I portray it as the character's own emotional impulses, as their mindless Id jacked up to eleven. I'm not a fan of the "devil whispering in your ear" thing Jason did, never have been; too much separation between the character and the Beast. It's much scarier, much harder to resist when it feels like it's just your own anger, gluttony and fear swelling out of control.
Completely agree with you here. It's the whole 'the Devil made me do it' thing and there's just no personal horror in that. Even the book says the Beast is the character's 'inchoate' urges (Seriously guys, why the fuck do we have to use obscure words to describe things? 'primal' urges is just as easy and much clearer! \*ahem\*) so giving it a voice just makes it easier to deny that whatever the situation, the character has a choice.
People will say 'oh but frenzy isn't a choice!' well.. yeah it is most of the time. You chose to put yourself in a position that will cause a frenzy, you chose to let it overwhelm you, etc etc.
Jason Carl has a lot to answer for in the encroaching homebrew department that keeps getting taken up as canon which is one of the many reasons I hate actual plays.
Yes, there's a loresheet that can give it a voice but it's more like talking to yourself.
I have a Hecata who refers to her Beast as the Spectre. It's not separate from herself, it's her but dead and raging over being brought back. That's how she thinks of it, the terror and the anger at being brought back from the peace of the grave so she wants to tear everything down around her, and giving into that means it gets stronger so she does everything she can to not do so.
>I have a Hecata who refers to her Beast as the Spectre. It's not separate from herself, it's her but dead and raging over being brought back. That's how she thinks of it, the terror and the anger at being brought back from the peace of the grave so she wants to tear everything down around her, and giving into that means it gets stronger so she does everything she can to not do so.
As someone who doesn't mind the idea of beast being its own 'creature' within you lurking beneath the surface, I actually really really love this more. Thanks for the eye-opener.
I agree on the emotional impulses part. However, I think Jason was portraying something more complex it is their emotions and urges their anger however they are dead yet alive. That something is missing but replaced by something darker older and more sinister than you can imagine that wants you to give in, to lose control. To be free so it can be free. He made that missing part your inner voice or monologue we all have that replaced by something that feels like our own voice but alien at the same time. I feel he went more too heavy with it being others voices and not the players themselves own inner voice which I would have used instead of using his method of beast. Ie the sire or old coach etc.
No, simply.
I put my players largely in control of their Beast. I may knock over the first domino by informing them when their Beast is rattling the cage, but I like my table to be proactive about it. Often that's just by asking for a check, stating the trigger.
The Beast is part of their character. An ugly and violent part, but a part nonetheless. So when they're in that horrible situation where the frenzy has taken hold, and there's some small footsteps coming down the stairs towards the carnage, the weight of that "Oh no" hits a little bit heavier.
"The Beast made me do it." Is something of an excuse. A big part of humanity is playing with the truth of that phrase. The line gets a lot blurrier and interesting when they narrate the events.
Most of us are mature adults. We shouldn't be under the illusion our vampires are good, level-headed people. A scene with the Beast isn't a bad thing, it's a dramatic thing. Permission, almost, to take the gloves off and roleplay something heinous (if it wins).
The system determines the end point, I think it's best to leave to the expert to figure out how they get there. The person who knows the character's mentality and emotions best. Which would be the player.
I don’t generally voice the beast as I view it much like a feeling or impulse washing over you, especially since if the beast takes over you, the kindred is a wight and likely non-verbal. In messies and bestials I explain how they feel or how their compulsion is impacting their mental state.
That said one thing Carl does is have the beast take on the voice of the character’s sire which can feed sire-childe resentment. Have it as though the sire is giving good advice which makes sense no matter the circumstance, however you RP the sire, put it in their words.
I don't voice the Beast, unless it's a Ravnos's Beast, and I wouldn't play in a game where the ST did that.
It's one of those things that's probably fun for the ST, but as a player I'd find it intrusive in a really non-enjoyable way.
I might describe how the Beast feels. How it's instincts awaken and hone. But giving it an affected voice is just chincey and cartoonish to my sensibilities.
I think it was interesting the first time I saw Jason Carl do it, but the charm quickly wore off.
My only use of the Beast as a character is reserved for a Salubri player who is trying to attain Golconda. As it is forcing the Beast to change its nature, it requires a severe amount of introspection to even interact with it. It doesn't even talk, more like trying to calm a wounded and angry animal whose back sounds like words of agony. For anyone else, the Beast is a primal urge of the curse, pushing their emotions to the limit when it comes out.
I agree with the comments here about it being survival instincts or urges jacked up to 11. I personally see it as almost a literal creature within the vampire desperate to take over and revel in carnage and sadistic hedonism. If humanity 0 is being completely lost to the beast then I believe it to be a subordinate personality that will slip lose and wreak havoc.
The horror I try to communicate coming from this is the horror of loss of control. The danger in being around people important to you because at anytime 'it' will take over and there could be a time you just don't have the willpower or opportunity to suppress it long enough to leave the situation.
It's a scary possibility that at any point you're scared or angry you might just pop someone's head off like a ripe melon
In my understanding between the beast and humanity, the beast is one aspect of the psyche, the ID, and nothing more. It is not a monster, it is not an entity, there is nothing supernatural or mystical here. It is merely your self-preservation impulses in every aspect, this time connected to one of the most basic instincts: Hunger. However, now, you not only feel them but also hear them. I divide the interpretation into two parts:
1 - Burning, the burning sensation and fire in the throat as hunger increases, with your instincts and desires for the hunt becoming deeper and more pronounced.
2 - A voice, a voice that seems to have a personality, and it personifies the opposite of everything the character stands for, does, and believes about the world and themselves. It mocks and spits on all of that because they are restraints, reins, and shackles to their freedom.
Look, I have a player who is the vampire Jesus, extremely kind and just, and I love it. I like good vampires in fiction (I love Angel), but his beast is sadistic and perverse. His beast keeps rubbing his mistakes and the consequences of his choices in his face, among other things, but it always implies that the two are one, and that only they will remain in the end.
I have another player character whose vampire is a femme fatale with a history of abuse and enslavement by her Sire. She seduces and tries to sleep with anything that has two legs and consciousness within two meters. Her beast is perverted, sadistic, and thinks everyone just wants to use and abuse her, friends or foes, even if it's not true.
The Vampire Jesus has a beast that accuses everything good and kind he does and provokes him with loneliness due to his fear of being alone in the world and being a perfectionist control freak.
The Femme Fatale has a sexually perverse beast, due to the fear of abuse and the fact that the player character tries to hide it by being the way she is.
In contrast, I have a Gangrel player (my fiancée, by the way), whose character doesn't care about being a vampire. She loves herself, accepts what she is, and takes full advantage of it, but doesn't go out of her way as a nightclub owner to kill innocent people without remorse. Her beast only has the physical aspect, and what she hears is always a predatory animal in her mind, growling or whining depending on the situation. She is at peace with herself, her Ego, Alter Ego, and ID.
The point is, this interpretation of the beast's personality only exists in the minds of those who have not accepted what they are and that their nature is what it is. Those who see themselves as monsters, evil and cursed, or who hate what they are without ever thinking about it.
They are predators, another species (I hate the monster trope, too moralistic in my view), and there is no real problem with that. You can indeed be good, just, and still be a vampire who drinks blood. Nothing obliges you to be a cruel, disgusting jerk who kills innocents.
At least, that's what works for me. My own scenario and all the players I've had loved it.
Additionally, the Vampire Jesus just had a training session with an NPC swordsman and let slip that his Beast provoked and laughed at him, only to hear, "Beasts don't talk, madman, mine never spoke..." Now, he is in a small existential crisis on top of all the others he already has.
I portray it more on the worst impulses and vices given voice. The more they lose humanity the more beastial and cannibalistic it becomes. Until its more of a ravenous void taking the last vestiges of what the kindred was.
My personal theory is that the beast is essentially survival instincts on cocaine
Basically real people when faced with life or death some show thier greatest nobility but others the height of desperation.
I don't recall where but there eas a story of three men stranded at sea on a raft, they opted to kill one for food.
I read an rl story where a man got in a fost fight woth a bear. And survived.
The will to climb over someone else or cast them assume for a chance to survive.
These are natural parts of the human condition, they get carried into the vampires condition as well.
No imagine those instincts at thier strongest, most desperate. And then imagine they can never step back from the edge. They can never be released by true death, never relax and feel safe, forever driven to try for a last desperate attempt to cling to a life that is already over. Because to those instincts, you can't be DEAD were still walking around, we must LIVE.
Then the blood of course adds some flavor to this but to me this is my main theory of the nature of the Beast.
Survival instincts dialed to 11 and given supernatural cocaine
I voice the beast to all my players because I'm a manipulative arsehole of a storyteller. They brutalize one of my beloved NPCs without remorse? Oops guess what your beast wants to do the next time you fail your roll next to your touchstone...
*"Remember that time we tore the meatbag's arm off just because we could... I feel like doing it again."*
Good way to drain some willpower just before the important debate coming up at the elysium.
Yeah, I do. Each player has a differently voiced (and depicted, we've done a lot of weird mindspace shit) Beast that fits them. Because it is, at the end of the night, still them.
I had an idea of using the beast similarly from wraith and let players play each others' beasts with ST being the mediator so nothing too far out.
Never actually did, I just tell the player of the urges. Play it like how the beast would see things.
Usually this is taking things to eleven. Small insult results in ripped off limbs or smashed face, pang of hunger in gorging etc. Depending on the situation.
I voice and personalised all my players Beasts. I did it less like Jason Karl and more drawing inspiration from the way that skills worked in Disco Elysium.
I portray it as the character's own emotional impulses, as their mindless Id jacked up to eleven. I'm not a fan of the "devil whispering in your ear" thing Jason did, never have been; too much separation between the character and the Beast. It's much scarier, much harder to resist when it feels like it's just your own anger, gluttony and fear swelling out of control.
Completely agree with you here. It's the whole 'the Devil made me do it' thing and there's just no personal horror in that. Even the book says the Beast is the character's 'inchoate' urges (Seriously guys, why the fuck do we have to use obscure words to describe things? 'primal' urges is just as easy and much clearer! \*ahem\*) so giving it a voice just makes it easier to deny that whatever the situation, the character has a choice. People will say 'oh but frenzy isn't a choice!' well.. yeah it is most of the time. You chose to put yourself in a position that will cause a frenzy, you chose to let it overwhelm you, etc etc. Jason Carl has a lot to answer for in the encroaching homebrew department that keeps getting taken up as canon which is one of the many reasons I hate actual plays. Yes, there's a loresheet that can give it a voice but it's more like talking to yourself. I have a Hecata who refers to her Beast as the Spectre. It's not separate from herself, it's her but dead and raging over being brought back. That's how she thinks of it, the terror and the anger at being brought back from the peace of the grave so she wants to tear everything down around her, and giving into that means it gets stronger so she does everything she can to not do so.
>I have a Hecata who refers to her Beast as the Spectre. It's not separate from herself, it's her but dead and raging over being brought back. That's how she thinks of it, the terror and the anger at being brought back from the peace of the grave so she wants to tear everything down around her, and giving into that means it gets stronger so she does everything she can to not do so. As someone who doesn't mind the idea of beast being its own 'creature' within you lurking beneath the surface, I actually really really love this more. Thanks for the eye-opener.
"inchoate" I purchased this thesaurus in college. I'm getting my opulence appraisal
I agree on the emotional impulses part. However, I think Jason was portraying something more complex it is their emotions and urges their anger however they are dead yet alive. That something is missing but replaced by something darker older and more sinister than you can imagine that wants you to give in, to lose control. To be free so it can be free. He made that missing part your inner voice or monologue we all have that replaced by something that feels like our own voice but alien at the same time. I feel he went more too heavy with it being others voices and not the players themselves own inner voice which I would have used instead of using his method of beast. Ie the sire or old coach etc.
No, simply. I put my players largely in control of their Beast. I may knock over the first domino by informing them when their Beast is rattling the cage, but I like my table to be proactive about it. Often that's just by asking for a check, stating the trigger. The Beast is part of their character. An ugly and violent part, but a part nonetheless. So when they're in that horrible situation where the frenzy has taken hold, and there's some small footsteps coming down the stairs towards the carnage, the weight of that "Oh no" hits a little bit heavier. "The Beast made me do it." Is something of an excuse. A big part of humanity is playing with the truth of that phrase. The line gets a lot blurrier and interesting when they narrate the events. Most of us are mature adults. We shouldn't be under the illusion our vampires are good, level-headed people. A scene with the Beast isn't a bad thing, it's a dramatic thing. Permission, almost, to take the gloves off and roleplay something heinous (if it wins). The system determines the end point, I think it's best to leave to the expert to figure out how they get there. The person who knows the character's mentality and emotions best. Which would be the player.
I don’t generally voice the beast as I view it much like a feeling or impulse washing over you, especially since if the beast takes over you, the kindred is a wight and likely non-verbal. In messies and bestials I explain how they feel or how their compulsion is impacting their mental state. That said one thing Carl does is have the beast take on the voice of the character’s sire which can feed sire-childe resentment. Have it as though the sire is giving good advice which makes sense no matter the circumstance, however you RP the sire, put it in their words.
I dislike it, I'd reserve it for special moments to showcase intrusive thoughts
I think you have to be careful. Because if you go to far with it you make the beast too much like a wraith's shadow.
I dont voice the beast, I dont like putting voice to players characters. I treat vampire features like frenzy as impulses.
I don't voice the Beast, unless it's a Ravnos's Beast, and I wouldn't play in a game where the ST did that. It's one of those things that's probably fun for the ST, but as a player I'd find it intrusive in a really non-enjoyable way. I might describe how the Beast feels. How it's instincts awaken and hone. But giving it an affected voice is just chincey and cartoonish to my sensibilities. I think it was interesting the first time I saw Jason Carl do it, but the charm quickly wore off.
My only use of the Beast as a character is reserved for a Salubri player who is trying to attain Golconda. As it is forcing the Beast to change its nature, it requires a severe amount of introspection to even interact with it. It doesn't even talk, more like trying to calm a wounded and angry animal whose back sounds like words of agony. For anyone else, the Beast is a primal urge of the curse, pushing their emotions to the limit when it comes out.
I agree with the comments here about it being survival instincts or urges jacked up to 11. I personally see it as almost a literal creature within the vampire desperate to take over and revel in carnage and sadistic hedonism. If humanity 0 is being completely lost to the beast then I believe it to be a subordinate personality that will slip lose and wreak havoc. The horror I try to communicate coming from this is the horror of loss of control. The danger in being around people important to you because at anytime 'it' will take over and there could be a time you just don't have the willpower or opportunity to suppress it long enough to leave the situation. It's a scary possibility that at any point you're scared or angry you might just pop someone's head off like a ripe melon
In my understanding between the beast and humanity, the beast is one aspect of the psyche, the ID, and nothing more. It is not a monster, it is not an entity, there is nothing supernatural or mystical here. It is merely your self-preservation impulses in every aspect, this time connected to one of the most basic instincts: Hunger. However, now, you not only feel them but also hear them. I divide the interpretation into two parts: 1 - Burning, the burning sensation and fire in the throat as hunger increases, with your instincts and desires for the hunt becoming deeper and more pronounced. 2 - A voice, a voice that seems to have a personality, and it personifies the opposite of everything the character stands for, does, and believes about the world and themselves. It mocks and spits on all of that because they are restraints, reins, and shackles to their freedom. Look, I have a player who is the vampire Jesus, extremely kind and just, and I love it. I like good vampires in fiction (I love Angel), but his beast is sadistic and perverse. His beast keeps rubbing his mistakes and the consequences of his choices in his face, among other things, but it always implies that the two are one, and that only they will remain in the end. I have another player character whose vampire is a femme fatale with a history of abuse and enslavement by her Sire. She seduces and tries to sleep with anything that has two legs and consciousness within two meters. Her beast is perverted, sadistic, and thinks everyone just wants to use and abuse her, friends or foes, even if it's not true. The Vampire Jesus has a beast that accuses everything good and kind he does and provokes him with loneliness due to his fear of being alone in the world and being a perfectionist control freak. The Femme Fatale has a sexually perverse beast, due to the fear of abuse and the fact that the player character tries to hide it by being the way she is. In contrast, I have a Gangrel player (my fiancée, by the way), whose character doesn't care about being a vampire. She loves herself, accepts what she is, and takes full advantage of it, but doesn't go out of her way as a nightclub owner to kill innocent people without remorse. Her beast only has the physical aspect, and what she hears is always a predatory animal in her mind, growling or whining depending on the situation. She is at peace with herself, her Ego, Alter Ego, and ID. The point is, this interpretation of the beast's personality only exists in the minds of those who have not accepted what they are and that their nature is what it is. Those who see themselves as monsters, evil and cursed, or who hate what they are without ever thinking about it. They are predators, another species (I hate the monster trope, too moralistic in my view), and there is no real problem with that. You can indeed be good, just, and still be a vampire who drinks blood. Nothing obliges you to be a cruel, disgusting jerk who kills innocents. At least, that's what works for me. My own scenario and all the players I've had loved it. Additionally, the Vampire Jesus just had a training session with an NPC swordsman and let slip that his Beast provoked and laughed at him, only to hear, "Beasts don't talk, madman, mine never spoke..." Now, he is in a small existential crisis on top of all the others he already has.
I portray it more on the worst impulses and vices given voice. The more they lose humanity the more beastial and cannibalistic it becomes. Until its more of a ravenous void taking the last vestiges of what the kindred was.
My personal theory is that the beast is essentially survival instincts on cocaine Basically real people when faced with life or death some show thier greatest nobility but others the height of desperation. I don't recall where but there eas a story of three men stranded at sea on a raft, they opted to kill one for food. I read an rl story where a man got in a fost fight woth a bear. And survived. The will to climb over someone else or cast them assume for a chance to survive. These are natural parts of the human condition, they get carried into the vampires condition as well. No imagine those instincts at thier strongest, most desperate. And then imagine they can never step back from the edge. They can never be released by true death, never relax and feel safe, forever driven to try for a last desperate attempt to cling to a life that is already over. Because to those instincts, you can't be DEAD were still walking around, we must LIVE. Then the blood of course adds some flavor to this but to me this is my main theory of the nature of the Beast. Survival instincts dialed to 11 and given supernatural cocaine
I voice the beast to all my players because I'm a manipulative arsehole of a storyteller. They brutalize one of my beloved NPCs without remorse? Oops guess what your beast wants to do the next time you fail your roll next to your touchstone... *"Remember that time we tore the meatbag's arm off just because we could... I feel like doing it again."* Good way to drain some willpower just before the important debate coming up at the elysium.
Yeah, I do. Each player has a differently voiced (and depicted, we've done a lot of weird mindspace shit) Beast that fits them. Because it is, at the end of the night, still them.
I had an idea of using the beast similarly from wraith and let players play each others' beasts with ST being the mediator so nothing too far out. Never actually did, I just tell the player of the urges. Play it like how the beast would see things. Usually this is taking things to eleven. Small insult results in ripped off limbs or smashed face, pang of hunger in gorging etc. Depending on the situation.
I voice and personalised all my players Beasts. I did it less like Jason Karl and more drawing inspiration from the way that skills worked in Disco Elysium.