Breaking Points

Source: World of Darkness: God-Machine Rules Update (Onyx Path, 2013).

When a character performs certain actions or endures certain experiences, he might reach a breaking point. A breaking point simply means that what a character has done or seen has outstripped his ability to rationalize or handle it.

A breaking point can fall into one of the following categories:

• The character performs an action that either violates his personal moral code or that is considered unacceptable in society.
• The character witnesses something traumatic, terrifying, or that rattles his understanding of the world.
• The character is the victim of a supernatural attack, whether physical, emotional, or mental.

Breaking points are somewhat subjective, obviously. A homicide detective with 30 years of experience in seeing dead bodies and hearing confessions of killers has a somewhat higher tolerance for human depravity than a sheltered 20-something in a middle-class liberal arts college. During character creation, it might be advisable for the Storyteller to come up with several hypothetical situations, so that the player can determine if, in her judgment, those situations would be breaking points.

Note that a breaking point is not necessarily something that the character considers wrong. A character might kill someone in a clear-cut, unambiguous case of self-defense, but the experience is probably still a breaking point, even if the player (and the character!) feels the act was entirely justified. Actions take a toll on the psyche, regardless of whether the actions were righteous.

Breaking Point Questions

During character creation, the player should answer the following five questions. Each question provides a breaking point for the character. If, during the character creation process, additional breaking points become apparent to the player, add them to the list. There’s no limit to how many breaking points a character can have.

The list isn’t a strict list anyway; the Storyteller can stipulate that a given occurrence is a breaking point regardless of whether or not it appears on the player’s list. However, the better-defined your character’s outlook is, the better your Storyteller’s understanding will be of what constitutes a breaking point for that character.

• What is the worst thing your character has ever done? This doesn’t have to be anything dastardly. If the worst thing your character ever did was steal money from his mother’s purse and lie to cover it up, that’s fine. What’s important here is to consider something that your character did that made him hate himself. The superlative “worst” is something that the character would apply. Choose a breaking point based on the answer to this question.
• What is the worst thing your character can imagine himself doing? We imagine ourselves in various scenarios to test our own self-image against a hypothetical situation. When children do it, it’s called imaginative play, but it fills the same niche. What can you can character reasonably see himself doing, but still know that it would be wrong? Can your character imagine killing someone in self-defense? Torturing someone for information? How about robbing a store with a gun?
• What is the worst thing your character can imagine someone else doing? Of course, we all know that people are capable of some hideous atrocities. What tops your character’s list? Serial murder? Rape? Torture? Spree killing? If your character is extremely sheltered or misanthropic, he might have a skewed view, here; he might hang on to some lofty, cerebral notion of “dishonor” or “betrayal” as the nadir of human behavior.
• What haunts your character's dreams? Everyone has unpleasant memories that lurk in the back of their mind, half-forgotten and stirring only in dreams, and in the Chronicles of Darkness not all such buried traumas and phobias are mundane in origin. Decide what fears haunt your characters. Did they remember seeing a man become a wolf, no matter how much they refuse to believe it? Do they dream each night of a cyclopean city ever since reading a particular book? Do they have arachnophobia and pale at the thought of spindle-legged creatures crawling across your skin?
• What is the most traumatic thing that has ever happened to your character? No one goes through life with no trauma. Your character might have been mugged, beaten as a child, in a serious car accident, been kidnapped by a parent during a divorce, survived a lifethreatening disease, attempted suicide, been attacked by a supernatural (or natural!) creature, or any number of other traumatic experiences. The goal here, again, isn’t to make a traumatized character. It’s to set a bar.

Example Answers

Mike Dashell, Divorcee Landscape Gardener

What is the worst thing Mike has ever done? Mike got into a bar fight a few years back and broke a beer bottle over a dude’s head. The guy needed 18 stitches in his scalp and was covered in blood. That scared the shit out of Mike — he’d never hurt anyone like that. Breaking point: “Causing visible injury to another person”

What is the worst thing Mike can imagine himself doing? Mike and his ex had a couple of good fights, and while they never turned physical, Mike had to calm himself down a couple of times. He knows, on some level, that it didn’t turn physical because he deliberately kept himself under control. Breaking point: “Lose temper and physically hurt a loved one."

What is the worst thing Mike can imagine someone else doing? Mike’s a normal guy: he read the news, he sees what everyone sees. He can’t wrap his brain around how someone picks up a gun and shoots kids. Breaking point: “witnessing the murder of children.”

What haunts Mike's dreams? When Mike was at summer camp, he went outside the cabin one night to go the bathroom, which was across a path. He saw something sitting on the roof of the cabin. It was humanoid, but short and squat, and it was carrying something long and thing that wriggled like a fish. Mike looked at it, and then ran. In the morning, he thought he’d dreamed it, and by adulthood he’d forgotten it. Breaking point: “seeing a supernatural creature lurking in the dark.”

What is the most traumatic thing that ever happened to Mike? The divorce was stressful but not traumatic, unlike the bar fight — Mike was arrested, and very nearly charged with aggravated assault. The charges were dropped when the guy he hit left town and didn’t bother to follow up with the complaint, but the experience of being through the system, being viewed as a criminal, took a toll on Mike. Breaking point: “Being arrested."