Category: Houses of the Blooded

Many ven carry “accounting books.” Not so much “accounting” as “keeping track of things,” but “accounting” in “someone is going to pay.”

Small bundles of pages to keep track of their various Promises and obligations. In later years, accounting books became all the rage, each noble upping the ante.

Accounting books also became kind of journals for nobles. After passing into Solace, many accounting books were published by friends and family members—with proper editing for decorum’s sake, of course.

Ritual: The Twins

In ven culture, certain physical features identify a character as a villain. Red hair, pale skin, grey eyes. The more features a character has, the more villainous the character is. But there is one “physical feature” that truly sets a character apart from the rest. Despicable. Unredeemable. Terrible.

Twins.

A ritual known to only a few and utilized by even less. A pregnant ven woman gives birth to a single child and only a single child. No more. Of course, the literature also mentions a forbidden ritual… blood, pain, other bodily fluids… I should say no more.

If a ven uses the Twins ritual, they will indeed give birth to twins. Twins is an Aspect the children take on.

Twins also have another advantage: they do not need to spend style points to kibitz to each other. (See Player for more info on kibitzing.)

Sidebar: Twins

Invoke: you gain three bonus dice when protecting your twin.

Tag: because of the stigma surrounding twins, others gain two bonus dice for any social risk against you.

Compel: act creepy, villainous, and otherwise untrustworthy.

My Sons of Kryos interview is now live! We talk about Houses of the Blooded. A lot of talk. A half hour of info.

Go check it out… and listen to the other shows, too!

Better is the enemy of done.
— Jared Sorensen

Editing and playtesting continues. My November release date has moved to March at earliest. The GAMA Trade Show. Perhaps Origins.

The game is better because of my decision. Every time I run the game, I learn more about it. Learn more about the ven.

At the Dark One’s Halloween Party, someone told me Houses restored their joy of gaming. That was neat.

Another someone told me about a group of 20+ L5R players gathering at a local game store. Not TCG players, but RPG players. Gathering every week or so to play the game. I need to enlist that crew.

The Houses LARP (The Great Game) will begin in January.

I have another announcement, but I can’t talk about it yet. I’m very excited for 2008.

While writing/editing The Law chapter, I find my fingers typing these words…

The Fourth Law handles Promises. The ven are very careful what they Promise because such things are bound by Law. Punishable offenses.

Yes, in ven culture, it is against the Law to be a flake.

 

Well, wasn’t that interesting.

Okay, a few lessons learned from my second OWBN game.

No Pets
First, I am absolutely reassured the No Pets Rule (the GM can’t play a significant NPC) is a Good Thing. When we showed up (two anarchs), the ST (playing the harpy) set the tone for the players by treating us like crap. She had the opportunity to do differently, but she choose not to. The other players followed her example, thus ensuring two new players would never return to the game.

We weren’t even playing asshole anarchs. We followed all the rules, knowing you can’t put up your feet in another man’s house. We came to do what vampires do: notify the Prince we were there, offering our assistance to deal with the imminent Sabbat attack. And, because the ST set the tone–you can treat these people like shit–the players did just that.

Not only that, because the ST went out of her way to take offense at every little thing we said, the rest of the players did the same. It was petty. Not in the typical kindred politics way, but literally straining to find a way to turn anything we said into an insult. The other players followed suit, and pretty soon, we were convinced to keep our mouths shut.

It wasn’t banter. Banter is fun. This was junior high bullshit.

The players had a choice. They could have treated us as outsiders. I expected that. This was uncomfortable. Not as a character, but as a player. By the end of the night, one of us was deliberately forced to frenzy and the other had his soul ripped out of his body, staked, and stolen away.

We were new players looking to join a game, and they made sure we’d never show up again.

The Nuremberg Defense
Second, I have to do something about the Nuremberg Defense. For those of you who don’t know, that’s when players sabotage other players’ fun hiding behind “But that’s what my character would do.”

Using the above example, here’s a tiny group–no more than one dozen people–who scared away two (three, really, but one of us could not show up) new players. More than that, too. I had at least three more people lined up to join us at the next game. So, this twelve person group had the opportunity to increase their player base by 50%. They fucked it up. They fucked it up because it was more important they “be true to our characters.”

They weren’t being true to their characters. They were bullies. Two new players, and they removed both of us half-way through. One of us frenzied, the other staked. Both of us sitting for a few hours while everyone else continued playing.

And the moment we figured that out, we left the game.

What’s the Point
After leaving the game, I seriously debated including any HotB LARP rules at all.

I needed to scratch my LARP itch.

It got scratched all right. I think I need alcohol and bandages.

I just sucker–I mean convinced–someone else into running my game so I can experience it as a player.

I’m filling out the character sheet, choosing Virtues, my weakness, Aspects, Devotions, Regions, Vassals and my first Spring Season actions.

I’m as giddy as a school girl.

I GET TO PLAY MY GAME!!!

Full on “Let me tell you about my character” post coming soon.

__

Meanwhile, I will be in Los Angeles on November 3rd. That’s a Saturday.

I’m flying in on Saturday morning, packing my stuff from storage into a U-Haul and driving that sucker back to Pheonix the very same day.

I’ll have company.

Anything I deem unworthy of taking with me will be either thrown out or given away.

One of those give-a-ways is my futon. I don’t want it. If you do, come and help me pack and it is yours.

I’ll have other furniture, too. You’ll want it because I don’t.

Saturday, November 3rd, 10:00 AM.

(a segment from the GM chapter. an adventure seed.) 

No Moon
Dark Night. No Moon. The blackest night when the suaven’s whispers turn mad.

Everyone gains a new aspect: Suaven’s Whispers. There is no invoke, only a tag and compel. The tag is equal to the ven’s Devotion. The compel makes you act like a lunatic, throwing away all reason, all sense, embracing the dark shadow of your suaven.

Followers of the Sacred Harlot become lustful beasts.

Followers of the Bloody Wolf become bloodthirsty animals.

Followers of the Falcon’s Friend become impudent fools.

Followers of the Mother Bear become over-controlling prigs.

Followers of the Cold-Hearted Elk become even more emotionless and ruthless.

And followers of the Wandering Wise One become something so dark, so sinister, it may not be spoken. 

For one night. No Moon.

At least once a Year.

This is best to use when you’ve just finished a party. A buddy of mine called it “The Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Game.” The ven called it “The Midnight Game.”

When the nobles go to bed, the servants come out to play. Their masters and ladies are all asleep (or pretending to be asleep) and that affords the servant class an opportunity to let down their hair.

Nearly every lord or lady has a maid or valet. (Even if they don’t have the Vassal; that just means your maid or valet isn’t cool enough yet.) Write down your maid or valet’s name and throw all those names at the GM. Then, the GM throws all those names in a hat and everybody draws one. If you draw your own, throw it back and pick another.

For the next game session, you play a maid or valet to one of the other nobles. Moving around the house by candlelight, meeting with other servants for less-than-honorable purposes, spying on other nobles, carrying out illicit affairs.

Spend a whole game session on the vassals. If your GM is generous, he may even allow you to elevate a vassal to NPC status. If you are all very good.

I mean bad. Very, very bad.

Attended my first Larp in… (counting) … almost a year.

Things were going as I planned. First game, very friendly. Sniffing. Brought a pretty girl in a skirt. That always helps. She had more notes than I did.

I liked how the ST gave us rumors based on our Influences.
I liked how the ST made sure–immediately–that I was thrown into the storyline. A hunter with a photgraph of me gets himself caught. First night, I’m already involved.

The game is small. Only a dozen people. Giovanni game.

We were two anarchs. We were polite and asked many questions. By the end of the game, at least two Giovanni went to the don and told him we had to be killed. “They’re too smart.”

A nice compliment.

I still need more players to playtest what I really need to playtest. Next game is two weeks from last Saturday.