Bill Pick
Dec 1, 2017 8:13:46 GMT -8
Post by Probie Tim on Dec 1, 2017 8:13:46 GMT -8
I'm feeling a bit reminiscent today, so sit back and enjoy the tale of my first ever Vampire: the Masquerade character, Bill Pick.
Bill Pick was originally a GURPS character in a pre-Infinite Worlds dimension hopping campaign. He started off, basically, as a pastiche of three people: me... a skeevy, womanizing "sales dude" I was acquainted with... and Bill Gates. He ran his own computer consulting/programming business (Pick Systems; a tip-of-the-hat to an actual database company called Pick Systems for which I actually developed software at the time), and used it pretty much to get girls in the sack. I often felt... sullied playing Bill Pick in that game because of his skeeviness. Anyway, early on in the game, he ran afoul of an alternate Bill Pick who had achieved Bill Gates levels of success, and I decided that caused his sanity to start slipping. Especially after he pulled millions of credits out of one of the alternate Bill Gates' bank accounts and the alternate Bill Gates sent an anthropomorphic triceratops assassin after him. Unfortunately, while that game had some of my most favorite RP moments, we never got to finish it because the group fell apart.
Fast-forward a couple of years. A buddy of mine tells me about this awesome, forum-based RPG called "LA by Fire". He tells me I should totally play, so I grab the rulebook, read it over, and sit down to play. At that point, LAbF had a very interesting approach: you would post a mortal character concept, and then go RP as a mortal. If you got other players - vampire players - interested in your character because of the concept or your RP, they'd actually talk to the Prince (an NPC, basically the GM) and fight it out for the right to embrace your character. That would dictate the clan and generation you were assigned. It was super fun.
I decided to re-tool Bill Pick. He came back as a struggling computer consultant with a bit of a dark side who was constantly trying to up his social station. He always wore a suit, habitually checked his Blackberry, and when his workday was over, he was hitting the clubs and bars - hard - every night. I'd decided that Pick Systems was once doing much better financially, until Bill's partner caught on to the fact that Bill was embezzling money from the company to fund his social life. Bill's partner confronted him one night... they fought, and Bill accidentally killed him, dumping his weighted body deep into the ocean. This is specifically why Bill hit the clubs so hard; he was trying to cope with the horrible thing he'd done. With that all set, I dived into the game.
Bill caught the eye of a Setite porn producer and a Tremere party girl. Because of the Tremere's bureaucracy and the Prince's rule that independent clans didn't have to get permission to embrace - they only had to notify of intent (the original Prince was CRAZY loose with the independent clans; it became a sticking point later in the game that ultimately helped depose him) - Bill was embraced as a Follower of Set.
Bill *loved* the power that being a vampire gave him. The embrace turned up his dark side to 11, and he became a power-hungry, manipulative, two-faced bastard (where do you think I got it from for Skully?). However, Bill was a confirmed atheist, and so the whole "descended directly from a god" thing didn't sit well with him. In fact, he found it ludicrous. That standpoint earned him some trust with other vampires:
"Dude, you're a Setite, why should I trust you?"
"Yeah, *scoffs* a Follower of Set. Absolute rubbish."
"Then why were you embraced by them?"
"My sire and our elder needed someone with computer skills."
"Oooh, ok."
His atheism caused him no small amount of problems with his clan, however, and there were several times where the clan elder was this -> <- close to putting him down for good; it didn't happen only because the elder had a soft spot for Bill's sire. After a while he learned that it was in his best interest to tow the line and at least pretend to be on Set's ticket. A while after that... seeing everything that he was seeing... constantly surrounded by proselytizing... he started to accept the faith as a true believer. He continued his public stance as a non-believer and unwilling Setite, and his popularity grew in the city. He was the "Setite You Could Trust". He was also the "Computer Consultant to the Kindred" and wound up writing POS/inventory management/CMS systems and installing Nosferatu-safe security systems in Kindred businesses all over town. Of course all the data generated by those systems were shuttled straight back to the Setites for analysis and identification of possible targets for Setite corruption.
At one point, Bill's sire embraced again, and this guy was completely devoted to the faith. So much so that it made Bill... angry, because the new guy's faith was making him and their sire closer and she was spending less time with Bill. So Bill decided to side with his sire's nemesis in the clan, a Setite of the warrior sect who protected the temple and didn't really take part in the rituals and such. Bill told his sire and the clan elder that he's never been a good fit as a priest or faithful member of the clan, but could really see himself as a warrior and protector of the temple. They agreed, and turned him over to the warrior who started teaching Bill potence... and taught him how to fight. Which really meant that Bill got the shit kicked out of him nightly, until I had accumulated the XP to buy up potence and melee/brawling, and hold my own against the warrior.
Not too long after that, I joined the ST staff as the Assistant ST. At that point, we had to get rid of Bill Pick, because I could not be an ST and play a character as well. So he was killed off, but later brought back as an NPC wraith because I enjoyed the character so much. It became a huge plot point for his coterie - "who killed Bill Pick?" - especially when I started having him show up in wraith form every once in a while (yay for the Embody Arcanoi!)
Anyway, that's Bill's story. One of the most fun character's I've ever played.
Bill Pick was originally a GURPS character in a pre-Infinite Worlds dimension hopping campaign. He started off, basically, as a pastiche of three people: me... a skeevy, womanizing "sales dude" I was acquainted with... and Bill Gates. He ran his own computer consulting/programming business (Pick Systems; a tip-of-the-hat to an actual database company called Pick Systems for which I actually developed software at the time), and used it pretty much to get girls in the sack. I often felt... sullied playing Bill Pick in that game because of his skeeviness. Anyway, early on in the game, he ran afoul of an alternate Bill Pick who had achieved Bill Gates levels of success, and I decided that caused his sanity to start slipping. Especially after he pulled millions of credits out of one of the alternate Bill Gates' bank accounts and the alternate Bill Gates sent an anthropomorphic triceratops assassin after him. Unfortunately, while that game had some of my most favorite RP moments, we never got to finish it because the group fell apart.
Fast-forward a couple of years. A buddy of mine tells me about this awesome, forum-based RPG called "LA by Fire". He tells me I should totally play, so I grab the rulebook, read it over, and sit down to play. At that point, LAbF had a very interesting approach: you would post a mortal character concept, and then go RP as a mortal. If you got other players - vampire players - interested in your character because of the concept or your RP, they'd actually talk to the Prince (an NPC, basically the GM) and fight it out for the right to embrace your character. That would dictate the clan and generation you were assigned. It was super fun.
I decided to re-tool Bill Pick. He came back as a struggling computer consultant with a bit of a dark side who was constantly trying to up his social station. He always wore a suit, habitually checked his Blackberry, and when his workday was over, he was hitting the clubs and bars - hard - every night. I'd decided that Pick Systems was once doing much better financially, until Bill's partner caught on to the fact that Bill was embezzling money from the company to fund his social life. Bill's partner confronted him one night... they fought, and Bill accidentally killed him, dumping his weighted body deep into the ocean. This is specifically why Bill hit the clubs so hard; he was trying to cope with the horrible thing he'd done. With that all set, I dived into the game.
Bill caught the eye of a Setite porn producer and a Tremere party girl. Because of the Tremere's bureaucracy and the Prince's rule that independent clans didn't have to get permission to embrace - they only had to notify of intent (the original Prince was CRAZY loose with the independent clans; it became a sticking point later in the game that ultimately helped depose him) - Bill was embraced as a Follower of Set.
Bill *loved* the power that being a vampire gave him. The embrace turned up his dark side to 11, and he became a power-hungry, manipulative, two-faced bastard (where do you think I got it from for Skully?). However, Bill was a confirmed atheist, and so the whole "descended directly from a god" thing didn't sit well with him. In fact, he found it ludicrous. That standpoint earned him some trust with other vampires:
"Dude, you're a Setite, why should I trust you?"
"Yeah, *scoffs* a Follower of Set. Absolute rubbish."
"Then why were you embraced by them?"
"My sire and our elder needed someone with computer skills."
"Oooh, ok."
His atheism caused him no small amount of problems with his clan, however, and there were several times where the clan elder was this -> <- close to putting him down for good; it didn't happen only because the elder had a soft spot for Bill's sire. After a while he learned that it was in his best interest to tow the line and at least pretend to be on Set's ticket. A while after that... seeing everything that he was seeing... constantly surrounded by proselytizing... he started to accept the faith as a true believer. He continued his public stance as a non-believer and unwilling Setite, and his popularity grew in the city. He was the "Setite You Could Trust". He was also the "Computer Consultant to the Kindred" and wound up writing POS/inventory management/CMS systems and installing Nosferatu-safe security systems in Kindred businesses all over town. Of course all the data generated by those systems were shuttled straight back to the Setites for analysis and identification of possible targets for Setite corruption.
At one point, Bill's sire embraced again, and this guy was completely devoted to the faith. So much so that it made Bill... angry, because the new guy's faith was making him and their sire closer and she was spending less time with Bill. So Bill decided to side with his sire's nemesis in the clan, a Setite of the warrior sect who protected the temple and didn't really take part in the rituals and such. Bill told his sire and the clan elder that he's never been a good fit as a priest or faithful member of the clan, but could really see himself as a warrior and protector of the temple. They agreed, and turned him over to the warrior who started teaching Bill potence... and taught him how to fight. Which really meant that Bill got the shit kicked out of him nightly, until I had accumulated the XP to buy up potence and melee/brawling, and hold my own against the warrior.
Not too long after that, I joined the ST staff as the Assistant ST. At that point, we had to get rid of Bill Pick, because I could not be an ST and play a character as well. So he was killed off, but later brought back as an NPC wraith because I enjoyed the character so much. It became a huge plot point for his coterie - "who killed Bill Pick?" - especially when I started having him show up in wraith form every once in a while (yay for the Embody Arcanoi!)
Anyway, that's Bill's story. One of the most fun character's I've ever played.