Creating a World of Darkness campaign. Need Advice.

[Vern5]

So one of my friends talked me into creating a campaign for a session of tabletop gaming. I'm not bad at crafting any number of interesting scenarios but I don't feel completely confidant to write a World of Darkness campaign when I don't exactly know all of the lore. The majority of what I know of the World of Darkness setting comes from playing Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines and idle hours of browsing various wiki for more information. Any advice will be appreciated.

The campaign: the player characters are secretly kidnapped and dropped off inside the walls of a reclusive commune. All of the players are fitted with explosive collars triggered to detonate if they try to escape the commune. Additionally, each player is fitted with a tattoo or sub-dermal implant that is supposed to help them during their mission.

The mission is for the players to find their way to center of the commune and secretly steal an artifact of great occult value from its ruling citizens. Then, the players must deliver the artifact to an evacuation point whereupon they will be freed and delivered to a neutral location. Normally, this sort of heist would be impossible but a recent insurrection within the commune has created the perfect opportunity to acquire the artifact.

The whole campaign comes from a weird dream I had once but is mostly inspired by Dead Money's heist (The Fallout New Vegas addon) and the civil war from Bioshock Infinite.

My Questions:
1)I was considering running this campaign using Mage or Hunter. Which would be more suitable?
2) The commune is simply an independent community with two warring factions that I would craft from scratch. Is there a better, lore-based alternative?
3) Am I being too ambitious for my first attempt at a tabletop scenario?

Ideas and suggestions are welcome. Thanks in advance

 

[Illesdan]

My question is, do you have the Vampire: The Masquerade (2nd ed) rulebook, or are you playing Vampire: Requiem (which you need the WoD rulebook for).

Since this is your first time being a storyteller, I would limit your players to being vampire only. When you start mixing in other things that are wildly insane to keep track of (ghouls, werewolves, mages, hunters, etc.,) it becomes a real hassle. I ended a campaign the same night I started it, because I had one player playing a werewolf who decided he was going to be a dick and throw the vampires out in the sunlight from a moving vehicle. I said, 'Fine, if that's what your bound and determined to do. But, we're ending right here, because I'm not in the mood to be saving people or sit all night through another batch of character creation.' So, yeah, telling people they can be whatever they want to be sounds good on paper, but it's a real nightmare when you have bad players.

Now, you weren't really specific on Question 1: Is the Mage/Hunter your bad guy, or is that what you're expecting the group to play? If the characters being brought in are new, I would go Mage. If you have seasoned characters, or, at least seasoned players, then you could probably throw a hunter at them.

Unless you're dead-set on creating a whole bunch of people, I would look to established lore for your story. Your setting sounds perfect for the stranded/kidnapped party to be infiltrating a Tremere chantry. And, well, everybody hates the Tremere anyway, so, bonus all around. You could even make it two separate sects of Tremere that are vying for said artifact.

It sounds like it could be fun campaign, overall. If you have questions, feel free to PM me, I've been playing table-top games for years.

 

[Vern5]

Snip

The players are either going to be a bunch of Hunters or Mages. I'm not sure which one makes more sense for beginners but Mage sounds like fun.

As for the commune being a Tremere chantry, I hadn't even considered that. It sounds perfect!

 

[DoPo]

First of all, are you going to run new or old World of Darkness? For the record, Bloodlines would be old, while Requiem and everything after is new.

1)I was considering running this campaign using Mage or Hunter. Which would be more suitable?

They have new Mage (Awakening) and Hunter (Vigil) there, too - while the two Mage games are pretty similar, the Hunter ones are more distinct.

At any rate, out of these two, I'd go with Hunter. Possibly new Hunter, if you can do that. I don't really like the old Hunters myself - they get too weird. But the new ones, especially at low Tiers, are quite cool and actually fitting with what a Hunter is supposed to be like.

I'd advise against Mage because mages tend to break reality. They should be able to bypass explosive collars at character creation and can just nuke the campaign if you're not careful. I know of one short lived Mage game which finished prematurely because the players accidentally erased an entire city from existence. And I think they also managed to majorly screw up the time in the process.

I should mention that your campaign idea sounds more suitable for either mortals or people with minor powers (sorcerers, ghouls, etc, from any WoD also, Second Sight characters from nWoD). That's also why I'd advise HtV characters - they are pretty much mortals with some tricks to fight supernatural baddies. Well, Tier 1 and 2, at least, Tier 3 hunters can shoot fire from their eyes. Literally. But dunno - if you don't want a lower powered game, then pick something different.

2) The commune is simply an independent community with two warring factions that I would craft from scratch. Is there a better, lore-based alternative?

Eh, a lot, really. You can pick up some real world communities - it's the World of Darkness, so they have what we have here but worse. Say, if somewhere in our world there are two communities that normally don't like each other (there are plenty), in the WoD there would be more like a blood feud between them.

But if you want something more WoD-like - you can put two warring vampires and their underlings there. They both have a cult or otherwise a big following and they both regularly manoeuvre against each other through their minions.
Works in both Masquerade and Requiem. Or also Demon the Fallen Earthbound can be substituted and be the same. Or a vampire and an Earthbound. To be honest, you can just claim there is a figure behind each of the warring side and never reveal them - they can be all sorts of nasties - it keeps the suspense and adds to the mystery and is also more in line with the spirit of WoD. You can only reveal the details if really necessary and pretty much anything can work. Heck, there could be normal human leaders for both of them and it would be appropriate.

Still, though, the most appropriate thing I can currently think of is cults - there are some in Orpheus (I think book 2 or 3 onwards), the Followers of Set (VtM) also have cults, and vampires in nWoD, especially Mekhet (I'd suggest their clanbook) organise and lead those as well, then there are Werewolf the Forsaken (most notably Pure Fire Touched) ones who gather a loyal following, too, and there are Mummies (nWoD mummies are specialised in that, but if I recall correctly, oWoD Mummies had a tendency to form cults as well), also oWoD Earthbound. Any two can work.

3) Am I being too ambitious for my first attempt at a tabletop scenario?

No, not at all. Sounds like a fun idea - the only problem I have is that it's too unfocused and generic (as in, not specific to any game or story, rather than "boring") - yet it's also a boon, since that means it can be incorporated into pretty much any game. You just need to fit the details. You can run a high powered or low powered game equally well with it - I'd see it more as a low powered game, but still - it's up to you. As I said, I'd only advise against Mage, since restraining PCs there sort of doesn't fit.

Ideas and suggestions are welcome. Thanks in advance

Well, as I said - there is both the new and old WoD. I've tried to equally include advises for both. I feel it's important to realise something here - they are not exclusive to each other. You can pick features from each and easily mesh them together - for the most part, the games deal with concepts which are easy to transfer over across games - pick up a Paradox Spirit from MtAs and drop it into WtF, or get a Possessed from nWoD Inferno and drop him into an oWoD game and so on - all things that are easy to do. And since the systems they used are similar, porting over the mechanics is not that hard, either.

If you need to pick one system to go with, I'd go with nWoD simply because it's more standardized, so you can have different supernaturals coexisting easier (though not necessarily lore-wise). But if I were to run a game, then I would probably run an oWoD game with the nWoD mechanics or maybe even a mix of both new and old WoD under the nWoD ruleset (depending on what I feel like running exactly). I am sure I won't restrict myself to just one.

 

[Vern5]

Snipsis

Based on the books my friend gave me to use, it looks like I'm working with oWoD. I'm going to stick with Hunter mostly because it will be easier for any newer players to join in and also so they can't magic their way out of bomb collars.

The plot sounds generic because I forgot about the other features I was writing, probably the most important part. Each of the players gets a unique gift that should help with the heist. Things like specialized lockpicks, security bypass devices, and map tattooed onto someone's back. One of the players also gets an added secret bonus: They have to ensure that someone in the party dies or else die upon delivery of the artifact. Could that sort of setup get out of hand?

Still considering who runs the commune. I like the Tremere chantry idea but I could just keep it ambiguous.

 

[Xjin]

Yes. And a friendly heads up. It's hard to start out and your first few games will be midcore on average, but it is worth it, as WoD is great fun. Mind the pricks however.

Don't make them too gimmicky, as people will complain about not having what and wanting to be another character. Also getting them to work together is key for a game like that and having a guy like you say sound like a lot of fun. Make it so they are facing more non vamps than vamps and let them get into some hijinks. Don't be afraid to goof up a little as you are new.

Flush it out more. Are they in a large city, in a old building, did they get there only using one way, did they only have one way, and how nutter do you wish it to be. I find that a splat page to come up with ideas and the picking the ones I like to refine helps a LOT.