Tell me about VtM when it started

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I really enjoy this thread, but I have nothing to contribute, I only played the Vampire Bloodlines game or what it was called a few years ago, that's my only real exposure to the game. And I might have read some rulebooks? Or was that Exalted?

 

[Piperken]

I want to hear about your experiences before Requiem. How amazing was it? How big was it in your area? Did it bring more women to the table, as the documentary says?

One thing I wanted to add with V:tM's surge in popularity apart from Rice's fans/readership; this wave was transpiring everywhere. There were BBS/IRC channels with over a hundred players were role playing vampires/supernatural characters online.

LARP story games had a big influence, especially with how results from conventions dictated in some ways how the metaplot turned out; people were heavily invested in that (borrowing a page from the Society of Creative Anachronism).

 

[Mannahnin]

Dungeon looting hadn't caught their imagination, but undead punks trashing clubs in DC sure did.

The Black Cat was basically made to be a VtM setting.

Ha, yes! And Tracks, and the Capitol Ballroom, and the Roxy, and the old 9:30... Going out dancing turned into location scouting for our game plots.

As I recall, when the Cam first put together the Mind's Eye Theater LARP rules, part of the point and intent was to be able to play it in public spaces and nightclubs alongside non-gamers without them necessarily knowing what was going on or being a part of it. The various hand gestures and signs indicating use of particular powers, the combat rules being based on verbal trait bidding coming down to rock/paper/scissors for final resolution instead of dice, etc., were designed for that use-case.

Of course, in reality it still became apparent to onlookers that SOMETHING unusual was going on, and the hand gestures got misinterpreted as gang signs, in-character conversations could be mistaken for people plotting murder or other crimes, etc. So playing at night clubs and such got phased out after the first year or two, and when I was playing folks mostly used reserved spaces at colleges. The couple I played in public involved parts of hotels where the hotel had rooms reserved for the purpose but we could play (subtly) in public areas, and a Mage LARP playtest in Harvard Square where the players and storytellers were spread out all over.

 

[Ulfgeir]

As I recall, when the Cam first put together the Mind's Eye Theater LARP rules, part of the point and intent was to be able to play it in public spaces and nightclubs alongside non-gamers without them necessarily knowing what was going on or being a part of it. The various hand gestures and signs indicating use of particular powers, the combat rules being based on verbal trait bidding coming down to rock/paper/scissors for final resolution instead of dice, etc., were designed for that use-case.

Of course, in reality it still became apparent to onlookers that SOMETHING unusual was going on, and the hand gestures got misinterpreted as gang signs, in-character conversations could be mistaken for people plotting murder or other crimes, etc. So playing at night clubs and such got phased out after the first year or two, and when I was playing folks mostly used reserved spaces at colleges. The couple I played in public involved parts of hotels where the hotel had rooms reserved for the purpose but we could play (subtly) in public areas, and a Mage LARP playtest in Harvard Square where the players and storytellers were spread out all over.

We had according to legend one person in a gaming group that on a gaming convention in the middle of the night went down to the kiosk at the convention, more or less naked and doing the signs that he was invisible. That and his groups public burning of Magic: the Gathering-cards had him (maybe the whole group) banned...

 

[Evaniel]

I got into V:tM in the summer of '93, before my senior year of highschool. I was considering dropping out of RPGs entirely by that point. I was a big Anne Rice fan, and the local game store owner, knowing some of my tastes, recommended V:tM when I was in there buying comics. It was an impulse buy, but I gave it a go.

And I was immediately hooked, for all the reasons others have outlined above. It felt transgressive, it had quotes from books, poems, and songs I loved, and the presentation was unlike anything I'd ever seen. I also LOVED the lore.

I was doing some summer stock, and I asked some of my cast mates if they'd be interested. From there, we recruited other folks and pretty soon V:tM was what we played primarily for the next several years. It really did reignite my interest in RPGs. By the turn of the millenium, however, I'd gotten pretty burnt out on it. In part some of that was the metaplot being a bit much to keep up with, some was butting up against some of the mechanical absurdities, some was the grind of combat, and a negative experience with the local LARP that a friend had talked me into. It was a pretty...incestuous...scene, to say the least. The final nail in the coffin (har har) was probably 3e D&D coming out.

Still, that game was formative for me, and not just as a gamer.

 

[Alas]

So playing at night clubs and such got phased out after the first year or two, and when I was playing folks mostly used reserved spaces at colleges. The couple I played in public involved parts of hotels where the hotel had rooms reserved for the purpose but we could play (subtly) in public areas, and a Mage LARP playtest in Harvard Square where the players and storytellers were spread out all over.

I've heard anecdotes about the free-range LARPing, but never saw it myself. We preferred table-top; and when we LARPed, it was always in a rented community room, or in designated convention spaces. And at the convention, you had to wear a ribbon/tag that showed you were in character. By year 3 of a 5-year game, non-players at the con knew what they were seeing.

When we went to the club, we were too busy dancing to play.

 

[overgeeked]

We had according to legend one person in a gaming group that on a gaming convention in the middle of the night went down to the kiosk at the convention, more or less naked and doing the signs that he was invisible. That and his groups public burning of Magic: the Gathering-cards had him (maybe the whole group) banned...

When the Mage LARP rules were released we had a guy go around town spray painting utility poles with glyphs. He‘d use them to teleport around.

 

[Cergorach]

I wonder if the VtM experience was a lot different in the US then it was in Europe in '91.

At the time 1st edition VtM was released, I was 15. I was already well into gaming, D&D, WFB/40k, Shadowrun, Battletech, board games, etc. While very cool, there just wasn't room in my budget for another game line at the time. There was an older friend who bought just about anything WW at the time, so I read quite a bit from their collection. I also played WtM for the first time in a group with them. At the time I was either playing games with boys my own age (no girls), or I played in an older crowd where I was the youngest and some older women (compared to me), whom already were into gaming (as far as I could tell), did play. I never experienced directly the influx of female players by VtM. But you also have to realize, that VtM was an English publication, there might have been French or German translations, but no Dutch ones. So their sales/exposure was limited to either a very limited amount of game stores or a few English book stores, mostly concentrated in the big cities. The amount of female goths and metal heads I encountered was also very limited (neighborhoods/schools).

I do think that you need to separate the pnp RPG crowd and the LARP crowd, while there was some overlap, and people of one group often tried the other's activities, in the end LARPers tended to like LARPing, and pnp RPGers tended to like pnp RPGs.

In the mid '90s, after having played some VtM, Mage, and loving the Werewolf books I started to buy into them. Eventually as a group we started playing both Shadowrun and VtM, as a break from D&D, we did eventually return to D&D (and we still do). I am tempted to play a game of VtM again, but wonder if I would run W20 or VtM5e...

What WW did very well, even better then Shadowrun, was the meta story. A lot of book buyers didn't ever play the game or enough to warrant the amount of money they spent, they just read the stories, the background, and theorized a LOT!

I also remember Jihad/Vampire the Eternal Struggle (cardgame) also came out in '94, which was a great game and probably drew in more VtM via cardgaming (first MtG, then VtM)...

 

[Mannahnin]

I also remember Jihad/Vampire the Eternal Struggle (cardgame) also came out in '94, which was a great game and probably drew in more VtM via cardgaming (first MtG, then VtM)...

Still a great game. One of my old Boston area goth/industrial scene buddies has been the lead developer for for some years now.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I remember when Vampire the Masquerade came out. Even before then, really, because we got one of the preview booklets and immediately thought "what's this?!" I was already devouring Anne Rice's books, had read Dracula multiple times. I wouldn't say I was a Goth back then, but I was definitely on the verge of it. Vampire the Masquerade came out at just about precisely the right time. Our gaming group dove headlong into its world. And it was transformative. Not just the change in genre, but the change in how the game approached role-playing. How it guided you to think about your character, to play them. I'd absolutely call it a massive step forward in our role-playing growth.