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Creating and Running a Custom Chronicle

By: Kiramin

Let me start by saying: If you want a quick 15 minute multiplayer game, Vampire is NOT for you. In order to play Vampire's storyteller mode as it was meant to be played, you need to be ready to devote a couple of hours to playing through a chronicle. With that in mind, do you still want to be a storyteller? If so, you are in luck, because this guide is designed to get you quickly into the realm of storytelling by walking you through your first custom chronicle. Be forewarned that this chronicle will most likely be very simplistic in plot, but it is best to start small and work your way up to bigger and better things when you are ready for them.

First off, let me explain the role of a storyteller. Unlike the players, the storyteller is NOT trying to win. Winning and losing should be concepts completely foreign to a storyteller. It is not you and all the enemies against the players. You're only goal as a storyteller is to CREATE AN ENJOYABLE GAMING EXPERIENCE FOR YOUR PLAYERS. That does not mean you should pamper them, giving them all the best weapons and the most powerful abilities. Such games will soon lose their appeal because they provide no challenge. Instead, you need to balance on a fine line between making your chronicle overly simple and too difficult.

There are two equally important parts to developing your chronicle: preparation and improvisation. When you first start out storytelling, it is best to plan out and prepare as much of your story before hand as possible. That way, when it comes time to play through the chronicle, you can focus more on getting familiar with the storytelling tools and techniques. As you become more and more practiced at the art of storytelling, you will be able to plan and prepare fewer and fewer specific events and rely more on improvisation during the actual gameplay.

Now, to begin preparing your first chronicle. I will go through the basic guidelines for creating a chronicle as well as give an example of what I might choose at each point. Feel free to use and expand off of some of my ideas in your own chronicle, though I do not recommend copying my chronicle too closely because I'm sure other people might do the same and we will end up with tons and tons of people running the same story. Try to be creative and come up with your own ideas.

STEP ONE: Choose a setting.

In the future you can use the editing tools available to make new settings, but for now we need to pick one of the four major hubs released with the game: Prague, Vienna, London, or New York. In this situation I am going to choose Prague, simply because it is the first Hub in the single player game and I am the most familiar with it.

STEP TWO: Think up an objective or goal the players will strive for.

What you decide here will effect the course of the rest of your chronicle. Allow me to give you some ideas for possible goals:

• Finding a certain item. (example: Find the lost Journal of some old vampire, recover a stolen relic from an enemy, etc.)
• Disposing of a threat. (example: A group of Losambra have taken up residence and are threatening the safety of the town and your haven, undead have been rising in the streets for some unknown reason and are slaughtering the townspeople, etc.)
• Solving a mystery. (example: Members of your clan have been disappearing and you must find out why, the players are sent to investigate why the all contact with an ally clan has ceased, etc.)

Those are just a few examples of goals and types of goals you can use. Part of thinking of a goal for your players is figuring out WHY the characters are striving for that goal. Did their sire send them on some errand? Is the safety of their haven in danger? Is there some higher consideration of Cainite politics that drives them? Of course, you cannot completely decide on this until you meet the player characters, for what will and will not motivate a character depends on how the player role-plays that character. For your first chronicle, you should come up with a simple reason the characters are after this goal. For example, "The Prince has given you this task." You should avoid just saying "You are supposed to go do BLANK," without providing an explanation why.

For my chronicle I am going to pick one of my examples above: One of the player's clans possess a journal that once belonged to an ancient vampire of that clan. Recently it has disappeared. Not too long ago, the Nosferatu expressed interest in the journal and wished to study it. The player's clan refused. Now that the journal has disappeared, the Nosferatu are suspected.

STEP THREE: Thinking up the background.

As a storyteller you need to know what is going on behind the scenes. You should not tell this information to the players at the beginning of the game, instead you should reveal bits and pieces through their interaction with non-player characters or the discovering of evidence. Here are some things to think about depending on what type of goal you chose:

If the players are trying to find an item, where is it? How did it get there? Is there someone or something guarding it? If so, why? If not, why not? Are there other characters or organizations trying to get to this item first? If so, what are their motivations? If there is a threat or a mystery, what is the source? Who is behind it and what is their motivation? This is what I really need to consider for my choice. Who really stole the journal? Why did they steal it? What are they trying to accomplish?

The most important thing to figure out at this point is what non-player characters and groups in your chronicles will be major players in the story, and WHAT THEIR GOALS ARE! Unless you know what the different sides are striving for, you wont be able to role-play their interaction with the story in a consistent and believable fashion.

In my chronicle, the Nosferatu did not really steal the journal. They had interest in it because they desired to learn the knowledge within. I haven't decided what exactly that knowledge was, and I can't until I know what clan the journal is from and hence can determine what kind of knowledge it would contain that the Nosferatu crave. So who did steal the journal? The Tzimisce who have taken up residence in the abandoned silver mines. Why? Because they knew that the Nosferatu would be blamed and it would cause conflict between the Camarilla clans. They plan to create more such conflicts so they can move in and take control of Prague when the Camarilla is weak.

If I were really going to create a chronicle, I probably wouldn't use this story. I would incorporate more clans and factions and come up with a more in-depth background story, but I want to keep my example simple for new storytellers.

STEP FOUR: Figuring out how the players can go about achieving their goal.

It is important that you attempt to predict the actions of the players and place things in their path that will lead them towards their goal. These can be battles with enemies, the finding of evidence, or most usually interaction with non-player characters.

In my situation, the players will most likely go to the Nosferatu beneath the graveyard in the North Quarter. Of course, when they arrive I plan to have TALK-ONLY Nosferatu characters guarding the door, for combat is not yet necessary. The Nosferatu would want to know what the players want. If the players politely ask to see the clan leader, the guards will oblige. However, if they press violence, they could end up fighting their way through the Nosferatu. When they reach the clan's leader, he will of course deny having stolen the journal and the characters will find no evidence of it.

Of course, at this point the characters are left high and dry without a lead, so I need to think of a way to get them back on track. How can they begin to suspect the silver mines and the Tzimisce? Lets say the leader of the Nosferatu asks the players to carry a message to their Prince. He informs the players that some of his clan members have sighted Szlachta near the abandoned silver mind, so they must inform their Prince of the possible presence of the Tzimisce. When the player's Prince hears this, he says that those sightings confirm the sightings by some of the other clans. He then sends the players to investigate the silver mines.

In the silver mines they will discover the Tzimisce and will recover the journal. When they return it to the Prince, the chronicle is ended.

That is how I have outlined the course of my chronicle. You should try to do a similar process with yours. Of course, there is no assurance that the players will follow your plan. In all likelihood, they will find some way to deviate and you will have to do some quick thinking to get them back on course.

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