Gaming Bits
(First, for non-gamers (who probably aren’t going to be the least bit interested, anyways), and those who game but haven’t gamed Requiem yet, some primers: What is Vampire: the Requiem?, Requiem’s Clans, Requiem’s Covenants, OrdoDracul.com and TheInvictus.com.)
Our regular storyteller, MrJames, had been storytelling Vampire: the Requiem for us for about six months. He got tired of storytelling, and announced that he wanted to play Requiem for a bit, and that I would be running the next game.
“Oy?” Said I.
To be fair, he had hinted previously that he was going to be handing off to me, and so, to prepare, I had flipped through the resource books a couple of times, looking at all the pretty pictures. That helped a lot, let me tell you.
Requiem is a pretty new system, so there aren’t a whole lot of resources or supplements available for it yet. You pretty much have to make it up as you go along, which isn’t so bad. You aren’t burdened by a lot of history. Neither are you burdened by having any clue of what you might be up to.
After some discussion, the group decided that they wanted to play during the Revolutionary War. I picked the year 1768, and set the game in Boston. Seeings as it’s been ten years or so since I had to know anything in particular about the Revolutionary War, I first had to go and relearn all the history. The only other direction I had from the group, concerning the game, came from Squatch, who said that he didn’t want to be “saving the world again”. That is, he didn’t want to play any big, epic-type plots where only the players can save the universe, the city, the world, life as we know it, etc and so forth. “So, um, ” I asked him, “what do you want to do?”
“Oh, you know. Character development. Stuff like that.” Squatch said.
At this juncture, I’d like to point out that we have another experienced storyteller in the group, Adamczykon. Adamczykon isn’t allowed to storytell very much anymore, partially because his games are “boring”. They are boring because they’re driven by “character development”, much of the time. (He has some other faults, too, but that’s besides the point.) It’s Squatch that’s bitched about Adamczykon’s games being boring (among other bitches, but that’s one I’ve heard regularly). So. Yes. He wants me to do something that when another storyteller does it, he bitches endlessly about how boring it is.
*sighs*
This is the third time ever that I’ve run a game. I started to run a Vampire: the Masquerade game for a second group, but that group just happened to drift apart shortly after I’d started the game, due to scheduling conflicts and whatnot. I also ran Deadlands briefly for the Tuesday Night Group (my current and regular group). So, I’m not brand new at it, but I’m still pretty green.
Oh, all right, all right, I have no idea what I’m doing. Fine. Have it your way, then.
Be that as it may, I preservered. First, I built my city, populating it with interesting characters. Then, I tried to think of what my characters might be up to. I decided, looking at real life history, that since the Revolutionary War had been, in the main, financially motivated, that this would be an Invictus-driven story. I decided that the European Invictus members would have sent proxies, probably young childer, to the New World to carve out domains for the elders. (Elders, being lazy bastards who are adverse to risk, stuck in ruts, and loathe to do for themselves when they have minions available, would certainly not go traipsing off to the New World.) However, when you hold someone under your thumb for long enough, and then send them happily out of sight and out of mind to do things for you, you can’t expect them to listen very well. Add to these childer a healthy dose of young Kindred who had come to the New World to get away from overbearing Elders in the first place, and you’ve got rebellion fomenting nicely.
So, the main plot would involve rebellions of various sorts, since that’s a nice, over-arcing theme. Then, you have other problems to toss in. For example, unknown Kindred who had been there when the European Kindred started moving in — perhaps not even Native American Kindred, either — just folks who got there first, and left Europe for various reasons: banishment, disillusionment, opportunity, and so on.
Into this, you toss the player characters, and I’ve got an interesting bunch.
- Captain James Dawson — this is MrJames’ character. Dawson is a retired British navy officer, Embraced by Oliver Cromwell. He’s an Invictus Gangrel, and he’s been sent to Boston to “assist” the Invictus there. Trying to stem the tide of rebellion, and, failing that, to make a tidy profit off of it.
- Aurik Von Keonig — Squatch’s character, a Lancea Sanctum Daeva, who was a former Hessian mercenary. Now he’s a brewmaster and Kindred “socialite”.
- Aslo Clark — Adamczykon’s character, a ghoul to another Lancea Sanctum Daeva, and an aspiring journalist with a family.
- Tobias — ViolentClay’s character, an escaped slave who beat his master and his overseer to death, and was embraced Nosferatu and unaligned for his endeavors. The master was an unknown Kindred who was keeping his slaves as a herd, and had attempted to make Tobias’ family his dinner. Tobias objected violently, and the overseer got in the way.
It was a pretty eclectic group. Captain Dawson took Tobias under his wing, inducted him into the Invictus, and set about teaching and training him. Aurik spent most of his nights in his bar. Aslo took care of his family and fawned over his regnant. Meanwhile, plot sailed on, largely ignored by the group, until the bodies started showing up, and the Kindred homes and Elysiums started being ransacked. Even this was ignored, until poor Aslo was jumped in an alley and Embraced by some unknown assailant, to be reborn as Elgin Stowe, (nominally) Lancea Sanctum Daeva, which was a lucky happenstance for himself and his Lancea Daeva regnant (now adoptive sire). The coincidence would bear investigation if it were me in his shoes, but since it isn’t, this clue has been overlooked at the moment.
Heh.
We’re currently awaiting the addition of a fifth player character, belonging to FeloniusMurphi, who is unfortunately in a hospital in Chicago, having some complications in his recent transplant surgery attended to. We’re hoping he can join us next week, or the week after.
It’s been a long, slow six weeks since I started running, trying to get people involved in the game. Hopefully, that was the uphill climb that leads to the sharp and screaming rollercoaster drop-off. We’ll see.
