I have designed this campaign in a special way, and added this huge Strategy element for multiple reasons. The primary reason is that it makes sense. Elder vampires do not share all of the information on what their plans are with one another. They do not take over businesses or municipal or personality assets in unison, they do so individually and attempt to gain power, wealth, and prestige by doing so. 

 

They will help each other if ordered by someone of rank such as a Justicar, a Prince, a member of the Primogen, or the elder of their clan. They also help one another if the Masquerade is at risk or if it will protect the city from the Sabbat or other threats. But under any other circumstance, a Kindred will only help another kindred to gain Prestation over that individual. Because Prestation is so important to Kindred, this does happen commonly. Please refer to the page on Prestation to learn more about that important aspect of the game. 

 

By simulating this aspect of the game, we will not have to worry about trying to incorporate it into the actual live gaming sessions, where I would prefer bigger stories to be happening. It would be best to keep the game sessions focused on the crazy adventure we're doing and keep the logistical aspects of your building your character's influence in the region to email and private sessions. This will keep the game better organized and also so people who have limited time to play aren't sitting around waiting for 20 minutes while I deal with one players' attempt to take over an asset. 

 

Everyone can see what the other players are doing via my turn-based story write-ups in the IC section. More on that momentarily. 

 

The second reason I designed this was to make the game more accessible to adults. Let's face it, when this game came out 25 years ago, we were all still in college and had plenty of time to sit around a table rolling dice. Not so much anymore. I expect each player may go through periods where he or she is completely unavailable for live rpg sessions. But sending out a few e-mails a week to keep your character involved in the storylines and strategy aspects will be easy, and make the game fun and stress free for all. I expect players will be weaving in and out of the adventure aspect of the game based on their real life schedules. In the world of darkness it is completely common for Kindred to not be seen for weeks or months or even years but for their actions to be felt as they direct their many pawns to continue their next chess move to further their plans. 

 

So this will work well for an Elder campaign. Despite the fact that many of you will have lots of assets to start with on day 1 from your Backgrounds, there is a logistical aspect to this. I can't have someone making 2 moves a week and someone else trying to make 18. There are categories for Strategy e-mails, and you will have to restrain yourself to the maximum limit for each week. 

 

Everyone knows everything: During the day, your characters generally sleep. They are vampires. During their sleep, Mr. Confetti who is one of the great Dominate power masters on Earth enters everybody's minds and reads them. He then compiles the most important moments of the evening that just happened and then shares them with all of the players - both PC's and NPC's. So, everything that happens to your character? All of the players get to learn about it. There are no real secrets in the Contest of Will. This is part of the difficulties of playing this particular game. 

 

From an OOC perspective, this is absolutely necessary for this game to be fun. If everybody was just secretly emailing me their moves, and then I simply posted a boring two sentence blurb about it, would anyone keep playing for long? By dramatising it in short story form with pictures and other media attached, I think its hilarious and fun for everyone. So, none of you get to keep secrets from each other, including when you screw each other over, and you will at times during the game. Fun! So basically anything you read about in the story, your character ALSO knows. When you then decide on your next moves for the upcoming turn, you CAN use anything you learn. But so can everyone else. Let the games begin!

 

Turn-Based Strategy: 

 

Those of you already familiar with Turn-based strategy games will be able to grasp this notion immediately. Those who are not, I hope to make this as clear as possible for you in this write-up. 

 

There are two dilineations for the game, that I need to define here: Round and Turn 

 

In the Contest of Will task list, you will see all of the required tasks your character needs to accomplish in order to advance to the next round of tasks. There is no time limit for this, and you could take weeks of game play, or months, however long it takes. Each individual player will be in the round that he or she is in, based solely on the task list created by Mr. Confetti. So different players can be in completely different rounds. In point of fact, as new players enter the game, they will start in Round 1. This is true even if the initial players are in round 1 still themselves, or if they are in round 52, or 900. 

 

The game is not won or lost based on your current round. The rounds simply unveil a required task list that you must advance through to get points in the game. 

 

TURN - A turn in this game generally constitutes one full day in the game environment. Let me make this clear: NOT one full day in real life. How many days of real life will constitute one full day in the game environment? This will vary greatly. When I get the emails for your player, I will add them to the list of scenes that I will craft for the story aspect of that particular turn. Each player can try strategies and roleplays, as described below, that would fit into one full day. For the most part, vampires sleep when the sun is up, and so you generally have from sundown til dawn. I will allow up to three attempts to make things happen. 

 

You get three MOVES in each turn. A move is either a tactical attempt to take over a business or municipal asset, or personality asset, OR can be frankly, anything you consider a worthwhile thing for your vampire character to try and do in the game. You are limited only by your creativity, in this regard. I will remind you here that every time you wake, your character loses one blood, and gains one willpower. So, every turn, if you have not fed, you have one less blood point in your pool. For Elders, losing a few blood points is no big deal. If you have 30 blood pool capacity, and you are down to 24 blood, you still have a ton of blood in your system. But, if a big combat happens either in the strategy or the live session, that's the amount of blood you are starting with. So, you can use a Move in the current email turn to feed. There will not be opportunity during the live roleplays to hunt or feed from your herd. We will be in an adventure in the live sessions, so whatever blood you enter with, unless you bite something during a fight, you're going to be limited to what you come in with. And you may get no opportunity during the live roleplay sessions to feed. Consider this as you make your three moves for the current turn. 

 

You will send your emails in for the three moves you want to try and accomplish in the evening of the current round. I will make all of the dice rolls for your character, and then I will write up the results in the storyline, and you can see what's happened to your character, the other players, and the NPC's. 

 

Once I have fully crafted the entire story advancement for the evening, the turn will be over. And you can, at that point, submit your emails for the next turn. It may take me a single day to write up the current turn, or it may take me awhile. I have a life too. Just be patient, and wait to see what happens. 

 

You also get experience points to enhance your character due to factors such as participation and other factors that I will decide as Storyteller. So even if you don't get to earn XP in roleplaying sessions, you will still be earning XP for playing in the game. 

 

You will always get 1 XP for participation in the current round. You will also get XP for things such as Courage and Ingenuity, and Roleplaying. This means that you should understand your character's nature, demeanor, humanity and other virtue scores, and other flaws and merits that you have that affect your character's decision making process. While you the player may want to go about something a certain way, especially once you see the good ideas of the other players and also how I run the strategies of the NPC's. But your character is your character. He or she should not just change tactics because you want to OOCly. Be consistent, and you get XP for quality roleplaying. I will be checking everyone's character sheet to see if you are playing the character that you created. I also award XP for success of your plan. Sometimes the dice rolls botch your attempt to succeed, which is no fault of yours. That's just luck. So don't be upset if your plan fails. Just laugh at the results in the story, and go from there. Everyone will have their good days and bad days in this game, including the NPC's. That's part of the fun, is for the whole thing to be very funny.

 

WAITING ON MOVES 2 AND 3: You can send in your moves one at a time, to see if the result of the first move is success or failure. If, for instance, you are really low on blood and need to feed, and your first hunt is a failure, you can spend another move attempting to feed. If the second one is now a success, you can proceed with doing something completely different, for your third move of the turn.

 

Again, don't be upset when things you try to do fail. First of all, we're talking about one single day in the movement of the game. Nobody is going to get too far ahead of you in the course of one evening. Second, when you fail, it becomes very funny for everyone, including yourself, to read about. Just take your lumps and enjoy. It's a game!  

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ASSET STRATEGIES; 

 

As a contestant in the Contest of Will, you will be required to gain influence by taking over businesses and municipal assets. You do this through your Asset Strategies. You can use one, two, or all three of your Moves for the current turn.

 

It costs $5,000 x the level to increase an asset's rating. So for instance, let's say you take over a landscaping company, which counts as a Business. You send a comprehensive email to me about how you want it done. Once I accept it, you've done it, irregardless of whether this Wildly succeeds, succeeds, fails, or botches. And that cost you one of your Moves for the week. You can only attempt a takeover once per evening, for obvious reasons. But often you can come back the very next night if you failed or even botched to try again.  

 

Every business and municipal asset, as well as Havens and even personality assets (who are individual people) have three ratings attached to them in the game. These ratings go from 1 (awful) to 10 (best on Earth). 

 

1) Capability - the asset's ability to succeed at whatever it is he, she, or it is supposed to be good at. 

 

2) Influence - the asset's ability to gain reputation to bring in business, take over rivals, gain fame or notoriety, etc. 

 

3) Defense - the asset's ability to defend himself, herself, or itself against harm. A corporate business for instance, might be subject to a hostile takeover or competitive sabotage, a headquarters might be subject to attack or infiltration, whereas an individual can simply be assassinated. 

 

Most assets in Gary start off with ratings of 1,1,1. Gary is even more broken in the game environment then it is in real life, and that is saying a lot. Assets in Chicago are not as bad. Some in fact, are pretty amazing to start with. Chances are that those are already under the control of another Kindred. You can go to war and steal it, but that will have ramifications in the storyline. 

 

EXAMPLE OF PLAY

 

You decide to take over a business in Gary, Indiana, and spend one of your Moves for the turn on that. You write me a comprehensive email about the exact business you want to take over, and how you are specifically going to try and take it over. 

 

You decide that this business is useless if the Capability isn't there, so you spend $5000 (it was level 1, so 5000x1 = 5000) and describe exactly how you are upgrading the capability. Perhaps you hire faster workers or upgrade the equipment being used. You should actually do the research and find out how much new lawnmowers cost, and really define this out. That will make it realistic and also enable me to keep track of your actual assets that can be attacked and need to be protected from saboteurs in the form of both NPC's and your fellow competitors in the Contest of Will. 

 

You decide to save your third move for a roleplay manuever, which will be described in detail below. 

 

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Dear Alan, 

 

I am spending my first move this turn attempting to take over the business asset: Joe's Gymnasium. 

 

I have presence and dominate, and I plan to walk right in and get myself a meeting with Joe himself, or whoever is the current manager. Once alone with that individual I will turn on the charm to put him or her under my sway, and then I will specifically dominate them with my instructions. Since the personal trainers and equipment all sucks, if I am successful in my takeover attempt, I will then spend $5,000 to upgrade the capability of the asset by upgrading in both of those areas. 

 

I am going to wait on my third move to see if these two moves are successful. Thanks.

 

-Bill 

 

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ROLEPLAY STRATEGIES: 

 

You also have the opportunity to use one, two, or all three of your moves on a roleplay strategy. Your character can be very active trying to make contacts or participate in quests via e-mail roleplay. You might be assigned tasks by members of your clan, or you might want to pursue something in the game without the other competitors, your fellow players, being able to do anything about it. You are encouraged to be a selfish bastard and gain as much for yourself as you can. This can happen through your rp strategies that you send me via email. Hunting for blood is a roleplay strategy. You need to be as specific in these as possible, and tell me what kind of person you are going to try and feed on and where you are hunting. 

 

I will outline your results in the response email, and you can watch it all play out when I write it up in the turn post. 

 

Nobody is going to lose their character in an email-based roleplay, but either good things or bad may happen.  

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Example of a Roleplay Strategy Email: 

 

Hello Alan, 

 

I am using a roleplay strategy because I want to secretly follow that strange lab assistant that you have listed on the site that the other players met in the last roleplay session around. I have Obfuscate 3 so tailing him should not pose difficulties, if he's human anyway. I want to learn if he is affiliated with any Kindred, or other organization, and if possible I would also like to go through his files, though if I have to choose one or the other, I will definitely follow the assistant this time around. I give you permission to do all of the dice rolls. Let me know how it goes. 

 

Thanks, 

 

Player

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Dear Player: 

 

Using your Obfuscate and other stealth skills, you find it quite easy to be ready for Dr. Persey when he leaves the office. Though you could have gone inside the unprotected lab, you opted to follow Persey. He was definitely skittish and a bit paranoid, looking around and especially in the shadows. But he had no clue you were there and led you right to a corporate building. He went up to floor 15. Though I rolled to see if you could skillfully enter the elevator with him, that roll failed and you were forced to hurry up the stairs. You have Celerity so that wasn't an issue, and this late at night there was hardly anyone else in the building. 

 

Upon investigating Floor 15, you were able to find Dr. Persey in a meeting with a person you were unfamiliar with. After successfully rolling your perception you realized immediately this was a fellow Kindred, though one you did not recognize. Since you didn't know the level of the Kindred's Auspex, I decided to keep you outside the door where you were able to listen to the private meeting. It appears that Dr. Persey is conducting special experiments on different kinds of Kindred blood for this vampire, to try and learn why certain bloodlines naturally produce the same disciplines for everyone in the same bloodline. Why this experiment is taking place, you did not learn. The Kindred did not discuss this with Dr. Persey. Dr. Persey's initial results are apparently very interesting, but he did not say aloud what they were. It is likely that you missed that part of the meeting when you were forced to go up the stairs.

 

Instead, Persey handed over a batch of paperwork, which the Kindred immediately put in a private briefcase without looking them immediately over. Persey was then dismissed and with the meeting over, you decided to continue to follow Persey. You now know where he lives. Then you returned to The Hotel. 

 

Here is a full physical description of the Kindred you saw. (Description). 

 

You have now used one of your moves for the week. If you would like to pursue this matter further you can use another, let me know. You have also gained 2 experience points which you can add to your character sheet. One is for Participation, and the second is for Success in your mission. 

 

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CHARACTER BUILDING Strategies: 

 

When you accrue enough XP to level up an aspect of your character, you are free to send an email describing what specifically you are leveling up and how you are going about it. This is a free, extra e-mail that will not take up any of your moves. As soon as you accrue enough xp, feel free to do it.

 

Depending on what you are leveling up, and what level you are leveling it to, it will take some time to train before it actually increases. So your characters will likely always be in training on the side, and when the appropriate time passes, it will increase and you can move on to the next thing you want to improve. You can improve 2 things simultaneously, but no more, and the two things must be in different categories. So you could upgrade an attribute like Strength and a Discipline like Potence simultaneously, and really become much stronger physically once you have successfully trained both up. Once the first one has completed, you can immedately start improving something else if you have the points to do so.  

 

Often, you will need an IC mentor to level up an aspect of your character. If you don't have one, you will have to spend a roleplaying strategy to find one. Kindred always deal with prestation, so if you choose a Kindred trainer - necessary for certain things such as discipline increases or certain Lores - you will now owe that Kindred a debt. However, with mortals you can simply pay them in cash. You will pay them $5,000 per level you are increasing to. So to use a mortal trainer to get from level 1 to level 2 on something, you will need to spend $10,000 of your cash bankroll. 

 

Using your rp strategy and character building strategy can be a combined e-mail. If one of the other players has that aspect already, you can use Prestation to learn from the other player and CC that player in the email loop. Here is how to contact me about this, in both regards.  

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Dear Alan, 

 

I want to enhance my Melee combat skill with swords from 3 to 4, and really be able to fight well in combat. As none of the other players have this that I know of, I need to find an NPC trainer. I'd prefer to get a human to a Kindred, in order that nobody should find out that I've done it. 

 

Therefore, I am going to use one of my Roleplaying Strategies for the week to research if there is a local swordmaster in the region that I can learn from. I will pay the trainer in cash ($20,000) and also seek to use Dominate on him to prevent him from discussing it with anyone. Also, this is the first step towards me eventually making this NPC into an retainer, as I expect I'll want to keep learning from him later, and I can always use a swordmaster for a bodyguard too.

 

Thanks,

Player

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Dear Player:

 

I rolled your research and perception versus 7 and came up with four successes. You were able to locate a high quality sword master, Ling Fu Mann, in Chinatown who is skilled in many different kinds of bladed weapons. Using your Dominate he easily agreed to your price and you have begun your training in secret at his dojo. As you are transforming yourself from merely competent to full on expert, this will take you a full month of intense practice before it kicks in.

 

As for making Ling Fu Mann your retainer, you will have to do that by using an Asset Strategy and taking him as a personality. But you don't have permission to do so yet, so you will have to get permission ICly.Or you can just spend the Asset Strategy without gaining permission. Hopefully nobody will notice. 

 

 

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Or from another player: 

 

Dear Alan: 

 

I want to learn Obfuscate 2 and Jerry knows it. I am willing to owe him a boon under the rules of Prestation, if he will teach it to me. Thanks. 

 

Thanks, 

Mary 

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Dear Alan: 

 

It's Jerry. I have no issue with teaching Obfuscate 2 to Mary. I can easily to this Icly while we have downtime at The Hotel. I am listing on my character sheet that she now owes me a medium level boon, though. Disciplines don't come cheap. 

 

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Mary and Jerry: 

 

As Jerry has approved becoming your IC mentor for level 2 Obfuscate, you can remove the XP from your sheet and the two of you will have off-screen sessions where this happens. Obfuscate 2 requires intense concentration in order to not "lose it" or bump into anything to disrupt it while you move. I am going to require Jerry to mentor you for 2 weeks before you gain the skill ICly. 

 

Also, Mary now owes Jerry a medium level Boon. That's his price. As Storyteller, I am acknowledging that. 

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And that's it. So, to re-iterate, you have 3 moves per Turn. You may choose which of them are Asset strategies to build your businesses, municipal assets, and personality assets and which are role-playing strategies to use to actually perform roleplaying actions in the game that can be anything else from engaging in a Fun Time task on the list, hunting for blood, seeking out contacts, performing a task for your clan, or anything else that comes to mind. You are limited only by your own creativity. 

 

When you have the XP and if you have an open slot out of your 2 character building slots, you can initiate a character build strategy email at any point. 

 

I will read and get to your strategies as quickly as I can. Please be patient. Also, you will note that my descriptions in the emails were quite descriptive. The more details you give me, the likelier that you will get the desired results if your dice rolls look good. If you are vague, the results might not be so good. As I will likely be getting a lot of emails from you the players, and as I have a real life to get to as well, whatever you put in that email? That's what I'm going with.