Vampires are really, really old

I have a pet peeve that I'm sure I've mentioned before: When it comes to immortals, whether vampires, elves or highlanders, some series like to toss around numbers like they're meaningless when they're not.  The average person doesn't really have a true grasp of the scope of history, hence my other project (History Lesson), beyond broad eras.  He knows about World War 2, and the Civil War, and then the Middle Ages ("That's the bit with the knights and princesses, right?") and then Rome, and then "a really long time ago," and everything in between gets very fuzzy.  As a result, you have vampires from the Civil War, and then vampires from the Medieval Age, and nothing in between, which makes me grind my teeth.

To help you understand my frustration, I've built an infographic (Yay for pictures!).  For comparison, we're going to use Vampire: the Requiem's measure of immortality, as I think that's a pretty well thought-out standard, though these ideas could probably apply to just about anything.

Werewolf: the Final Offering After Action Report 2

So, with some work and some arguing, I managed to schedule my Final Offering session for the Open Evening and gave it a shot.  The second time around, things went much more smoothly.  I played down the depth of the NPCs, played up the interesting factors surrounding the demons (the fight, this time around, was much better), and I kept the pacing swift.  We, in fact, managed to finish the entire session in just under 4 hours, which is an excellent clip, and it left nobody feeling underwhelmed.  I had a player who played in both, and he felt it was quite an improvement and, in his words, "probably the best session I'll ever get out of an open evening."  Strong praise.

I still feel that the sandbox model I've developed works best for campaigns or "long-shots," multi-session one shots.  I end up feeling as though I'm missing alot of the nuance in my game, and thus all the NPCs get a glimpse, and then we move on (a female player expressed interesting in Gill, surprisingly enough, but I lacked time to even touch on him further).  I think I can learn some solid lessons from this (that I'm at my strongest when I design characters and then work a plot around them, rather than the other way around), but it's probably a model best left to my longer games.

Amusingly, we had very similar events in both games.  Zig-Zag, our assassin, opted to be a janitor once again, and got in a seriously lethal, though not killing, blow.  A female player chose Shadowheart and played as a student, fell in love with Dixon, and used Corpse Witness on a dead pigeon.  At least this time, she got to speak to the Pigeon King and, erm, make-out with Tom-Tim (Who is now her favorite spirit character evar).  All in all, an excellent session and a big improvement over the first time around.

Werewolf: the Final Offering After Action Report

Success!

We started the game promptly an hour late (But this wasn't my fault: Dinner and clean-up ran long).  Even so, I bounced right into the story with my evocative beginning, brought the werewolves in and immediately hit that moment of "shared imagination space."  They never left character.

By the time we were finished, we'd killed one of the three demons, the players had identified the remaining two demons, and they had a solid idea of what he was going after.  I suggested twice (at midnight and then at one) that we stop, but they kept going until 2 in the morning, at which point the girls were nearly asleep (and one was still willing to go on).  So, it seems very clear that they enjoyed it.

The high points: As with Slaughter City, you instantly get this sense that you're stepping into a thriving world that's "in progress."  The players quickly identified with the NPCs and began to interact with them right away.  In particular, I think the fact that the spirit world was well defined (my description of the library earned an uttered "Oh wow," from one of the players) really helped create this sense of exploration and world-space.  The players had the freedom to go where they wanted, the characters worked well together, and to be frank, my players were all excellent.  One player, a hard core D&Der, was the high point of the game actually, with his pompous laziness (the player himself kept his chin up at all times) and the fact that players constantly underestimated his ability to get things done.  He was also the only player to frenzy throughout the game (getting your ass beat by a punk with a burning baseball bat will do that).

The low points: I'm not sure that this sort of sandbox design is good for a one-shot.  With a more "railroady" story, I can get the players right to where I want them, and we can explore the whole story.  This almost overwhelmed them.  One of the players commented that she could barely keep the NPCs straight for the first half of the game, and indeed, it's alot of NPCs and alot of stuff for a single session.  I also noticed that I hammered out lots of description at the beginning, and then I failed to keep it up.  The players didn't seem to notice, but I did, and I think a couple of scenes suffered as a result (one player posed as a teacher and wanted to teach a class.  I should have settled down and offered some solid description, some dynamics, at that point).  Finally, the action felt scattered and undirected, which is part of doing it sandbox-style.

Still, I never lacked for something to do, and you could see that the players adored it.  A resounding success, but still in need of refinement.  I'd like to revisit it, clean it up, and see if the Newton group would like to play.

Werewolf - the Final Offering: Speed NPC Challenge: Complete!

Less than a week, and I have all of my NPCs ready.

Lemme tell you, spirits are interesting...

Werewolf - the Final Offering: Speed NPC Challenge

I've got one week to finish prepping all of my werewolf material, including the setting, the plot, and about 25 NPCs.  I also have a test during this week.

Wish me luck.

Werewolf - The Final Offering Impressions

With my new Dramatic Combat system and some minor modifications at the suggestion of gamers wise than me, I thought that, perhaps, it was time to revisit Werewolf and see if it could hold up to my expectations.  And so, I agreed to run a Werewolf one shot for the Knights: Final Offering


Young Uratha Initiates have on final task to be accepted among the Forsaken: they must slay a demon. A servant of the Maeljin has secreted himself in a boarding school, and it's up to the werewolves to infiltrate the school and eliminate him. How hard can it possibly be for five werewolves to defeat one demon? Or pretend to be students?

I intend it to be like a mini-Slaughter City, a sandbox with about 20 NPCs, a rough direction for a storyline, and detailed setting information.  That way, it'll play differently every time I run it, and I intend to run it several times (perhaps even for my werewolf fans back in Kansas).

I'm currently working on the pre-made characters (pulling away from my "detailed/Interesting PC" model of the past in favor of a more Lady Blacbird style "Here's one character element that makes them interesting" and a solid build, as players never play "your" characters "correctly" anyway), and I must say, when you start getting into level 3 gifts, the characters quickly become more interesting than I anticipated.  I might be wrong about Werewolf being "too broken."  If you just loosen up the gift restrictions (You do not have to take gifts "in order, and taking gifts during character creation works the same as it does during actual play) and give the werewolves about 35 experience, you get some fairly awesome characters.  I'll share them later, perhaps.

Anyway, I'm excited, and that's a good sign.

Slaughter City Session 3 After Action Report

The last session left me unsatisfied and disoriented, though I'm not entirely sure why.  It might simply be my lingering insomnia, actually, because overall, I thought it went really well.

We dragged Cass kicking and screaming into her story, but she quite enjoyed what she saw when she got there.  She didn't do much, but that's not the point.  She's there to be an outsider looking in, watching all the cool drama and then, if she wishes, interacting or not interacting or bemoaning her situation or what have you.  The point is, she now has material to work with, and that's good.

Roomie and Dave went crazy.  What is it with Dave?  Just because you can kill someone doesn't mean you should.  And so, we have our first major named NPC death (with a mortal.  The other named NPC?  Also Phillip's kill.  Stop pumping your fist and notching your belt, Dave, I can see you!), Danny Devlin, major mafioso.  Funny thing, though, that might actually work out really well for the story.  It's certainly extraordinarily dramatic, and Roomie once commented on how he'd love to see how much damage he caused.  Well, there ya go, some serious damage.  I tell you, I'm seriously glad I statted everything up, because otherwise, this would have left me completely at a loss, but now I find myself mentally counting up the impact this will make on the world.

The group is really having a hard time adjusting to the game.  Shawn saw a serial killer nabbing someone and, without thinking, without hesitating, threw himself (unarmed) into the situation and, shock of shocks, nearly lost a limb, and sped out of there.  Likewise, Dave and Roomie just pounce on a major crime lord without thought of repercussions, and even Byler just walks up to a girl he knows belongs to someone else and tries to put the moves on her (while I'm sure it was unintentional and Byler was just trying to nom on pretty women, his complete disregard for the fact that the Crassus clearly belong to Marion and that, while Esther has been offered, she has not been given to him, really fits with his whole "spoiled bastard prince" persona. Daisy needs to raise him better, but she's not really big on rules or discipline).  I spoke to Roomie about this, and he says we haven't played at this power level in a long time.

Which isn't true, our GURPS game as about this power level, possibly lower.  Of course, even there, Byler tried to kung-fu a guy who had a gun to his head executioner style with his 150 point character and was surprised when, shock of shock, it didn't work.  Mad too, though he got over it.  I think it's just the culture of the group: we play high-powered, epic games.  The guys are used to being uber heroes who answer to no one and seldom suffer consequences beyond dramatic, hilarious, soap-opera/comedy consequences, similar to much of the anime we like to watch.  I wasn't kidding when I called vampire a "Dark, survival horror," though, and the group is only slowly starting to grasp exactly what I meant.  Yes, you have kewl powers, but you're not an Exalted vs a Mortal, you're a former mortal with a curse.  Vampire is not a game about glory, it's a game about consequences.

Plus the format is very strange for the group.  I generally only hit players with opponents they can handle.  They don't expect, for example, that Porcelain, the pretty Korean woman draped all over Master Tiger in the very first session, is actually one of the most combat-capable mortals in all of Metzgerburg (up there with two of the characters the players faced yesterday).  That's not generally how my games work.  You expect such a character at the long end of a line of increasingly bad-ass NPCs.  Instead, Metzgerburg is a sand box, the dragons are mixed in with the goblins, the bad-asses rub elbows with the mooks.  The guys really aren't used to this.

In fact, I've noticed they're really struggling with the whole format: they don't investigate much, they don't sit up and ask to do something much, they don't think ahead and plan and ponder the deeper implications or this or that.  They watch, they wait, and they react.  They're treating it like an action game when it's a game of mystery, intrigue and horror.  But that's to be expected: we're a few sessions in, it's a very different style, and they're still adjusting.

I'm going to keep at it.  Now that we've established a base of the setting and sufficiently involved everyone (It would have been nice to involve Dave more in storyline material, but every time I do, he kills the people I'm offering him as hooks O.O), and we can get back to killing vampires and figuring out just who the Mother and Mortimer Tooms really are.  Once the arc is finished, we can sit back and reassess and see how people are or aren't liking the game.

Werewolf: the F***ed-over [Past Lives]

So, during a monster discussion on rpg.net, the inestimable Jon Chung pointed out that Werewolves actually rank pretty low on the combat totem pole.  For his part, he mostly meant that other creatures lack the absurd flexibility of supernaturals like Mages, Changelings or Geists.  Nobody can really compete with a mage's ability to kill you from half-way across the world, for example.

Still, Matt McFarland, White-Wolf developer, pointed out that in his games, he's often found Werewolves to be "too weak," and Armory Reloaded contains some options to fix that (the one I like the most is the 9-again for strength rolls in Gauru form).

After I posted my thoughts on why Werewolves were too weak, another poster suggested that you buff Gauru form 1 attribute dot per rank of Primal Urge.  While I think this is interesting, it gave me an idea.

In oWoD, Werewolves could have Past Lives.  In Rage, this Past Lives manifested as actual characters, and your character was the embodiment of this great hero.  I liked that idea, and thought it was a shame that it never actually worked that way in the game.

But what if it could?  At Gnosis 3, 5 and 7 (I believe), Mages gain access to "Legacies."  Werewolves have Lodges (which suck), but what if they also had access to a Past Life?  You define your character's past life, and he has a skill requirement, and a weakness associated with him, like a Ban.  When you hit Primal Urge 3, you can take this past life: If the required skill is at five, you raise that skill to 6. Furthermore, the Past Life has Attributes associated with it: that attribute is increased by +1 for either the near-man or near-wolf form (also defined by the past life), and +2 for the Gauru form.

I think that might be a way to give that guy's special little rule some serious flavor.  What do you think?

Slaughter City: the Dark Bond

I mentioned before that my players are splitting up far too often.  I'd like to encourage them to stay together, rather than brutally enforcing it via metagaming.  I could ask them to stick together, but I'd rather it "made sense" and that it was a tempting option, either to avoid sticks or gain carrots.

Talking with Roomie gave me an idea.  What if the coterie bond between the characters went deeper than expected (or perhaps this is normal among all coteries): When a vampire in a coterie awakens, he has within his twisted soul a faint measure of power and love for his fellow members.  Thus, once per day, he may pass on this bond in the form of a bonus.  To do so requires touch, or at least being in sight or hearing range, and this bonus must be applied immediately to a roll. You cannot "save it up."

I was thinking the bonus would be a rote action: you can reroll any and all failed dice on a particular roll.  This is sort of like "giving a player joss" from WotG, except it requires you to actually be there.  This means if you're going into a dangerous or important situation, it's useful to bring your coterie mates along "just in case," since they can directly lend you support via the dark bond.

What do you guys think?  The bonus too strong?  "Once per session per player" too weak?  Lemme know

Slaughter City: Spilled Blood, Chapter 1

I should note that I tried to record the session, but ended up catching less than half of it, so alas, I cannot podcast this like I might have liked. Instead, I'll do my best to simply describe it. Also please forgive me for not listing the full descriptions I gave for each scene. I can't imagine anyone wants to read 6 hours of description

While I've advertised this game as a "Sandbox" game, you'll note this game is fairly straightforward.  I'm trying to give the players "something to do," introducing them to the setting and characters.  Hopefully, the next session will involve less listening and more playing.

Vampire: Frenzy

When you pick up a new game, you spend alot of time learning to master its intricacies, a dance I'm long familiar with due to my love of systems and my "Gamer ADD." You try new things, make mistakes, re-read the book, and see things in a completely new light. And then you tell your players, they nod and agree, and life moves on.

World of Darkness is a very flexible, very "narrative" system. The rules function primarily to facilitate your telling of a story. They resolve disputes, tell you what happens next and, most importantly, help create "interesting choices," the very core of "gameplay."

Vampire's frenzy rules work exactly so. They grant me a chance to step into the heads of my players' characters and show them how alien a vampiric state really is. I can reveal how profound a vampire's hunger or rage really is with the roll of a die. However, if I use too heavy a hand, I violate another rule that I must confess I often violate: do not tell the players what they are feeling. There's two good reasons for this. First, it's just bad form. A player is in control of his character (except when he's not, the whole point of frenzy), and knows how that character feels better than I possibly can. Second, more importantly, it's a crutch. If I say "You meet a scary guy. He's scary. You're scared," most players generally dismiss the character. If I show you that he's scary, with words like "looming" and "sinister" and "flashing eyes," then most player characters will understand that fear and react accordingly. (There's a third reason in a vampire game: Vampires often mess with your mind and emotions. "The vampire uses nightmare, therefore, you're scared" creates different results, a different feel, than describing a scary character and letting the player react accordingly).

I think I over-used frenzy in the last game, though much of it was Predator's Taint, something that always occurs. Perhaps my players wouldn't agree: Many of Roomie's frenzies came understandably from his hunger, while other characters (like Byler) hardly needed to roll for frenzy at all, as they were in a well-controlled environment and well-fed. According to the book, it's "up to me" when characters should roll for frenzy, but it shouldn't happen all the time.

The book also repeatedly states that vampires cling to their humanity to stave off the beast (ie frenzy), yet provides no mechanics for this. Thus, I propose a personal guideline: the higher your humanity, the less often I require you to roll for frenzy. Another book (I forget which) offered the idea of rolling a single die and comparing the results to your Humanity. A roll equal to or lower than your Humanity resulted in "virtuous" action, while higher than your Humanity resulted in "sinful" action. The book suggested this as a roleplaying tip, but I think it might serve well as a guide for frenzy: If I am in doubt as to whether or not you should frenzy, I will roll a die and note the above. Thus, Dave is far more likely to frenzy for "little things" than Roomie, thanks to his mounting madness after diablerizing that vampire last session.

Thoughts?

Slaughter City: Post-script

So, I ran my first Vampire game, and it exceeded all expectations. When I asked if they thought my notes made a difference, they unanimously agreed that it did (which surprised me, as I didn't feel I could tell a difference). Roomie declared that "It felt like you've been running this game for a year, and we're only just now getting to play it." Since I generally take "a year" to get that much detail on my NPCs, I can see where he's coming from on it. Both Roomie and Byler have asked when the next game will be, and very much want to see what happens next. The fact that everything has so much context likely contributes to this: Roomie's character nibbled on someone he probably shouldn't have. In a normal "first session" vampire game, you wouldn't expect anything from this, as the character was probably someone tossed together last minute by the GM. In this game, you know I've already tied her into the setting, so he's tugging on strings and he isn't sure where they lead.

So, this technique is a resounding success. I can already tell that if someone asked me to run a game tomorrow, with like 30 minutes prep time, I could give them a session just as good. Now that they've been introduced to the setting, I have more than enough hooks and interesting story elements to keep them going for quite awhile. I should use this technique in my other campaigns as well, I think.

I have rarely seen the group so wildly excited after session 1 of any game.

Vampire itself turned out to be alot more interesting than I expected. I mean, alot more interesting. It's fun when a system pleasantly surprises you, when it rewards you for choosing it. First, the Beast offered me an amazing amount of control. Just ask people to roll for frenzy and whisper in their heads whenever I want to emphasize something vampiric, or show them some of their vampire nature. I also like how keenly aware my players were of their blood pool, their hunger. Furthermore, their powers were awesome. Byler thoroughly enjoyed being the seductive Daeva loaded with Majesty and getting a small crowd to adore him and spill their guts about what they knew, or Cass pinning some dogs with her Animalism and turning them to her side, and so on. I can see where Vampire games quickly turn into "Dark Superheroes." People complain that nVamp isn't "epic enough." I think my players would disagree after the last session.

Dramatic Combat is really such a wonderful hack. I expected that even with the hack, the combat would be boring, but nothing could be further from the truth. Both battles were fast, brutal, and awesome. I think the players were excited, scared occasionally frustrated, which is exactly what you want in a fight. Because the fights weren't a stand-up, "Kill him before he kills you" affair, but a wild, shifting battle with highly mobile characters and lots of goals. Roomie pointed out that the fact the vampires tried to kidnap mortals helped, because we had multiple objectives going on.

Dave dropped two humanity in one session. He's actually a little scared now. That's awesome.

With so much detail, though, I forgot and flubbed some elements. I never described the streets of Nation Street despite Roomie visiting twice (It's where the police station is located). Emma went a little mad after Vampires attacked her, and I gave her a phobia. I think I'll change it to Narcissism to reflect her independent and fierce spirit (hopefully the players won't mind). And I left Roomie out of the fights when I really should have found a way to include him, but he says he had fun anyway.

So, all in all, a big success. We're all looking forward to the next session

Slaughter City: Preamble

Another long absence, huh? I've just been really busy writing up NPCs and setting material, and studying, and thus there really isn't anything to say except "Wooh! 5 more NPCs!" and "Hey, I finally understand that bit about how computer memory management works." And who wants to read that?

(Though, in retrospect, I think posting about my studies might be fun. I'll be studying all next week, so maybe I'll discuss exactly what it is and why it's giving me problems.)

But, at long last, it's time to run my game, so I have to put down my brush, step back, and let the audience get a glimpse of my work. And lemme tell you, that scares the crap out of me.

This game is something completely different, completely new. Most of my changes in approach and improvements in GMing skill have been gradual, an addition of one concept or two. This feels like a revolution, if I'm correct, and I'm just waiting for it to all go wrong. How? Well, I could overwhelm the players with a hojillion NPCs right off the bat, or I'll "go McClellan" and refuse to let the players mess up my precious NPCs that took over a month to create!. Or, worst of all, the guys just go "meh" and the game ends before it begins.

I'm being irrational, of course, but stage-fright usually is, and I always get stage-fright right before a game. Never mind that every one of my players think of me as awesome. Never mind that I have to turn people away from my games. I still get butterflies in my stomach. Just how it goes, I suppose. It doesn't help that alot of people on the internet want to see this game, and this will be my first "podcast" RPG. It's one thing to impress a dozen players, it's another to impress the internet. You can't please everyone, of course, and so I have to remember that it's my players that matter, not my external audience.

Even with all these doubts, even before I've run my game, I'm ready to pronounce this a success. This exercise has been mind blowing. Once upon a time, I used to just sit down at a game with no real idea of what was going to happen, and sort of improvised it. Then I learned to detail the game, to make sure I knew what things looked like and how they looked, and my games improved vastly, mainly because improvisation became alot easier when you had more material to work with. This feels the same, except for an entire campaign. If you told me to stop planning right now and just run a game until I ran out of material, I could probably complete three full stories before I even came close to running out of material.

So, paradoxically, in addition to being terrified, I have never felt more confident about a game! I can see how everything fits together. I know the history of my city, the character of my city, the characters of my city, and I have so many layers of intrigue and mystery that I could spend an entire evening just handing the players fascinating clues and they'd still not know it all (Thus, there's no fear of someone being "too successful" on an investigation roll and forcing my hand too early).

I feel like a creative cannon, primed with more inspiration than I can handle. I'm filled to bursting with ideas, and finally, I get to show them to my players. It'll be magnificent. I think they sense it alreayd.

I'll keep you up to date on how it goes.

Slaughter City Update: Vampires

I finished the Slaughter City vampires. 25 in all! Woot! Wow, was that alot of work. I hope this is all worth it ^_^

Yeah, I haven't been posting much. All I've done for the past week has been homework and work on Slaughter City, though I do have a few things I can talk about. Still, thanks for your patience

Beat Of My Own Drum

Been quite a vacation, huh? I'm still here. I've been putting together the last bits of Metzgerburg for the Slaughter City chronicle. I'd run out of inspiration as I struggled with Damnation City's way of doing things. I found the stats they offered for each district to be too arcane and hard to use to "define" what I felt was the character of each district. To me, a new location should be like a new playground, with new rules that change how you play. So rather than use their stats, I added "special rules" to each area, ignoring the "stats." Then, while I like the idea behind Damnation City's "Ambiance" rules, and the fact that it lets you change how a part of the city feels, I felt it was too one dimensional (literally, as it's a continuum), so I added my own descriptions and rules for each district, while using the core rules for Ambiance.

The result? I found my inspiration again. Metzgerburg is finished: 60 NPCs, 8 districts. Now all I need is the supernatural, and we can play!

60 NPCs

As promised, I have 60 NPCs for my game.

*whew*

The process isn't done: Several are very rough, there's not nearly as many relationships as I wanted, and I feel like there are some holes, repetitions, and some characters that need to be adjusted. But that's not the point: I set out to make 60, and I did. And some really interesting characters resulted. I feel really pysched, like I can do this game.

Next, I need to finish Metzgerburg's districts, and then get to the supernaturals, and then return to the NPCs and "fill them out" a little better. Then I should be ready.

^_^

Vampires!

So, we made characters last night. Took far too long to get everyone together and organized, but on the plus side, Walter pulled money out of his pocket and took care of my microphone for me, god bless him. Isn't even playing, as best as I can tell.

After four hours, we had five characters to play with. The group really reacted nicely to my outline and design, and we had some interesting concepts in short order:

(No, I don't have names for characters yet. I'll edit this post and fill them in as I get them)

Dave: Dave's playing 7 and a half feet of ungodly strong Nosferatu. According to his concept, he was a family man ten years ago, when a car accident took the life of his family and his sanity with it. He wandered the streets, desolate and despairing, until his hard-luck life forced him to survive. That need to survive taught him to fight, and he became a street-fighting devil of the back-alleys. The Mafia took him in for some cage fights, but when he wouldn't throw a fight, arranged for him to be eliminated. He'd picked up a fan in the form of a Nosferatu elder, who saved him as he lay dying, blessing him with unlife to keep that fighting spirit "alive." Dave's character has Vigor 2, Nightmare 1, Haunted, Disfigured, Mentor, Fighting Style: Brutal Strength, and Giant. He shares a Haven with Byler, and he and Cass's character know one another. His Virtue is Fortitude, his Vice is Wrath.

Cass: Cass wanted to play a Ventrue, but shifted to Gangrel as it became obvious that her concept was pretty feral. Cass is a cat-lady, one of those crazy people that relates to animals better than people, and had like sixty pets. She took care of them in an abandoned animal shelter in the Shambles, until she found a wounded, half-mad wolf, and "nursed" it back to life. It remembered it's human form and turned into a beautiful, terrible native american elder vampire, who granted her unlife in thanks, and then left. She has Animalism 2, Resilience 1, Behavior Blind, Animal Feature, Striking Looks, shares a Haven with Roomie (her broodmate) and knows Dave. Her Virtue is Charity, but we haven't settled on a Vice yet.

Byler: Byler is playing what you would expect, which is fine, because I chose the game knowing he would want to play this sort of character. In life, he was a grey, outcast loner who had a beautiful knack for artwork. His sire, a hauntingly attractive Daeva from the 20s, fell in love withe "beauty of his soul" and embraced him, unaware of the dark resentment that lingered there. Her touch tainted him, and now he seeks a way to escape the worst of his curse and to exploit his powers for his own gains. He's already caught the eye of a member of the Ordo Dracul, he seeks to steal him away from his Sire... He has Majesty 3, Obsession, Cursed (Cannot enter a house unless invited), Striking Looks, shares a haven with Dave (whom he sees as a kindred spirit), and his sire is friends with Shawn's sire. His Virtue is Fortitude, his Vice is Pride.

Shawn: Shawn's playing a Mekhet. Formerly a private investigator, he discovered some hidden truths regarding vampires and after successfully navigating the mental games of his brilliant sire, impressed the vampire sufficiently that he decided to keep Shawn. Shawn has Obfuscate 3, Light Sensitivity, a great haven and plenty of contacts, his sire knows Byler's Sire, and he often deals with the cops (Roomie). His Virtue is Prudence, his Vice is Sloth.

Roomie: Roomie also went with Gangrel, and is playing what I consider quite unusual for him. Roomie's character is a cop who's very clean and does what it takes to get the job done. His soul is sufficiently pure that he intrigued the newly recovered Gangrel Elder, who stalked him and embraced him to see if damnation would break him or not. Now Roomie struggles to play cop by night, while holding back the hungry Beast within. He has Protean 3, Tooth and Claw, he has Honor and Animal Features, and he's broodmates with Cass and knows Shawn. His Virtue is Justice, his Vice is Wrath.

All in all, a pretty good group, I think. What's cool is I can already see their context in Slaughter City. Roomie hangs with the cops and likely already has a friendship with the mortuary girl. Byler and Dave hang out in Silverside, and Dave has connections in the Shambles. Cass also has connections in the Shambles and will be dealing with some Neat Supernatural Stuff I've had in mind. Shawn knows Mandarin, lives in Chinatown, and will naturally have connections with the mafia and the triad. It'll be interesting to see how all the hooks play out.

Spreading the Curse

So, we've got to make Vampire characters tonight. I expect it'll be a disaster, though not because of Vampire, but because this is the first time we've got the whole group back together since WotG, and there's going to be problems, and that will result in drama. Not the least of which: Every time I ask for someone to do something with my microphone, they all hem and haw and pass the buck to one another. *sigh* We'll see if that continues to be the case.

For Vampire itself, we're in touchy territory. Alot of the players believe that it's "gay," by which they mean "Girls love the stuff, and if we got good at it, we'd get laid alot, which is totally not what straight men," or possibly "But... it's not werewolf!" Either way, I need to make my case fairly quickly, though I have been doing so for the past few weeks now, and I think I've solidly sold at least two of the tentative players, and the rest are operating off of trust for my excellent skill (which is good, as I do believe they'll like the game).

Designing Vampires is tricky, though. Setting aside interesting and potentially problematic issues ("What do you mean Humanity? You mean my vampire CARES if he kills people?!"), you can't "just" create a vampire. Too many vampires end up these orphans of the night, who simply stepped out of their coffin without having a personality or a past. World of Darkness centers everything on humanity, so I'll focus the players first and foremost on that. Following my abyssal advice, I'll also try to get the players to think about their relationships with one another, so no matter how much backstabbing and cut throat gameplay we see, the coterie itself will stay united. Vampire, Mortal, Coterie: that's the three-pronged approach I'll take, and we'll sort of flit from one to another until we have everything figured out.

I think the players will have the hardest time grasping both how powerful and powerless vampires are. This dichotomy actually appealed to me, as it melds the "power fantasy" that some players want with the "survival horror" that others want. If I handle it right, it'll be the "best of both worlds," but if I screw up, we could end up alienating both. I'm confident I have it in hand, but the players will need to design their characters appropriately, and that means conveying this truth to them well.

Wish me luck.

Vampire Chronicle NPCs

Up to 30! Wooh

Vampire House Rules

In preparation for our vampire game, I've placed our "official" house rules over at the website.