Quick post: Blood Money non-player Characters

I haven’t forgotten about this project. At some point I do intend to finally get all my campaign notes up about this Vampire: The Requiem game I finished over six months ago now… One of the issues when faced with a political game with a number of non-player characters is providing the players with a useful way of keeping track of everyone they meet. Once the primary antagonists had been introduced (gradually over a few sessions) I knocked up this play aid to put all the character’s contacts and foes in the one place. I include it here as it a) took a hell of a long time to edit all the images until I was satisfied with them and b) because it will help act as a useful reference point when I start spelling out a few basics about each of these NPCs and how I used them in my Moscow game setting.

These images are drawn from a variety of sources, stock, screen caps, creative commons… I am asserting no ownership over them at all. In the unlikely event that an owner has a problem with my using them here for not for profit reasons, I’ll gladly take the image down.

blood_money_npcs (1.4 MB PDF)

Blood Money 2: Dark Territories (Part 2)

Completing the dissection of Moscow’s Vampire territories. Again the city map is here, some general notes on this Vampire: The Requiem chronicle setting are here.

Vampire: 4 essential ideas, 7 great moments, 1 session

I’m preparing for the second session of Blood Money, my Vampire the Requiem Chronicle. The first session went well, I feel. It gave me an opportunity to put forward a range of ‘essential ideas’ about the game world and play up the elements I wanted emphasise about playing a vampire:

• alienation from humanity – the strangeness of being a vampire, their control over and distance from mortals
• the overwhelming desire for blood — blood is smelt in a medical waste container in a hospital and it’s enticing. The victim of a crime, bleeding to death in a bath, is first identified as a warm, wasted blood…
• the predatory nature of a vampire — the character’s smell what’s in a room, what’s coming towards them, before they see it. Mortals occasionally shirk at their presence even though they don’t know what they are.
• the arcane and medieval nature of the vampire court and its practices — the wheeling and dealing, the politics, the titles. Deliberately flooding the players with arcane names, ancient grudges and esoteric titles.

Vampires of Moscow: a map

I like handouts. They add an additional layer of immersion to a roleplaying session and can help evoke the setting and the mood. When I started thinking about my Vampire the Requiem campaign, I knew I would have to have a map of Moscow from the vampire’s perspective. With its neo-feudal political structure, its hunting grounds and subinfeudation, I wanted to give my players to get a strong sense of the various factions at work and the scope of the city.

Blood sacks! Vitae play aid for Vampire the Requiem

First session of Blood Money (Vampire the Requiem mini campaign) is tomorrow night. Madly jotting down notes to add colour to the setting and throwing together some last minute handouts. I’ve uploaded a quick reference card I made for my new players to help them get their heads around how they can spend Vitae. Thanks should go out to the VtR forum members who gave me some input into what I’d left out 🙂

Bringing it all together: the Campaign Manifesto

I’ve been busy preparing for Blood Money, my Vampire the Requiem campaign set in Moscow. One of the challenges I’ve set myself it to make it a very visceral, exciting and player character oriented campaign. One of the great things about VtR is that it’s at both an empowering game for players — they’re undead fiends of the night, mortals are but cattle to them… — and a way to tell poignant stories — they’re undead fiends of the night, they’re forgetting what it’s like to me human… I’ve made a few notes, my campaign manifesto,  to keep me on track and act as a reference not only when planning the session but also running it:

Why Music is a Must in Roleplaying

Music really improves a roleplaying session. It can help transition players to the tone of a new scene, increase the tension  as a creature of shadow stalks the PCs down dark alley, up the adrenaline for a high-stakes action sequence or give the right amount of demonic punch to a dire ritual going on the Plateau of Leng…

Nowadays, putting together music for a session is easy. It’s a far cry from laborious task of switching out vinyl on the turntable mid-session or picking tracks to burn out on to a CD. MP3 players and playlists  make the GM’s task of organising a selection of nuanced, mood-enhancing music a real joy.