Parenthood: Brand

[RPGPundit]

I've gotten to the point where I actively resist making Brand someone's parent, since it feels so overdone; though if a pc starts out with significant bad stuff this is often a good way to go.

Brand is a totally fucked up parent: I mean, basically, Brand was mentally ill in a severe way. He was so introspective and self-absorbed that he probably never had time to be competent as a parent at all; and I would often have any PC child of Brand raised by their other parent and mostly ignored by Brand.  Any child of Brand is likely to get a lot of attention from the rest of the family though, most of it negative: Fiona or Bleys would likely try to use the kid, and the entire rest of the family would likely distrust the kid just by virtue of who their daddy was.

Of course, how the parenthood of Brand on this character impacts would depend enormously on whether Brand is still alive or not in the game you're running, and whether the game takes place before or after Patternfall.

Any other thoughts about this?

RPGPundit

[JongWK]

I think that Brand's children need to stand on their own more than any other character. They lack the parental support that others take for granted, and at the same time are distrusted for who their father is.

[Trevelyan]

I've gotten to the point where I actively resist making Brand someone's parent, since it feels so overdone; though if a pc starts out with significant bad stuff this is often a good way to go.

QFT in every detail.

[Rel Fexive]

Alternatively, confuse things.  Give them a father who, at the times they actually met him, was at his best.  Caring, interested, helpful.  Okay, maybe it was just an expression of his mania ("just revisiting that old project I started...") but maybe his mood upswings made him nostalgic and intrigued rather than intense and disturbing.  Make him a good parent for a change, with no (lasting) ulterior motive that will haunt them down the line.

[Trevelyan]

Make him a good parent for a change, with no (lasting) ulterior motive that will haunt them down the line.

The problem with that approach is that having Brand as a father, post Patternfall, is never going to be an easy ride on a character. Making Brand a benevolent father in his dealings with that particular kid only makes things worse as everyone else will know "Brand the Psychopath", and claiming that he's not all bad because he read you some nice bedtime stories isn't going to make life in Amber any easier. It'll just leave the character conflicted, hence badstuff. And the player will always wonder when the ulterior motive is going to appear.

[Rel Fexive]

Arguably, the bigger problem is the assumption that everyone in Amber will react that way to them.

[Trevelyan]

Arguably, the bigger problem is the assumption that everyone in Amber will react that way to them.

Any Amberite who would seriously give Brand's son the benefit of the doubt is either smoking something, or else a complete prat like Merlin.

[gabriel_ss4u]

Just don't play Brand's kid in cards, he's got a good pokerface.

[Syzygy]

What's the problem?  By all accounts, Brand was an excellent, loving father to Rinaldo.  Taught him Trumps and took him to the Pattern, right?  The problem seemed to be Jasra as his mother, not Brand as his father.

Once Rinaldo put aside his vendetta, Corwin and Flora, for two, seemed to have few problems with him (in the short stories).

Really, I think Rinaldo created his own problems by murdering Caine and shooting Bleys.  My reading of the second series is that few would be poorly disposed to Rinaldo if not for Rinny's own murderous acts.

Certainly, there's no reason to believe Brand ever abused him, physically or emotionally.

Having Jasra as mother...now that's Bad Stuff!

[Rel Fexive]

Very true.  Most of Rinaldo's "problems" do stem from his mother raising him.

[Trevelyan]

I'm not sure that's entirely true. Rinaldo seems to suffer from something of a 'my dead dad was really a misunderstood hero' complex. Since Brand died his son has formed an idealised image of him to the extent that he embarked on a fairly epic revenge spree.

Given what we know of Brand, not least his apparent mood swings, I find it highly unlikely that Brand was the ideal father that Rinaldo remembers. Sure he taught his kid to create Trumps and took him to walk the Pattern, but what Amberite parent wouldn't do the same?

Jasra was clearly a problem mother, but how similar were her overall attitudes and aims to those of Brand? I imagine that the pair of them were really quite well suited, and tha tthe only real difference was that Rinaldo only saw the best in his dad in his younger years while he had to endure his mother's interference throughout his adult life.

[Arref]

Given what we know of Brand, not least his apparent mood swings, I find it highly unlikely that Brand was the ideal father that Rinaldo remembers. Jasra was clearly a problem mother, but how similar were her overall attitudes and aims to those of Brand? I imagine that the pair of them were really quite well suited, and tha tthe only real difference was that Rinaldo only saw the best in his dad in his younger years while he had to endure his mother's interference throughout his adult life.

This seems spot on. Rinaldo only knows his father through and intense period where a war is being fought off-stage (with plenty of intrigue.) Father and Mother are very on the same page, and Rinaldo grows up the dutiful son, inspired by his father.

No question that Jasra was following Brand's lead.

Then Brand is gone. Suddenly and violently.
Rinaldo gets Jasra's version of this, of course.
What would any legendary son of a prince do?

Yep, excel at retribution.

Jasra raised a prince in the vacuum of Brand's absence. Yes, adult Rinaldo developed issues with how that was done.

It makes the whole story so much more interesting.