The Players Guide

Twinks!

    I was sitting here looking in the White Wolf chats today and watching the players and decided I had to say something on the subject of "Twinks".

    What is a twink you ask? Well a twink is typically someone to loads up on absurd amounts of abilities, attributes, disciplines or whatever in an attempt to be more powerful than the other players in the game which in the White Wolf chats is more often then not a widespread practice. 

I have only one question about this practice... Why? I mean what do you really gain by being a 4th generation Methuselah anyways? Not much. Unlike most players think having that much power does not in fact make you any better than anyone else. Lets take a look at statistics for a second. First off there are only about 40,000 vampires running around the planet (1 for every 100,000 mortals) and only about 2000 to 4000 Kue Jin (I'll have to look up the exact figure) period. That's it. And out of these 40,000 vampires the average generation is 10th. This is because of the Sabbat practice of doing mass embraces in preparation for crusades and war parties into camarilla cities and the majority of these kindred are either Caitiff or whatever, not to mention that very few of them survive. Ok now back to my subject of Methuselah. As is well documented in the core Vampire: The Masquerade rule book most vampires after a period of 1000 to 2000 (the age around which one attains Methuselah rank) vampires generally become detached and will enter torpor. This is for several reasons, most of which I wont go into. Ill try to focus on the main reasons. First of do you really want to go around with a bunch of cannibalistic neonates and nitwits trying to suck your blood every night for a quick trip to power? Also after a period of time you just get bored with all the crap after 2000 years what is there to do that you haven't already done? Also take the Jihad into account, its a very good idea to go to ground somewhere to avoid the snares of your rivals, therefore taking yourself out of the loop. Also there the mystical side of the equation. After a vampire reaches Methuselah rank they exhibit certain mystical aspects and usually end up going of into the wild or some other such secret place and will distance themselves from others company, why this happens is not certain.

    So there are the games reasons for the lack of lower generation vampires in the game. Now to the players side of the argument. Role-playing games are meant to be about watching a character develop and watching him become a living, breathing (or otherwise) creature, taking on a life of his own. Their there for the enjoyment of watching that characters story unfold before you and your group. Now what fun is it to play a character who has every discipline under the sun? Not much. Maybe you'd find that its not so bad to be the low man on the totem pole, its not so bad really  because that's where the action is. Think of the lower generations as being your childhood or your teens (the neonates and ancilla ranks) that's where the majority of the fun in life happens. As you become older you take on more and more responsiblity and cant be in the trenches any more because of newer more adult responsibilities ( In Vampire this equates to status and station). 

    So maybe I'm babbling (I hope not), or maybe you'll think about what I'm saying and next time opt for the lowly neonate or ancilla instead of the all powerful Methuselah or elder. You'll sometimes find that its a hell of a lot more fun then the old farts.