While Mind’s Eye Theatre: Vampire The Masquerade is definitely a game, with all kinds of rules to help resolve disputes, simulate supernatural abilities, and provide other ways to interact with the fictional world of the story, it’s important to remember that it’s also a theatrical experience as well. Some players shy away from this aspect, saying things like “I’m no good at acting,” but the reality is that you don’t have to be an ace actor to learn a few tricks for getting in—and staying in—character.
Opening Ceremonies There’s an old pre-show tradition, shared by many theatrical troupes, where the company gets together to say a few things immediately before the curtain rises: words of encouragement, necessary reminders, some group bonding, etc. It’s a very good habit for LARP troupes to develop too, as having a specific game-on ritual helps get a game started right by organizing players, distributing essential information, and then giving participants a moment to focus on getting into character.
Step One: Gather the Players Ask all the players to gather around: no exceptions. If anyone is using the restroom, adjusting a costume, texting a friend, getting a beverage, or is otherwise absent or multitasking, wait for them to finish and join the group. Request that everyone put away their phones, tablets, laptops, rule books, and other distractions for just a couple of moments. Step Two: Ask for Silence Request that everyone be silent, and wait until everyone settles down.
It’s great for a game group to get together, and you’ll probably want to let people socialize for a little bit so they’re not tempted to break character later. This request for silence signals that the pre-game time is over and gets players ready to become immersed in the game. Step Three: Ground Rules & Recap Begin with a welcome and remind the players of the basic rules of Mind’s Eye Theatre—not the nitty-gritty mechanics, but the universal ones, like the no-touching rule. If your troupe has its own house rules, including any owner’s requests or safety concerns about the play area, this is the time to bring those up as well.
Try not to drag out this part, but make sure everyone has the basics down, as even veteran players can get a little lax after a while and might need a reminder. Once the rules reinforcement is finished, this is also a good time to briefly recap important events that have recently happened in game (at least those that everyone knows about) and to spread any rumors, breaking news, or other common information for the current session. Again, don’t draw this out too long, or it will lose its impact, but make sure the essentials are covered.
You can even foreshadow events if you like, though make sure you don’t ruin any plans the players are working on in the process. Think of it as the “previously on” opening of a long-running show, perhaps with a bit of a “next time on” trailer, too. You can and should make it engaging, but don’t make it so long that players lose track of everything. Step Four: Ask Everyone to Close Their Eyes Ask everyone to close their eyes for a few moments. Encourage them not to peek. This technique is more effective if you don’t inform the players why you want them to be quiet and close their eyes.
If you also use the Game-Off Ritual (see below), this is a good time to ask players to call up the impression they saved at the end of the last session. Step Five: Set the Stage Dim the lights, start the music, light the incense, and finish making the game area ready. Ideally this space should be mostly set up in advance, so that you just have to push a couple of buttons and flip a few switches. There’s a surprising dramatic payoff to closing your eyes on a normal room and opening them to see a changed space.
Step Six: Call Out the Mortals Now ask that everyone who is portraying a mortal—including ghouls—open their eyes and look around. Remind them of their differences compared to the vampire characters. A sample speech is provided below, but as with anything else on this list, feel free to customize it to suit your particular style: “Look around you. Look at everyone who still has their eyes closed. Look; look carefully. This is the only time that you can look at them in relative safety: while they sleep.
They are vampires. You are not. They’re dead; you aren’t. You love them, hate them, fear them, maybe even want to become one of them—but you are not them. Not tonight. Tonight, your heart still beats, your lungs still fill with air without conscious thought, and your body knows the little aches and pains of normal fatigue. Treasure this, or loathe it, but accept it, and remember: you are mortals. Now please close your eyes again.” Step: Seven: Remind the Vampires of What They Are Finally, speak to the vampire players.
Again, a sample speech is provided below: Proper Care & Feeding of the Undead Woodworth “Vampires...please open your eyes now, and look around. Regardless of your clans, your goals, your hopes, rivalries, or bitter hatreds, you all share one fundamental, inescapable trait: you’re all vampires. And tonight, all of you—some earlier or later than others, perhaps—opened your eyes suddenly and looked around. Just like you did now. Right up until that moment, and for many hours before it, you slept.
You slept like the dead, because you are dead. You have stepped outside the normal rhythms of life and remain suspended somewhere in the outer darkness. Your eyes don’t blink, your heart doesn’t beat, your breath doesn’t steam in the chill night air, not unless you will it. Look at the mortals: you resemble them, but you aren’t them. Not anymore. They are alive, and you are not. You are vampires.” <Pause> “Game on.” Step Eight: Exit and Re-Enter If you prefer to not launch immediately into play, one good technique to help establish setting and get people into character is to ask everyone to leave the play area and then re-enter in character. (A host character or others who would already be on site may remain, naturally.) This process allows people to get any last-minute rules questions out of the way, finish that last cigarette, tie up some between-game loose ends with their fellow conspirators, and otherwise handle any outof-character matters out of sight, so that when they enter, they are really stepping into a game-only space.
Hunting & Feeding How characters obtain their Blood points provides one of the biggest roleplaying opportunities. It’s often overlooked in many games, and yet it is something that helps enhance immersion. Incorporating story and character immersion into the experience of feeding makes it a fascinating part of the story, rather than simply a mechanical aspect of the rules, and it goes a long way to remind the players exactly what kind of monsters they are portraying. Make Blood Points Real One simple, but surprisingly effective, way to remind players that Blood points are not an abstract “power source,” but instead represent the real lifeblood of a person or animal, is to use some sort of token to represent them.
Small glass beads are cheap and available at most craft stores, and they can be pocketed easily in most costumes; alternatively, raffle tickets or small index cards can be carried anyplace that will hold a character sheet. If there are concerns about players cheating, rotating through different color tokens, having a Storyteller sign them, or other simple measures are generally sufficient to discourage abuse. Whenever a player spends Blood points, they should hand the beads to a staff member or tear up the papers, giving the process a real physical cost they can feel.
After all, it’s one thing to know in an abstract sense that you started the night with 9 Blood points and now have 3; it’s quite another to watch your supply actually dwindle in your hands! Hunting During Play A standard feeding interlude is 15 minutes, during which the player is considered out of game while their character hunts for suitable prey. This is a lot of time when weighed against the length of an average play session, and if not properly utilized, such a long interlude can actually be a a momentumkiller.
Fortunately, with a little preparation, it can also be used to really help players imagine what their characters are doing. When a player chooses to have her character feed during play, it’s best to have her check in with a staff member to report the activity for rules purposes and then move to a designated out-of-game space while they wait. Once they’re there, let the player take a few minutes to relax and perhaps tend to a few out-of-character needs like using the restroom, checking her phone, or grabbing a snack.
LARP can be tiring, after all, particularly during long sessions, and allowing players to use this pause as a chance for a quick break is a great idea. However, before the player comes back into game, help them imagine the feeding experience and also get them back into character. Leave some index cards or a notepad and pen in the out-of-game area, and ask the player to jot down a few basics of her hunting scene:
• Where did she go?
• On whom did she feed?
• Name one other notable thing the vampire remembers from the hunt. A few words or a brief sentence will suffice for each question; just encourage players to be specific. “Out; some guy; he was tall,” is perhaps a bit too vague for this sort of exercise; compare those answers to the still-succinct, “McGillan’s Pub; cute blonde; in her old Camaro,” which is much more evocative without having many more words. (If players desire secrecy for these notes, envelopes can be provided, or the entries taped shut for staff to open later.) These details cannot have mechanical effects—the vampire can’t name another character’s Contact as her target and drain it dry, for instance— but they are intended to make the time spent feeding feel less like a “time out” and more of a roleplaying experience. As a note, while using these moments to build a real, immersive world is good, it’s important that staff members not use the information on these cards to penalize a character, unless someone invokes the appropriate downtime mechanics or other rules to do so. Players are asked to be creative and evocative in these moments; if they are used against them without good cause, they’ll simply stop doing it, or give vague, defensive answers. So as tempting as it might be to decide that the new chief of police lost his daughter to a “mugging” behind McGillan’s Pub, thus putting that character in the hot seat, it’s probably best to not create such obstacles for the character, or the players are going to feel a bit betrayed for just following instructions. The point is to make the moment of feeding feel real, regardless of whether the character is stalking a target, breaking into a blood bank, or doing something else entirely. Putting a Face on Herd It’s important to remember that the Herd background represents a relationship that the vampire regularly exploits for her own benefit in a very intimate and physical way. In order for the player to really feel that connection, it’s important to take steps to flesh out and define exactly what those victims look like—and make no mistake, they are victims, the willing ones perhaps most of all. The simplest way to add details to a Herd is to ask the player to get a set of index cards, at least one per dot of Herd. For each dot, write down the player’s name and then attach a picture representing someone related to her Herd. (A simple image search will turn up a wealth of available photos to use for this exercise.) After there’s a face attached to it, give that person a name, or failing that, a simple description like “bored socialite” or “drunk beneath the Passayunk Avenue Bridge,” which the player can use to remember the victim. Leave plenty of space after adding the picture and the name, however—more will be coming. Place these cards on the Storyteller table at the beginning of each session, and every time a vampire with the Herd background wishes to refresh her Blood points during play, she must choose one of these cards to represent her convenient victim. These are not true NPCs and don’t normally require mechanics, but if it becomes important for some reason, any individual in the Herd counts as being a Rating 1 Stock NPC. Even if a vampire has 5 dots of Herd, no one member of the Herd is particularly talented or useful—if they want such capable followers among their feeding stock, they must purchase other Backgrounds, such as Allies, to reflect those exceptional individuals. During the 15-minute break required to use Herd for feeding, the player should write one new fact she’s learned about her victim on the card. It needn’t be elaborate or mysterious— always puts on Vivaldi before I feed” is just as good, if not better than, “bears a mysterious tattoo on his lower back perhaps signifying membership in an occult society” when it comes to humanizing a victim. Note that these facts cannot simulate skills or backgrounds that have not been purchased through other means, nor can they be used to take downtime actions or have other mechanical game effects without also using the appropriate rules for such situations. It’s also worth noting how the experience goes if the character has any flaws or other qualities that result in Beast Traits for the vampire or in exceptional pain or other effects for the victim—this is an excellent way to make sure the character feels the full brunt of those drawbacks, rather than simply shuffling them off to the side most of the time. As time goes by and the vampire feeds more and more, she will come to know these victims and have a sense of an ongoing relationship—even if the mortal is a hapless cultist only too glad to give up his blood to his dark master, learning that he also has college loans to pay off and an addiction to bad scifi paperbacks makes him a compelling small character. He’s not just a faceless source of blood, he’s a person. This sort of attachment makes actions that damage or destroy a vampire’s Herd rating that much more personal in her aggression— watching the cards she’s developed over time be taken away, along with dots of Herd lost, is an excellent way to provoke feelings of violation, outrage, and fury that such assaults would stir up in a vampiric heart. In most cases, these cards will represent individuals from whom the vampire directly feeds, though if their Herd background represents something like access to a blood bank, animal shelter, or other unusual source, it might represent security guards, receptionists, volunteers, or other mortals she encounters (or avoids) while making use of the location. Or, with Storyteller permission, the player could use a picture of the location itself and add facts about it and its operation; this is less effective for putting a face on the feeding process, but does give the player a strong sense of territoriality and familiarity that can serve a similar purpose for this exercise. So long as she’s getting attached to her Herd, then it’s working the way it’s intended. Players will inevitably ask if they can toss aside a Herd member card and start a new one. The answer, of course, is certainly— they simply have to describe on the card why the old Herd member is no longer one of their victims and give it to the staff, along with the new replacement. Even then, actually having to discard a “person” a player has developed on a card and may have knowledge of or ties to is far different from simply stating mechanical changes to a character sheet. Beast Traits & Frenzy Roleplaying a character’s struggle to master the Beast—or at least not lose herself to her primal side—is a major part of the Vampire: The Masquerade experience, and thus deserves some special attention. Many players find it challenging to give up control of their characters, perceiving Beast Traits and the frenzies that accompany them as a break in roleplaying rather than a chance to accentuate it. The following techniques should help remedy that situation, turning the slide toward the Beast into a unique and memorable experience that hooks directly into a player’s roleplaying. And All the Pieces Matter Each time a character gains a Beast Trait during play, she’s sliding a little closer to the edge of doing something truly terrible—the mask of humanity, of rationality, that she has is slipping away and revealing the Beast lurking underneath. One way to effectively convey is to develop a particular habit or mannerism that your character only demonstrates when she has acquired Beast Traits, one that becomes more pronounced as the numbers of traits rise. Think of it as a coping mechanism, if you will, an outward expression of the turmoil brewing in your character’s undead heart. For example, one common but very effective “tell” of Beast Trait accumulation is growling and snarling in a feral, animalistic fashion. At 1 Beast Trait, this behavior might be barely noticeable: a low growl at the end of a sentence, perhaps, or a slight snarl when addressing a rival. At 3 Beast Traits, the character might be growling and snarling almost continuously, softly sometimes but increasingly loudly as she goes on, perhaps even to the point where it interferes with speech unless she takes a moment to focus on what she’s saying. At 5 Beast Traits—assuming she doesn’t enter frenzy, which is a very near thing—the character is capable of very little speech, having reverted almost entirely to savage growling, hissing, and snarling to communicate. It’s important to remember that this mannerism or “tell” doesn’t have to be something so feral, of course. A few years ago, I saw a very good representation of this concept. A Ventrue player was the very image of the clan stereotype: neat suit, perfect hair, commanding smile—a modern big shot. You could always tell when his Beast started rearing its head, because he would reach into his pocket, take out a coin, and start flipping it. The more often he flipped it, or the more he grabbed it out of the air with anger, told you exactly how close he was coming to his breaking point. It was a wonderful tell, because it was still very much in keeping with his character, and yet it also gave him a way to express how close his Beast was rising to the surface. And when he put the coin away again, well, you knew all that stress was about to go away. One way or another. The Mask and the Monster: Making Frenzy Real Playing a character in the grip of frenzy is another challenge, and one that many players shy away from—they see it as a loss of control, but that’s only partially correct. The character has lost control, true, and some options are limited in terms of what the character can do, but the player still gets to use this moment as an opportunity to put her own spin on the situation. After all, going out of control is a wonderful excuse for a character to indulge some of her darkest desires and lash out at their enemies. One useful technique to help players get into the mindset of frenzy—as well as signal to other nearby characters that the frenzying vampire is out of control—is to use “frenzy masks.” These are not actual in-game items, just simple masks that players put on as an out-of-character signal that their characters have entered frenzy. The exact style of mask doesn’t really matter—it can be a plain domino mask, a simple surgical mask, a full hockey mask, or other style of mask, so long as it’s easy keep on hand during play. It may not seem like much, but psychologically even a simple mask adds a layer of disconnect from on the action, allowing the player to distance the actions taken during frenzy from how she normally feels about her character, and to heighten the sense of “it wasn’t me, the Beast took over” when the frenzy subsides. It also has the added benefit of dehumanizing the frenzying character for others around her—they no longer see the vampire they know, but something else instead. This practice can take a little getting used to, but it can help players sharply mark the distinction between the vampires and their Beasts. Of course, if players are interested in making their own frenzy masks, that prop can add a very personal and engaging twist to this practice. Some players may even become fond of the time they spend behind the mask. After all, the more time you spend behind a mask, the more it comes to fit you…. Game-Off Ritual One commonly overlooked part of encouraging good roleplaying is the ending moment. All too often a game will simply cut off, which can make for a rough transition back to reality and leave players feeling like the story was arbitrarily cut off, rather than reaching a more natural conclusion. Sometimes this can’t be helped, of course, but whenever possible it’s a good idea to have a game-off ritual. Step One: Gather the Players Just like the beginning, call everyone together. No cell phones, no removing makeup, no last-minute tests: just bring everyone together for a few minutes. Step Two: Share Stories and Wrap Up Once everyone’s together, it’s a good time to share some stories—so long as they don’t spill any secrets people wanted kept under wraps—and perhaps even narrate some off-screen action to foreshadow coming events, show consequences, or tie up loose ends. Encourage people to share funny moments, revel in a good dramatic twist, or otherwise bring up what made the session special. Keep it moving, but give anyone who wants a chance to chip in. Step Three: Spend a Final Moment In Character Once everyone has shared stories and decompressed a little bit, ask them to quiet down and close their eyes again for just a moment. Tell them to focus on where their characters were at the end of the night—how they were feeling, what they were planning, what they gained, and what they lost. Let them fix those impressions in their minds, develop them as clearly as they can so they can easily recall them next time, and then tell everyone to exhale slowly and open their eyes again. Game off. Step Four: Thank You and Clean Up This is also a good time to thank everyone for coming out and playing, as well as thank the hosts for providing a game space (where applicable). If there are special post-game cleanup instructions, make sure to share those too—hosting is a tiring task, but it should never be a thankless one! Moving Forward It might seem odd to spend as much time on starting and ending the game sessions as you do on game mechanics like feeding and frenzy, but on closer examination, it makes sense. With all the emphasis on rules, tests, and other mechanics, it can be a little too easy to think in terms of numbers and forget that the game is also about creating a real, dramatic environment where everyone can immerse themselves in their characters. One of the best ways to encourage immersion is to create that environment by having a structured process for starting and ending the game in order to encourage the sort of focus that roleplaying requires. By adding roleplaying and character development elements to moments normally ruled by mechanics, such as feeding and frenzy, you allow players to recognize those mechanics as a chance to move their roleplaying forward rather than set it aside while they resolve the rules involved. Ultimately every gaming troupe is different, and what works for one might not fit well for another. If you like some of these suggestions, but don’t like others, feel free to toss what doesn’t work and go with what inspires you. For that matter, if these ideas don’t work at all, but inspire something totally different that encourages strong roleplaying, go for it! The point is to find ways to enhance the experience for everyone—and if you make that effort, you’ll find it pays off handsomely in the long run for everyone at your game. Peter Woodworth is a New Jersey native and resides there still, happily teaching English at a small local college. He is the author of the Dead Heroes survival horror trilogy, and his short fiction has appeared in anthologies such as The Ministry Initiative, Gimme Shelter, and The Lost, as well as on websites such as Terrible Minds and 365 Tomorrows. Working for White Wolf, Evil Hat, Eschaton Media and others, he has also written a stack of roleplaying books for both tabletop and liveaction play, most notably serving as a writer and developer for White Wolf’s legendary Mind’s Eye Theatre line. He even enjoyed working as a rock journalist until his newspaper finally caught on that most newspaper readers are over 50 and do not know or care about Flogging Molly. When he isn’t grading papers or writing novels, he reads a lot, runs too many RPGs, is seriously addicted to Fantasy Flight board games, and LARPs whenever he can swing it. You can find him online at peterwoodworth.com.
Originally published in Mind’s Eye Theatre: Storyteller Secrets by By Night Studios. Presented here under Resources for chronicles and live play.