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This section is for new players. Whether you're new to LARP altogether, have LARPed before but have never played a White Wolf game or are just new to our specific game, "Smoke and Mirrors," you should be able to find some useful information here.
Also, The player of Ron Brown found a pretty interesting, if out of date, little quick start guide that might be of some use to people who are new to LARP or White Wolf. Click here to see the guide.
"LARP" is an anagram for Live Action Role Playing. It differs from traditional "tabletop" roleplaying in that the players actually dress up "in character" (in costume) and walk around, act and speak as their character would. A LARP game is very much akin to improvisational theatre except that the only audience (usually) is the rest of the player base and the staff. Besides that, the differences are few and insignificant. If you have ever been interested in acting, whether as a hobby or a carrer, LARP may be for you. For non-actors, it is a fun way to explore that side of your personalities. For career actors, it is an interesting way to practice your skills in an environment unlike traditional schools or even actual work.
Even for people who have little to no interest in acting in the traditional sense, LARP can be a fun social experience. In an average LARP game, there are at least ten players plus staff. The larger games draw crowds of up to one hundred players or more! Some games, called "networks" have literally thousands of players meeting in different places all over the world. Hence, even the smallest games are like parties in a sense: a reasonably sized crowd that comes together to enjoy each other's company. LARP does this with a twist; everyone comes to the party as someone else. Overall it's a very interesting experience whether you really get into it and play all the time or if you only go occasionally.
Finally, LARP is, in my opinion, the perfect escape mechanism, and we all have our escapes, don't we? Whether we're watching television, surfing the internet, reading a book or what-have-you, we all need to get away from life from time to time. LARP is the perfect oportunity to do just that. For a couple of hours you get to completely leave your life behind and become part of a new one. You get to interact with a group of other people while doing so and you get to help create a story that people will be talking about for years to come. I mean it. People still talk about the first game that I ever played and that game ended about five years ago. It's honestly the most constructive "escape" that I can think of.
So that's what LARP is. Read on to learn about the specific world White Wolf published that our group takes part in every Saturday and also about our specific game and the spins that we've put on White Wolf's world.
White Wolf Publishing, Inc. is the company that created and published Laws of the Night. The edition of the game that we play, 3rd Edition (the latest edition), was originally released in 1999. Laws of the Night was the live action adaptation of their popular tabletop game, Vampire: the Masquerade (it is for this reason that the game is more commonly referred to as "LARP Vampire"). In 2004, they released Laws of Judgement, the official ending to their live action series which included, among a few others, Laws of the Night. Since then, they have released another tabletop game called "World of Darkness" (ironically, what the world of the last series was referred to as) and have released "sub-games" such as Vampire: the Requiem and Werewolf: the Forsaken. They have not, however, released a live action version of these games yet so, while we anxiously await their release, we play LARP Vampire: the Masquerade. I've explained all of this to you because if you visit their web-site, you'll find no mention of the game we play or any of its sister games.
Moving on, the basis of the game is this: the "World of Darkness" is just like our world. All of the same cities, countries and restaraunts exist (for the most part). All of the important things in history happened. All of the important political occurances of today are going on (again, for the most part). But, underneath all of this, is an entirely different world. Darkness is a little thicker. Light is a little harsher. "The streets" are a bit more dangerous. People are a bit more dangerous and, even unkown to them, monsters stalk the night. Vampires exist, as do werewolves, mages (wizards), faeries and even worse things. All of them have their effect on the world without the countless humans ever even knowing they exist. Some of these creatures don't even believe that the others exist. They do, though, and it is they that the real stories are about.
The specific game that we play, "Laws of the Night"/"Vampire: the Masquerade", is about vampires and their effect on the world and each other. The self-proclaimed lords of the night, through the use of their Disciplines (supernatural powers granted to them by their vampirism) and their blood (which, among other things, has the power to enslave mortals), they control everything around them. They control every aspect of the cities that they inhabit and use that control to play power games with each other to pass their infinite life spans. Or do they? Is the power they have really theirs or are even they subject to the control of more powerful vampires who would, in turn, be subject to more powerful vampires. Different gourps of vampires have different opinions on this subject and sometimes those diffences turn into bloody feuds that last centuries.
Each Vampire chronicle (specific game run by a specific person or people and played a specific group) tells a different story and focuses on different events and activities that concern the vampires they create. Read on to learn about our story and our vampires.
So you know what LARP is and you know what White Wolf is about but you want to know, more specifically, what we're about. OK. First, we are a medium sized (about 35 players) Chicago-based game. We have recently acquired a larger site for our game and are seeking new players to fill it with. We play at our local church and have access to nearly every square foot of it (with exception of the sanctuary, of course) which we feel could comfortably fit a game of sixty players or more.
The game is set in New Orleans. Staff feels that the ambiance of the city lends itself well to a LARP Vampire game. There are plenty of real world strange occurances that can conribute to a fictional construction that is entertaining to play the game in. The setting is different enough from our own city that it helps facilitate the "other-world" themes of a vampire game. Further, the stark contrast of the city from our own helps to take our players out of reality and place them in our own, fictional one. Finally, it should be noted that the tragedies of Hurricane Katrina are assumed not to have happened as terribly as they did in real life.
In our world, the Camarilla has ruled New Orleans almost since its creation. Over the past fifteen yeats things many strange events occurred that caused the Camarilla to officially withdraw from the territory. Some few loyalists remained, however, adamant on reclaiming the city for the sect. They, with the help of some kindred new to the city, were able to reclaim the city for the Camarilla despite the growing Anarch presence and continuing mysterious events. Ultimately, though, it is unknown who or what caused the strange events in the first place. Could something completely unprecendented be happening in the city, or is it just a clever diversionary tactic from one side or another? Even the Sabbat has been hesitant to occupy the city. Time will tell what is in store for New Orleans and its inhabitants.
Staff would like to make clear, though, that while the game is currently being run as a Camarilla-based game, that was not the intention of the StoryTeller but instead brought about by specific and deliberate player action. While we are certainly not interested in running a Sabbat game, we aren't deliberately running a Camarilla game, either. That decision has been left to the players and is mutable as the players will it.
In order to get a good feel on how we interpret White Wolf's original World of Darkness, it might help to know where we get our information from.
We own more WHite Wolf books than we care to mention. However, those that really stick out are Laws of the Night (obviously), Counsel of Primogen, Time of Thin Blood, New Orleans by Night and Laws of the Hunt. Counsel of Primogen is the big one. We base the entire political structure of the game around this book.
http://www.skaro.com/larpdex.html - Was created by an ST that think a lot like we do. New players might find her The Vampire Players’ Guide To Getting Away With Murder particularly interesting.
http://www.larp.com/nrv/ooc/ - Is a web-site for Camarilla Club's New River Valley Chapter. It hasn't been updated in forever but it's still got some pretty useful information on it. The Harpies Primer and Protocols of the Camarilla were two that we liked a lot.
Please just keep in mind that these are websites that are in no way affiliated with Smoke and Mirrors, and information presented there is not to be considered rule unless specifically mentioned in our House Rules.