VtM 30 Day Challenge: Day Eleven – Favorite Adventure That You Ran

            Because of the serial nature of the Chronicles that I run, I can’t really pick out a single adventure that was my favorite.  My goal has always been to connect individual sessions together; each session grows out of the previous creating the Chronicle.  One of my favorite plots however that ran over the course of an entire Chronicle was the conflict caused by a pretender Elder who was trying to rise from Primogen to Prince. 

            Colin claimed he was a two hundred year old French vampire, but in truth he was a recently Embraced history professor specializing in French history.  Prior to the start of the game, Colin was able to persuade the entire city that he was a powerful Ventrue, and he was so successful that the Ventrue recommended that he be the Primogen.  Colin surrounded himself with a variety of henchmen and thanks to his access to Backgrounds like Resources, Contacts, and Allies, Colin had an iron grip on the city.  But Colin wouldn’t happy until he was the Prince. 

            Colin was a great villain for a low powered Vampire the Masquerade game for new players.  The risks were relatively low since Colin couldn’t call in favors from outside supernatural beings, but he was powerful enough to be a problem for the players especially with his allies.  The players were forced to figure out the mystery of this character who they could not confront directly because of his supposed power.  However, as the adventure progressed, the PCs learned more, eventually breaking into his sanctuary, and discovered the truth of this pretender.  This reveal led to a gunfight in the streets of Baltimore and Colin being shot murdered by a group of very angry PCs. 

VtM 30 Day Challenge: Day Ten – Craziest Thing That’s Happened That You Saw

            I had been invited to play in a Vampire the Masquerade game that had been running for a while.  The Storyteller only had 2 players, both of whom were playing Assamites and both had lots of experience already.  Unfortunately, the Storyteller and the players had all played Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Second Edition and had carried over a house rule from that game that all new characters start at level one; hence, I started as a beginning character.  In VtM that isn’t as big a problem since the chance to hit someone or to do damage wasn’t affected by level. 

            My character was introduced in the middle of the story, and that’s where the problems began.  The two Assamites were hunting another vampire and a chase had begun along an interstate.  My character was introduced, sitting on a motorcycle on an overpass as the other players ran past.  One of the Assamite saw my character, saw the motorcycle and did the most obnoxious but logical thing.  He punched my character in face and snatched the motorcycle and rode off after his prey.  My character was shocked and so was I – easiest role playing moment ever.  As quickly as I was introduced into the game, I was taken out of it by a combination of poor forethought on the part of the Storyteller and the logical yet selfish actions of a player. 

            This was undoubtedly the worst role playing experience that I had.  It’s something that I’ve learned from as well.  I always keep this experience in mind when I’m planning to introduce a new character. 

VtM 30 Day Challenge: Day Nine – Favorite Character That You Haven’t Played

            In the last two years, I have had the chance to play, rather than run, only a handful of times.  Only one of those was a Vampire the Masquerade game, and it was a one-shot.  The character that I played was a Toreador punk rock singer named Sydney.  I usually play female characters.  Don’t judge me!  I set out to make a balanced character who lived up to the punk archetype, tough and capable in a street fight but still a musician.   It was a character that represented all the lessons that I had learned about Vampire the Masquerade, role playing, and myself.  That was two years ago.  I’d like to revisit that character and put into practice the lessons that I’ve learned since then.  

            More so than just playing a character, I’d like to play a character in a long running Chronicle.  That’s the first stipulation to playing “my favorite character.”  Characters shouldn’t come out of character creation as a completed entity.  Characters need time to grow, and players need time to explore the character and find out what direction the character will go over the course a Chronicle.  In the case of my Toreador punk rock singer, over the course of a Chronicle, she could abandon her desire to be a singer as she becomes a part of Kindred society.  The draw of power and influence could be overwhelming, but would she abandon her beliefs to further her place within society.  Or would Sydney be drawn into the politics of the Anarchs?  Would she come to hate the Elders and their games and want to tear down the Camarilla within her city?  Could she join the Sabbat?  What promise could tempt to her?  Could the fear of an impending Gehenna push Sydney to take up the fight against the Antediluvians and their lap dogs the Camarilla?  I won’t know except when I play the character and I’m presented with the opportunities to make those choices.

            Most Vampire the Masquerade characters and especially Toreador start on the Path of Humanity, but the long a vampire survives the more tenuous that hold on human morality becomes.  I’ve already stated that the Path of Lilith is my favorite Path of Enlightenment, so perhaps I’d like this character to transition over to that Path.  Changing paths could take many sessions.  In order to set up this change, I would start the character with one point in Occult and ask my Storyteller if I had heard about the Path of Lilith or some of its heretical teachings.  Then, during downtime, my character would seek out information on that subject, speak to Elders, make deals and get further drawn into the spider web of Elder politics.  After a while, everyone gets caught in the trap of favors given and favors received. 

            Disciplines are another area where a character has a chance to grow and explore possibilities that are not available at character creation.  A Toreador’s in clan Disciplines are Auspex, Celerity, and Presence, and while each of those Disciplines are extraordinarily good in their own right, VtM offers dozens of other options for a character willing to learn and seek out a teacher.  However, just learning a new Discipline has an extraordinary cost; a character must drink one point of blood from his/her mentor in order to activate the potential for that power.  One point blood bound to another vampire is also one point closer to losing control of one’s self.  Not counting the rare Disciplines from extremely rare bloodlines, a Toreador punk rock singer could make use of any of the common Disciplines.  Merely having access to the other physical Disciplines, Fortitude and Potence, would be a boon. 

            The point of this article is not the character, but the process.  Playing the character is not simply just improving the stats on a character sheet but developing the story of that character along with the Storyteller.  Exploring not just what a character may want to do, but also what happens when a character loses interest in one thing and gains a new interest.  Even vampires continue to grow and change. Character creation isn’t the end of creating a character.  A thousand small choices over the course of Chronicle impact the character changing it from what the player had in mind to what the character is at the end of a Chronicle. 

VtM 30 Day Challenge: Day Eight – Favorite Character That You Have Played

            My role playing career can be summed up by the phrase “Always the Storyteller.”  I chose the word “Storyteller” not because this is a Vampire the Masquerade blog, but because for White Wolf/The Onyx Path games, I am most likely the person who is running the game.  For that reason, I rarely get to play; so I don’t have many stories about VtM characters.  When I did get to play most of the games were one-shots and were usually not much different from a modern first person shooter. The PCs would get a mission, we’d go kill someone, and the game would be over.  So, most of those characters aren’t really memorable.  The one character that I do remember clearly is my first character, but every reader of this blog (both of you) has heard that story plenty. 

            Instead of trying to dredge up some crappy story about a character that I half remember, I’ll talk a little bit about an NPC that I used in one of my most recent games.  One of the problems that I noticed about starting characters as newly Embraced vampires is that they are at the bottom of food chain.  However, that’s not actually the case.  Most PCs start the game as legitimately Embraced vampires.  The Prince gave their Sire’s permission to Embrace a mortal, and then those characters are accepted into vampire society.  Conversely, some vampires such as Caitiff are illegitimate.  They aren’t accepted by the Prince or are accepted begrudgingly.  Adding characters, like Caitiff, who are below the characters in the hierarchy of the city is more realistic and tonally appropriate for Vampire the Masquerade because the one of the themes of VtM  is the war of ages.  Therefore if the Storyteller has some NPCs that the players can lord their power and position over fits within this theme, the city feels more “alive.” 

            Jessie was a Tzimisce Anti-tribu that I created for my Baltimore by Night setting.  She was a former stripper in New York City who had been Embraced and tortured by her Sire.  Eventually, she escaped him, but she was deformed.  Somehow she made her way into Baltimore were she hid until she eventually found and taken in by an Autarkis Toreador named Tasia.  Tasia helped her gain control of her Disciplines and put herself back together again.  Jessie was accepted by the Prince, but only because Tasia, a powerful Elder, sponsored her.  Despite the sponsorship, the rest of the city despised Jessie as an outsider.

            I liked running Jessie because she was the lowest character on the Kindred totem pole.  She was the scapegoat for plans that went awry.  She was the character that every other character, NPC or PC, looked down upon.  It’s easy to run a powerful character who can do anything, and even when something seems to go wrong, it’s ok because those events were all part of the plan.  Even running a weak NPC is a challenge because that character has an agenda and goals, but the struggles to accomplish even the least of those goals are more difficult.  If nothing else, a weak NPC like Jessie, offers the Storyteller a way to test his/her players.  How the PCs treated Jessie was a sign of the character’s level of sympathy and thus their Humanity.  So, that’s why I liked Jessie because she was a useful character and had an interesting story. 

VtM 30 Day Challenge: Day Seven – Favorite Edition

           

I started playing Vampire the Masquerade at about the same time that the game switched from Second Edition to Revised.  I did play one or two games under the Second Edition rules, but most of the sessions that I ran or played in used the Revised rules.  However, many of my favorite supplements are from Second Edition.  Thankfully, the developers kept each subsequent edition largely compatible with the previous.  The original clanbooks and city supplements are still just as useful under the most recent rule set.  This is a marked difference from TSR/WOTC and their publication of Dungeons & Dragons.  Since the release of Vampire the Masquerade First Edition, D&D has gone through several editions that are completely incompatible.  Material available for AD&D 2E cannot be used in D&D 3.0, D&D 3.5, Fourth Edition or the upcoming D&D Next.  Because of the lack of compatibility between new and old editions, D&D fans are becoming more and more fragmented and the civil war known as Edition Wars has ravaged many message boards, forums, and game store tables as fans argue for the “best edition.”  Vampire the Masquerade has been largely free of these arguments because of the inter-edition compatibility.  Unfortunately, the ending of the original World of Darkness and the publishing of the New World of Darkness line (Vampire the Requiem, Werewolf the Forsaken, etc.) did fracture the community. 

Nevertheless, I think that Vampire the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition is the best version of the rules, if for no other reason than V20 includes a huge amount of Disciplines, Clans, and rules all in one book.  Players can buy one book, and they will have everything they need to play any clan or bloodline with any Discipline.  If a player wants to play a Mariner Gangrel or a still surviving Lamia, the rules and disciplines are available in the main rule book.  V20 is also helped by the fact that the developers had a chance to go through all of the previous rule books and clean up and fix rules.  The physical Disciplines, Celerity, Fortitude, and Potence, are not only better balanced but are also improved.  Although cost to activate Celerity has been increased to one blood point per extra action, Celerity now gives an inherent bonus to Dexterity and thus initiative.  Other improvements include the removal of the impractically long list of Secondary Abilities and condensing them into the standard Abilities on the character sheet.  Demolitions is now covered by Crafts.  Body Crafts is now a specialty of Medicine.  The overall potency of each point in Abilities are now more valuable, and Storytellers no longer have to worry about adjudicating long lists of Secondary Skills spread across a huge number of sourcebooks. 

Vampire the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition is not a perfect book.  Because the book is intended for existing fans much of the mythology and history of the Kindred is not present.  In my review of the book, I suggested that the section on Bloodlines could have been replaced by a more complete history.  (Yes, I did praise the completeness of including all the clans and bloodlines in the previous paragraph, but if the choice is between obscure bloodlines or a more detailed history, I would choose the history.)  Like most other editions of VtM, some of the rules are not well written or could use some further explanation.    For example, the Gangrel weakness doesn’t include the duration for how long a temporary bestial feature lasts after a Gangrel frenzies.

The reason that I love V20 as much as I do, despite its flaws, is that it symbolizes the rebirth of the Classic World of Darkness.  Since the change to the New World of Darkness line and Vampire the Requiem, I was upset along with many of the fans of Vampire the Masquerade because our favorite game was gone.  V20 marked the return of our favorite game and more importantly, new books have been published with many more on the way.  The developers have opened up the development process; fans can contribute ideas, offer suggestions, and read books in development.  It’s an exciting time, and Vampire the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition is the reason this blog exists.  So, thank you White Wolf and the Onyx Path Publishing!

What’s your favorite edition of Vampire the Masquerade?  Leave a comment below and tell me!