Snyder’s Return

Interview - LoreByNight - Vampire: The Masquerade TTRPG

August 04, 2020 Adam Powell / Lore By Night - Podcast Season 1 Episode 10
Snyder’s Return
Interview - LoreByNight - Vampire: The Masquerade TTRPG
Show Notes Transcript

Today we venture beyond our world and into the World of Darkness, where monsters roam amongst us. I am guided beyond the veil and get a peek behind the masquerade as popular Podcaster and YouTuber, LoreByNight embraces me into Vampire: The Masquerade.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LoreByNightVTM

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Yours Sincerely,

Adam 'Cosy' Powell

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Guest: LoreByNight

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Snyder’s Return :

Hello, and welcome to Snyder's return a tabletop role playing podcast. Today we enter a world not of heroes but instead a world of darkness and to lead us through this world and focus on a particular area. I'm joined by popular YouTuber, popular podcaster discord coordinator and all round chronicler and storyteller more by night. Welcome to the show. Thanks

LoreByNight :

very much for having me what wonderful words you give to me and flattered.

Snyder’s Return :

Only things you've earned yourself. Some of the things I've mentioned there, would you like to give us a brief introduction as to how you got into tabletop role playing games and sort of focusing down on to your sort of game of choice and the topic of today's interview. Vampire the Masquerade.

LoreByNight :

Yeah, sure. I mean, when it comes to tabletop role playing games, I'm robber newbie, actually a little baby. It's not even a full year really since I played my first tabletop game recently.

Unknown Speaker :

That a year ago, ish. I bought Vampire the Masquerade fifth edition. And how is that came about? I've always have been interested in vampires and werewolves and similar creatures of the night that the weird mythos and history is behind all of them have always been a huge interest.

Unknown Speaker :

to mine, and last year,

Unknown Speaker :

again called vampy, a video game called vampir, which is basically vampire but with a fancy why

Unknown Speaker :

was was released and all I heard, you know,

Unknown Speaker :

people either hated it, or they loved it. And as I liked vampires and the best review I got was gonna be adequate. I found it a discounted price and I bought it, played it downloading whatever. And as I was playing with it, I was really engrossed with the world it was trying to create. And you know how you had these vampires that had like different factions, they all had different names for themselves and like these different breeds, and you can sort of see how this might connect around to Vampire the Masquerade if you're familiar with the system. And so I was playing that was finishing up and I decided I was going to get to the Platinum trophy because I played on ps4. And I was searching up various critiques and things that people were saying about it online, and constantly. People will referring this vampire role playing game to a note

Unknown Speaker :

A famous vampire role playing game called Vampire the Masquerade bloodlines. And I thought it must have been good if people kept referring to it or at least better.

Unknown Speaker :

And it just so happened at the time when I looked into it, it was really cheap. It was on sale, Gog, good old games.com as I bought it and download that. And within the first few hours of playing that game, I fell in love of it. Again, you have these different vampire breeds, but they're called clans. There are different names. They all had this all this political conflict with each other and some hated each other more than others, yet these factions which are called sects, it was just all really fascinating to me. It was beautifully well written. The animations are fantastic. I mean, it's a game that came out in 2004. And it surpasses a lot of things that we see today. So I was playing that, again, really enjoying it, and I was kind of aware that it was based off of a tabletop game of the same name, Vampire the Masquerade

Unknown Speaker :

But I didn't really think much of it. And because I was searching it up on YouTube and you know social media sort of like spies on you all the time. He kept throwing adverts and things on YouTube for me to watch that was related to bloodlines be either footage or LA by night, which is an ongoing actual play, which was to begin with on the Geek and Sundry YouTube and Twitch channels. And now it's moved on to the official World of Darkness twitch channel. And one afternoon, I didn't have a lot going on. I thought you know, I'm going to spend an afternoon watching this lie by night nonsense. That's what I thought at the time. But then I sat down I was sort of watching it and seeing the different categories or essentially is like an ad lib fit, improvised improvisational theatre, you know, the pretending these characters they dressed up and they were very distinct unique actors and how it was all been led by this guy Jason call. I didn't really know his

Unknown Speaker :

connection to the world of darkness at the time. But there was just something really fascinating my and with that first episode I decided I wanted to be a part of this, I wanted to play this game with people. And yeah, and then shortly afterwards I bought Vampire the Masquerade, fifth edition, hunted downs and various Facebook pages to be a part of and tried trying to meet up with people to play on that. And then I would buy an older version, the fourth edition Vampire the Masquerade 20th anniversary edition, otherwise known as V 20.

Unknown Speaker :

And that's kind of how I got into it really. And just since then, I've really been obsessed with the law and the mechanics of this game and I just, I just fell in love of it all how

Unknown Speaker :

it's the tales of a personal horror trying to overcome what it means to be a vampire that you're both you're never dead or living that you're just these weird

Unknown Speaker :

bit in the middle like this constant purgatory, trying to

Unknown Speaker :

work things out like do you descend into the beast and become a true monster? Or do you just desperately cling close to humanity? And there's just a lot of it going on and I just I love the the role playing aspect of it that you that the focus on vampire is so different from other games because I've since then researched and looked into servers, but they're still stuck with the world of darkness games, there seems to be such a huge focus of in embracing the character created to pardon the pun.

Unknown Speaker :

Yeah, that's really how I got into tabletop games through vampire and that's what I've sort of almost stubbornly stuck to sevens.

Snyder’s Return :

Wow, that's nothing wrong with with having having an obsession and having something that you enjoy to the degree in which you do in the things that you do that we will, we will get back back to in a little bit, but

Unknown Speaker :

we haven't sort of touched on that.

Snyder’s Return :

Too much what the game actually entails. You mentioned it briefly about the mechanics how, how do we go about playing this game for someone that's potentially not heard of Vampire the Masquerade before? What do you need to play? And and how would you sort of progress through a session as it were?

Unknown Speaker :

Huh, that's going to be an interesting one. I've never actually thought about how you would play it with people before.

Unknown Speaker :

Okay, I'm going to attempt to describe it, hopefully not offend too many people.

Unknown Speaker :

Vampire is a, as I said, a tabletop role playing game and the idea that you would sit down with a group of people, and you'd all be these different characters, you'd all be a vampire. And it's led by a games Master, but in the world of darkness games. They're called storytellers.

Unknown Speaker :

And the game master storyteller would be the one that would conjure up the story, in collaboration with the players to see what they want to explore the sort of things they want to do that Vampire the Masquerade

Unknown Speaker :

usually set in modern setting so in the present day, but there are older versions of the book of the books rather where you can explore older peers like the mediaeval times, and the Victorian age. And

Unknown Speaker :

let me it's

Unknown Speaker :

in essence, it's, it's very much like Dungeons and Dragons in a sense, but there's the emphasis is different wherever that's more of a

Unknown Speaker :

will to be very crude. You go into a dungeon, you slay some monsters, you retrieve some treasure, you level up, it's all there's a lot of video game comparisons to be made with that. But vampire is a little bit different. It's very different from that rather because there's, you don't level up at such a deep session, you get some experience points to add to stats on your character sheets, and the character sheet being more a reflection of the vampire that you've created, which extension was a person before a human being before they were embraced.

Unknown Speaker :

So it's

Unknown Speaker :

a really tricky question to answer. There's I'm not even sure if I've done it properly. But I'm nice. All right, well,

Snyder’s Return :

the sort of thing I was I was maybe trying to allude to so so dungeons and dragons and other systems you require d 20. dice and and a range of other dice to roll and then compare to stat and things like that. So mechanically, how does Vampire the Masquerade work if, if you when a group sat down so storyteller and and characters, what would they need to sit down and play the game itself?

Unknown Speaker :

I write more of a mechanical sense of a pardon. And well, so you'll be in your game doing things and let's say that you're in a city and you're trying to find, I don't know a drug deal, let's say, and you're you've been sent off to this nightclub, because that's the last place that you've been seen. But before you even go into the nightclub you have to do with the bouncer

Unknown Speaker :

And into the club. And there's a many ways that you could do this well, the only dice that you need with an pi or D 10s, which are 10 sided dice for anyone who doesn't know, and depending on how you would want to deal with the bouncer would determine the sorts of roles that you want to make. And there are two sets of all contests are done

Unknown Speaker :

with a combination of a skill plus attribute, I believe it's called in V five I'm just subtly trying to look at the book to remind myself so I have attributes and skills. So let's say that the bouncer that you wanted to go you know an intimidating like say some nasty things to him and try and scare him to let you in. To which you may be asked Okay, role manipulation and intimidation. You look at your character sheet and you see how many dots you had. dots out of five, you had no manipulation and in skills you will then find where it said intimidation

Unknown Speaker :

And how many points you hadn't that just if you had to manipulation and freakin intimidation, you would roll five dice.

Unknown Speaker :

If you wanted to try and flatter the bouncer to let you in like you would just stand it was your stunning good looks or whatever you may use charisma and see, trying to think of this often this bought persuasion like charisma and persuasion. And again, you look at the attributes CRISPR plus persuasion and you add the dots together and you roll them and the five has a

Unknown Speaker :

two different systems when it comes to dice v five has its own d 10s, which has a variety of symbols

Unknown Speaker :

angst and skulls arms been trying to like those Egyptian

Unknown Speaker :

crosses for lack of a better description. And depending on how many those you would get, would determine whether you succeeded or failed.

Unknown Speaker :

And without having, like images. I mean, you could look it up and you can on google images or whatever and see the Dyson question.

Unknown Speaker :

But things get a bit more complicated because the thing with vampire that I somehow haven't mentioned yet, is that vampires are in Vampire the Masquerade. They are battling something known as the beast. There is a thing inside and that swimming around in their blood that wants to take over and all it wants to do is just eat sleep. Repeat, basically, and it will just drain people drive it wants to in the whole thing, the vampires that you are constantly fighting against the beast to prevent it from taking over. And what Vampire the Masquerade fifth edition does. It has a hunger check system. So the player would have so many black dice which are regular dice. If you're using the hunger dice that is, and then they have its own red dice, which represents the hunger system or the blood which have also got their own symbols on them.

Unknown Speaker :

I'm a vampire is always hungry that that feeling of needing to feed never dies unless of course, the way that it would rise if when you're using your disciplines which are the fancy name for vampire powers, and each of the vampire clans or breeds have their own trio of mythical blood based powers. And you would refer to the rule book and you'd see you would have to make it what's known as arouse check and I'm making sure to split those two up separately, Rouse check. And if you succeed, you don't get hungrier. If you fail, you haven't, you have to add a red hunger dice. And what the issues that that can cause is, if you were to fail on your hunger dice, roll say if you, you made your dice roll and it was all fails, but there was a special skull with fangs on the hunger dice that would be known as a beastial failure which is when the beast will take over

Unknown Speaker :

trying to think of a scenario

Unknown Speaker :

you're trying to let say that you're trying to intimidate someone this use the bouncer example, again. You've tried to intimidate the bouncer but you've got a beastial failure. Not only would you as the person would feel annoyed, but the beast within you would be exceptionally annoyed and would probably tolerate retaliate, retaliate. They get pardon, retaliate by I don't know, ripping the bouncer open like because that the animal inside of you the beast has taken over and wants to right this wrong as it were. And then you can also get

Unknown Speaker :

I forgotten the name of it. There's a there's a critical you can get critical successes where you exceed a task. succeed at a task particularly well. I'm trying to remember the name of it, but there is a form of success you can get with hunger dice,

Unknown Speaker :

which can be a bad thing as well when the beast will help you, as it were, do the thing that you're wanting to do like say

Unknown Speaker :

That you're wanting to break into a house and you get this particular success, which is completely gone from my memory, you may be able to get into the door, but the beast like overpowers in a way and you rip the door off. So it's an interesting system that really incorporates and encourages this idea with it's always been in Vampire the Masquerade that you're fighting with this monster essentially inside of you. And whereas in previous editions, you have a blood pool, which is essentially it's a bar that you use your disciplines your powers, and you have to remove so many points of blood, but the hunger systems a bit more relevant and not so vague.

Snyder’s Return :

Okay, okay, so you have spoken about sort of the sects and things like that and where where would you recommend people go to maybe learn more about these, these sects and and subcultures within, within the game itself?

Unknown Speaker :

Well if you require more information regarding all of those things outside of the books, there's a load of really, really cool sources that you can check out, of course, the law by night podcast, which is a podcast that discusses all things vampiric with no fear of reaching the masquerade. It's the podcast that I run, it's a weekly podcast.

Unknown Speaker :

As I said that unravels all the laws of the characters, the meta plots, the sex and the factions and the various clans of Vampire the Masquerade just because it's a game has lasted about 30 years and just trying to truncate that down to the bare basics is, um, I think what was really important sometimes for people entering the system. There's also you could check out my friend and fellow fellow vampire keynote scholar, the president, who uploads his own take on the laws of all the things I've just mentioned on his YouTube channel.

Unknown Speaker :

Let's see. Of course, you've also got the gentleman

Unknown Speaker :

a gamer who's influenced and inspired a lot of fellow vampire World of Darkness content creators, Matthew Dawkins who now well he's actually one of the authors of the five and along with a load of other various World of Darkness books you've got out star who works with the world of darkness now she has a small selection of really insightful takes on the laws, some of which you can't find anywhere else. Yeah, there's loads of sorts of course you can always there's always at least one good person on various like social media pages, whether it's Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, or the literally hundreds of discord servers that exist, including including the law by night A Discord server, which I'm frequently told is one of the more pleasant and inviting the discord servers in the world of dance community, which is a really lovely comment to hear, but don't take my word for it.

Snyder’s Return :

Take mine because I'm part of that Discord. And yeah I totally agree. And hopefully we'll get links to all of that stuff in the description below the podcast. So you spoken there about other people that have gone through the different types of law. What does the society look like? Because from my understanding groups that play in Vampire the Masquerade, don't you're not in a adventuring party or your four parties?

Unknown Speaker :

Different collectives? Yes, the, it depends the sort of game that you're playing because this is going to link back to the factions. In their main There are three main different factions, you have the camera Rila, or some people would call it the camerea which leans in more to the Spanish origins. You have the an ox or the anarchic movement, and you have this apart and this about currently isn't in the five they have that there's like a law reason as to why they're not in the book. They're fighting this conflict called the gahanna War in the east. So it's really the camera and the answer.

Unknown Speaker :

And both of these factions, the adventuring party is to use your words that are referred to as a coterie a group of vampires that work together for a common task whether it's protecting a city or fighting against the enemy, being either the camera or the an ox, depending on the sort of story that you're playing. And sort of extrapolate that in a bit more. The camera Allah

Unknown Speaker :

faction, it's hundreds of years old, and they were formed in the 1400s I believe there's going to be one person is going to have a go at me forgetting that date wrong. Where

Unknown Speaker :

before then vampires just went around doing as they please, within reason I'm being rather vague there was that there's the concept of the masquerade where vampires would blame blend in to mortal society, but it wasn't as rigid as it isn't the modern knights and the reason being is that eventually the church the ruling party,

Unknown Speaker :

The Catholic Church, the ruling faction at that time, started to realise that something was up and they started calling for like witch hunts and vampire hunts and all across Europe, little empires and if thousands were destroyed. Alongside this, there was this sort. The way that the older vampires called the elders reacted to this, they sent all the younger vampires to fight for them whilst they went in hide. Sounds a bit familiar. They're

Unknown Speaker :

these neonates and ancillary, which is a fancy name. For vampires that have lived for about 100 years, it's more of a title than anything else. They didn't like this all too much. And naturally, they started a revolution. And this this would eventually result in the Anak revolt. We had vampires fighting each other in addition to vampire hunters, hunting the vampires. And at some point, a group of vampires got together in this fancy event called the convention of forms. Where they decided right we need to rein this shit in.

Unknown Speaker :

Now, let's, let's try and make everybody believe that vampires don't exist. And let's blend into society a bit more. And that was essentially when the camera was born.

Unknown Speaker :

The monarchs, this other faction are the ones who started the monarch revolt, they, they didn't like all of the politics, that the camera Allah was in instilling, but they knew that keeping up with the masquerade was a pretty good idea. And then you have this about where they, they don't like the idea, the masquerade tool, they believe they are bigger and better than the mortals. And they don't follow the masquerade in the traditional sense, but they do know that they're a bit more lacks, to put it politely about blending in but they do it so less than the other two. Yeah, and then the modern Knights in.

Unknown Speaker :

So the games in V five are generally two different sort of things. So in V five, a lot of laws happen between revised

Unknown Speaker :

20th anniversary edition the two separate additions but the 20 was collection basically of a lot of revised books into wants to make life easier for the storyteller. So between 20th anniversary edition and revised 255, a lot of things have happened, including what was known as the second Inquisition, the first Inquisition being the first, technically second group of vampire hunters from the church that was going to wipe all the vampires out. And the second Inquisition that happened around about 2008.

Unknown Speaker :

These was created by the American government, and they formed with the first Inquisition, which became known as the Society of Leopold. And they formed together to form the second Inquisition, where vampire hunters are a lot more tactical Now, obviously, because they've got, you know, guns, special gadgets and things. So it's a lot more precise and tactical than before, the wiping out of vampires, and the camera ruler has responded.

Unknown Speaker :

This by going into lockdown, they don't allow their vampires in the set in the sect in their cities to use technology. So phones out the window, email, social media, they're trying to push going back to the old ideas of sending letters and couriers to each other, and what the anarchic movement are doing now, they're sort of distinct, then, whereas before the monarchs were technically part of the camera. It was just the ideologies that differed. Now, the monarchs are a sect all of itself, who have moved themselves away from the camera and they,

Unknown Speaker :

the sword becoming a lightsaber, but in that they are not upholding to the masquerade as much as before. They're still using technology. And they're, the two factions are just fighting each other constantly. And I hope somewhere in that crash on the law that I've answered your question is the sort of games to expect.

Snyder’s Return :

Yeah, absolutely. Which actually sort of perfectly leads on to my Next question. So, new player joins groups storyteller passes over, vampire, the masquerade character sheet, they begin to fill out and they begin to enter into the story of this world together as part of the coterie. But where does a new player enter into this into this world? I suppose that would really depend on the sort of character they're creating. My advice would be, and if, if you're talking about a brand new player who was never, ever played vampire before, doesn't really know what to expect. I would suggest a new player to create a vampire that was only embrace like a day or two ago. So like the player know nothing about law, they don't have to try

Unknown Speaker :

too hard to fit in as much they can. They can learn as they play, which I think is a rather organic way of learning the system, because hopefully, you would have some players around you. Who, who would teach you through play. They

Unknown Speaker :

would be their character and they would lecture the do's and don'ts and depending on the game that they were playing.

Unknown Speaker :

All right, would they would they have a title or something

Unknown Speaker :

you mentioned like the neonates and things. Just trying to put everybody in the same hierarchy structure. Right. So, yeah, I mean, as I mentioned earlier, you said,

Unknown Speaker :

vampires, given titles, depending on their age, like a neonate, as you mentioned, would be a vampire that has been around for a few years that they know their way around, and they've, you know, they know their way around, but they're not terribly old, and they're not particularly powerful. younger than that, as a fledgling you know, as the name would imply they are little baby vampire, and they still got a lot to learn and the derogatory term for that is a lick.

Unknown Speaker :

As I said earlier on, an answer les is typically like a just 100 or so years old.

Unknown Speaker :

They're the ones who are sort of ruling the camera now, because of an event in V phi called the beckoning like this mystical force. It's pulled all the elders who are vampires are hundreds of years old, off to the east to fight in this conflict, and older still are vampires who are thousands of years old.

Unknown Speaker :

Methuselah is and I'm forever being told because I can't pronounce that word properly apparently, in Methuselah is have been around for thousands of years. And above them are the mythical antediluvian ins who are the 13 vampires that would then create the other vampire clans above them at the second generation, which are free vampires that were embraced by Kane of the Old Testament Cain been the the first murderer who butchered his brother because God because he was jealous that God preferred his offerings in canid. To the ties to the back

Snyder’s Return :

Catholic and Christian ties basically. Yeah, they're the the old story of Cain and Abel. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker :

So

Snyder’s Return :

sticking with the new player angle on this because I imagine not everyone may be aware of, of how rich and diverse and and this unique style of stealing the title of the storytelling. The Vampire the Masquerade presents once a new player a new vampires has gone through the embrace and and been turned for want of a better word. How do they? How do they align themselves? Or who do they align themselves with? And how does that influence how they play?

Unknown Speaker :

Well, I'd imagine as with most cases, they're there join, they want to join a game somebody invites them in, and it sort of, it's something that's discussed through what I call sessions zero.

Unknown Speaker :

Where people when everyone's sitting down together and they're talking about the sort of game they want to play, what they don't want, what they do want in the game, and they sort of decide amongst themselves, Okay, are we going to be vampires in the anarchic movement or we're going to be vampires of the camera. But if I suppose if you're playing a game, where the character would want to jump sect, or if you're playing a vampire that was just embraced or like a day or two before, I'd imagine the idea of the sect and the

Unknown Speaker :

movement would be introduced via roleplay. A good example of that you can find online. There's a on Twitch and YouTube, near dark studios. They are running a Chicago by night Chronicle, an actual play Chronicle being the fancy name that we vampire players call games. Because again, it's going back to the idea that we're sort of telling the story Game Master Rob, a storyteller rather than games master and near dark students.

Unknown Speaker :

One of their players is somebody who is either very good at acting, or I get the impression that he's not

Unknown Speaker :

fully aware of vampire world. So his character is embraced like a few days before the first game.

Unknown Speaker :

And his site does a really poor job of telling him what the world is like. And he's bought to a lesean, which is big, fancy word vampire court and the camera Allah. And he's introduced to the other players and, and through that role playing, he learns of the sector that he is in. And I think at the moment, when the last I saw which is a while ago, he was wanting to jump sex from one faction to another, which would have in game consequences, because as I said, the two factions hate each other. But

Unknown Speaker :

it does that answer your question.

Snyder’s Return :

Partially, I was intimating more towards the Clan structures that are options open to new kindred and those who have just taken the embrace?

Unknown Speaker :

I see yes.

Unknown Speaker :

tend to go off on a bit of a tangent with all these things. I do apologise for that not a problem.

Unknown Speaker :

Yes, as you were saying each clan the breed of vampire

Unknown Speaker :

by default each of the vampires are a suit the clan is usually associated with a given faction.

Unknown Speaker :

You have clan clan venture Ooh, who are stereotypically seen as the rulers of the camera Allah, the ventures as they are rules, they want power, to rule and to dominate over things. There's actually a power in the game called a discipline called dominate where you are able to matter words and give commands and people will follow. And in the most powerful versions of that discipline, you can actually force somebody to do harm to themselves which has great consequences to the character. You have also clan

Unknown Speaker :

brouhaha or to use the original pronounciation bruza. They are. They are the least stereotypically the leaders of the Antarctic revolt, they want to fight against the man and they were they their clan weakness because each vampire clan has their own distinct weaknesses, none of them's overpowered. They have a weakness where they get really riled up and angry and passionate, angrily passion it

Unknown Speaker :

rather quickly and there's like systems in place to determine when that happens. And, you know, they they want to fight against the enemies they want to, they're the ones who are most tied in with the humanity. They want that equality between kindred, which is the fancy name of vampires in the game, and the kind which are the fancy name from humans. So they want to create this equality between them, you know, just rising up the big man and to make things right again, as it were, but there's nothing stopping from players to be in a toy door which is basically

Unknown Speaker :

They like pretty things if we're to be crude for a moment, a toy door which is usually off the camera Allah can to be in an up game or a gang glare which is a vampire that has the ability to turn into beasts

Unknown Speaker :

which the gang grow usually of the Anak movement they can be in the camera movement, the the camera Allah sect as well. But then again, the Gangrel did used to be in the camera and it's because of certain law reasons why they moved over, but unless this unless you're playing

Unknown Speaker :

the storyteller wants to play in a game where they only want these vampires in this sect. I

Unknown Speaker :

I personally wouldn't stop anybody from being any vampire provided it made sense. And it was a believable character.

Unknown Speaker :

So you mentioned

Unknown Speaker :

a little earlier that

Unknown Speaker :

there are cities that modern days

Unknown Speaker :

So the V five

Unknown Speaker :

world takes place in Where is where is that sort of set? Where can people sort of focus down and maybe sort of look to understand the sort of environment that their poetry their Kindred are going to be operating in?

Unknown Speaker :

And well, if you don't fancy making up a city of your own or using a city that you live in for inspiration, there are loads of books that people can use.

Unknown Speaker :

Source books that caca can use I don't know if Dungeons and Dragons have their own name for source books that have pre made adventures as it were, or stories or Chronicles but I'm a vampire has quite a lot of books that people can use the cities by night that they could refer to five has Chicago by night, which is a an updated version of the old Chicago by night books because I think if they weren't the first they are one of the first

Unknown Speaker :

City source books that

Unknown Speaker :

White Wolf publishing, which are the people who made it originally created, and once they don't have Chicago by night, the thing is with that, inside the book you there's some stories or some jumpstart stories that people can follow through.

Unknown Speaker :

They have their own cat. Each of the stores have their own characters and other vampires, excuse me, and places that live within the city. So you can pick up the book. You can flick through get an understanding of what the city is like and how the vampires would interact with that city the sort of businesses they own the how they view each other.

Unknown Speaker :

Yeah, the that the books, the source books of this nature are really helpful from what I've gathered as I said, I don't own Chicago by night for V five, so I can't really say more than what I've read and heard about.

Snyder’s Return :

Yeah, that's fair enough. But what about your own your own stories? Do you set them In in any particular location, or how do you create the world around your pottery and your your players? Well, truth be told, I haven't actually run any games before. But I am working on one second. Suppose I can

Unknown Speaker :

give you a little bit of insight on that. So the game I'm running is a it's an older version of vampire called vampire, the Dark Ages as the 20th anniversary edition of the book. It's a pretty big book, actually. And the default starting year for that is 1242. So it's sort of in the middle of the 13th century. And, you know, doing a game like this requires quite a bit of research, just have an understanding

Unknown Speaker :

of what was happening during this period. And also it also depends on where you want to set it because what was happening in England at the time was very different to what was happening in Poland, let's say at that time, and I decided okay, I would like to do this game in England because

Unknown Speaker :

In the country that I'm living in, in case you couldn't tell by the accent.

Unknown Speaker :

And I knew that I could have spent a very long time research I have spent a long time researching, but I've good like, I didn't want this sort of game. I don't want this sort of game to be like vampire the History Channel, because at the end of the day, we are we're pretending to be that Empire. So there is going to be some leniency in terms of functionality. So

Unknown Speaker :

I decided I was going to create a fictional city. I haven't come up with a name yet. I sort of know where I want it to be sort of like the the Hampshire sorry border which is all towards the bottom of the modern UK map. I don't know if Hampshire I'm sorry, existed at that time. But for all intents and purposes, we're just gonna pretend it does.

Unknown Speaker :

And of course, a lot of it was also for me at least is going to depend on what the players characters

Unknown Speaker :

because I want this story to be more about

Unknown Speaker :

the characters.

Unknown Speaker :

That the players have created. So it feels more organic to them rather than saying, right, right just rather than putting them through a walking simulator, as it were, that they're just going to go do A, B, C, and D, because I think it'll be far more engaging if they feel so they are creating the world as much as I have. I have made this city I have a few ideas of sorts of characters and clans that I want to use, but I may totally disregard them when I start hearing about the character concepts and natural fact I have started doing that. Because the thing that the players are coming up with a really interesting and getting this idea of the sort of the themes this, it's from what they've told me, I won't say too much at this point. The concept of religion and spirituality, I can never say that word properly. There's going to be like a conflict between the spiritual religion

Unknown Speaker :

all against each other as well as the players coming to terms of being vampire and the traditional Vampire the Masquerade stuff.

Unknown Speaker :

And

Unknown Speaker :

I hope that answers your questions. I probably do.

Snyder’s Return :

Absolutely, absolutely. And I'd love to maybe get you on again in the future and find out how that that all sort of fell into place and how that's all gone for you.

Unknown Speaker :

I, I will take your waffle and I will

Unknown Speaker :

enjoy it because it's something that I've sort of recently learnt about I've not run a game of it myself and that's why I asked, you know, people like yourself with the lore and the knowledge and some experience to sort of help me understand

Snyder’s Return :

quite what the game entails and and where I can look to find those resources. As I say you've got your own podcast, YouTube and discord as well as other bits and pieces that are out there. But with that, sort of focusing down, what advice would would you give to some new players or new storytellers sort of look into maybe they sort of seen it on Drive Thru RPG or one of the other sort of Amazon or other retailers that are out there? I thought maybe maybe I could pick this up.

Unknown Speaker :

Well, I do agree that the five the fifth edition is the most friendly when it comes to new players. It is very good at giving a basic rundown of the various clans that are available. I mean, in previous edition there's more and with the five they're slowly adding in the more as I mentioned Chicago by night, introduced cloudless Sombra, who are a clan they do not have reflections and they can manipulate the shadows and darkness around them. They're not found in the main book they're mentioned but they're not. They don't have their own. You don't find out what their powers are and such from five. So besides that V five I feel is probably the most friendly when it comes to

Unknown Speaker :

Introduction as a as a player. But that being said, I don't think it's the most friendly when it comes to being a storyteller. Because you have

Unknown Speaker :

with the book, the various different rules and systems are sort of scattered all over the place and I don't think that's terribly helpful when trying to find things. And I guess if you want to play regardless of whatever edition, it's really the two popular versions that people were playing is V 20. Or Vampire the Masquerade 20th anniversary edition, or fi five and I suppose really, it's just just taking the plunge just going online, whether it's on you know, the Facebook pages are a good start because you asked Oh, hey, I want to play this game as anybody wants to play. And if they say yes, they might point you in the direction like discord servers or, or such and such does this go and, you know, encourages people to, you know, to go and do looking themselves it's gonna be a bit grating sometimes, but I suppose that is the role playing life is

Unknown Speaker :

as it were,

Unknown Speaker :

and

Unknown Speaker :

yeah, I just, I'm just really trying to not not try and come up with anything too complex at first. I mean, as I said earlier on, if you if it's your first time I'd focus on creating a character that's totally new to this as well. So you learn as you're playing. And the thing that vampire I do recommend that you read the books at least, like you get the book, read it through once and then read it for game so that you're properly digesting information. You don't have to do what I do and like snort every single bit of conceivable law for a nostril. Like it's, you don't have to learn everything about it to enjoy the game you can just all a bare minimum.

Unknown Speaker :

Understand how the dice rolls work because understand it better than I do at least. And understand how your chosen clan works and then everything else. You can just learn as you're playing life is really just taking the courage of asking it and whether it's going to be a post by play Where's you want to serve?

Unknown Speaker :

you're typing what your character does. Or you're with a group of people on Skype or discord, zoom or roll 20 minutes. And it's just a matter of just asking and meeting up with the right people. And if you meet over a group of people and it's not the sort of game for you, then it's not the sort of game for you, but you don't know really until you try.

Snyder’s Return :

Absolutely, absolutely. And I would encourage everybody to, to give these things a try. You say, you know, reaching out to Facebook groups and discord and things.

LoreByNight :

I can vouch that yours under the official word, darkness, discord, a very welcoming

Unknown Speaker :

and able to sort of embrace

Unknown Speaker :

sounds like I'm overusing the term, but embrace newcomers and, and sort of really support people and get questions about rules, queries and law queries and all that sort of good stuff.

Unknown Speaker :

Which is great to have as part of a community? I think so too. And it's nice that you see that as well because, um, I haven't had the best reception with some Facebook groups. And it just kind of annoy me though. Because unfortunately, the world

Unknown Speaker :

as I said earlier on vampire is a part of its universe is called the world of darkness. And for some people that apparently means because it's the world of darkness, anything goes, which is just clear nonsense. And, you know, if you mentioned the concept of consent in gaming to some people, you will just get laughed out and voting because a ban is a really stupid thing. It's millennial snowflakes wanting to take over the game, which again, is just total hogwash. And you know that

Unknown Speaker :

there's some places online, unfortunately, that are not open minded. They're not as diverse as they should be if you get what I mean. And I just wanted with a little

Unknown Speaker :

By night Discord server and indeed, with the social medias and the, the podcast itself, I want to try and bring all aspects of the family, which is the, the coin term for the community, family family with a V basically, it's a pun. And so yeah, I wanted to try and bring the people together doesn't matter how old you are, whether

Unknown Speaker :

you're part of the LGBT community or you're black, white, you know it. These games are for everybody. And you look through the artwork of all these books, and there are people of all sorts of races and cultures and skin colours. And there's some characters in the book that are

Unknown Speaker :

who are transgender that they, they don't align themselves stuff, and we're going back as far as the 90s. And these books have always been very forward thinking in that regard, and they don't really see how the people who won't some people who play them can't be

Unknown Speaker :

so

Unknown Speaker :

I try and bring on and we only ever keep the nicest of people there. And there might sound a little bit like a dictatorship but who doesn't want people to be happy? Who doesn't want to, you know, want some help? Because they're struggling with things. I mean, it a little bit of kindness goes a really long way. I think I'm absolutely and a safe space to play these games is ultimately what you're after. Yeah, basically you just condensed everything I just said in a few words.

Snyder’s Return :

But I'd love to sort of delve more into the clans and into the types of vampire and things that you can be if if you're free in the future to come to come back on the show and, and speak with me again. Obviously, you know, you've got your podcast and all the law side of stuff that that you put out and which I can only sort of recommend to people listening to this podcast, please go and check out the law by night podcast. But if you You willing to come back on and expand on the game and and what you're doing personally and things like that in the future. I'd greatly appreciate it. I'd love to just talk about things that I'm doing.

Unknown Speaker :

But no, in all seriousness, yeah, that would be really cool. I'd love to help out. however I can. Well, let's keep the focus on you and remind everybody where they can find you and your content. online and in the various places. Sure.

LoreByNight :

Well, on I'm available on twitter at law by night VTM. That's all one word. I can also be found on Instagram, it's a bit more complicated. It's law. And that's that's law as in L o. r e, as in to learn law rather than law la w anyway, so law by night and VTM on Twitter, and on Instagram, it is law underscore, which is like the line that counters the space by underscore night underscore VTM just a bit easier to read there Robin all squashed together. You can also find it on pretty much any. You can find the podcast proper pretty much anywhere that you would listen to podcasts, whether it's Apple, podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, you know, if you think of it, it's going to be there. It's on Spotify and it's there's also can be found on YouTube. And if you go to the law by night, Twitter, or Instagram pages, you will find the link that will find every single place that you can find that I'm aware that you can listen to the podcast, whether it be Apple, podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, etc. So it's all just conveniently in one place for people. Again, on the descriptions of the YouTube videos. You'll also be able to find links to the social media and the discord server and the discord server can also be found in this link on the social media pages. and links to all of that will be in the description below.

Snyder’s Return :

All right, well Thank you for your time today, you know until we can reconvene and lesean together again, I'd just like to thank you so much for coming on and speaking with me today. Well, thank you very much for having me. It's been a it's been a pleasure. All right. So thank you very much, and we will speak again soon. Indeed. Thanks for listening. If you want to hear more of us or to get in contact with us, you can find us on Twitter at Return Snyder. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, and also if you wish to support the channel on patreon@patreon.com slash nice return. music and sound effects provided for this episode are from epidemic sounds.com Transcribed by https://otter.ai