Chimerical Realm

Now that I have my basic idea for the first adventure—a “Bug Hunt”—it’s time to work out some details. Years ago one of my friends played a really interesting character based on The Metamorphosis . The basic concept was a man turned by a Nosferatu who just could not deal with the change and ended up going a bit nutty. In the game we played, two of the other characters had befriended him and were trying to help him come to grips with the change and restore his Humanity. Taking that idea, I decide to twist it and turn him into the villain of the piece. So, the background is that Gregory Samsa (yes, I am a hack when it comes to names) was an average salesman, working at the Greenline Paper Company. He was laid off two years ago, and the company went under soon thereafter. Unable to find a new job, he began drinking heavily and sank into depression. One night, while he stumbled home, he was attacked by a vampire and turned.  He struggled home and hid. The next few nights were t...

The first story is always a bit tricky when starting a new game, but particularly so for games like Vampire. Since so much of the game is dependent on the characters, it is almost impossible to come up with “generic” stories that will fit any coterie, and yet when creating the first story you are working with a blank slate. Since my players haven’t created any characters yet, I have no convenient hooks (like missing sires or desires to discover a cure for their unfortunate condition) to rely upon. And yet, I need to come up with something, as I don't want to spend the entire first session just creating characters, nor do I want to rely on just “winging” it and run the risk that the game might fall flat. First off, let’s review my outline, and what I’m hoping to accomplish at this stage in the game development process: 4 First Story    4.1   Develop a basic first story to kick the game off    4.2   Keep it flexible enough to handl...

I was able to get some of my NPC's detailed so far. The Court and the Lord's Proprietor are done, and while I still have the "powers that be" to work on, I'm fairly happy so far. Of course, as I create each one, at least one or two (and sometimes several) other NPC's spring to mind, but I'm deliberately NOT going to work on those yet. I want to wait and see what kind of characters my players come with first before I start creating any new ones. Now, as I mention in a previous post , I don't worry too much about "statting" up these characters. For one thing, most of them are pretty old and powerful, and could probably wipe the floor with new PC's. But also, the stats can easily come later as needed--what's more important for the game is who they are, what they want, and what they heck they are up to. I'm not going to post all of them, as that would be a huge post and rather boring. Instead, here's a sampling of what I have ...

I haven't had a lot of time this weekend to work on game ideas, but I do have a few that I want to post. First, I want to think a little bit about how the city is organized. As I mentioned before, I see this city as one inherently torn between a strong center and independent outlying areas. Most of the major conflicts occur along this axis, as the prince seeks to expand his influence throughout the city and the various local "Lords" struggle back, until one or the other pushes too hard, and all out war results. The current Prince assumed control roughly twenty years ago, when the previous prince became, in the eyes of many, a brutal and mad dictator. Now, in most Vampire  cities, there exists a group called the Primogen.  Exactly what they are vary city by city, but in general they are the most powerful vampires in the city who are not directly allied with the Prince.  For one reason or another (personal age/power, mortal influence, Kindred leadership), they are the p...

Now that I’ve picked the city, it’s time to work out some general details. At this point, I'm going to be focusing on the very broad strokes—grossly generalized neighborhoods and regions, with only a handful of prominent locations. Naturally, any given city will have a lot of nuance and a lot of variance in any given area. At this stage though, I'm painting in broad strokes. Part of this is due to the maxim of “ don't create more than you need to.” I could spend days working on just the downtown and details all the clubs and galleries and bars and the like. The other is that I want the broad strokes to help the players get oriented. When I was a bit younger, I would scoff at a movie like Star Wars with its “Desert Planets” and “Forest Moons” and the like. But now I realize the virtue of that— Tatooine is immediately and obviously different than Hoth or Endor, and the broad generic characterizations helps the audience understand where they are without ...

Now that I've got the broader themes and concepts under wraps, it’s time to start working on details. First up, is the actual setting itself—where is this game going to take place? Is this going to be a real city, or one I made up? Where will the city be located? A lot of this comes down to whim, of course. Personally, I'm looking for a couple of different things. Since the past few games I've run of Vampire have taken place in relatively small cities, I wanted to branch out and try something bigger. I want this city to have a large number of Vampires, all interacting and messing with each other and not rely on “new players in town” to drive the story. I want to set it in America, to make things both easier on myself and my players—learning different terms and languages and pronunciations will, I fear, get in the way of the enjoyment of the game. Also, I doubt my own ability to do justice to the nuances and details of a foreign city. So, American it i...