Many groups like to create their own clan together. As they
establish the clan's attitudes and goals, they define what they want the
game to be about. The narrator should ask the questions, but the players
should decide on the answers. If the heroes are from the same clan, we
recommend that the players reach a consensus on each answer. If the group
has trouble with this method, the narrator can instead select a player at
random and ask him the first question, then ask the next player in line
the second question, and so on, until all of the questions have been
answered.
If each player character is from his own clan, take the time to go
through the questionnaire with each separately, so that they can reveal
their own clan's history to each other later, during the game, and to
protect their secrets.
The material here is addressed to you, but the decisions would have
been made by those ancient folks who live on in your characters, their
descendants. Your clan profile is determined by the answers that you give
to this questionnaire.
Creating your own clan using the Clan Generation Questionnaire has
another advantage - it introduces the players to the setting. As they
answer the questions in the clan questionnaire, they learn of, and are
involved in, myth and history without having to read background material.
We recommend agreeing to the details of your clan before you begin
creating characters. This is especially true if your game will center on
clan life. In such a game, the most interesting characters have
relationships with the clan's leaders and support or oppose the clan's
direction and beliefs. Deciding these before you create characters may
inspire you in their creation. If you have a game where everyone has left
home seeking adventure, then you might be able to do it later but it
could give ideas on why they left and what they left behind.
This web-based questionnaire provides sample answers for each
question (including some that were not in the original book version). If
you come up with an entertaining answer that is not on this list, then
please contact us with your ideas and we may incorporate them in a future
version. Please imagine the consequences of the answers and work out how
they fit with the existing framework before you make your suggestions.
You want to know what sort of clan the players want to be from; so
let them make informed choices. No answer is better than another, just
different. Feel free to give the player characters abilities that reflect
from their clan's secrets. Finally, use your judgment when allowing
players to choose some of the answers provided here, if they do not seem
appropriate to the questionnaire results that far.