Gaming: Thoughts on Vampire
When Vampire: The Masquerade came out I was thrilled. I read through the book and loved the theme of personal horror. The system, with the importance placed on Self Control, Conscience and the retaining of one's Humanity did a lot to try and reflect what it would be to become a monster. I played in a game and had one of the best roleplaying experiences I had ever had. To make my character even more tragic, I started with a mortal based on the Mel Gibson character in Lethal Weapon (the first one), an undercover cop with a death-wish. I thought it would be great to play a depressed suicidal guy who has been made immortal. Then, shortly after he was embraced he met the love of his life: another Vampire. She helped him through the horror of self-discovery and made it a little less painful. I was enjoying the game, but something happened.

As the rest of the players were worked in to the plot, the game became about politics and action and the more personal elements were lost. Alisia, my characters girlfriend, faded into the background and the fact that one was a vampire was only remembered when we had to feed (which was played as a quick dice roll) and when we used our "dark gifts." The game also became more political (as most Vampire games are these days) and the GM decided to throw more plot elements in dealing with the Camarilla (the society of Vampires) and the in-fighting.

Something was lost and after playing in a couple of campaigns, I realized that most Vampire GMs and players were forgetting what was, to me, the most important element of teh game. Vampires are monsters! The game was supposed to be a horror game and the horrible part was becoming part of the background.

So, I decided to remind the players I played with. I did a one-shot game (which was actually played over two nights) where I had them make up themselves in the Vampire system. No powers. No clans. Just stats and skills. They had unlimited points to do this with, but they had to be honest with themselves. (Most players ended up with low attributes but a lot of "one-dots" in skills.) The descriptions in the Vampire game for attribute and skills made it pretty easy to create onesself. Then we played.

...and they were embraced.

It was intense.

This scenario came up in conversation at ACN. During Nobilis in a typical gamer-tangent we talked for a few minutes about WoD and I told them my thoughts on Vampire and about this scenario. I had forgotten about it until then but now I am thinking. Amber players are some great roleplayers and some of them would probably be interested in giving this scenario a try. I could run it at an Ambercon (shedding the V:tM trappings and doing my own version of Vampires) and probably get one hell of an intense game. Maybe too intense.