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Short Story: I'm a GM for a group who mainly plays Pathfinder, but at a request, I went and purchased Vampire: The Requiem to run it. After looking over the book, I have no earthly idea what the driving point of a Vampire game is. Help?
Long Story: I've been a GM running D&D/Pathfinder for the last ten years. I find these games are a goal driven in nature (usually to get treasure and kill monsters) and games like D&D (D20 Modern, Alternity, Star Wars RPG) are also goal driven (complete the mission).
My group has always had people coming and going, but inevitably, someone brings a girlfriend to the game table, and sometimes, they actually keep coming. Well, this phenomenon has left my gaming table with more girls than boys, and guess what they all have in common (including the guys)?
A love for that damn Twilight series. *Shudder*
Well, I was persuaded (my wife told me) to purchase Vampire and run it. And yes, I already knew and told them sunlight glitter vampires are a no-go.
As I look over the book, I find it hard to find a motive for playing. Okay, you're dead(ish), you feed with a quick game mechanic, and then what? I'm not saying what do vampires do, but what do Vampire PCs do? Looking at it as is, Vampires don't seem to be any different than humans in their motives, so what makes a PC's life more interesting, more 'game worthy' than another ones? In D&D, you adventure, and in more modern games, you work for a government agency (or the like) to complete the mission. So what is the point?
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I always thought the point of Vampire was to fill an aching hole in one's self-image, by inventing an immortal, impossibly 'beautiful' (by heroin-chic standards), magical Mary-Sue, who can bench-press a Hummer, while still allowing you to look down on the 'power-gamers', playing D&D.
Oh, you mean what are the motivations of the characters?
OK, you got me there. I'm stumped, too.
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It is rather loose in its character motivations but I can recall playing some Vampire games where survival was the point. Meaning we were leading normal lives and then became vampires. It's not like you suddenly wake up in your state of undeath and go 'Mmmm..blood...yummy'. Definitely an exploration of the human psyche. I remember a certain drug addict who was turned into a vampire, went to get his regular fix because he was getting the 'thirst', and instead got a blood fix from his dealer much to his horror. What happens when you lose control and totally drain someone? Raiding blood banks because you can't stomach actually attacking and feeding off of someone. Missing the sunrise, birds chirping, and warmth on your skin. How do you explain to all your friends that you only feel like coming out at night anymore? How do you fit in with vampire 'society', or do you? Is your vampire sire someone who sticks around or is he/she the love 'em and leave 'em type? and why? After all the initial angsty stuff then you start to deal with the politics of vampires.
Anyway, it's role-playing intensive but can be alot of fun with the right people. Of course, I am an avid H.P. Lovecraft fan so the darker side of the human psyche is something I enjoy exploring or even the strength of the human psyche under extreme circumstances.
Anyway, just a few thoughts. Hope it helps.
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Well I played the old version of Vampire so maybe things have changed. But it is about a game of personal horror often. You wake up as a blood drinking monster and have to deal with your humanity slowly slipping away. That was the original motivation for the game.
Later they added survival and politics. The games tend to be very social focused games. I mean their is a reason the games, game mechanic is call the "Storyteller" system. They use to have game advice on how to run things but scene, story arcs etc.
Though many groups I know end up running it as a war between vampires or vamps vs Werewolves etc.
So in short the motivation really depends on the group a lot and what they want to explore in the game. The roots of the game are in modern horror though.
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Note; the majority of my experiences are with Vampire the Masquerade, as the three games of Requiem I played were just painfully bad.
Much like GURPS, or, pretty much any game not D&D, the motivations are entirely based on the character. There are no 'levels' to gain, although you can increase your power through various means (more so in the earlier Masquerade), and, almost always more important than increasing your physical power, increasing your social standing, political influence, etc. Every Vampire game I've played that was even a little bit fun was combat-light (since vampires suck at combat, and have a plethora of exploitable weaknesses, and even more so in combat against any of the other supernatural creatures in the World of Darkness, most of whom were designed after they were, and are universally tougher and scarier). Building empires, manipulating society, messing with the stock market, bringing companies down, while trying to make sure that the areas in which *you* have influence do not suffer similar set-backs from the actions of your rivals (some of whom may well be sitting across the table from you, spinning their own machinations). A *good* Vampire game can have barely any violence (and, in keeping with the theme of relatively fragile creatures that somehow can exist for centuries in a state of stasis, probably *shouldn't* have much violence, and certainly not any gratuitious deaths of supposedly immortal creatures!), and be focused entirely on maneuvering, securing resources, etc. with the violent bits coming when one's resources are threatened and one has to mobilize (and bribe allies, etc.) to protect them (and those resources could be anything from a multi-national corporation, to a wildlife preserve upon which you hunt, or just a mortal lover to whom you are strongly attached).
More than most games, the best Vampire games I've been in require two things. Motivated players with characters that have their own goals and agendas, and a GM who *doesn't* have some all-important storyline he wants to tell, who will quite often find his players discouraged as his 'story' gets in the way of their entertainment. In my experience, many Vampire players are quite capable of crafting their own agendas, often far more byzantine than anything the GM had planned, and a GM blessed with such a group can sit back and let them work their schemes, putting occasional obstacles in their way to prevent them from getting away with anything, and focusing more on coming up with stuff for the *other* players, who *didn't* come up with any goals or ambitions or desires for their characters (other than, perhaps, hit stuff), to do.
Anyone who goes into the Requiem game (even the more powerful Masquerade game) hoping for a power-fantasy about 'bench-pressing hummers' is going to be a sad, sad panda, as an entire party of fledgeling vampires can get their asses handed to them by a dog. (As I discovered in the WW-run demo game at GenCon.) Vampires are only a *tiny* incremental fraction tougher than mortals, and a Nosferatu who has spent every single point he has on the discipline to scare the hell out of people, all the way up to the highest rank in the game (rank 5), the theoretical equivalent of a 9th level spell in D&D, will fail to incapacitate a human 50% of the time with that power (while weakening himself just to use it). Requiem is less about 'power fantasy' and more about 'Sisyphean frustration' in the games I've been in (the first, as I mentioned, run by WW employees, and suggestive that they *meant* the game to suck this hard).
One thing about Vampire (either version) is that almost anything the game seems to be pushing you to do is often the least effective thing you could be doing, mechanically. If they make a discipline specifically designed to make people insane, it will be flat-out inferior than the generic discipline to dominate people's minds. If the flavor text states that Tremere are feared because of their mastery of Blood Magic, you'll figure out after a couple of terribly frustrating characters that Thaumaturgy is a trap, a point-sink that is less effective than if your character just focused on mind control and general enhancement, and that any 'high-level' Tremere PC, because of the exorbitant costs (and marginal utility) of blood magic, is going to be less effective than everyone else in his group (NPCs, of course, cheat, and Tremere NPCs will often have twice the points of their equals of other clans, to pay for all that expensive and shiny crap). If the game hands you a 'Clan of Assassins' called the Assamites, with a special discipline that supposedly makes them awesome assassins, it will *pale* in comparison to what a Nosferatu with a shovel can do with equal levels of the discipline that makes one strong (Potence). Few things beat the Potence 5 shovel-to-the-back-of-the-head for ending an encounter. There's just about nothing a vampire can do that's going to match the raw effectiveness of a machete or a sub-machine gun, making them not at all 'super-heroes.'
If you want adolescent power-fantasy, Werewolf the Apocalypse is your game, although the Werewolves don't even hold a candle to your average superhero (well, maybe the runt with the claws...), so even Werewolf is nothing like a power-trip, really, if you've ever played Villains & Vigilantes or Mutants & Masterminds or Aberrant or whatever.
I'm a *huge* fan of superhero games, and the best 'vampire' characters I've ever played have been statted up using systems like V&V or M&M, since they felt like badass movie vampires like Dracula. VtR vampires are not Dracula. They are not 30 Days to Night. They aren't even that poor schmuck whose foot got stuck getting out of his grave, and had to be dragged up by Buffy so that she could stake him, because she was tired of waiting for his loser butt to rise.
They're railroad tycoons and robber barons and anarchists and religious fanatics and street preachers, who don't go out during the day.
Possibly my favorite moment was near the end of a year long game, in which our characters ended up being the vampires in charge of Las Vegas, 'the City of Sin.' My character and another player's character had secretly gotten 2/3rds of the way towards Blood Bonding each other, and neither was supposed to be aware of it (although my character knew that he was 1/3rd of the way there). To celebrate a victory and 'pledge our loyalty' to each other, everyone took a sip of each others blood, which caused my character and the other players character to simultaneously become Bound to each other, because it represented our third drink of each other's blood. I had figured it out before it happened (but wasn't about to metagame, as my character was an arrogant twit who would *never* have anticipated this), and the GM obviously knew, but the other player was surprised and yelled, "OH NO!" and everyone cracked up, because our two characters had basically outmaneuvered each other, and themselves, at the same time, and were now forced by the Blood Bond to be loyal allies. A year of plotting against each other, and we fell right into the trap we'd set for each other. It was awesome.
As I look over the book, I find it hard to find a motive for playing. Okay, you're dead(ish), you feed with a quick game mechanic, and then what? I'm not saying what do vampires do, but what do Vampire PCs do? Looking at it as is, Vampires don't seem to be any different than humans in their motives, so what makes a PC's life more interesting, more 'game worthy' than another ones? In D&D, you adventure, and in more modern games, you work for a government agency (or the like) to complete the mission. So what is the point?
Welcome to the brave first step out of the D&D Ghetto!
But seriously, it can be confusing trying to run a story oriented game for the first time. I think the general things to try to think about are that in a game like Vampire:
- Goals tend to be set by players/characters, not an external agency
- Often the game revolves around relationships and the subjective experience, not specific concrete goals
You're right in that vampires' motives aren't really much different than peoples' - although there are some twists (keep the Masquerade a secret, have a ready blood source), it really turns into "pretty people with enough power to not have to worry about day jobs." Like most soap opera characters, their lives instead begin to revolve around complicated plots to get "power" (where that's not defined by level or magic items, but how many people do things for them) and other forms of personal gratification.
So what do you do as a GM? Your job will be mostly crafting interesting NPCs with various secrets and just dropping them into the mix. Use Twilight as an example. The goals mostly just result from interpersonal conflict. Here's human chick, oh I want to bang her but I want to eat her. Here's another coven; they want to eat her. Conflict ensues. You just put in people that want things the PCs want (or otherwise don't want the PCs to have what they want) and you're off to the races.
Go here and there will be a link to a free introductory kit that will hopefully explain things better.
Oh, and to run the game properly, you do need the World of Darkness Core Book as well.
I would make them play OWOD Sabbat and find out what vampires are really all about!
I always thought the point of Vampire was to fill an aching hole in one's self-image, by inventing an immortal, impossibly 'beautiful' (by heroin-chic standards), magical Mary-Sue, who can bench-press a Hummer, while still allowing you to look down on the 'power-gamers', playing D&D.
Oh, you mean what are the motivations of the characters?
OK, you got me there. I'm stumped, too.
I always thought the point of DnD was to fill an aching hole in one's self-image, by inventing an impossibly powerful and perfect, magical mary-sue, who can bench press a horse, while allowing you to look down on anyone who might think there is more to roleplaying that Kill, loot, repeat.
He asked for advice, not polemic.
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vampire is a hard game, especially considering all the other WoD lines have stuff for you to do, like killing spirits. vampire is really the one with the least motivation for both players and story tellers since there is very little insentive to do anything...
most people go down the political route of moving up in the court of the city to better positions... but that is about it
yea the motivation for vampires is exactly that of mortals
my recomendation is move away from VtM and into some of the other lines which are much better (tho beware of mage and promy)
I always thought the point of Vampire was to fill an aching hole in one's self-image, by inventing an immortal, impossibly 'beautiful' (by heroin-chic standards), magical Mary-Sue, who can bench-press a Hummer, while still allowing you to look down on the 'power-gamers', playing D&D.
Oh, you mean what are the motivations of the characters?
OK, you got me there. I'm stumped, too.I always thought the point of DnD was to fill an aching hole in one's self-image, by inventing an impossibly powerful and perfect, magical mary-sue, who can bench press a horse, while allowing you to look down on anyone who might think there is more to roleplaying that Kill, loot, repeat.
He asked for advice, not polemic.
I wouldn't be too hard on Snorter. He perfectly described every player I've met who was interested in running Vampire. It's an issue of the players, not the system.
I wouldn't be too hard on Snorter. He perfectly described every player I've met who was interested in running Vampire. It's an issue of the players, not the system.I always thought the point of Vampire was to fill an aching hole in one's self-image, by inventing an immortal, impossibly 'beautiful' (by heroin-chic standards), magical Mary-Sue, who can bench-press a Hummer, while still allowing you to look down on the 'power-gamers', playing D&D.
Oh, you mean what are the motivations of the characters?
OK, you got me there. I'm stumped, too.I always thought the point of DnD was to fill an aching hole in one's self-image, by inventing an impossibly powerful and perfect, magical mary-sue, who can bench press a horse, while allowing you to look down on anyone who might think there is more to roleplaying that Kill, loot, repeat.
He asked for advice, not polemic.
And i described every DnD player i had met until a two years ago and most i have met since.
Anyway, to try and answer Goblins Eighty-Five's question.
Having read through your post the first thing that strikes me is that if your players main interest in vampire is from twilight you may very strongly want to consider not running purist vampire the requiem, or for that matter Vampire the Masquerade.
Twilight really is very different from vampire. The power levels really are out of wack(a group of three mortals, can with great ease kill your average starting level vampire, while my understanding is a freight train would have trouble with a twilight vampire), while the themes and mood are very different (twilight is basically about teenaged abstinence, while vampire is about the slow loss of what it is to be human).
I can’t even begin to advice you on how to make a twilight like game, using vampire, but in truth, I don’t think that is a great loss to you or your players.
The first thing you should definately do is re-read the storyteller advice in the vampire: the requiem core book several times, as it spells out the themes and implied mood of vampire clearly.
The answer to your question about what vampires 'do' varies some what with how you want to run the game. Vampire works best when the players don't 'do' anything but rather, be given a sand box to play in. Allow rivalries for hunting territory, power, mystical knowledge develop naturally, having the NPCs react in a naturalistic way to the PCs presence and actions. Allow clashs of personality, misunderstanding and political/world view difference drive the story towards conflict, giving the PCs a lot of leeway for controlling the direction of the story.
Ofcause, if a living world sandbox is not your style, there are plenty of interesting antagonists that can be used as the basis of much more linier stories. The players can be Unholy modern paladins fighting demon influnenced Balial's brood, they can be a makhet brood, born to uncover the truth behind the slow corruption of the local princes court by VII. You can be the last survivors of a cities kindred as human hunters/the new gangrel prince/angels hunt you down and attempt to wipe you out.
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Having read through your post the first thing that strikes me is that if your players main interest in vampire is from twilight you may very strongly want to consider not running purist vampire the requiem, or for that matter Vampire the Masquerade.
Definitely a valid suggestion. Using Mutants & Masterminds, for instance, you can create a 'vampire' that follows the rules of whatever universe is desired.
World of Darkness vampires are very tightly restricted, being completely unconscious during the day, and killed within about 30 seconds of exposure to direct sunlight (and a couple of minutes of indirect sunlight, although, to be fair, they have nothing like the freakish list of weaknesses that D&D vampires are saddled with!).
Using a different game system, you can make a vampire that is stronger than a standard human, moves faster, can take a beating, has keen senses, etc. similar to most cinematic vampires (whereas a WoD vampire might be able to do one of these things, but none of them at superhuman levels for quite some time).
Using Buffy-style vampires as a guideline, who are generally stronger than humans, but can still be hunted successfully by well-trained humans, Power Level 6 (in Mutants & Masterminds) would be a decent option for a 'newbie' vampire. Superheroes run around PL 10, random cops around PL 3, soldiers all the way to PL 5 with gear, innocent bystanders PL 1 or 2. And with a game like M&M (or one of many other 'design your own') systems, you can custom tweak what abilities (and restrictions) your particular vampire will face. Keen senses can be added, a vulnerability to sunlight can range anywhere from 'can't use super-strength, etc. in sunlight' to 'counts as fatigued + dazzled in sunlight' to 'bursts into flames in sunlight,' as you wish.
You could, of course, still use the World of Darkness / Vampire the Requiem rules, but just ignore the bits you don't like. Give all Vampires the appropriate 'cinema-vampire' traits to start, such as a dot of Potence (strength), Celerity (speed), Fortitude (toughness) and Auspex (keen senses), and some extra dots to put into physical attributes and you can represent a vampire that is *marginally* tougher than the human he was before the change. Allow them to function during the day, but not be able to use their 'vampire powers,' or suffering a penalty to dice pools when in sunlight (perhaps reduce-able somewhat with dark glasses and lots of clothing?) and you've got something more TV-vampire-friendly than Sir Bursts Into Flames A Lot or Sir Not Appearing in This Story Because He's Comatose 12 Hours a Day.
If you think of the game as a toolkit (any game, you could even use D&D, just completely ignoring the Monster Manual vampire, which is counter-productive to use as a baseline), you can come up with a decent vampire dude. Heck, you could just run a basic d20 / Pathfinder game and make up a 'monster class' version of the vampire. He'll start out looking kind of like a 1st level Monk, using his strength, speed and toughness to mix things up in melee. As level accrue, he'll pick up bonuses to social roles from his 'entrancing presence,' followed by the ability to fascinate someone with a gaze, followed by actual short term charm person or dominate person effects, etc. Perhaps you can make vampire feat chains, one focused on increasing his people-control skills, another focused on increasing his animal control skills (and leading to a Wild Cohort type deal, or summon swarm of bats & rats power, or summon pack of wolves power), another focused on shapeshifting, etc. allowing him to turn into a sort of Monk / Enchanter or Monk / Druid, depending on where he blows his feats. This person who progresses through levels gaining increasingly vampiric abilities could adventure alongside a normal party for the same reasons that anyone adventures, fame, glory, loot, a chance to do some good (or bad) in the world. Same goals as anyone else, just different powers.
I'm not as conversant with 4E, but I suspect that the 'vampire' monster class would be easy to make in that system as well. Super-strong slams and throws as At Wills, entrancing gaze to paralyze a foe or send him screaming away in terror, or life-draining bite attack that heals you as it damages the foe as a Per Encounter and summon a swarm of rabid Raging wolves as a Daily, for instance.
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If you are really having problems with starting a game you can always use their Storytelling Adventure System.
They are pre made 'Adventures' for their separate games.
You can find them here.
Make sure you check out the About SAS section
The FAQ section
And the Support Docs.
Here a direct link to the Vampire section.
They are not free, but they are cheap.
Having read through your post the first thing that strikes me is that if your players main interest in vampire is from twilight you may very strongly want to consider not running purist vampire the requiem, or for that matter Vampire the Masquerade.
Definitely a valid suggestion. Using Mutants & Masterminds, for instance, you can create a 'vampire' that follows the rules of whatever universe is desired.
World of Darkness vampires are very tightly restricted, being completely unconscious during the day, and killed within about 30 seconds of exposure to direct sunlight (and a couple of minutes of indirect sunlight, although, to be fair, they have nothing like the freakish list of weaknesses that D&D vampires are saddled with!).
Using a different game system, you can make a vampire that is stronger than a standard human, moves faster, can take a beating, has keen senses, etc. similar to most cinematic vampires (whereas a WoD vampire might be able to do one of these things, but none of them at superhuman levels for quite some time).
Using Buffy-style vampires as a guideline, who are generally stronger than humans, but can still be hunted successfully by well-trained humans, Power Level 6 (in Mutants & Masterminds) would be a decent option for a 'newbie' vampire. Superheroes run around PL 10, random cops around PL 3, soldiers all the way to PL 5 with gear, innocent bystanders PL 1 or 2. And with a game like M&M (or one of many other 'design your own') systems, you can custom tweak what abilities (and restrictions) your particular vampire will face. Keen senses can be added, a vulnerability to sunlight can range anywhere from 'can't use super-strength, etc. in sunlight' to 'counts as fatigued + dazzled in sunlight' to 'bursts into flames in sunlight,' as you wish.
You could, of course, still use the World of Darkness / Vampire the Requiem rules, but just ignore the bits you don't like. Give all Vampires the appropriate 'cinema-vampire' traits to start, such as a...
If twilight is what your players are after then yes, most of these suggestions will be better than Vampire the requiem for that.
But, that said, I personally would steer towards using vampire and dropping the twilightishness.
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Well this is all great stuff. Thanks all! I will not, however, be not using the Vampire books, I purchased it and the Core Book somewhere I cannot return it (my friendly neighborhood gaming store is not friendly) and $50+ dollars isn't something you just flush down the toilet. Otherwise, your advice helped.
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Well this is all great stuff. Thanks all! I will not, however, be not using the Vampire books, I purchased it and the Core Book somewhere I cannot return it (my friendly neighborhood gaming store is not friendly) and $50+ dollars isn't something you just flush down the toilet. Otherwise, your advice helped.
I personally, hate Requiem. There is just nothing in it that draws me to the game. I hate or greatly dislike all but the Invictus Covenant, (oddly the one I don't actually want to play in any way), and just a lot of things that Masquerade had that Requiem doesn't. However, that is just my opinion, and I'm not trying to disuade you as much as to make the next part make more sense, from my point of view.
The next big book comming out for WoD is caled WoD Mirrors. White Wolf is being pretty silent on what exactly that is, though it is suggested that it will be alternate views of the WoD games, (like if you shatter a mirror and see the world through all the broken fragments). SO, if you hold off a bit longer, (taking the time to read more up on the rules, setting, and general world of WoD), this might be the thing you are looking for.
Also, check out Darker Days, for a bit more look at the WoD. #18 talked a bit about Mirrors, but many of the episodes are good.
Oh, I don't know. I have a small soft spot for the line.
I went to a con in '97 called Dreamation in Newark NJ to rep D&D. The Vampire crowd was then in force and LARPing their butts off in full regalia... SFX fangs and contact lenses... the works. Was that Masquerade they were playing? I don't know all the different versions. there were Mage: The Ascension and Werewolf LARPers there too.
When they found out I didn't play, a bunch of nubile vixens competed to induct me into their respective clans. The convention was held at a hotel over a weekend and these young women were... I don't know. In heat? Surf City eat your heart out. At Dreamation there were three girls for every boy.
And that's one possible reason why someone might want to play Vampire (although it probably wasn't requiem).
Disappointing part of the story? I wasn't available and I'm the faithful type. So, no Penthouse forum letter to offer I'm sorry to say.
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Oh, I don't know. I have a small soft spot for the line.
I went to a con in '97
That would have been Masquerade. :)
When they found out I didn't play, a bunch of nubile vixens competed to induct me into their respective clans. The convention was held at a hotel over a weekend and these young women were... I don't know. In heat? Surf City eat your heart out. At Dreamation there were three girls for every boy.
As I understand nWoD LARPs, that also would have been Masquerade. :)
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buncha stuff
Yeah, I've found a lot of people who didn't like nWoD because of the backstory being so radically different. I had a buddy who played nothing but oWoD, and I looked over his books, but I really like the new rules, except for one thing missing I think is crucial: I remember near the back of the Masquerade book (I think), there were flaws, like the inability to approach holy symbols, that I really liked and wished were in the new setting.
Otherwise, I had nothing invested in either system's storyline except that I could purchase books from the new system and couldn't for the old. And I do prefer the new system's rules. So yeah...
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Disappointing part of the story? I wasn't available and I'm the faithful type. So, no Penthouse forum letter to offer I'm sorry to say.
Yeah, as someone who was not available at the time I was LARPing in Boston it was *pretty darn inconvenient* when I was trying to play the game and various people involved in the action were sneaking off to have teh seks. Yeesh. Kids and their mixed up priorities!
I've heard that Realms fantasy live-action 'weekends at camp' are pretty much the same thing. Spend a couple hundred bucks putting together a really fine costume with hand-crimped chain-mail you cut yourself from spring steel, and then spend the weekend with it crumpled up in a corner with the rest of your clothing...
One thing that might help as far as ideas is watching True Blood. Season 1 has been out on DVD for a while. It's a good example of how to structure a Vampire game. The characters (PCs) have their own goals and agendas but there are the murders(Storyteller's Event)that affect the character's lives in such a way in that they want to deal with it. Both aspects are well blended in the show.
Well this is all great stuff. Thanks all! I will not, however, be not using the Vampire books, I purchased it and the Core Book somewhere I cannot return it (my friendly neighborhood gaming store is not friendly) and $50+ dollars isn't something you just flush down the toilet. Otherwise, your advice helped.
Have you any idea what theme and mood your going to be basing the chronicle around yet? Any motifs you want to include? Do you have any idea which clans and covenants your players might gravitate towards?
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Have you any idea what theme and mood your going to be basing the chronicle around yet? Any motifs you want to include? Do you have any idea which clans and covenants your players might gravitate towards?
No idea. Actually, after reading the books, I really wanna run, but don't see my players really playing in a game, so now I have to find a whole new group to run this with! My players can't self-motivate.
That would have been Masquerade. :)I went to a con in '97
Ah good, thanks for confirming. They had an indoor in character Vampire wedding there... even set up a rose strewn, white lace wrapped white gazebo. It was truly something to see.
"People do this?" I asked.
Disappointing part of the story? I wasn't available and I'm the faithful type. So, no Penthouse forum letter to offer I'm sorry to say.Yeah, as someone who was not available at the time I was LARPing in Boston it was *pretty darn inconvenient* when I was trying to play the game and various people involved in the action were sneaking off to have teh seks. Yeesh. Kids and their mixed up priorities!
I've heard that Realms fantasy live-action 'weekends at camp' are pretty much the same thing. Spend a couple hundred bucks putting together a really fine costume with hand-crimped chain-mail you cut yourself from spring steel, and then spend the weekend with it crumpled up in a corner with the rest of your clothing...
Same thing happens at Rennie Faires. When you and your special someone dress up in sexy costumes it's hard to even make it home without stopping somewhere along the way to ravish each other.
Acting in your own X-rated period pieces... oh, that's the stuff.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I thought the point was to find other people who like painting their fingernails black and dressing like the Cure.
Kids still do that, right?
Goddman kids these days!
Okay, I wasn't going to post something serious, but I have to admit that I had a difficult time transitioning to my first non-D&D game. It was Shadowrun, and I so fundamentally mis-understood how it was played that I basically set it up like a D&D game with cyberpunk trappings. So, instead of going into a dungeon to fight goblins and loot chests, the character went into a lab to fight robots and loot safes (seriously, they were the only thing I could think of that was similar to chests).
Anyhow, I think vampire is a good game with a tendency to take itself a wee bit too seriously. It works better with a smaller group than D&D (3-4) and, as has been mentioned already, the character conflicts/motivations are the real story drivers.
As I look over the book, I find it hard to find a motive for playing. Okay, you're dead(ish), you feed with a quick game mechanic, and then what? I'm not saying what do vampires do, but what do Vampire PCs do?
I GMed Gurps Vampire:the Masquerade for years, using the old Chigaco by Night and DC by Night supplements, and had lots of fun.
I played it like a machiavellian power struggle with the players starting at the bottom of the vampiric society, and let them work their way up.Sample missions:
- Recruit allies
- Investigate murders
- Uncover enemy spies
- Gain wealth
Have you any idea what theme and mood your going to be basing the chronicle around yet? Any motifs you want to include? Do you have any idea which clans and covenants your players might gravitate towards?No idea. Actually, after reading the books, I really wanna run, but don't see my players really playing in a game, so now I have to find a whole new group to run this with! My players can't self-motivate.
Have you any idea what theme and mood your going to be basing the chronicle around yet? Any motifs you want to include? Do you have any idea which clans and covenants your players might gravitate towards?No idea. Actually, after reading the books, I really wanna run, but don't see my players really playing in a game, so now I have to find a whole new group to run this with! My players can't self-motivate.
Well might I suggest that you start with Theme and Mood, building a setting city and NPCs around these.
I prefer fully fleshed out NPCs with a full Stats, but most NPCs can be dealt with using only a dice pool appropreate to their role in the story. Full stats however tell you infinately more about the NPCs, helping you to flesh them out.
The settinf city is of equal importance. Think about its structure, and its demographics, know what you can find in each neighbourhood, understand what the night life is like, because that is likely to be your PCs experience humanity.
Once you have your NPCs, think about their relationships with each other. If you have a ultra-right wing carthian gangral , who believe that no vampire should have power over another, and that humans are scum, and an invictus lord who believes in ordered society vampire and stewardship of mortals, how will they interact, and how will they interact with an anthoritatian Lancia Sanctum prince, who believes mortals must be scared into being faithful to god. Are they to ideologically opposed, or does the threat the prince possess to them both now mean they can put their difference on hold.
You do it right, and you shouldn't need to have to right stories, they will write themselves based on the actions of the players.
Well this is all great stuff. Thanks all! I will not, however, be not using the Vampire books, I purchased it and the Core Book somewhere I cannot return it (my friendly neighborhood gaming store is not friendly) and $50+ dollars isn't something you just flush down the toilet. Otherwise, your advice helped.Have you any idea what theme and mood your going to be basing the chronicle around yet? Any motifs you want to include? Do you have any idea which clans and covenants your players might gravitate towards?
Well, given the starting point ("Twilight"), what about "Vampire Romance"?
Have you any idea what theme and mood your going to be basing the chronicle around yet? Any motifs you want to include? Do you have any idea which clans and covenants your players might gravitate towards?No idea. Actually, after reading the books, I really wanna run, but don't see my players really playing in a game, so now I have to find a whole new group to run this with! My players can't self-motivate.
I would try it and see what happens. When they make their characters, story hook should present themselves. Just let them know that Requiem vamps need to AGE (or spend xp) before they can do ridiculous feats of strength (although they do get some out of the box advantages).
Some things to keep in mind so that you don't have Set's experience with dogs...
5 dice is the amount you need to get about 90% chance of 1 success. 1 success is all you generally need for an instant action. Combat is another matter. Even if you have 5 dice after mods, you are probably only doing 1-2 damage per action. If you have 10 dice you are about 90% likely to have 2-4 successes, so don't think that you huge 10 dice pool is an auto-kill. Its not. Combat in Wod can be very swingy. Scoring an exceptional success on 5 dice happens about as often as rolling a crit in DnD (slightly better odds, than a natural 20, I believe). However, If your players thinks they can make a supermodel vampires with a strengths of 2 and just go around snapping mortal's necks, you need to bring them back down to earth, gently.