FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Just to make sure that I don't give you the wrong impression:

I don't dye my hair black, wear white face paint, black out my eyes, wear red contact tenses and I really do not like the novels of Anne Rice. I do wear a lot of black, but that's because all of my clothes always match and black never goes out of style.

My favorite RPGs include Traveller, Space: 1889, Call of Cthulhu and I've even participated in a Champions game recently. I own an Ork army for Warhammer: 40K and I love Torg. I've been playing RPGs for nearly fifteen years. I love RPGs, all kinds of RPGs. In other words, I'm a normal, healthy gamer.

Just last month, when we were at Orc-Con (the local LA convention), I had an opportunity to play in a live action Vampire game run by a local group who call themselves "Sneezing Lizards" (don't ask; I didn't). I stood in line for registration and when I reached the front, I discovered they had a "Cast List" for the evening's story. One by one, the players in the line were filling up the list. I found that a single spot in the Tremere Clan was open and I jumped at the chance.

I went into a small room where the other Tremere had gathered along with our group's "Narrator" (a kind of mini-GM who settles mechanics questions and conflicts). The character sheet let me know all about my character, but left me enough space to "fill in the blanks." The Narrator let us in on the plot for the evening and the parts we would play in it. He also let us in on our own little sub-plot and clarified any rules questions we might have had. The Narrator was patient, concise and friendly.

While we prepared for the evening's activities, I had a few private questions for the Narrator. He told me, "Numbers are numbers. The character is up to you. Feel free and have fun." I smiled. I had been a little leery of playing live action Vampire, but the folks I met set me at ease. This was going to be a blast.

The Game

Live action Vampire works much the way that its table top counterpart does. You've got vampire Clans (family groups) trying to gain political advantage against opposing and rival Clans while keeping their nature a secret from humanity. The setting has remained the same, it's just the rules are a little different. It's trimmed down a bit with dice getting replaced by a game of Hand (Rock, Paper, Scissors).

There are 3 groups of Attributes - Physical, Social, Mental - and instead of numbers, each player has a list of adjectives to describe his character. A typical character sheet might took something like this:

PHYSICAL (3): Strong, Enduring, Brawny
SOCIAL (5): Alluring, Charming, Dignified, Genial, Intimidating
MENTAL (7): Alert, Intuitive, Knowledgeable, Perceptive, Shrewd, Vigilant, Wiley)

When characters come into conflict, they have to perform "Challenges." A Challenge involves both characters "bidding" Traits against each other. In short, it's kind of like a game of chicken. If a character loses a Challenge, they lose the Trait they've bet, and can't use it for the rest of the evening's entertainment. So, lets say that I'm trying to hit your character and your character is trying to dodge. We both bid a Physical Trait and we play Hand Over Fist. If you win, I miss and lose my Physical Trait. If I win, you get hit and you also lose your Trait. There's more to it (like Wounds, Willpower and Blood Points), but that's the core of the rules. It's pretty fast, simple and easy to remember.

That's just about all I learned about the game from reading the rulebook, Much of the rulebook is unclear on a lot of points (a very important rule called "Free Escape" got left out of both the first and second editions and was included in a nonessential supplement), and didn't really give a GM any help when it came time to actually run one of these events. I was very glad to find out that Sneezing Lizards have run a great many of these things, and have learned from past mistakes.

Since we were out in the open at the Con (outside), we had to follow the normal rules of the Masquerade. No-one who wasn't playing the game should know that we were playing the game. I found the experienced players in my group were more than willing to help me out with my first conflicts (to my surprise, so were the folks I was contesting with!) and there was very little use of rules. Most of the evening consisted of social interaction.

The story was simple- It was the 13th Century (we were playing a Dark Ages game). All of us were neonates arriving for a party in celebration of "coming of age." There were about ten of us, a few from each Clan, and arrived, we found that out Elders we to be found. There was a slight mystery in the air, and a hint of foul play.

Our group and a few others suspected a test of some kind, but other groups began to panic. This simple set up began a series of political maneuverings that would nearly bring the "Final Death" to every vampire in the place. And just in case we didn't get the hint, there was an army of crusaders just a few miles down the road coming this way. Apparently some peasants told them there were vampires in the castle, and those bloodthirsty knights were just aching to take out some holy hell on our undead hides. We were screwed.

The night swiftly turned into a "who is going to take command of the situation" power play. Our group agreed right off that we really didn't care who was in charge of the situation, we just wanted to get the hell out of there. Unfortunately, we soon discovered there was also a small army of werewolves outside. Apparently, somebody had let them know about the party as well.

The whole evening seemed to be conspiring against us and time was running out fast. We'd have to work together to get out and with all the bickering and conspiring going on, it didn't look like we'd be celebrating our victory the next night. It all ended with a bloody battle between the Brujah and the Ventrue (no surprise there), an alliance with the werewolves (it was us and the Gangrel), and a whole lot of others getting whacked by the fires of the holy crusade.

It was a whole lot of fun and afterward, we all gathered together in a single room and told our stories, Clan by Clan. That was the best part. We all got to pose and posture a little and cast a little blame around the room for out failures, but everybody laughed and took victory and defeat with good spirits.

LASTING IMPRESSIONS

I took back on the experience now and understand why I had such a good time. Yes, I'm a Vampire player/GM, but that had very little to do with it. The main reason I had such a good time was because of the people I was playing with.

There were a lot of good roleplayers there, not only the Narrators, but my fellow players as well. We were all willing to work together to create a good story. The Lizards folks took a lot of time to organize the evening, providing everyone with enough character and background, but also providing enough leeway to give the character a style of our own.

They were all looking out for everybody, making sure that every player was having a good time. If someone looked frustrated, they were approached by a player or a Narrator and asked if there was anything they could do to help. It was a very good environment for role playing.

I honestly didn't know what to expect going into it, so I have to be honest when I say that I shouldn't be surprised that I was surprised. A lot of gamers (myself included) may expect to go into a LARP having to contend with a gaggle of "wanna, be-actors" all posing and preening and wishing they were Tom Cruise.

Well, that wasn't what I found. Now I can only talk from my point of view from the game that I attended, but I have to say that I had a blast at Orc-Con. I'm looking forward to the next one, mainly because I won't need to go out and dye my hair black, buy a pound of Bryl Creem and study Anne Rice novels all night to have a good time. All I have to do is bring me own humble roleplaying skills.

And I can leave my dice box at home.