It’s easy to focus on some of the more aspirational elements of being Kindred like clan, sect, and your own ambitions. One of the most important aspects to being Kindred, however, is the notion of domain. For vampires, it all comes back to the Blood, and that means feeding. Domain is more abstract than herd — herd is a specific group of people from whom you feed, but domain is an expectation that one has the right to feed in a certain place. If your herd dries up...

The most effective Hunters know that every quarry is unique and wants specific things, even though monsters belong to categories. Some Hunts resolve by addressing the quarry’s wants somehow — some can be assuaged, put to rest, or even made to see the costs of their ways. Taking direct action against the quarry can definitely be effective, but carries risks. It’s a least-common-denominator approach, but sometimes it’s necessary. Cells that get into trouble via overreach, Despair, poor planning, or just plain bad luck may have to use direct action.

Think of sect as an ideology rather than a formal organization, and adjective rather than a noun. The sects aren't monoliths or even unified or well organized. They're perspectives around which identity coalesces. (Art by Mircea Suciu) "The Camarilla" doesn't do anything, but "Camarilla luminaries" or "the domain's Camarilla Prince" might. "The Sabbat" doesn't barge into town, but "Sabbat packs" definitely do. Conversationally, of course, say whatever you like, but in planning how sects work, they're abstract.

Working on things, and here are some wording style choices that can help you realize your Vampire chronicles.

Consider the sects as ideologies, consisting of members or adherents, rather than sects being entities themselves. So, for example, we generally change "the Camarilla does [thing]" to "[Thing] happens in many Camarilla domains" or "the Kindred of Camarilla courts often favor [thing]."

It allows room for customizability by domain, and it keeps the sects from being monolithic and governmental.

Howdy, #vamily! A few new streaming chronicles have recently started, so it's a good time to look into the themes of Vampire. While these chronicles and your own certainly have their own themes, some ideas are almost universally true to Vampire stories. #Vampirethemasquerade 𝔸 𝔹𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕥 𝕀 𝕒𝕞, 𝕝𝕖𝕤𝕥 𝕒 𝔹𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕥 𝕀 𝕓𝕖𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕖

(Nicola Samori)

The Anarchs are a sect or faction that has had perhaps the most varied history across the history of #Vampirethemasquerade. While the Camarilla and Sabbat are more extreme in their philosophy, the Anarchs have grown the most across editions. #vamily The Anarchs began as almost analogous to the higher generations, perhaps even a subset of neonates. But as the editions progressed, the Anarchs became more and more a sect of their own, with their own distinct ideology and flavor. (Photo by Ahmed Klink)

At its largest, White Wolf was around 75 people. In the heyday, we were always second-place in the RPG market, which had a power-law distribution of revenues. We overtook D&D exactly once, which overlapped with one of those huge TSR returns months the histories mention. Over the years, the White Wolf portfolio became fairly diverse, but not uncharacteristically so. Fiction was a separate imprint from games. Licensing obviously occurred. “White Wolf Entertainment” held the bar as its sole asset.

Those thou create are thine own childer. Until thy progeny shall be released, thou shalt command them in all things. Their sins are thine to endure.

That’s the Fourth Tradition: Accounting, and determines who’s allowed to stay undead in #VampireTheMasquerade #vamily Like all Traditions, many Kindred consider the Tradition of Accounting to be a great idea that lends itself to abuse in practice. Accounting is intended to mandate responsibility, to curtail the havoc of the past, when Kindred Embraced whole broods and God help the world for it.

Thou shalt sire another only with permission of thine Elder. If thou createst another without thine Elder's leave, both thou and thy progeny shalt be slain.

These are the words of the Third Tradition, the Tradition of Progeny. But what do they mean? Let’s start from the beginning. Creating progeny means making a vampire — killing a person and working a curse on them so they become one of the undead. If you’re going to make progeny, you likely have a reason to make progeny.

Thy Domain is thy concern. All others owe thee respect while in it. None may challenge thy word in thy Domain.

Those are some potent words, and millennia of interpretation has emerged surrounding what exactly this Tradition of Domain means.

#vamily #VampireTheMasquerade In anything but the most tyrannical of cities, every Kindred has the right to some amount of domain. It may be as little as "your haven is your domain and anything else you have to enforce." It may be "a few blocks surrounding your domain."

Think about what you say! In #VampireTheMasquerade, choose your words carefully, and where appropriate, have them emphasize the Kindred condition. #vamily For example, have Kindred refer to “tonight,” “this night,” “several nights from now,”etc. Unless they’re specifically referring to events that happen during the hours of daylight, they don’t often mention days.

Celebrate the Night Plainly put, the night is different from the day. What we see takes on a different cast by the light of the moon than it does under the bright sun. Other sensory detail emerges at night, too. The night has its own smells, its own set of sounds. (Art by Nicole Rifkin.)

Horror trades on the unknown. We tend to fear, dread, or suffer anxiety over what we don’t know. For the horror player, this can be a thrill. But be aware that for many people, these negative emotions aren’t thrilling, and horror won’t be to their tastes. That said, horror is frequently a difficult genre in which to set games, because of games’ interactivity. In non-interactive media, the pace is controlled by the writer/ director/ etc. In games, the pace is heavily influenced by players, through their actions.

One thing Vampire has prided itself on is its literary pedigree, drawing from works of fiction that have their grounding in the gothic and romantic literary traditions as well as various eras of genre fiction. But one thing that comes out really well in the game that isn't so visible in traditional fiction is that, as a game, Vampire makes for success vs. failure states, and builds game context out of them. The "failure can be interesting" argument.

A huge part of Vampire is its social setting. If the classic fantasy RPG setting is the dungeon, the classic Vampire setting is a party. What seems like a simple analogy is actually a fairly radical departure. A party is an event, as opposed to a location. As an event, a party is finite, transient, even gossamer. And all the best (i.e. most socially connected) vampires will, before the conclusion of one party, move on to the next party.

As a Storyteller, you're not writing stories that your players are allowed to touch, you're creating scenarios that bloom with their input. One important part of this is allowing for failure in both soft and hard states. A soft failure is a setback or other player-committed complication. Soft failures make failure engaging because they add new interaction possibilities and enrich the narrative.

Following up on this from yesterday. This doesn't mean game world history has no value. It's that much of game world history is non-interactable. Which is fine for things that are passively consumed.

https://twitter.com/jachilli/status/1026511011073802240

Games, though, are a medium distinguished by their interactability and the function of those choices. Which is why supplementary material is often best used to provide context for choices.