“I think you're viewing "limited by their nature" in a particularly narrow way.”
Possibly. I think everyone with a body is influenced by their nature; I don’t make such a distinction between “monster” and “mortal” maybe because I see plenty of mortal monsters, so to speak.
“Let's look at something like a Black Court vampire.”
Ah, here is where the difference in how each GM runs their campaign comes in! Love it!
“Being bound by its nature means”
1-“They need to feed.”
And I understand they NEED to feed on blood, and PREFER to feed on human blood AND on blood from a living being (as opposed to robbing a blood bank, or something like that).
2-“They don't respect the sanctity of human life.”
This one I wouldn’t say is as binding as the first one. Yes, I think that most sentient beings that eat don’t really respect the sanctity of the lives of their prey, but I also think this is a cultural, rather than a biological, issue (see any number of essays by Peter Singer). It has exceptions – not many, but they are there, and sometimes those exceptions make the game more enjoyable.
3-“They can't go into the sun.”
Without some serious mojo/sunblock or something. Which I may or may not use; but you are right, and this might make for a nifty underground (or Nevernever chase scene where “getting to the sunlight” will save the day.
4-“They look like corpses.”
Yup. Which actually brings up a question as to what the black court equivalent of a red court ‘infected’ would look like. The Dracula novel implies that they would still look human; I’m playing around with this idea.
“It's just that, at the end of the day, that interesting character will be a monster.” <snip> “In short, being bound by one's nature doesn't translate to needing to be boring or simple.”
On that, we do definitely agree.
Dian