The Stigma of Vampire LARPs
In the Beginning (V:tM) & the System(MET)
Just over twenty years ago a game called Vampire: the Masquerade was released, people loved it. It wasn't the whole swords and sorcery thing, it was a daily grind to survive, night by night struggling for power, trying to find people to feed from, politics and even some great fights if you were lucky.
Then a LARP was made for it, known as Minds Eye Theatre (MET for short).
Back then LARP was still mostly guys in a field hitting each other with gaffer tape weapons, and whilst there were a few really special locations like castles or disused mines that could be used that sort of thing wasn't the right setting for MET.
MET was a highly social game, there was almost no combat and that suited its players perfectly.
However, unlike other LARP systems it had a very different set of rules, the ubiquitous “Rock/Paper/Scissors” way of resolving things.
If you wanted to fight some one you stood in front of them and told what you was doing, and they'd say how they would counter it, each of you would “draw” your rock, paper or scissors and that's how you determined if you hurt the person, or if you missed.
Some people really loved how the game worked, because it didn't mean you had to start buying weapons and armour, you could wear modern clothing. Others loved it because of the politics involved, and that's really where the game was at its strongest.
Interview with that dead guy
In VtM: MET you could be a hoary old man from the middle ages, who has survived by taking extended periods of “sleep”, waking every few years to check on how their mortal schemes were going, or you could play some one who was made a vampire just last week and they've suddenly been thrust in to a world of intrigue and horror. You had to pick a clan, which determined some of your special powers, and you then had to pick things called influences, which showed where you had some control over the mortal world.
In between games you'd use your influences to help or hinder other players or to advance the plot for the bigger game.
Yes, a bigger game, because by then there were so many players a global plot was set up, and players who were members of certain groups were subject to the global plot line. All the local plot lines had to be checked by a large team of refs who'd all mail each other, or as it was back then, use bulletin boards, and determine amongst themselves what the affect was for all the different groups. For example, players in London could do some kind of sanction on the transport influence, causing problems for the players in France, America and China. France, America and China would then have to retaliate in some manner.
The game was truly global.
Emo-Factor & The Red Headed Stepchild of Larps
Only, it wasn't. Some local GM's decided not to be part of one organisation, and split off to form their own, using exactly the same rules but changing a little bit of the world history.
The rot had started to set in.
It didn't take long for the MET scene start to get a bit of a bad reputation amongst other systems for one reason or another.
People who had been to the traditional systems that had sprung up were evolving their hobby, their world was changing, equipment was getting better, you could buy proper armour and weapons that looked amazing.
But MET was stuck with its much ridiculed resolution system, and it had started to become a bit of a joke system to many people.
I was recently speaking to a number of friends trying to drum up some new members for a local vampire game, Kent By Night, and the general response was “Vampires, yeah MET, no I don't like that LARP but I loved the tabletop game” though not always as nicely put as that..
“A Vampire LARP? Oh, MET, yeah no I don't do vampire games”
After asking around a lot of people I
was surprised to find that so many people within the hobby see a
vampire game as something less than any other game, it really is seen
as the lowest of the low in so many circles.
When I looked further in to it, I found
that so many people had had bad experiences at a vampire game that it
put them of from trying any other system.
And there was the problem, there wasn't
actually any other system that was being used, every one was stuck
with the MET resolution system, and it didn't feel like a LARP, it
was just interactive theatre with some rules for “bang you're
dead”.
If you ask anyone who's been and no
longer goes to a vampire game you'll probably hear some horror
stories about players taking real weapons, or the really bad accents,
the capes, the frilly shirts, the fangs and the fake blood.
Sadly all that is true, I've seen it
all first hand in a number of different games.
And that's where Vampire LARPs got
their bad reputation from.
Those one or two people who think all
vampires are 12th century noble men from some strangely
names part of Europe, with dodgy accents and a predisposition for
saying, “Ah the children of the night what sweet music they make..”
Sadly a lot of people forget the
premise of the World of Darkness, the main setting which it all came
from.
Horror. Personal horror specifically.
Think about it for a moment. Last week
you was Bob the doorman, you knew a few people in and around the
clubbing scene had a few tarts you were friendly with, then one night
some chump comes in to your bar, starts a fight, you throw him out,
he glowers menacingly at you and stalks off.
Two nights later the guy comes back,
pins you up against the wall, and savagely rips at your throat with
these great big freaking fangs. He's inhumanly strong, there's
nothing you can do. You die.
The next evening you wake up again,
hungry. Hungrier than you've ever been, you try to eat some food,
you're violently sick, spewing up blood and the food you tried to
eat. You pet dog Snuffles cowers in the corner and suddenly you know
what you have to do, what you need.
And that’s where the torment begins
for a new vampire.
How soon do you succumb to the endless
emotions of anger & hunger?
Can you control yourself long enough to
get to work that evening? To look like normal? To then mentally
control your boss in to giving you a raise, until a few weeks down
the line you run a large group of night clubs, with the assorted
trades you'd find in them (tarts, drugs and protection rackets).
How long before you start looking round
for more of your kind, only to find that the one who made you owns a
large selection of pubs and clubs, do you try and take revenge, to
ruin his business and to see him dead at your feet or do you run away
in to the night and set yourself up else where?
Think about the future. Your family,
they're all going to die. You're going to have to watch them all grow
old and die. Every single one of them.
How do you think that'll affect you?
Will you crack under the pressure of it and go mad? Or will you
distance yourself from them, make it look as if you've been killed in
an accident.
The world you've woken up into is a bad
place, and it's going to be a hell of a struggle to get anything
achieved, sometimes you wish you were still mortal and that you
didn't know about all of this. You was happy in your ignorance, but
now you know what's out there.
And what about all those other things?
If vampires exist what about ghosts, werewolves, witches, warlocks
and tentacle monsters?
In the last few years vampires have
become big business, there are toys, books, movies and TV series
where vampires are the “good guys” and that's been a massive
boost in some ways for the Vampire LARP community.
If you were told, “Yeah you can play
stuff like Lestat,Tim, Selene, Sookie, Damon or Mitchell” and you
loved those shows you might give it a shot because you have something
to draw from.
You know what the shows and films are
like so you get an idea of what you can do, what your powers might be
and so on.
But what if you were then told, “It's
quite political, a bit like Game of Thrones”.
Everyone knows GoT. If they don't then
they've probably been living under a rock for the last three years
with out internet access.
So, mix up the politics of GoT, throw
in a dash of sexiness from True Blood or Vampire Diaries. Let that
simmer for a little while, stir in a pinch of I Am Tim, and a
generous helping of Being Human.
Like revenge, a vampire LARP is a dish
best served cold...
There are now several different systems
floating around, MET is still the biggest of them, so many groups use
the rules because they're easy to use and it's what people know (it
probably doesn't hurt that in the wake of VtM: V20 there’s now
going to be a revised edition of MET).
Another radically different system
that’s been slowly gaining popularity in the last couple of years
is Kent By Night. The Ref Team behind it looked at all the different
vampire rules produced by Whitewolf Studios and then looked at other
LARP systems. Eventually they created a LARP which is the best of
both worlds, combat like a “traditional” LARP with weapons, a
large selection of abilities and no need to stand around saying “Rock
beats scissors..” but all the horror of the world slowly falling
apart around the characters who're struggling to maintain some form
of control over it all.
Written by Nick Sands, who's been
running Kent By night in one guise or another for the last 20 years.
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