Vampire is obviously a table top role-playing game that we are adapting to be played in this unique configuration. At the heart of it will be great fun for all that can actively participate in our live roleplaying game sessions. 

 

The sessions will take place in Google Hangouts, so you won't have to leave the privacy of your own homes. We will use the scheduling program Doodle to figure out when players have the most time and try and book sessions a few weeks in advance to ensure that the sessions are on. Obviously real life happens and you may have to cancel out on a session. This is fine. The game session will carry on without you. 

 

During the session you will attempt to complete an in-game goal while portraying your character to the best of your personal role-playing ability. If you are a rookie game player, don't let this intimidate you. This is a game, no different than playing Monopoly. While in the game, the other players will likely be vicious towards each other and you, when it comes to understanding the rules, players are expected to be patient with one another. It's just a game, and we're just here to have some goofy, nerdy, vampire fun. 

 

The game will be completely free to play. As I will have all of the resources, including the books themselves, available to you to read, you shouldn't have to spend any money at all except perhaps on snacks, with the sole exception of having a quality computer microphone so that you can participate in the online game. Without that, you can't hear us, and we can't hear you, so...

 

You can get a good one from Amazon for $20-30, and perhaps a cheaper one that will do the job at least temporarily at a Best Buy or Radio Shack.

 

We will be playing in Google Hangouts and you should download the free app ROLL 20, which is the program we will be using within Google Hangouts. It has a great dice and chat system, where we will be able to still hear each other talking without issue, and you can tell exactly who is rolling what dice. So its perfect for our needs to make the live sessions work. Please download this and try it out and have it ready before the first gaming session you participate in. If you need help with this, let me know and I will assist you. 

 

PLANNING A GAME SESSION: 

 

Once we understand everybody's schedules, I will book sessions with groups of players. It may be that some of you have opposite schedules and will hardly ever meet. You may find yourself in sessions with the same players while other players manipulate the game world around you in their own sessions and through the strategy aspect of the game. Obviously, if possible, I will try and mix and match players to get everyone the most quality roleplaying time with the most amount of people. As it happens, trying to play a session with more than 8 players is insane. We may do it sometimes if we have the people and the adventure is reasonable. But often I will cut off the cap of players. In this case, which I expect frankly to be rare, I will first ensure that players who have the least amount of roleplay availability definitely get to play in a session they can actually make. After that, factors like getting your Doodle schedule filled out in a timely fashion or even game balance depending on the nature of the adventure about to played in that session, will come into play.

 

You will know well in advance what day and time the game will be played in. Please confirm that you intend to attend the session at the earliest possible moment, and put it in your day planner so you don't forget about it. 

 

THE ADVENTURE: 

 

Sometimes as the Storyteller, I will choose what the adventure of the session will be. This often will occur when you have manipulated the game environment in such a way as to have opened a big can of worms you now have to deal with. Conversely, there are a lot of NPC's who are planning things on their own. Every now and again, an NPC's plan will activate and you will get caught in that big pile of snot and have to survive it. 

 

Often, you can pick and choose from various options. Players in a session can communicate and vote on the adventure they will explore. This will give me time to build that specific adventure and you will be heading in a direction in the campaign that you have all chosen together. Here are some of those options: 

 

COOPERATIVE REQUIRED OR FUN-TIME CONTEST OF WILL TASK: 

Obviously, the primary objective for all of you is to advance in the Contest of Will and get those prizes! You can vote to try and play out anything available on the list.

 

MYSTERY ADVANCEMENT:

You may have uncovered a Mystery and want to continue to explore the next aspect of it. This may get you Contest of Will points or it might just be important to the game environment itself.

 

GENERAL CLAN REQUEST: The clans will sometimes have things they want you to do which may or may not get you Contest of Will rewards. Often, Mr. Confetti will add a reward for these, and make them Fun-Time Activities as they sprout up.  

 

YOUR CLAN REQUEST: You might be pulled in privately and commanded or asked, depending on who it is that has the task, to complete something that will assist the clan in some way. You can request this as an in-game adventure to be played by you and the other players. Everyone not in your clan will be owed a Prestation Boon, the level of which will be determined by the level of complexity and danger of the adventure. 

 

SECT REQUEST: A big wig like a Justicar might show up and order you to do something. You better do it! Though, unless I make this the adventure due to the nature of the story, you can simply put this on the list of possible things to do and see what happens in the vote. 

 

There may be other kinds of stories that open up as the game advances, but you get the general idea. All of the possible stories will be listed for your easy reference, and you can do an email vote where you first eliminate a bunch of available stories until you get it down to 2 ideas, and then the one with the most vote wins. In the case of a tie that can't be broken, I will choose which one of the two we will do. 

 

In order to secure your private request gets on the vote list, you need to make it a public request by emailing the details to me, and then I will add it to the available quests on the site. This will be considered OOC information, so players cannot act on it in the game unless it is voted on as the adventure of the session. 

 

Once the vote is in...
 

I will make an announcement both via e-mail and on the website, and it will be known in advance what the premise of the main adventure will be. Don't get it wrong, just because you know what you are trying to get done, doesn't mean that other things won't also happen. There will be lots of twists and turns in every game session. But, as I would like you players to have the options to play out whichever adventures seem most fun to you, and steer the direction of the game environment, this system will work best. Also, there just aren't enough hours in the day for you all to pick different contest or clan/sect/other adventures to try and play simultaneously, nor, as the game opens up, will there be enough hours in the day for me to properly game design each and every possible adventure ahead of the next session. So if I know what you'd most like to do, I can really game plan that adventure out, and make it the most it can be so our live gaming sessions are ramped up and exciting. 
 

BE EARLY: 

 

The first 20 minutes of the game session will be for light chatting and setup. I will usually open the room a full half hour before the game session is supposed to begin. That will give you all a full 50 minutes to shoot the breeze and interact OOCly with one another, and ask me questions if you need to. Make sure that you go to the bathroom and prepare meals and snacks and beverages before the 20 minute lapse period is up. Once the game begins...the game begins! 

 

CANCELING: 

 

Quite inevitably, players who have confirmed for a session will need to cancel due to real life concerns. This is fine, it is just a game. But, please do not wait until the last minute to cancel, if possible, as I may have to make slight modifications to the adventure without you present. Obviously if there is an emergency or you get called into work or become violently ill unexpectedly, well, that's a part of life. This is just a game. It's not more important than your real life dealings. So I will understand. However, if a session is closed and other players who could have made it and wanted to play are denied because the room has already filled, and then you cancel at the last minute when you could have canceled at an earlier time? That's rude to your fellow players. So please don't do that. 

 

I am not going to drop players from the game due to cancelations. But if you constantly are forced to cancel that will be factor if a session is closing and I have to choose between you and a more available player. That's just common sense. 

 

OBLIGATORY REQUIREMENTS: 

 

There are none. In most "table top" environments, players who can't make live game sessions are a hindrance to the game and should bow out completely. I have devised a Strategy component to this game that destroys that obligation. If you never make a single live session you can play this game with us, indefinitely, and I will not be even slightly annoyed by it. Your fellow players may be when you start sabotaging their resources in the game environment and they have no idea just who the hell you are though, LOL. 

 

PARTIAL PARTICIPATION: 

 

Let's say for argument's sake, that we choose to allocate 6 hours on a Sunday for a live game session. Some of you can be there for the entire time and want to. Some of you can be there for part of it and may start at the beginning and need to leave or come in during the middle. This is totally okay. If you come in and have to leave, we will either create a reason that your character needed to leave also, or I will control your character for you during the rest of the adventure if it wouldn't make sense for your character to leave. Who knows, you may find out the next day that your character won a competitive contest and got the prize thanks to my ingenuity at playing your character for you! 

 

If you enter the game in the middle, we will take a short 5-10 minute recess to fill you in on what has transpired and figure out how you got there as a reinforcement or a new adversary for the other players to deal with, depending on the nature of the adventure. 

 

It may be possible that the players who start the session are not the ones who finish it. I am totally happy with that. Again, this is just a game. Let's not sweat the small stuff. Play when you can and don't when you can't. 

 

GAME BREAKS: 

 

Obviously, there will be bathroom and drink refill breaks, or just 10-15 minutes to cool down. The best time for this is during a transition, when you complete an aspect of the story in one location and are about to move to another. But sometimes we'll just be in one location or a bunch of short ones. If you need a bathroom break, just call it, and we'll likely take it as a group event. If you order food and the doorbell rings, or your phone rings and you need to take it, just let us know and then bow out of the session momentarily to handle your business. As long as I know what's going on and why you have disappeared, it doesn't matter. We won't get mad unless it becomes a real distraction for some reason. But that is unlikely. 

 

KNOW THE RULES: 

 

As I have all of the core game books readily available and free of charge, there is no reason whatsoever for you to come into the game not knowing the basic game mechanics. There will always be things that occur in the game itself where I will have to make a determination and set a precedent -- there are mechanical aspects of the game intentionally left open to interpretation by the White Wolf staff, and as the Storyteller my obligation is to interpret those vague rules and keep them consistent in the campaign. 

 

But the basic game mechanics are quite clear. It would be very helpful if you made a personal chart for yourself regarding how to operate your most useful skills, disciplines and such, so that you can just refer to it in the heat of the moment and not have to waste everybody's time looking it up in the book, or asking me to do so. Fast Charts like those will greatly enhance the game for everyone and make it a pleasant experience where we move from story chapter to story chapter in a quick, fun pace where everybody is participating and having a great time. 

 

DON'T ARGUE: 

You may know the rules better than I do! I don't care. I am not going to waste 20 minutes trying to figure something out that I can't readily find in the book or argue with any of you about it. If its giving us trouble, I will make a call. Just accept it for good or ill. This is a game. Let's just keep the pace fast and have hilarious fun. 

 

This does not mean you can't help me out if I need to find something and you know where it is, or if I am making a clear error that sets a poor precedent. Just tell me politely what you think and then I'll either use your advice or decide not to. The Golden Rule is always in effect, and what the Golden Rule is, is that all of the rules are just guidelines and the Storyteller can tailor the campaign however he sees fit. I promise to keep things as consistent as possible and to make decisions which will lead to the most positive outcome, at least OOCly, for everyone involved. 

 

IN-GAME REWARDS: 

 

There are many in-game rewards for live roleplaying. Any Kindred or other personality you encounter will have an experience with you and may become an asset to you, far more easily and powerfully then with Kindred that the NPC has not met. 

 

You may find things carried by enemies that you want to keep, and you will get to do so without having to spend any cash assets. So if you like that guy's gun, you can make it your gun! If you like that guy's hat, you can make it your hat! If you steal his car, he can call the cops on you and they can track it down though. So, uh, be smart about this. 

 

XP: You get XP for playing in live sessions. There are different points you can get. Everyone who plays automatically gets 1 XP for Participation. I also reward players with a point for quality roleplaying (especially concerning your Demeanor and Nature, and the pursuit of your private goals even while in mixed company.) I reward for Success on missions, and Ingenuity or Bravery if you did something really cool during the session. Don't go out of your way though to do crazy stuff. Just stay within your character's personality and do whatever the character would do in that scenario. As you play the character more, you'll get a good feel about that.