Playing the Lestrange clan was interesting, and also challenging at times (I played Raz for quite a while before shedding off a few characters due to real-life constraints).
Bellatrix became much more active by the end of the game, but you'll notice her contributions were pretty sporadic otherwise. Same with Rodolphus. I held back with them in part due to the aforementioned real-life constraints - I just didn't have as much time to devote to them, and in a way I thought they were more threatening if both the characters and readers were never quite sure what they were up to. (You might recall that everytime Bellatrix posted a PM in her journal, the ISS or Order would sometimes freak out that she was Up To Something).
That said, some of the domestic conflicts I wrote between Bella and Rod, and Rod and Raz, and Bella, Rod, and Hydra, were really satisfying. I particularly liked those two moments where Bellatrix had to reach out and ask Rodolphus for help - something she absolutely hated, by the way! The first is when she was trying to save a dying Voldemort; the second was when Rigel was being a pain at Buckingham, just as the DEs were trying to escape through the wards.
Playing the same family of characters really allows you to tell their story coherently, and shape all the pieces just so. One of the challenges, though, is making sure that their conversations don't sound entirely scripted. You lack the spontaneity of not knowing how another character is going to respond, so it can sometimes feel like the conversation goes from point A to point B a little too neatly.
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Bellatrix became much more active by the end of the game, but you'll notice her contributions were pretty sporadic otherwise. Same with Rodolphus. I held back with them in part due to the aforementioned real-life constraints - I just didn't have as much time to devote to them, and in a way I thought they were more threatening if both the characters and readers were never quite sure what they were up to. (You might recall that everytime Bellatrix posted a PM in her journal, the ISS or Order would sometimes freak out that she was Up To Something).
That said, some of the domestic conflicts I wrote between Bella and Rod, and Rod and Raz, and Bella, Rod, and Hydra, were really satisfying. I particularly liked those two moments where Bellatrix had to reach out and ask Rodolphus for help - something she absolutely hated, by the way! The first is when she was trying to save a dying Voldemort; the second was when Rigel was being a pain at Buckingham, just as the DEs were trying to escape through the wards.
Playing the same family of characters really allows you to tell their story coherently, and shape all the pieces just so. One of the challenges, though, is making sure that their conversations don't sound entirely scripted. You lack the spontaneity of not knowing how another character is going to respond, so it can sometimes feel like the conversation goes from point A to point B a little too neatly.