oWoD Pen and Paper

Hello friends,

Happy New Year 2015! I hope you're still here and well.

I would like to ask your help about something. Some friends and I are planning on giving a try to oWoD Pen and Paper, but I've never played anything but the PC games. I have done 1 or 2 sessions of DnD but I didn't like it. They've also have some experience with DnD.

The problem is that we feel very lost in the 500 books they have published on oWoD. Can you guys give us some help as to where should we start and which books will be of most help. Also bear in mind that I cannot convince my friends to read 5 500 pages books about something they're not sure they'll like.

I thought about starting with Vampire the Masquerade - 20th Anniversary Edition book. Will that be enough?
Also are there any pre-made campaigns that we can play, before we feel ready to try and create one of our own?

Thank you very much!

Regards

I certainly would go with the V20 Anniversary Edition if you plan to play in a "todayish" setting. Everything ou need should be in there. No matter the clan, disciplines, sects, paths, bloodlines, ghouls, ... everything.

Now, getting some decent adventures is something completely different. One good to get especially for unexperienced players would be the Giovanni Chronicles. This chronicle is set in the Dark Ages though (different clans - at least some of them, different sects etc). You can also play vampire as you like it. Take any vampire movie and go for it (Near Dark if you want something more Anarch/Sabbat like). Of course, don't take every information in those movies as true for the World of Darkness setting.

I think doing and representing the WoD right is the hardest thing. Especially in the long run, when different power players are involved.
Just make certain what type of vampires you want to play. Sit around and intrique in some court? Hack and Slash your way through the enemies? You could even go Indiana Jones style and search some ancient data/crypt or whatnot.

Just one tip. Try to stay with starting characters (aka no Elders, etc) as long as possible. I've seen too many groups with power hungry and totally overpowered characters. Which in my Book wouldn't have survived a single night in the first place.

V20 is all you need for rules. And even then you don't need to read all of it. Read character creation and the basic rule how dice pools work and how you combine an attribue and an ability for a specific task. From there you can just read up on rules whenever they become relevant.

Stick with neonate characters and the 7 Camarilla clans at first. You might even want to disallow Tremere and give Malkavians Dominate in place of Dementation.

As for pre-made campaigns to run I'm afraid I can't recommend any since I'm entirely unfamiliar with what is out there. If your friends are unfamiliar with Bloodlines a cheap trick would be to run a campaign based on the game.

What sort of a campaign do you want to run? There are so many books with so many of them it is actually hard to recommend anything without asking what might be relevant first.

Well, I haven't decided yet. It's hard to tell you want I want when my experience is limited to Bloodlines and half of Redemption.

I think I would like to stick to the playable clans of Bloodlines as those are something I'm familiar with to some extent. Anything else is a bonus. There are so many books I can find, but it's just too much to research them without any clear direction.

kyoden wrote:

. You can also play vampire as you like it. Take any vampire movie and go for it (Near Dark if you want something more Anarch/Sabbat like). Of course, don't take every information in those movies as true for the World of Darkness setting.

no. No. NO! NO! Do NOT use the T@*(%^t Movies for inspiration. Just . . . no.

with that singular exception, I think everything (including Blacula) is good. The Bela Lugosi and Vincent Price ones are amazing for scope. I ran a VERY successful chronicle based off White Zombie one time.

So maybe put your group together and ask them to prioritize: action, angst, combat, court life (as in backstabbing and manoeuvring), horror, political intrigue, scheming...

That should give you an idea what they want.

Some simple plot hooks:

-a group of Neonates is sent to fix a Masquerade Violation (kill the witness? steal the pendrive? bribe the doctor to send the witness to insane asylum?)

-a group of Neonates is sent to deal with an incident in the sewers(missing Nosferatu Primogen?) Nothing goes as expected (and better still never show the monster; sorta like The Alien: it is all the more scary that you don't know if it is there or not for half of the movie. But there are acid burns and scratching ... Close...

-Sabbat infiltrated the city and a group of Neonates is sent to deal with it.But how? How do they know who the Sabbat are? Do they kill the right people or do they fuck up and kill Cam loyalists instead? Consequences?

Thank you all for the suggestions.

I have a couple more questions though...

I plan on reading as much as I can from Vampire the Masquerade - 20th Anniversary Edition, however, how much am I to ask of my players. Some are okay with checking stuff, but others simply won't have the time or will to do it. Do you think there is anything shorter I can offer them in terms of getting familiar with everything, or should I just run the game as if they've just been turned and have no idea what's going on (learning as they play).

Also, should the story be a multiple session one, or should I try to turn the against each other at the end of the first one. The think is I'm not sure how many people we're going to be, maybe 5-6 which will lead to possibly having a member of any of the Camarilla clans and although I don't remember the details, I do recall that most clans hate each other.

Any suggestions?

I would plan for an ongoing campaign. Of course there is a lot of distrust between the clans, but also betwen vampires of the same clan. It goes with the blood. But that shouldn't stop kindred from working together for an important goal (or if the prince breathes down their neck until they got the job done). So don't worry about these rivalries; if your players really want to roleplay, that's just the spice you need...

And don't worry about your players not reading alot beforehand. The characters are neonates after all, so they know only what their sire told them. So the most important thing is that you as storyteller know the background, and decide before the game starts, which part of the official rules and background you're gona use, and where you prefer "houserules".
I have not much experience in playing p&p vampire, but from what I know it is a good idea to let the players a bit in the dark. The characters know next to nothing about kindred society, so why should the players?
And it gives a better grip on their behaviour. If they are dragged before the prince because they neglected announcing their presence before hunting, they can't refuse the task the prince gives them...

Thank you very much, Malkav. I'm definitely have to impose some household rules as calculations sometime become a bit too tedious.

I'm currently reading Vampire the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition and I plan on making my chronicle with those rules. I haven't read it all yet so I need some information.

What I've read before about the revised, second edition of VTM was that the rules were outrageous and it was very difficult to include some of the other lines in the games. Have any of these things been corrected with the 20th edition? I've seen mostly positive reviews so far. Also I know that they've published some other 20th anniversary editions, too? Can you tell me what the full list consists of and what is the official website I should be following?

V20 is almost the same s Revised. In fact some chapters match word for word.

For LWOD NY we had one person who's task it was to make all the rules work together. It was not trivial and it took a good deal of house rules.

The big games of the WoD are Vampire, Werewolf and Mage. There's also Demon, Changeling, Hunter, Wraith and I think Mummy.

I believe only the big three have gotten a 20th anniversary version so far.