Tag Archives: Vampire: The Masquerade

Can you hear me now?

The one Dragon*Con I attended was 1997. I didn’t intend to LARP there, but some of the Louisville Gaming Mafia was tight with the Liquid Dreams storyteller crew, so I sorta got recruited. “We need more werewolf players,” someone said, and jammed a character packet into my hands before running off to attend to a mass combat or some shit.

I opened the packet and looked at the sheet. Huh. Rank 5 Silent Strider Theurge? I can work with this.

Because werewolf players were so very few and far between, I wound up tying in with Little Sister and her attendant vampires, who collectively formed a long-standing and ridiculously-overpowered Sabbat pack known as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The fact that they numbered more than four was irrelevant, as they kept adding apocalypses (my favorite was Grievous Bodily Harm). The fact that I, as a werewolf, should not have been anywhere near these walking atrocities was less than relevant – as a player, I had a choice between hanging out with friends and seeing plot, or being lonely and seeing no plot. Seemed like the appropriate decision at the time.

Because Little Sister was known as a player and her character was equally known as Someone With Whom Not To Be Fucked, no one questioned her or me when she brought me along to a summit of the Sabbat leadership. No one even checked to ensure I was a vampire. I made a couple of mental notes about security lapses.

Then the meet started. It swiftly became clear that the elder vampires had their collective cravats in a knot about an ancient mummy who had arisen and was causing no shortage of pre-apocalyptic problems for them. Huh. Mummy? Something in my character packet, which had been provided without explanation, suddenly became much more relevant.

In the back of the room, I raised a hand. “I know his True Name.”

I am not usually the loud type of player. No one heard me.

Little Sister looked at me sideways. “You what?”

I cleared my throat. “I know his True Name.”

No one paid attention.

Okay, fuckit. I raised my arms above my hand, wrists crooked, in the Mind’s Eye Theatre hand signal for transforming into a war-form. In game, this meant I was shapeshifting into the werewolf Crinos form.

Suddenly, in a room full of elder vampires, this nine-foot-tall avatar of Anubis in full mystic muscular mass murder mode stood up and managed to growl out, “I SAID… I KNOW HIS TRUE NAME.”

What Goes Around, Surprise Round

Not my story, but I’m batch-writing and scheduling a bunch of war story posts, and this one bubbled to the surface of memory.

Back in the early editions of Mind’s Eye Theate, the LARP engine for the World of Darkness, character stats ran on adjectives. The stronger your PC was in physical/social/mental categories, the more adjectives you had. The intent was that when you declared an action, you had to use a relevant adjective in a sentence. It was supposed to be more immersive. Most players ignored it.

Some, however, found ways to use it to their advantage.

Another amusing rule of those editions involved surprise. If someone declared a challenge, you had three real-world seconds to respond. If you failed to meet that time, you were considered surprised and could not resist the incoming hostility. I suspect the design intent was to keep play flowing quickly without a lot of the page-flipping and sheet-consulting and other usual sorts of dithering that happen when someone is yanked out of their Interview with the Vampire fantasy by some Near Dark action.

This story features NLP, and this is kind of representative of his LARP play style. At one particular RiverCon LARP at the old Executive West, NLP was in character, seated at a table, in negotiations. Negotiations were not going well, and it looked like the other party was about to call in her attack ghouls. NLP decided to get in a little preemptive revenge. Without raising his voice or changing his tone in the slightest, he palmed the item card for his character’s sawed-off shotgun, slid it under the table, and said, “I deftly shoot you in the gut.”

Cue wide-eyed crogglement. “You… I… what? Wait…”

NLP glances at the narrator who’s observing this and raises a hand, folding out fingers. “One… two… three, BOOM.”

“That’s surprise. Take two damage.”

“But I…”

“I quickly shoot her again.”

Three Stakes Carved from a Stradivarius

No shit, not only there I was, but I set this up.

When I run LARPs, I always write pre-gens so I can set up plot hooks and conflicts. Most players ignore the packet and just run around playing supervillains with fangs, so when someone latches onto a story thread and runs with it, I appreciate them all the more.

This one is from ConCave 2000, back when that western Kentucky con was still hosted at the old Park Mammoth Hotel in all its creepy-ass glory. To set the stage, I need to give you the character histories from two particular PC packets…

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You’d Think It Would Be Obvious

This is yet another one from a convention LARP in western Kentucky in the late ’90s or early 2000s.

I was playing in this one, not running. The game staff did not share my view of having a coherent plot, so they were allowing players to bring in their own characters rather than providing pre-gens. I chose to run an Assamite (Child of Haqim to you new kids) vizier. I honestly can’t remember if this was before or after I was tapped to do the revised Clanbook: Assamite, but I’d roughed out a lot of the work I wanted to do on the castes a couple of years before that contract, on a late-night drive with Little Sister, so this was definitely a time at which the viziers were front-of-mind for me.

Old man rambling. May yell at cloud next. Anyway…

This LARP’s plot was the predictable and painful “Camarilla and Sabbat vampires put aside their differences in a neutral city run by a ridiculously powerful neutral Methuselah to deal with an existential threat to all vampirekind and/or consensual reality and/or the world.” I’d attached my character to the Camarilla delegation because I figured they’d be less annoying, if also less competent, than the Sabbat. They were glad to have me, because this was still a time when the player base assumed “Assamite == murder machine,” and I certainly wasn’t going to correct them by stating that I was here to study their dumb-ass antics. But I wasn’t completely defenseless.

So we’re wandering down the hall of this hotel when we come face-to-face with the Sabbat bishop and her retinue. Thankfully, by this time, the LARP scene had evolved enough that it was accepted practice to use index cards as item representations, rather than hauling around prop Kalashnikovs and Molotovs and battleaxes and whatnot in public. The bishop is holding a sheaf of index cards in her hand, but doesn’t say anything about them. Okay, whatever, that outfit doesn’t have space for her assets, let alone her inventory.

Dialogue ensues, and things are not too incredibly tense when the bishop’s player suddenly remembers that one of her item cards should be evident to any observer. But how she expresses this… is by brandishing the card toward our faces and announcing, “oh, by the way, this is a five-foot broadsword.”

Okay, then. My hand comes out of my pocket, where I’ve been holding one of my own item cards, and points a 3×5 straight between her eyebrows. “Cool. This is a .357 Magnum.”

Ur-Shulgi

I was recently reminded of this snippet of material that was cut from the revised edition of Clanbook: Assamite for lack of space. While not canonical World of Darkness setting material, it has a special spot in the cold, shriveled place where my heart should be.

Return-Path: localuser@sb50-a7.black-veil.il
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1998 01:11:34 +0200
From: Anonymous anonymous@black-veil.il
Reply-To: anonymous@black-veil.il
Organization: none
X-Accept-Language: en
To:
Subject: [BROKEN STONE] 308A

I had the right authentication and your PGP keys. Here is where I establish my bona fides as a daughter of Haqim, not as a piece of technology. My name is Sarah Schneier and I hold the Seat of Copper and Lightning in the Council of Scrolls, and yes, this is important enough to require me to expose myself.
Alpha passed the order down for me to get the word out to all cells. You have to know what’s on the Throne.

On 08 November, we opened the Vault of the Pillars. The records there confirmed our suspicions as to the identity and nature of the new Eldest.

You already know about the Baali Wars, and about the Second City, and the parables of how the Ancestor made the warriors to serve as the world’s first police, and how the sorcerers were made as demon hunters because the Ancestor did not trust Saulot.

The problem, at least before the sorcerers came along, was that the Baali and all their cultist followers were too disorganized for the warriors and the first sorcerers to strike at. It was like trying to fight a swarm of wasps. So the Ancestor gave them something to unify them. He found someone who was born with a soul already destined for corruption — a ten-year-old shepherd — and Embraced that child. Then Haqim took his childe to the pit that Saulot said had spawned the Baali and he threw that shepherd into it. And the blood of the Ancestor and the power of that soul turned that child into the leader that the Baali needed.

When the Baali assaulted the Second City en masse, the Ancestor was off on one of his mysterious disappearances. He made it back just in time to stop his childe and tear the demon out of the body that it rode, and when the battle was over he claimed that he had found the child dying on the battlefield and the Embrace was the only way to save that innocent victim. Then he watched the child to make sure that it was safe to have around.

I guess he did not watch long enough. Some sort of spiritual seed stayed in the child, and that soul was never truly clean anyway, no matter what the Ancestor did. And it woke up last year, and now it is the Eldest. It is not Baali, and it is not possessed, and we do not think it is not working with or for anything infernal, but it is a case where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and it is not one of Haqim’s Children any more, not really. It is something more, and it is something less.

Every scroll and tablet we found in the Vault of the Pillars, every test we can perform without arousing its suspicion, everything we have points to ur-Shulgi as that child. It is close enough to 100% certainty that Alpha ord

Power out, generators are up. It knows already, and it’s moving. File attachments have all data that is in our hands as of tonight, and the mirror sites will contain it for download as long as they stay up. You have all that we have. Use it.

Go with God, and may He be mer^S^Csend^Cquit

Pool Party

Louisville. RiverCon ’94 at the ol’ Executive West hotel. I didn’t personally witness this, but it’s a fixture of Louisville Gaming Mafia folklore.

This con is infamous for several reasons, not the least of which is that it’s the con (and con LARP) at which most of the LGM met for the first time. Like many LARPs of its day night, the Vampire LARP issued badges separately from the con’s membership badges. Regardless of the status of your con badge, if you were wearing your LARP badge, you were considered to be in character and in play.

You will see this material again.

Also, like many LARPs of its day night, this con featured significant power creep and inattention to consequences. One of the PCs was one Father Drake, a vampire hunter with True Faith. For audiences who may be unfamiliar with Vampire: The Masquerade, the capitalization indicates that the wielder is capable of faith-based supernatural effects.

We shall cut, for a moment, to the players running our game’s Sabbat pack – effectively, semi-feral nomadic vampires who reject human morality and any pretense of clinging to their own humanity (ref: The Lost Boys, Near Dark). The players decided that since the hotel had a perfectly usable pool and the game had slowed down, they may as well take a dip. Alcohol may have been involved.

For the sake of expedience, many LARPers – including several of our Sabbat players – had attached their LARP badges to their con badges’ lanyards or holders. Thus, it so transpired that the Sabbat pack was having a (perhaps unintentional, but again, alcohol may have been involved) pool party in character.

There our vampires were, minding their own business, when Father Drake’s player came sauntering down the Executive West’s main hallway. He glanced through the windows overlooking the pool desk and saw… opportunity. Quickly, he affixed his own LARP badge and collared a Storyteller.

Around and in the pool, the Sabbat players were having a grand old time. Several were in the pool as Father Drake approached, unnoticed, trailed by a Storyteller whose smirk could best be interpreted as yo, Caine, check this shit out – you are about to see some shenanigans, fangboy.

One of the players climbed onto the diving board.

Father Drake looked left. Looked right. Saw no one observing him.

The player strutted out to the end of the board.

Father Drake knelt poolside.

One bounce.

Father Drake placed his hand in the water.

A second bounce.

Father Drake began chanting in Latin.

A third bounce.

Father Drake completed his invocation, stood, and smiled.

The player launched on a gentle arc and happened to glance toward the side of the pool. Recognized the clerical collar. Had just enough time for regret, and perhaps the beginnings of a Wile E. Coyote-esque air-clawing motion, vainly attempting to halt his ballistic plunge.

And that’s when the screaming started.

Curtis Baxter

Game: Vampire: The Masquerade (first edition – White Wolf, 1991)

My Experience: Oh, dear gods. I was introduced to VtM in late 1992 or early 1993. My first actual play experience was the LARP at RiverCon ’93 at the Holiday Inn Hurstborne. At the same con’s LARP the next year, I met most of the core of what would become the Louisville Gaming Mafia, and we’ve been in and out of each other’s lives ever since. I also was a contributing writer on a number of VtM projects back in the day.

Curtis Baxter, Anarch Vigilante

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I love it when a coterie comes together.

In 1872, a crack team of archons was sentenced to destruction by the Ventrue Justicar for a crime they didn’t commit. These Kindred promptly escaped from a maximum-security conclave to the Anarch Free State. Today, still wanted by the Camarilla, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem… if no one else can help… and if you can find them… maybe you can hire… The V-Team.

Before They Let Me Teach Again

I wrote this a couple of years ago to get it out of my head. Occasionally, I consider submitting it to my current employer’s University Honors Program to see if they’ll let me teach it in place of my occasional disaster preparedness seminar. Lightly redacted to remove contact info and other potentially-incriminating items.

Honors Seminar Proposal: Your Parents’ Dark Futures

Primary Instructor

Clayton Oliver, M.S., CEM – Emergency Manager

Will there be any additional instructors for this seminar?

Additional instructors are not anticipated.

Has this seminar been presented before?

No. This proposal is for a pilot delivery.

Do you think this seminary should qualify for International Perspectives or US Diversity Credit?

No.

Please select how you would like to offer the seminar.

Two credits. Two class hours per week. Full semester.

An enrollment cap of 20 is recommended for this pilot delivery.

Please enter your preferred teaching days/times/location for the seminar.

A Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday evening slot is preferred. A weekly two-hour block is necessary due to the extended collaborative/narrative nature of some class activities. My recommended time is 6pm-8pm.

Preferred location is Jischke Honors Building 1151+1155 for student convenience and the ability to “pod” the room’s seating for breakout groups.

Please describe any additional meetings that may occur outside of normal course hours if applicable.

No scheduled meetings are planned at this time. However, students will be expected to convene for group activities outside class time. Students will schedule these group meetings on their own.

Please write a brief description of the seminar that is attractive to students and will be shared on our website.

In the 1980s, the emerging entertainment medium of roleplaying games (RPGs) began to reflect the political and socioeconomic concerns of the day. In this seminar, we’ll analyze four RPGs of that era, each of which postulates a different dystopian near future: Twilight: 2000 (1984, post-World War III survival), Cyberpunk: 2020 (1990, hypercapitalist science fiction), Vampire: The Masquerade (1991, urban decay and power imbalances), and Werewolf: The Apocalypse (1992, political corruption and ecological collapse). Through reading, class discussion, collaborative storytelling, supplemental research, and reaction papers, we’ll examine the fears, assumptions, cultural stereotypes, literary archetypes, and social trends that produced these works and ask ourselves if they remain relevant today. We’ll also analyze the storytelling craft of roleplaying as a means of exploring and expressing identity – our own and that of others.

For the University Honors Committee, please briefly outline the seminar’s readings, topics, assignments, and expectations. Seminars are graded Satisfactory/Fail; what must a student do to pass your seminar?

During this seminar, the class will be divided into four groups of five students, each of which will examine one of the four selected works. A successful student will be able to:

  • Articulate an understanding of the cultural factors that produced the selected work;
  • Discuss the literary archetypes inherent to the work that shape the narratives which players can use the work to construct;
  • Discuss the identities and assumptions inherent in the work’s archetypes and how they are relevant or outmoded in today’s society;
  • Contextualize the work’s postulated dystopian future within the time it was authored and describe how subsequent historical events support or undermine its fictional setting;
  • Articulate the value of roleplaying for self-examination, problem-solving, and empathy.
  • Contrast the work’s original context to the modern era and argue whether or not the work could be reproduced in today’s environment.

Readings

Each student will be assigned one of the four selected works as a primary reading. These are available commercially in PDF format for between $10 and $20 each.

Readings will be synchronized across the semester to examine:

  • Setting – what is the world described in the game? How does it relate to the societal trends and fears of the era in which it was written? How accurate were its predictions?
  • Player characters – what are the implied and explicitly-stated roles of players and their in-game personas? How do these roles and the game’s provided character archetypes facilitate the exploration of identity or the concerns the game raises?
  • Gamemasters – what are the implied and explicitly-stated roles of gamemaster/referees/storytellers? Is their relationship with the players one of collaboration, antagonism, or something in between?
  • Stories – what sorts of stories is the game intended to facilitate?
  • Mechanics – how does the game model its world? What mechanisms does it provide for resolving uncertainty or conflict? Do the rules facilitate the stated storytelling goals?

Actual Play

Most roleplaying games are designed as group experiences, so reading alone will not enable students to examine the full experience. Over the course of the semester, each group will be expected to meet for a minimum of five game sessions, play the game, submit short written response/reflection papers, and be prepared to discuss their experiences in class. I will attempt to arrange groups to ensure that each one contains one experienced gamemaster who is comfortable running the assigned game, with the other four group members as players.

The standard attendance policy for Honors Seminars is that only two absences are allowed unless there is a special circumstance. If you prefer a different attendance policy, please explain.

This attendance policy should work.

Please include a summary of your background to include with the seminar description on our website.

Clayton Oliver is the university’s Emergency Manager. He is a recovering technical writer, having spent twelve years writing documentation no one read for software no one installed. In 2012, he decided to pursue a more frustrating career and entered the emergency management field. Since then, his disaster response experience has included power outages, severe winter weather, derechos, home football games, hazardous materials spills, overly-enthusiastic student celebrations, that one time someone accidentally drilled into a natural gas pocket, and a pandemic that no one wants to hear about any more. He holds a B.A. in English, an M.S. in Emergency Management, and the Certified Emergency Manager credential from the International Association of Emergency Managers. He maintains proficiency in his former craft through performing freelance design work in the roleplaying game industry, posting on the university’s subreddit as [redacted], and writing about himself in the third person.

Hell Comes to Cave City

Another ConCave, another unfortunate encounter.

In this instance, several of us had decided we were hungry and the hotel diner was overpriced. But that vaunted mecca of civilization, Cave City, was nearby! And our hero protagonist victim had a car! Thus it was that four people squeezed into my ’99 Mitsubishi Eclipse, truly the gothiest of goth rides, to seek sustenance.

Two of the witnesses shall remain nameless. The third passenger, he whose reputation burns in infamy even today, shall be called WB, he who sometimes was called “Wookiee” for his stature and lack of a volume control. WB was about 6’6″, not a small man in width, made mostly of metal from the knees down, and aggressive in asserting his identity as Louisville’s largest and most notorious Jewish goth punk gamer bookmonger.

So it was that the four of us sauntered into a combination Long John Silver’s/A&W (i.e., the Fish&W) restaurant. I was attired fairly nondescriptly, as was my habit. My companions… had only brought Vampire LARP costumes to the con.

Needless to say, we attracted some attention on this fine Saturday morning. Our kind was rarely seen in Cave City. There were murmurs of outrage and consternation.

I, being attuned to the ways of incipient redneck unrest, was uneasy. My unnamed companions, alas, were more sheltered. And WB… WB was aware of the attention and was feeling provocative.

As we dined, WB’s volume increased. Every French fry brought forth another bloody tale of in-game vampiric horrors, presented out of context for the Barren County public’s edification. I began gauging the distance to the exits.

Finally, our trays were empty. Could we escape without incident? Alas, WB had one more arrow in his quiver. As we discarded our waste and headed for the exit, his voice boomed out: “Hey, Clayton, you know the best thing about this leather jacket?”

I cringed. “No, WB, what would that be?”

And as the door swung shut behind us, the last thing the good folk of Cave City heard was WB’s proud declamation: “A little rain water washes the goat blood right off it!”