New Vampire (tR) Extravaganza

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This is a post I typed up last night on LiveJournal for my nWoD
countdown, at the 10 day mark (it's 9 now). It details some of my plans
for my coming Vampire campaign. I just thought I'd share it.

--

Yep, now, with 10 days left until the release of the new World of
Darkness books, I'm going to go into a little detail about some of the
things I intend to use in my new WoD/Vampire game that will officially
have it's first session on the 4th of September.

_Vampire Extravaganza!_

I'm going to be starting off my Vampire game as a mortals game, for
several sessions, maybe a month or two. I've done this once before, in a
Dark Ages game, and it worked really well -- the players were really
identifying with their characters and the transition to creatures of
darkness made sense. I intend to do a few interesting things here and
really make the mortal process of the game just as interesting as the
vampiric portion.

Also, I intend to test out some 'advanced techniques' that I've been
meaning to test out but that I've never really dealt with a lot in my
old WoD games. Let's take a look at all the aspects of the game in
order, however, just so we can get an even view of what I'm trying to do!

/the Pre-Game/
The very very first thing I intend to do, is run a character-creation
session. If at all possible, I'm going to do this before the first
session (September the 4th). It's just a matter of getting everyone
together. This will ideally be done on the 28th, before Joels' Exalted
game. The goal here will be to help everyone make a mortal character,
and keep everyone connected and related to one another. I don't want
five moody loners, in other words, I'd much rather have a somewhat tight
group of characters. Not necessarily all friends, but with small threads
of connection that mean each character knows one or two of the others
well and might know the others as acquaintances.

I've also got some important NPCs that I'm going to stat up and draw
together. My main goal is for each character to have at least three NPCs
personally connected to him, that will be major/minor characters in the
mortal section of the game. The characters will share characters, mind
you, so "NPC A" might be one character's brother and another character's
friend at work, while "NPC B" might work at a bar where one character
drinks and go to college with another character during his off hours.
That's four characters, but only two NPCs. The character's themselves
will be involved in this process; part of making a character will
involve coming up with ideas for nifty NPCs and how they can fit together!

I also have a few NPCs that I've already thought up, who I'll mention
more of in a moments in the next section. These will be characters. I'm
going to present these characters during the character-creation session,
as well as a few more than are still roiling around in my mind, and
invite ways for them to be a part of the characters.

The key here is to develop some key background to make the game seem
real, without requiring everyone to fill out 10 page surveys before the
game starts.

/the Mortal Game/
The mortal portion of the game, as noted, is going to be fairly long
running. I imagine it's going to run two months or possibly even longer,
before it turns into a Vampire game. However, let me make it clear that
this is a Vampire game. The purpose of this section of the game is to
allow the player to identify with the character, encourage the player to
develop that character's personality so he'll be fully realized when it
comes time, and to set the scene for the huge change that is developed.

On the other hand, this isn't going to just be an extended prelude. The
character's won't have any more control of their characters when they
normally do, and the threat of death will hang in the air. I've since
warmed a little bit on the "one of the character's will die!", but I'm
still going to move in that general direction. Someone might very well
die to help foreshadowing! A smart player can avoid this, however. The
benefit of not forcing it is that I won't feel bad about 'slowing down'
that player a bit He didn't avoid death, so he gets to wait a little
longer to become a vampire (but I'm spoiling a bit...).

I intend to use a lot of the NPCs mentioned above, and some new ones.
PCs will interact with each other and with these important NPCs. These
character's will develop these relationships, so that they feel more
real and even the NPCs feel like real people. Bad things will happen,
both to the PCs themselves and their acquaintances. These will involve
both mundane and...not so mundane things.

I'll be hinting at the supernatural here and there, and will almost
certainly introduce a few Vampires here and there as well. It might not
be obvious, however One goal I have here is for at least one character
to personally know his sire before his embrace, without that player
realizing that NPC is a vampire. That's a tall order, and will be hard
to pull off, but it's a goal I have for myself. The fact that I just
warned everyone can be attributed to my wanting to make it even harder
on myself.

Now, some ideas on the NPCs (no names for now)...
Cute Librarian Girl is going to be a pretty young woman with short blond
hair and glasses, who works in a library, either a public or private
one. She's very well-educated, has a love of books and knows a lot about
how to get by in a radio, and is very helpful and kind to everyone.
She'd make a good contact, or even an ally if she was a sister or a
girlfriend or something.

Reclusive Wealthy Dude lives out in the country, on an extensive gated
estate that isn't in very good repair, complete with a gazebo and a
small stable. He never has guests or visitors, except the occasional
family member, and is said to be /obscenely/ rich. I have some cool
twists involved with this character (and no, he's not a vampire), and
he's one of my most favorite. He'd make an interesting ally, if someone
could make up a good reason to do so.

Angry Liberal Girl is a college student, plump and curvaceous, with a
big mouth and a loud voice that she typically uses to yell at anyone
that disagrees with her. She's something of a hippy, and very outspoken
regarding her beliefs -- as well as very close-minded. Anyone who
disagrees with her is evil, and must be convinced otherwise. She's very
active on campus, and is the master of about a dozen clubs.

Devoted Husband is a middle-aged man with a pretty wife, two kids, and
financial troubles. The job he'd been doing previously has taken a dive,
and currently the family is more or less living off whatever money he
brings home off odd-jobs and his wife's more lucrative banking job --
while he goes back to school, to try to better himself and find himself
a career that can pay the bills. I've got some large plans with this guy
as well, and he'd make an interesting ally or contact.

Lastly, of course, there's the Embrace-stuff I intend to do everyone's
embrace separately, with lavish attention to the scenes before and
after. I imagine each embrace will take one to two hours to play out,
which means that not everyone will be embraced in the same session. Not
only that, I don't intend to necessarily embrace the character's at the
same time either -- real world time might pass, leaving some characters
with several more nights or even months of humanity compared to one of
his friends. Also, the character's won't be alone in their Requiem --
one of the NPCs is going to be embraced as well. Not necessarily one of
my self-created Important NPCs, either, and I haven't picked who yet.
It'll depend on events in game.

That's just a BRIEF view of the transition, however. We'll start off the
next session with information about the Embrace itself, and the Sires --
which I have a fun plan for as well

/the Vampire Game/
I have ideas here -- but you're going to have to wait to hear them!

In 10 more days, I'll have the Vampire: the Requiem book in my hands
(assuming the Hurricanes play ball). Soon after that, perhaps Sunday or
maybe as late as Friday (when I have no classes), I'll post 'part two'
of this topic with the last of my formative ideas!