Introducing a Chronicle

When you are looking for players, you'll often write up a Chronicle Introduction, laying out what the chronicle will be about, what it will focus on, what you're looking for in players, and the sort of game you're expecting it to be. Having a match of expectations makes a big difference in the success of an TTRPG campaign or chronicle. In this post, we'll dissect my introduction for my most recent Chronicle. I'll comment why I included specific parts and how that's done with the current game "Fangs in the Fog" (as time of writing, around half a year into nearly every week play). "Fangs in the Fog" takes place in the seaside city of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Hopefully, this document will help you get your Chronicle off the ground with players that are excited about the game you want to run.

Player Teaser 

Fangs in the Fog is a Vampire the Masquerade 5th Edition Chronicle set in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in the present day. Like all World of Darkness cities, this Halifax is darker, grittier, foggier, murkier than the real one. It is still recognizable, if you squint, but humans are not the apex predators here - there are many things that live amongst them, hunt them, use them. 

In Fangs in the Fog, you will take the role of one of those true predators - a Vampire, a member of the Camarilla, the secret vampire sect that has its hands on the strings puppeting much of the human world. But you are not one of the ancient, powerful puppetmasters. No. You're new to all this. All too recently, you were a human like those you now prey on. And those human feelings, problems, entanglements haven't gone away. They've just been added to by the problems of vampire-kind - the deathless sleep during the day; the incomprehensible, ancient traditions; and the relentless, pounding, desperate Hunger for blood.

Sure, you're not the same person you were. You can take a bullet, no problem, they tell you. You can do things - strange things - that no human ever could. You can call upon your blood to make you stronger, faster, smarter. No human, no matter how tough or strong, is a match for you now. But despite all this, despite being this nightmare of a predator, you're just a tiny fish in a vast ocean. One set of fangs in an endless expanse of fog. Can you get your sea legs, find allies, and learn how to survive these nights?

This opening few paragraphs is the Teaser. It is made to be posted standalone, without the rest of the details, in places where you are looking for players - Reddit, Facebook, Friendly Local Game Stores, etc. The intent here is to get potential players excited and to give them idea of the flavour of the game you are looking to play. With Fangs in the Fog, I'm explicitly talking about the game being a Fledgling game, a game of newly embraced vampires, just beginning to understand what's going on to them and around them. Because I'm not demanding system or lore knowledge in the system, I'm talking about what the World of Darkness is like, too, and what Vampires in that system are like. All in all, I'm looking to fire up interest and find some players who will dive into the rest of the document.

Campaign and Play Introduction 

Fangs in the Fog uses Vampire The Masquerade Fifth Edition, published by Paradox. This version is significantly different in mechanics than the older Whitewolf published World Of Darkness / Vampire books. Personally, I really like the changes in VtM 5th edition - the mechanics mesh nicely with the flavour. These fundamentals articles are intended to cover the basics, both of the theme and the mechanics, and I'm comfortable with folks not knowing either the system or the ridiculously deep, sprawling lore. And, indeed, while this campaign is intended to be in Paradox's World of Darkness and while I have decent knowledge of the Lore, my world is my world, and I'll have different emphasis and some things that are published may just be rumours and may not be real at all. We'll be playing virtually, on the Foundry/Forge Virtual Table Top.

Here I'm introducing the campaign game system and talking a little bit about the sort of player I'm looking for. In particular, I'm highlighting that the game will be virtual; that it is being run in VtM V5; that I'm open to inexperienced or new players; and that I am not looking for players that are judgemental about rulings on lore.

You can think of the World of Darkness as our world for the most part. Just a version of our world where things went even worse for most people. There are things out there that don't really have humanity's best interest in mind and they are all pushing buttons and pulling strings. That means things are meaner, but it doesn't mean that they are joyless. Vampire: the Masquerade is a game of personal horror - it is about people in bad places making decisions - good or bad - about what they will do next. Vampires - especially young vampires - are just people, now thrust into an impossible situation, where they now have to do really terrible things just to keep themselves going. They are pushed into the darker places in the world. My intent is that we poke at some of those dark places, but we should have fun doing it. Even in the World of Darkness, there's jokes and laughter and light. You can't have shadows without that light, after all. I'd like roleplay and sessions to be a mixture of those things - some examination of the world, some just having fun playing a game with friends. 

I'm fleshing out more about the tone of the World of Darkness, but also the tone of the Chronicle I am going to run. I am talking about the balance I want - bad things will happen, dark themes will surface, but I want to make sure that we're having fun as players. I'm explicitly saying that there's literally place for jokes and levity at the table. This is important to me, because I'm looking for the balance - I want it to be fun, but I also want to have serious moments.

Just like I don't expect players to know the World of Darkness, I don't expect them to know Halifax, either. I'll provide some flavour, there's Google Maps and Wikipedia - and this is our version of Halifax, anyways. What we say is downtown, is downtown. What we say is in the lakes and forests surrounding the city, is in those woods. I liked the idea of vampires near the ocean, lots of mystery and danger in both, so I chose the city I'm now living in - a city that is very old by North American standards, with a history of war and disaster.

Again setting expectations - setting a Chronicle in a small, out-of-the-way city in an online game may worry some potential players. I'm making it clear that you did not need knowledge of the city, but also more of the flavour I'm expecting out of the city choice.

In Character vs Out of Character

 

I'm providing and will provide a considerable amount of information to players that characters would not know. Additionally, players will learn many things about the other characters that your character does not know. My expectation is that players will use that out of character information, if at all, to help build a better story and not to advantage their characters. While I'm the "Storyteller", we're all really the story tellers here. Let's prioritize having a good time, making a good story, and seeing what happens in this world we're building together.

I hope that most players already have this idea, but especially in my Chronicles, there will be a lot of information available to players that are not available to their characters. We do lots of 'split the party', but everyone stays in the call, so players will learn lots of secrets of other characters. In addition, this is a Fledgling campaign and I expect the players may know lore and world information that their characters will not. I'm saying very explicitly that I'm expecting players to keep that separate.

Safety Tools

Because there are uncomfortable topics and because this world is so close to our own, we will be using Safety Tools. In particular, I will be using:

• Lines - every player (and the Storyteller) can list topics that just won't happen. People's lives are complicated and no game is worth going through trauma for.
• Veils - every player (and the Storyteller) can list topics that will be 'faded to black' or will happen off screen. We aren't, for instance, going to roll-play sexual activity - we'll fade to black at a tasteful point if it comes up (unless it ends up as someone's Line, in which case it won't be there at all). Elements in Veils can be mentioned, but aren't going to be a focus.
• X-Card - X-Cards are reactionary - they are a 'I am having trouble with the direction this scene is going in and I am vetoing it' message. Every player (and the Storyteller) has the ability to do this at any time, for any reason. You can put X in chat, hold up a card with an X, say the words "X-Card" and we'll stop the scene. You don't have to explain, we'll just pause for a bit and pick up somewhere else in the story. We'll circle back with Lines and Veils to see if there are elements that need to be added, but not in the moment.
• Fade to black request - another in the moment tool - you can ask, at any time, to just fade the scene to black. And we'll do that.

My hope and intent is that Lines and Veils will cover most concerns without having to use the more active, reactionary tools, but you (or I!) need them, they are there. All players will know the Lines and Veils for the campaign, but nobody needs to know who put what on the list.

My expectation is that players will treat the group with respect - care about everyone’s safety; pay attention and engage; behave in a respectful way. There's a ton of information on safety tools out there, please make yourself familiar with them.

I don't know why safety tools are controversial, but they are. I've been playing since the 80's, and I think safety tools are one of the best things to enter the hobby in that time. Everything that improves communication and makes sure that everybody is having fun at the table is awesome. They are a non-negotiable for me at this point.

We go through Lines and Veils at Session 0 and everyone can (anonymously) add things that we won't have in our Chronicle or things that won't get highlighted in the Chronicle. I don't want someone to get hurt at my table. I feel responsible for my players and want them to have a good time. This is a good tool for that.

I'm also pretty explicitly saying "no jerks" - I want people at the table to care about each other's safety and emotions. You don't have to be best friends, you just have to be a good human being.

Play Expectations

 

This campaign is a low-level, "street-stakes" campaign. There will be politicking, social conflict, actual fights, exploration, and mysteries. VtM campaigns tend to be a lot more "open-world" and player driven than traditional D&D campaigns, and as the group learns more and more, they will determine what they want to interact with and where they want to meddle. I expect players to build characters with reasons to interact with the world and each other. We're not looking to be overly edgy - yes, this is the World of Darkness, but fundamentally, these new vampires were real, ordinary people living in the world not too long ago. Yes, there's a reason that some vampire found them interesting, some reason they ended up where they are, but let's keep them realish.

This section is more expectations, in specific, talking about the sort of characters that will work in the Chronicle. I'm looking for people to make realistic-ish characters that have a reason to interact with the world. No loners, no folks that can't or won't work with others, we're making people that were just in society and have suddenly been dragged into this vampire world. The characters are going to get brought together and I want them to be built such that they will engage with each other and with the story. World of Darkness games are very player driven and we need those characters to be willing to interact and we need players that are looking to help drive the game.

This isn't a campaign where the expectation is that the player characters will shoot off into the stratosphere of power quickly, so XP gain will be relatively slow. Players will be playing Neonates, the equivalent of "level 1" characters. Unlike DnD, XP spends happen when you want them to - each character improvement costs a certain amount of XP, so you can choose when to 'buy' an improvement.

This is setting expectations again - this is a low-level game, where characters will stay low power for quite awhile. I want the players to be excited about that sort of game, not expecting a game where they are the Prince and Council after 10 sessions.

People and places are important in the World of Darkness. Remembering what people said is important. Learning the relationships between people is important. Taking notes will be important. I will not be providing a session summary, but I will be asking for a summary of the last session from a different person at the beginning of each play session. Good summaries will get an XP bonus.

More expectations - this time, back to my expectations of players. I expect that they will be paying attention and taking notes. I make a different player give a summary of the previous session at the beginning of the next session. This is super helpful - it makes everyone equally involved with taking notes; it makes everyone pay attention even if their characters aren't involved with a scene. This has been a big success every time I've engaged it. The small XP bonus helps encourage players to participate, though I've never not given a player the bonus (because my players have done a decent job with their summaries). Because I expect players to drive a lot of the story and what happens next, they need the information about all the people and places they have encountered, and that means they need to take notes. 

Speaking of those people and places, the players will help build some of those, especially through their Merits and Flaws - Allies, Enemies, Contacts, Havens, Resources all can create the need for NPCs and locations. We’ll come up with those together, along with your Touchstones.

Just letting the players know that my assumption is that they will be helping build important players and places that their characters are connected to. Pretty standard for a lot of role-playing games.

Because this is an open-world, and because the World of Darkness is not a fair or balanced system, there are definitely places and people that will be extremely dangerous for the characters. My intent is to provide a certain level of awareness to the players (not characters) when their characters are pushing somewhere they maybe should not. I'm not looking to ambush characters with something far beyond their capabilities. That being said, running away may be a very good idea sometimes and character death is a real possibility. 

Player expectation management - the World of Darkness isn't fair and balanced and I'm populating my city with lots of entities, some of whom could eat the players for lunch. Because a lot of things are player driven, we need to make sure that the players know that I'm not going to make sure that everywhere they decide to go will be safe for them. I'm not looking for character death - to me, it interrupts the cool story we're building together - but it needs to be on the table to help keep the stakes high enough. I will make sure I telegraph when things are going wrong, but it is quite possible that the characters can die.

Another difference between D&D sessions and World of Darkness sessions is the frequency of "splitting the party". Characters in the World of Darkness WILL have secrets and agendas they do not want to share with the others, as well as relationships where it would be awkward to bring the whole group to a meeting. We'll not linger on any one scene when the party is separated and we will try to at least split into multiple groups (rather than have everyone completely alone), so that the session continues to move forward, but it will happen regularly. Players are expected to continue to pay attention and include those elements in their session summaries.

Again, my expectations of the players and their of me. We're going to split the party, a lot. Characters will do things without the rest of the Coterie. I'm not going linger unnecessarily when three players are sitting idle and one is front and centre, but it will happen. Vampires have secrets from each other. Yeah, we'll (probably unrealistically) find ways to group up and keep things moving more, but there will be times you're waiting your turn. I expect players to continue to pay attention and take notes. I hope they will get excited about each other's stories too.

Stars and Wishes

I will be using "Stars and Wishes" at the end of every session. Each player is asked to provide something they liked (a Star) about the session, and a Wish for future sessions. "I liked the interaction with Tony and learning about his background. I just got a cool combat ability and I'd like to see some combat to test it out in the near future." / "I liked the conflict with the strange creature in the sewer, but I found the lore dump after we found that book far too dense and heavy."

Player feedback is so incredibly important to me. I use Stars and Wishes, which I stole from a Storyteller I had last year. There are lots of different player feedback systems, but they all really centre around taking a specific time where you expect each player to provide that feedback. I genuinely do expect and demand that feedback and I track it and I try to make wishes come true and repeat the flavour of stars. This is a tool I wish I had many years ago.

Conclusion

I hope this look at my Chronicle Introduction gives you some ideas about how to set expectations at the very beginning of the Chronicle. This is helpful even before Session 0, while you are deciding whether a player is a good player for you and they are deciding if you are the right storyteller for them.  Good luck!