Character creation

As you may know, Vampire the masquerade is a "Storytelling Game of personal horror", you probably have read it in the handbook's cover when you looked at it the first time. The 'thing' about this personal horror is that sometimes it can be "personally horrifying". This is a game that we, as people, play to have fun. Characters are, of course, extensions of ourselves, that we interpreter inside a fictitious environment, they are a reflection of our psique and often when shit happens to a character, our ego suffers as well. Not a big deal, as most players can separate their feelings from the character. But it hurts.

There is no such thing as a 'bad character' when any player creates a character, he/she does it trying to express something of himself, it's a vehicule, and also it's a statement of what that person it's trying to say. Nevertheless vampire society has rules, based on the core books and my personal appreciation of how vampires behave; this game has mood, and sometimes a character just doesn't fit in at all, or needs a few adjustments to be a part of it. It means that your character will be changing, from the one he was prior to the embrace, to a full grown vampire with the guide of his elders. That metamorphosis is an excellent role-play opportunity for you, it will be gradual of course, one little change at the time, to go from the human that was, to the vampire that will be.

I try to be as fair as I can, as generous as I can, and over everything else I try to make the game as fun as I can to all players (including me). After all that's why we are all here for. This game as told before is about the many faces of personal horror, its about being a vampire, who live by feeding from the humans like he was used to be. This mood is an axis, not the whole deal, role-play will round around it, exploring the many points of view from where that can be observed, from each character's position in any given circumstances.
Welcome to New York City, a place where you will face your dreadful fears, and your worst nightmares, many of which are walking in the dark alleys, waiting for you patiently.

Said that, lets talk about some tips that a 'Good' player would want to take in consideration, good in the sense spoken above, that means to create a character that can fit in the mood and expectations of this game.

No Anime/Comic based characters:
As harsh it may be to some, in my experience, characters based on cartoon figures are usually unsuccessful, characters that are just great in their role as batman, the punisher, spawn and so on are not a good choice to play inside Vampire: the Masquerade.

To avoid the public humilliation and pain of entering into an Elysium dressed up as a pulp fiction version of rambo/batman these kind of characters won't be allowed.

No cliché/shallow characters:
Not all but many players try to go straight to the character sheet instead of thinking well their character's background story, as a result they usually stick to cliché toons such as dracula, blade or even more disgusting and unforgivable characters such as twilight vampires. Another version of the same issue are players who make a very simple and uninteresting backgrounds with nothing to offer to the storyteller or the chronicle itself, for example: "my character was just a regular guy in the wrong place at the wrong time, a vampire found her, he embrace her and leaves her there".

No characters without past:
Sure all players will write down a background story but some of them will feel tempted to kill every posible link to it. Background stories (BGS) are not just excuses or explaination for your character features and traits its a very important part of your character story in the chronicle. Therefore avoid having your parents killed in a car accident, no children (if apply) and a limitless list of tragic past just to cover your tracks and cut all lose ends that could mean a weakness for your character.

As a result, or better said, as a Policy, characters sheets need to be based on that character's background story, each trait must be in perfect armony with the character concept and prior life. Otherwise won't be allowed to play in the game.

Said what its NOT meant to be done, lets give some insight to what its expected during the character creation process, at the end, how a character is meant to be made?

Your character must be full and whole!
The character sheet its just the outer layer of your character, its what gives a shape to it that we all can see, nevertheless it must be just a reflection of whats inside, as a blanket covering a bunch of boxes, character sheet's shape is a consequence of it's background story and concept. That means that you should focus very much in your character background, nature, demeanor and concept, way before you start to create your character sheet, as stood in the title 'Full & Whole' and then shaped through it's character sheet.

Your character must be unique and interesting!
Its true, regular guys & gals exists, boring people with nothing to offer, even more, many humans are like that but we are not playing a game of regular people. Specially in the Camarilla, vampires have to do a lot to obtain permission to be able to embrace a new vampire, its a huge political issue that even requieres the Prince permission itself, because of that, no rookie its allowed to make a childe, only experienced vampires can do it and only do so when they found an interesting and promising candidate for the embrace, that's you!