Main Quest

Questions we need to consider for the main quest:

1. Who is our main character?

2. Is the player separate from the main character?

3. Are we making the main character a blank slate for the player to attribute her own experience?

4. Provided 3), what are some ways to create motivation for the player using environment, mechanics, and Npc's.

5. Provided 4), what would these motivations consist of and ultimately tell of the characters experience?

6. Provided 1), what is our main character's motivations?

I think the best way to introduce our players to the main quest is by allowing that player to evolve from a human to a vampire. In VTM:Bloodlines, we experience the vampirism from the beginning. If we could introduce our players in a fragile human state to accomplish several themes related to the game, I believe we would have a stronger opening. An example in mind is as follows:

The player starts as human. She plays as a human for a good bit of time to familiarize herself with the controls and general atmosphere of the game. At some moment we need to give our player a false dichotomy between two choices. Both of which leads to the same conclusion, yet the choice matters for the experience of the player and how that will relate.

The player has been approached by a vampire and is given the option to either be a vampire or die a human. The player has a choice.

Choice 1) Our player chooses to become a vampire and is brought into the fold of darkness.
Choice 2) Our player chooses not to become a vampire and is FORCED by the vampire to become a vampire.

The manner in which the vampire approaches the player should be one of violence. The player must feel as though they are human against something of the unknown. So the player will be within their home and are allowed to leave from their house, still human. When they go out, we set up an encounter to demonstrate the mechanics of the game. We lull the player in a brief amount of time that their home is safe. That is when the player returns home to see that their house has been messed up and there is some noise coming from deeper with the house.

Here we establish the themes of horror, mortality, and the darkness aspect of being a vampire.

The second choice appears to me the most interesting, where it will be the one experience a player has that is awfully violent and forceful.

I believe these ideas would be excellent for setting the tone of the game rapidly without the need for too many unecessary cutscenes where in-game mechanics can be used to express the same meaning.

Note: In both of the options, I think we ought to give the players an option to resist through skill. Although they cannot actually resist, it's more about the psychology behind given that option.