Chimerical Realm

Alien Hunger  is, without a doubt, my favorite published adventure for Vampire: The Masquerade , and the one I have run more than any other. It's also one of the oldest, published back in 1991, and one of the first supplements ever published for the game. Which might be why I like it so; there's a sense of chaos and experimentation in many of the earlier supplements that is invigorating. It's a different kind of Vampire  adventure than most of what White Wolf published (even contemporaries like Ashes to Ashes ). It's more immediate, local, and personal, at least compared to the more dramatic epics.  The players aren't dealing with a massive change to Kindred history, or even alterations to a city. Instead, the adventure is about them , how the change into vampires affects them, and destroys them, and ultimately what they decide to do with these changes. As such, it's only really appropriate for a new Chronicle, and I find the less experience with both role...

In the last part , Andrei cut a deal with Capone and was looking for a way to end the incipient gang war between the Italian Mafia and the Bloods for ultimate control over the Russian Mob. Andrei was busy tracking down information on his rival, Kasmir, when a hitman struck at one of his allies. After some quick thinking and luck (and a GM who didn't understand how combat works), Andrei was able to dispatch the hitman. But now, the threat of an all out street war is closer than ever... The crowd in the club, of course, freaks the hell out. Multiple sub machine gun bursts, and two superpowered (well, slightly...Potence 1) bad asses tossing each other around. Chaos erupts, but fortunately the police in Chicago are notoriously slow to respond. Andrei attempts to walk out casually, and has to make a Charisma + Stealth roll to get out with the crowd. He succeeds. Sergei got out on his own, to his bodyguard/driver waiting out back. Andrei makes sure that he'll be taken to a doctor, ...

( Last time, Andrei's sister had worked out an alliance with the Tremere to discover an artificial replacement for vitae. This is a BIG DEAL, so I assume it's going to take some time to move forward. Basically, this thread is going to sit in the background for a bit. We begin a month or so later, as winter sets in on the Windy City.) First thing I do is update the lists for my characters and threads. Nathan, Marshall, and Sergei are all added. "Money owed to Mafiya" is dropped, and "Mob War," "True Blood" and "Nathan's Sudden but Inevitable Betrayal" are added. I also decide that with his Herd, Andrei feeds well without issue, and start him with 11 out of 12 for Blood Pool. I know most people hate this book , but I find it so goddamn awesome. As I mentioned in my previous post, I wanted to do something a bit different, and instead of using the random generation from Mythic for starting scenes, I'm going to use the on...

I've managed to make it through my first Solo adventure, and I wanted to take some time to talk about what it's been like and what my thoughts are on it. https://www.flickr.com/photos/cverdier/5302914244 First of all, it's fun! It's a different kind of fun than one gets either playing or running a standard tabletop RPG, but this is unsurprising. It's also not the same kind of fun as one has developing a new game--creating a setting, NPC's, plots, mysteries, etc. It's not like a "choose your own adventure" or writing "fanfic." It's still a game, and that means it's still unpredictable and that you can still fail. Believe me, if I was writing fanfic, Andrei would not have been slapped around by every lick with Dominate.... Secondly, is see now why some people were warning me about being overly "random." You really do need to treat a Solo game as you would any game. You obviously don't need to develop plots, b...

When we left Andrei, he was out on the Hunt. However, something Interrupted him. I roll for random events and get "Introduce NPC" "Praise" and "Success." Rolling for the NPC, I end up with Nathan, a particularly sociopathic Kindred, with an abiding goal of slaying every last vampire in the city. Though, in the meantime, he is playing the various factions against each other. Andrei rolls his Politics, and does recognize the terrifying Nosferatu as one the Prince's top enforcers. Nathan Nathan is initially mocking of Andrei, and wonders aloud just what, exactly, he is hoping to achieve. Andrei initially assumes he means the hit he just stopped, but it's clear Nathan is referring to something else (my call, Nathan is ridiculously well informed individual, and him knowing more than Andrei about what is going on makes sense). The two engage in a battle of wits, and Andrei inadvertently slips his desire to meet Nicolai. Nathan seems mockingly impre...

I wasn't able to play very much of the Solo vampire game I was so excited by. This past weekend was rather hectic, and I did manage to squeeze in an old school AD&D game as well as the beginning of a new Fireborn game. So, I can't complain too much.  Still, it was pretty fun, and I'm eager to try it again. For this post, I'm going to break down what happened and the "minutes" of the rules and how they worked for clarity. Future posts most likely won't go into such extreme detail, instead only focusing on significant results. But, given that this is the first, and some people had questions as to how solo roleplaying works, I'm going to consider this as an "example of play." Also, those who are more experienced than I might be able to point where I went wrong and methods to improve my game. Alright, let's get into it! Before the game can start, I need to do some housekeeping. Mythic uses various lists to keep track of major NPC...

As I've mentioned in my previous post , I'm going to try run a solo game of Vampire  for myself. I play the character like I normally would, using all the standard rule but will use the Mythic GM Emulator  to determine what's going on, what twists and changes happen, and the likelihood of events that aren't covered in the basic rules. As part of this, I want to embrace chaos and randomness, and so I'll also be using the Random Prelude generator from the Masquerade Players Kit .  I have never used this before, so I have no idea if it's any good. But, it reminds me of other features of 1st Ed. Vampire, when they still embraced being a "game" and had charts and random encounters, and everything wasn't so locked down and narrative driven. Now, certain people (most notably  +Zach Best ), have pointed out that overly embracing chaos might not be the best decision. That I should approach the solo game with the same attitude as I would any game I would...

I don't get to play nearly as much as I would like. It's a side effect, I suppose, of where I am in life right now. Married, young children, etc., etc. It's a fairly common complaint for many of us slightly older gamers (SLIGHTLY! I'm not that old. I mean, Vampire Revised only just came out...aw, crap.). I'm lucky if I can squeeze in a game a week, and that's including playing online. Of course, when I do game, I'm generally running the games. Now, I really enjoy running games, but sometimes I want to play. Even worse, those games that I most want to play are also the ones where I've become the default or only Storyteller that I know. I mean, I can generally find a game of D&D pretty easily, but Vampire ? I haven't been able to PLAY in a game of Vampire  for going on roughly 7 years now. So, I decided to try out Solo Roleplaying. I first heard about this idea on G+. I forget how it caught my attention, but there's an excellent Community o...