wanted to recommend an increase in your security detail, at least until the vote for the resolution is completed.”
She turned to look at him as they walked. She was a head shorter than him, her hair a tight cluster of silver and golden curls, keeping a brisk pace as they headed towards the floor. “Peter, how long have you been my aide?”
“Two years, Senator.”
“And in those two years, how many threatening emails, phone calls, and bricks through my home window have I gotten?”
“One thousand one hundred and fifty-two emails, two hundred and seven phone calls, and three bricks.”
“When was the last brick?”
“It was seven months after I started, but I still-”
“Pete, these people are all bark and no bite. I can’t let them intimidate me out of fighting for more sane laws governing our country’s use of domestic firepower. You told me when you started you believed in that. Your sister lost her eye in Aurora, didn’t she?”
Pete blinked. “Yes.”
“How is she doing?”
“She’s fine. We finally saw The Dark Knight Rises together a couple of months ago.”
“It sounds like she’s recovering well. But she’d have both eyes if our country had better gun control.”
“You know I don’t disagree.”
“Which is why you increased my security the first time. And since then I’ve been more safe. Right?”
Pete knew he wasn’t going to win, but rather than concede, he nodded. He actually wanted the Senator to build up a good head of steam before she hit the floor. She was at her best when she spoke from the heart, regardless of how much the others in the room wanted to hear what she had to say. She saved her profanity for outside of the room, of course, but Pete always heard it raw and uncensored. Although he would have paid cash money to hear her call the one Senator from Massachusetts a “raging idiotic cock-piston” to his face.
“Right,” was what he said out loud.
“So don’t get more security people. Make sure my cases are air-tight. Get the words for my speeches exact. You know how I think and how I talk. That’s what you should be focused on. I’m safe. Count on that.”
Pete nodded, stepping in front of the Senator to open the door for her. The session was about to begin and they could hear other Senators milling about by and in their seats. She gave him a smile and patted his arm.
“Thanks, Pete. Time to take the kid gloves off, eh?”
He nodded. “Knock ’em dead, ma’am.”
A twinkle in her eye, she headed into the chamber. Pete closed the door behind her and walked back to his office. He checked her schedule: after her appearance in the Senate, she had dinner scheduled with an anti-gun lobbyist and two other Senators. The actual vote wasn’t for a few more days, but there was no need to slow down once the session ended. He called one of the security detail and arranged for them to get the Senator’s car from the nearby garage. He then went through the Senator’s official email again.
They wanted to shoot her dead, they wanted to grind her into hamburger like the fat cow she was, they wanted to see her burn in Hell for being so anti-American, they called her a socialist and a lesbian, so on and so forth. It was starting to get boring, truth be told. They never did anything original.
A couple hours later, he was walking to meet her after the session when he saw two uniformed policemen and a detective standing in the hallway waiting for her.
They said nothing to him, waiting for the Senator to emerge. That’s when she found out her car had been rigged to explode and the security officer Pete had sent was dead.
“Apparently,” the detective said, “it was on a timer meant to go off when you were on your way to dinner. But they fucked it up and it only killed that one poor guy who went to get it.”
Pete said nothing. His stomach was a knot of nausea. The Senator, her eyes slightly wet but neither wide nor quivering, looked to him. “Did he have any family?”
“A brother at Walter Reed. Both of them are… were… Afghanistan veterans.”
“See to it that he gets full military honors at his funeral. He deserves that much.”
“Of course, ma’am.”
“And Pete?” She touched his arm. “Let’s go ahead and up my security detail. Make sure my husband and kids are safe, would you?”
“Right away, ma’am.”
Pete did his duty. The Senator’s family was all present and accounted for. After he was done making the arrangements, he looked in on the Senator in her office.
She sat behind her desk, quietly weeping, rapidly running out of tissues. Pete got her a fresh box.
“Thanks.” She blew her nose. “I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t know.”
She shook her head. Pete changed the subject.
“How’s the vote look?”
She looked up, her eyes red.
“Oh, you bet your ass we’re getting this bill passed.”
Today’s post will have to be short and, unfortunately, not very substantial.
I have not one, but two projects due today at the dayjob. One has a few hiccups that need to be dealt with before it’s ready for primetime, and the other has but one tickbox remaining on its to-do list but is proving rather frustrating. I need to devote as much time as possible to them today. Since the dayjob is still my primary source of income, and the missus starts school on Wednesday, I must remain on top of my game as far as that is concerned.
So Flash Fiction is bumped until tomorrow and it’s time for me to hit the showers. Try to enjoy your Monday. Emphasis on “try”.
