I'll be using this post to discuss how I designed the City of Providence Game, why I made the decisions that I made, and how I think it went. Along the way I'll probably outline some different parts of my philosophy of LARP, look at pitfalls I've seen other facilitators handle, and more than likely ramble on about vampire for a while. Directory - [[City of Providence Retrospective#Choosing Pittsburgh|Choosing Pittsburgh]] - [[City of Providence Retrospective#The Starting Cast|The Starting Cast]] - [[City of Providence Retrospective#A Game In Three Acts|A Game in Three Acts]] - [[City of Providence Retrospective#The East Coast Paladins|The East Coast Paladins]] - [[City of Providence Retrospective#Pittsburgh Housing Authority|Pittsburgh Housing Authority]] - [[City of Providence Retrospective#The Mad Prince|The Mad Prince]] - [[City of Providence Retrospective#The Bitter Street Witch|The Bitter Street Witch]] - [[City of Providence Retrospective#The Sable Family|The Sable Family]] - [[City of Providence Retrospective#Conclusion|Conclusion]] ## Choosing Pittsburgh > “No city is one city, as no one mind is altogether and only itself. A woman is many women, a man is many men, a city is many cities – not in sequence, but all at once.” > Max Gladstone, The Ruin of Angels I know from the start that I want this game to be about the city that it's set in. I've played a lot of 'grand metaplot' vampire games and enjoyed some of them, but I've always been interested in digging into a more locally focused game. Vampires are very much creatures *of* civilization, parasites that dig deep into their cities. They shape the city that they live in, and are shaped by their city in turn. Because of this, the choice of city we play in is the biggest decision to make; it will set the feel and boundaries of the game. I go looking for alternatives to Philadelphia, largely because our group is simultaneously running a Sabbat game set in Philadelphia and I don't want to risk people getting mixed up on what has happened to what location. I choose Pittsburgh the moment I open up a Wikipedia page and see *Benito Numine* as its motto - a phrase that can be translated as "Divine Providence," or "With a Benevolent God." I immediately lock in on the idea of the city as an object of worship, with its own soul and spirit that the court will shape and be shaped by. Adding to this, the popular image of Pittsburgh is still 'the city of steel,' a place of foundries and manufacturing - but that hasn't been true for decades. The city was gradually deindustrialized, divesting itself from manufacturing and focusing on things like biotech, education, arts. Pittsburgh, then, is a city redefining itself. Imagine what that process looks like for its immortal denizens. My storytelling and props team do a weekend tour of Pittsburgh, where more details stand out, and work their way into the setting. - Many religiously themed buildings - I drive past the 'Joan of Arc Library' and see the University of Pittsburgh's 'Cathedral of Learning.' Best of all, we have an old catholic church converted into a *gorgeous* brewery - if that doesn't tell an entire story about the changing soul of a city, I don't know what does. - Interesting ideas on class - an Uber driver tells me that fifty years ago, the soot and chemical runoff meant riverfront property was worthless. Historic houses don't have windows that face the river, because the view was awful. The city is nestled in the Allegheny mountains, and its obvious that a lot of the higher density, lower cost neighborhoods are placed higher up - in other words, this is a place where *height* is low class. - The Emerald View Park has roads going through it. While we were driving through the city of steel, we took a turn and were suddenly surrounded by trees and greenery. - I learn that Pittsburgh was the starting point for the Lewis and Clarke expedition. Imagine what that feels like for a vampire who's been here since the beginning of the city: Pittsburgh sits on the boundary between the known and the unknown. If vampires are creatures of civilization, Pittsburgh was once the boundary where civilization *ended*. - The city was *empty* when we visited. The streets are quiet, even when walking downtown. Several of us were actually off-kilter when we realized we didn't see any people living on the streets - that *can* be a good thing about a city, but it can also be very grim. Even before reading about Pittsburgh's population it was clear that the mechanics for the city needed to be hostile, especially mechanics revolving around feeding, which are meant to represent how casually people are wandering the streets. As the city goes through this transition, the court should struggle to feed itself. - The geometry of the city is strange. Streets veer off at weird angles so that it's hard to see far in any direction, and the mountain makes the city properly three dimensional - you don't just move around, but up and down. At the same time there is *massive* surveillance going on - we start to play a game counting the cameras pointed at us as we go from site to site. There's a fun contradiction here - the shape of the city makes it easier to hide, but always something is watching you. This is more than enough context to begin writing out the story. ## The Starting Cast The first five NPCs are built with meta-game purpose in mind. Their characters and storylines take shape after I have the *idea* of them in mind, largely based on how people respond to them in play. First and foremost we have: > [!info]- **Johnny Wright, aka The Inciting Incident** > I want the elders of the city to have been asleep in the 'time of transition' for Pittsburgh that leads up to a game. This begs the question: what causes the court to reunite. I quickly settle on the death of the harpy, which allows the next harpy to be selected during play as the first significant political event of the game; a harpy election is something that can involve plenty of political back and forth without becoming a knife fight. The harpy is also the natural figure to have been keeping the court together during the period of recent quiet. > > From this the idea of a playful harpy manifests, someone who has hosted regular social gatherings among those few kindred still active, but never large enough to constitute a real court meeting. Johnny Wright quickly becomes a vehicle for plot - his role as a social nexus means he's one of the few people to have had a good view on what's going on in the city. The investigation into his murder will lead to the reveal of all kinds of secrets; most directly the East Coast Paladins, but also the strange role Franklyn Burgee has been playing in the city. It will even emerge, as the investigation proceeds, that rumors of his demise may have been greatly exaggerated. > [!INFO]- **The Family Man** > A Nosferatu elder disguised as a Toreador, the Family Man begins as a device to enable infiltrators and spies. Because I expect heavy politics and intrigue, I want to make it easy for people to have fake identities; and there are several characters (both PC and NPC) who are functionally 'smuggled in' by him, granted IDs with his power to Create Names. The story of the Family Man, as someone who surrounds himself with the talented and excellent, takes shape. He is probably the most visible of the 'big three' elders - a Primogen of the city and a host of one of the games. A number of players are tied to him, deriving political power and resources from the connection. He develops into a rival for Franklyn Burgee, and I imagine the circumstances of his untimely demise fairly early in the game, as the victim of Prince Lyn's 'mask off' moment. > > He also gets one of the coolest locations in the game: the Grand Concourse, a train station turned into a restaurant in another case of Pittsburgh reinventing itself. > [!INFO]- **The Golden Boy** > In addition to the absolutely insufferable name, the Golden Boy is a threat made by the system. He reminds the members of the Court that there's always someone bigger, that there are consequences for going against the grain. > > I initially don't have a lot of plans for the guy, because I expect him to be killed in his sleep in the culmination of Act I. The players did an excellent job of tracking the Paladin's movements, however, and so were ultimately able to save him. After I review the circumstances of his survival, I decide that he flees into Sable territory and has his heart stolen. For the rest of the game he effectively acts as their catspaw. This allows him to take the shape of a minor antagonist, most notably when the Sables use him to attempt to interfere in the selection of Franklyn Burgee's replacement as Prince. > [!INFO]- **The Dreaming Tyrant** > The myth of the Dreaming Tyrant comes before the character - an urban legend within the city. The character of the Tyrant is purely a story device in their inception; a reminder that in the world of darkness, there will always be unanswerable mysteries. No matter how old or insightful you are, there remain enigmas that defy study. The Tyrant always has a bit of an antagonistic bent in their design, as likely to hurt those who approach them as to help. Sometimes I use them to seed information about plot or to stir conflicts that I'm worried are growing stale - at other times they attempt to incite growth in members of the court. These attempts will usually appear hostile; as the name suggests, this character does not trend towards kindness. > > All of this naturally suggests an exceptionally *indirect* character, one that has almost no ability to touch the world directly (I regularly consider the possibility that they have no real body, and are instead a collection of thoughts floating around in the Malkavian Hive). Characters will regularly encounter those that the Tyrant has 'colonized' through a combination of dominate and telepathy, small pieces that they use to play with the city. Almost every antagonist is, to some extent, manipulated by the Tyrant, to help achieve their nebulous goals. > > There are several characters tied to the Tyrant, because they are the most inclined of these elders to act as a mentor. Clan Malkavian never quite seems to know what to make of them, alternating between considering them a dread threat, a quaint friend, or a dangerous teacher. They spend time in Act II helping to reveal Lyn's true nature to the court - I tried to space this out and maintain ambiguity as long as possible, so that it remains unclear until the very end whether the Tyrant is really helping the Court or not. > > Part of their inconstant nature is wrapped in the fact that, at some point in Act II, the Dreaming Tyrant is found and diablerized by Johnny Wright, as part of a plot that was unfortunately aborted - see discussion on Act III for more details. > [!INFO]- **The Sable Family** > First let me just say, the Independent Alliance makes such great antagonists. On a mechanical level, Giovanni and Setites can cover physical/mental/social builds and access thaumaturgy and necromancy, letting you build a fully functional group with just two clans. Second, their ideology lets them work *with* just about any sect while still clashing with that sect. They make a phenomenal long term antagonist - the court won't be compelled to instantly go to war with them, but there will always be tension. > > The Sables start out as both a resource and a thorn in the court's side. The Sables originate *purely* as a facilitator device, to sell things that the players otherwise can't get. Want an Obtenebration teacher, but there aren't any Lasombra in play? Want to learn some Abyss lore in response to the East Coast Paladins? The Sables always know a guy, and are always glad to arrange a transaction. They behave as suspiciously as possible, so that players have to weigh the immediate benefits that they're buying with the potential long-term risk of those purchases. I balance the suspiciousness of the family with strongly limiting their ability to lie. The Sables never break a promise, and while they don't *always* tell the truth, it's rare that I let them tell an outright lie. This is partially because lying can be absurdly powerful in LARP (and destructive to a story when overdone), and partially because I think it makes them more interesting. > > A full roster for the family is written out, but Dulcinea Sable is always envisioned as their face - depending on the story taken, she could very easily be the only Sable the game ever sees. In addition to these characters, there are two major mechanics that I introduce to the game, that have just as much presence as NPCs. These are: > [!INFO]- Feeding Territories > I've already discussed the reasoning behind modified feeding mechanics. There are well over forty vampires in Pittsburgh for most of the chronicle, when some back of the envelope math would suggest it would struggle to feed thirty. > > I consider this implementation successful for two reasons: 'improving the feeding in the city' was a constant motivation of different coteries and the Court for the entirety of the game, and tactics during combat scenes were dictated in large part by how much blood participants had available. > > That isn't to say the system was without fault though. The rules for feeding in a territory you weren't allowed in were almost never used, which suggests they were overly complicated. Additionally, while I wanted the quality of feeding draws to suggest things about the state of the city (or different feeding territories), gauging the territory cards from random draws was difficult. If I reran this system, I might have allowed patrol downtimes to get a look at which cards would be available in your territory. > [!INFO]- City Institutions > The purpose of the Institution rules were to represent the deeper focus on controlling the city I wanted this game to have. Each of the five Institutions had access to a type of influence and another background, and each had five Anchors that could be used to leverage them. Use of the Anchors could draw on one or both of the Institutions background, leveraging major forces in the city to come to your aid. Often, players would need to collaborate in order to successfully utilize the Anchors that they had. > > Another big motivation for the Institution/Anchor system was to give something for characters to struggle over *without* drawing blood. The Camarilla especially needs a system for venting social pressure - a way to retaliate for an insult without just ambushing your enemy in an alleyway. Without low stakes prizes to fight over, pressure simply builds until every other day is a killbox fought over extremely petty bullshit - which causes the players to wonder how these vampires have survived for the decades or centuries that they claim. Attacking or stealing an Anchor is relatively low stakes, but remains a concrete loss for the character who crossed you. > > I am ambivalent about how this system worked in play. On the plus side, it was relevant immediately and remained present throughout the entire game. There were several instances of social conflict and retaliation through the Institution medium - stealing or destroying Anchors for slights (real or perceived). Winning a new Anchor was seen as a tangible victory. At the same time monopolies formed quickly, a loose network of roughly six or seven players who pooled access to their Anchors and seized control of the Institutions. I'm hesitant to call this a *problem* - that's probably what *should* happen in a vampire game, but it isn't necessarily desirable from a game design perspective - not the first time the setting has clashed with good game design. If I were to run this again, I think I would make Anchors a little bit more visible and targetable to those outside of the system, and encourage players to try and crate *new* Anchors (something that did happen, but sporadically). ## A Game In Three Acts I tend to default to a three act structure for games that I design or run; it gives an easy way to think about theme and momentum. When I am blueprinting City of Providence: - Act I goes from June 2022 - February 2023 - Act II goes from March 2023 - November 2023 - Act III goes from February 2024 - September 2024 In practice, Act I ends closer to April 2023, leaving Act II a little bit rushed. This leaves the hunters in limbo for part of the game - they are overshadowed in Act II by Franklyn Burgee, and then forgotten by many in the transition to Act III. Looking back on the game, it's likely that Act I could have been hurried along, with the East Coast Paladins perhaps making some bolder plays to force the final confrontation. ### The East Coast Paladins >"Oh my god, the Camarilla is more bloodthirsty than the Sabbat!" >Elli, assistant facilitator, thirty minutes into session 1. The key word for Act I is **affirmation**. I want to invite characters to define themselves, to jump into projects, and to feel cool with what they're doing. I know immediately that our villains for this section of the game will have to be the Sabbat, because the Sabbat is the Camarilla's defining enemy, their dark shadow, the thing they define themselves again. The Camarilla is never *more* the Camarilla then when they are fighting against the Sabbat. Around this time, I'm doing more reading into random pieces of Christian theology, looking for inspiration on the 'city as an object of worship' angle. While reading a little on the Holy Roman Empire, I come across a note that the Paladins of Charlemagne's court were also called the Twelve Peers - and while details vary, the number 12 is constant across sources. I quite like the image of a pack of Sabbat 'paladins,' and the number 12 is quite useful to me from a design perspective. Bringing in a pack of 5-6, I need to guard those characters very carefully over Act I; if the court manages to kill/capture even a single member, it dramatically weakens the pack. On the other hand, if I bring in 30 shovelheads, death is cheap and only a few members of the pack have any personality - this doesn't make for memorable villains. With 12, I can give each character a unique feel and personality, and the players can win early victories against them without neutralizing the pack. The East Coast Paladins are born. Let's go through them, partially to look at how they were constructed, partially just because I had a great deal of fun building these guys. First, our thesis statement: The East Coast Paladins embody *hunger*. They should inspire *contempt*. > [!INFO]- **Saint Jimmy** > Our leader, an 8th generation Kiasyd and self-styled Saint. The name tries to invoke a kind of 'made man' among the Sabbat - he's the pack's voice and provides the pack's vision. He's loaded up with Abyssal Mysticism - not because the rituals are *good*, but because for many players, they are *unfamiliar*. Saint Jimmy is the sheet I bring out when trying to surprise and confuse. He is also convinced that he is far more clever than he is. His leaving out the two Ventrue Elders from his list of targets is an early hint that the Sables are cooperating with the Paladins, and suggests the Family's long term plans for the court. > > In play, he is one of the four members of the pack that survives Act I, and continues to play a significant role in the game. He is used as a tool by no fewer than three different political actors, because for all of the gravitas and self-importance, he is ultimately a very, very small man. The time he spent in silent contemplation in the Cathedral of Learning left him vulnerable to the Dreaming Tyrant, the boons his pack paid to the Sables left them extremely overexposed, and players will use him as an assassin against other members of the Court. > [!INFO]- **Bonny Cross** > This is our general and ductus, a 9th gen Assamite who is pure death on the field. Unlike many Sabbat, she's both capable and practical - I plan her introduction, rescuing another Paladin from the Court, so that players see that there is a mind on the side of the opposition. Bonny is one of the few members of the pack that is strategically inclined, so that more tactical players have someone to contend against. That said, she needs to be used sparingly - she doesn't really have her own story; she's here to contrast with the more feral members of the pack (and keep the pack alive for more than two months). Bonny being on site is a clear indication that the Paladins mean business, with her reputation and personality doing most of the work. > [!INFO]- **Eikania** > His name comes from the Greek Eikon, ie Icon. This is the pack's minder, a gargoyle boy who seems to be made of candle wax. He uses Visceratika and Auspex to monitor parts of the city (especially useful is the technique that lets him see out of the eyes of statues), keeping an eye on packmates and looking for targets. Appearing in astral also allows for a bit of banter with other characters. > > Ultimately, Eikania will be captured by the Prince and delivered to his former leader, Delilah, where he is unceremoniously diablerized. Poor kid. > [!INFO]- **Milton** > Named for the author of Paradise Lost, here we have the proselytizer. I know that this game isn't going to be about wall to wall combat, and the Sabbat are here to hunt elders, not to slaughter the Camarilla. At least one of them should be here to try and preach the good word of Caine to all of the poor, disenfranchised neonates of the city. This is mostly an opportunity for some roleplay, to get ideas about the Paladins out there, and to give players the chance to turn this against him (but if I managed to successfully convert a character to the Sabbat, I wasn't exactly going to be sad about it). Several characters will jump at this opportunity. > > Mechanically, Milton is DPS - a Toreador with a gun at an XP level where guns are exceptionally dangerous. > [!INFO]- **Bloody Mary** > One part spy, two parts bogeyman. We have a lot of Nosferatu at the beginning of the game, and so I know that I need someone across sect lines who can chat with members of the family. Bloody Mary is a figure that will strike her own deal with the Nosferatu in the city, after which she largely functions as a spy and an omen. Word of 'the red woman of the sewers' serves to inform characters of where the Paladins have turned their attention - and inspires a degree of alarm in downtimes. She's fairly dangerous in a 1v1 fight, but doesn't move the needle much in a mass combat. > [!INFO]- **Judy Silverhands** > Named for Judas and his thirty pieces of silver, Judy is impulsive and rash, a little bit the 'baby' of the pack. This rashness lets me reveal the Sabbat presence in the city before Jimmy is ready to throw down his gauntlet. She's mostly a collection of fun chimeristry tricks for me to play around with (those Brahmin merits are nasty) - anime style guns, layering illusions on top of themselves, building mobs to act as her backup, and some others I've forgotten. > > There's some synchronicity between her mechanics and her character that are interesting to examine - mechanically she's far more dangerous than her appearance suggests, which lets me catch some people off guard in combat - but she's aware of that, and so is exceedingly overconfident in the fights that she picks. This leads to some humiliating losses for her, during which the Court acquires crucial information. > [!INFO]- **Pontious** > Don't think this one needs explaining, but I'll just confirm that his last name would be Pilate. > > The 'omega' of the pack, Pontious is sent for diplomacy and negotiation by a pack that values neither. He's the main point of contact between the Paladins and the Sables, from which the Paladins learn about the Court (also allowing the Sables to sell information *about* the Paladins back to the Court). From the beginning I expect him to try and jump ship once the pack starts to lose, but his actual adoption by a player was a happy coincidence. > > He is an infernalist, for two reasons: 1) any group of more than 6 Sabbat probably includes an infernalist, and 2) anyone who accepts the aid of someone who betrays their pack and sect to save their own hide should *probably* get burned for it. > > Mechanically, he exploits a couple of Dominate and Daimoinon tricks (for those who asked me where he got his extra actions, take a look at Symbiotic Possession). > [!INFO]- **Big G** > Goliath. He's big, he's dumb, he's strong. This is the nastiest combat sheet I'm capable of building at this XP, and I'm very happy that he was immediately defeated, torpored, and locked in a cage for the rest of the chronicle. This Act wasn't about raw strength - it was a demonstration that while the Sabbat might be scary in a fight, the Camarilla is *better* at waging war. Big G did exactly what I wanted him to - he walked on stage, was extremely funny and memorable for exactly five minutes, and then walked off the stage. > [!INFO]- **Little Lev** > This our small Leviathan, partnered with Big Lev, his Vozhd. Look, sometimes you write a character's name just for that little spark of joy it gives you. Lev is our fleshcrafter - mechanically, the point of him is mostly to be a force multiplier for the pack. His Szlachta are the first enemies that the court encounters, his two headed bear is the (supposed) murder weapon used on Johnny Wright, and his Vozhd is a major set piece for the grand conclusion to Act I. Attaching his creations to smaller groups keeps them from being overwhelmed by action economy alone. > > He's one of the characters that gets a very strong personality in interactions with Sophie (PC, player Cassandra), where he acts as a kind of twisted foil. He isn't just an unrepentant monster who uses his animal subjects up before discarding them - he's a *gleeful* unrepentant monster, and this glee, especially, drives a lot of the back and forth. This is easily my favorite of the bunch. > [!INFO]- **The Abbot** > The Abbot is inspired by the idea of Anchorites, monks who were functionally entombed in extremely small chambers within a church or monastery in contemplation of the divine. They would become repositories of wisdom and communal knowledge. The Abbot is our thaumaturge - practically, he expands the toolbox available to the pack, but he's also an object of strangeness and mystery. He functions as the historian and priest of the pack, and an away team discovering his 'history book' is a major turning point of Act I. > [!INFO]- **Two Fish** > The name here is a riff off of the ichthys. > > This is for all you monster fuckers out there. Two Fish is a serial killer wolfman with a cryptid 'thing from the black lagoon' twist - don't tell me I don't know what my players like. > > Mechanically he's our tank - remember that in BNS there is no aggro, so succeeding as a tank is a matter of presentation. Two Fish is given an extremely threatening design and stacked with several movement and teleportation abilities so that he can surprise and alarm the players. His sheet is then stacked with every dodge, soak, and healing ability a 9th gen can fit, along with Misleading Wounds to lie about his damage. While Two Fish is absorbing all of the attention, Milton and Judy Silverhands are twenty steps away pouring round after round into the PCs (this trick will torpor the Sheriff no fewer than three times). > [!INFO]- **Tommy Acquaintance** > Thomas Aquinas. > > People might not even recognize this character - Tommy is a neonate Malkavian who comes up with inane schemes to torment and befuddle the Court. He won't be memorable to many players because he is captured on his very first outing and never returns. This is what I mean above when writing about victories the court can win - the number of Paladins means that I can afford for a member of the pack to be permanently removed from the board without damaging the story. From a facilitator perspective, the East Coast Paladins are a massive success. Several of its members get a lot of engagement and buy-in from the players, and there are confrontations with different members of the pack across Act I, each of which manages to have a unique feeling to it. The Caitiff, Sam (PC, played by Winter), is also a great mid-game addition to this story, where we decide her amnesia was caused by Jimmy, and that she was once the *founder* of this pack - Delilah. This provokes some of the most intense emotional roleplay I've seen in a vampire game, and ultimately leads Delilah to be one of my better minor antagonists, after she chooses to give in to her rage and revert to her original identity. Additionally, the climax works amazingly - the Paladins split into two groups; the bulk of their force engaging Gabriel (PC, played by Jeremy) and his hit team, while Jimmy leads the smaller group in a surprise strike against the Golden Boy's haven. The fight with Gabriel is challenging but ultimately a decisive win for the Camarilla, exactly what we want from Act I. The boat fight is easily the most engaging combat I've ever run in BNS, and included a giant underwater tick, a duel between two storm Thaumaturges, and a school of bloodthirsty pike. Where things go wrong - I've already mentioned that Act I could have had an earlier ending. I think this traces back to a couple of mistakes that I made in September - November of 2022, especially centered around the Cathedral of Learning. The original intent is for the players to learn that the Paladins were after something *in* the Cathedral, and to race against them to get it (the prize would be Johnny Wright's notes, a letter from him, and an Anchor). This would be a huge battle that takes place through a strange maze, filled with traps and distractions created by Johnny Wright, in which the court and the Sabbat keep stumbling upon each other. The fight would end with one side or the other claiming the Cathedral, which would inform how I ended Act I. Unfortunately, I flub the plot hooks for this, and most people only realize the Cathedral's relevance after the Paladins had taken it (I consider delaying the Paladin's acquisition of the building, but ultimately choose not to, due to information other players have already been given). The Paladins are now dug into a fortress which appears exceedingly dangerous. Here's my second mistake - the scene where the Cathedral is first attacked comes after several defeats the Paladins suffered, and I overcorrect in preparing the Cathedral's defenses. In reality, many of the tricks used to defend the site are limited and should be solvable - but the lesson learned is that the court should leave the Cathedral alone and hunt the Paladins whenever they venture outside. This significantly delays my attempt to get the information hidden in the Cathedral into player hands (though on a more amusing note, the reputation the Cathedral holds is so powerful, I received downtimes *very carefully* scouting the building a full year after it has been abandoned). Ultimately I'm quite happy with how Act I goes. The intense battle on the river provides an excellent lead-in to the Pittsburgh Housing Authority, disagreements over how to handle the Paladins assist in drawing battle lines within the Court, and a few of the Paladins survive the Packs destruction, which lets me keep them around as a tool for the Sable Family to use in future negotiations. ### Pittsburgh Housing Authority > "Let me tell you how this ends. This ends with me on the evening news giving a touching speech thanking you for your great service to Pittsburgh. But don’t worry. I’ll make sure there’s a bench in Point State Park thanking you for your service to the city." > Arthur Primm, predicting the fate of Susanne Hopler The key word for Act II is *Opposition* - Now that we've affirmed the court and the ideals of the Camarilla, we begin to challenge them. The hunters of the Pittsburgh Housing Authority are in opposition to the Camarilla's self image as a bastion of civilization, their claim to be close to humanity. And the big villain of Act II, Franklyn Burgee, stands in opposition to the faith that kindred of the Camarilla are asked to have in their Elders and leaders. Let's talk about the Pittsburgh Housing Authority first. I know from the beginning that I'll use hunters as the antagonists of Act II - largely as a personal challenge. I noticed that almost every game I've played introduces their hunters as an early antagonist (including other games I've run myself). It's not hard to see why - hunters are another classic enemy for vampires to face, but it's hard to make them dangerous outside of a low XP environment. They make a great early combat tutorial, but eventually, it's hard for them to actually threaten the players. I wanted to see if I could make hunters work as a meaningful antagonist in Act II (my conclusion? I can - but it was a mistake to let them linger into Act III, where I reached my limits). PHA are true faith hunters, but I don't want to associate them with a specific faith because these are humans. It's one thing for the twisted monsters of the Sabbat to borrow from Christian imagery - but as a non-religious facilitator, portraying ordinary people with real faith felt potentially dicey. The solution is pretty obvious given the themes of the game - let them worship the city. I commit to this around the middle of Act I, where it becomes clear that many characters are competing over which of them is the most *of* Pittsburgh - you have Primm (PC, played by Pete) and his Hospitality group, Brittney (PC, played by Shannon) and her 'Pittsburgh Royalty' vibe, Franklyn Burgee who claims to have been in Pittsburgh as long as there was such a thing, Mother Karina (PC, played by Rev) and her shelter for the people of the city...the list goes on. Making the source of the hunter's power literally their worship of the city helps to challenge this image that the characters have of themselves - as vampires, they aren't *of* the city, they are *parasites* in the city, and that city rejects them. The Pittsburgh Housing Authority embodies *defiance*. They should inspire *dread*. I write in the Act I breakdown that it is rewarding to use the methods and philosophy of the Camarilla in fighting the Sabbat. I take the opposite approach for the hunters - using the Camarilla toolbox should only frustrate. The cells are heavily decentralized so that intelligence and spying on one is extremely limited in scope, and they are spread widely and deeply enough through the city that influences will struggle to touch them. The plan is to leave room for the players to start brainstorming after their first few attempts are frustrated, with the idea that successful strategies are the ones that stray further from the Camarilla's ideals; the more savagery and viciousness wielded, the more likely it is to succeed. We should note that this requires walking a careful line, one that I hope I managed. The players signed up for a vampire game, and it would be a bit of a rug pull to then attempt to shame them for acting like vampires. Nobody, least of all me, wants an arc in which the facilitator simply lectures the players, telling them off and reminding them of their evil nature. The goal here should be to *challenge* the characters by forcing them to work outside of their comfort zones, not to *shame* the players for playing the game as intended. > [!INFO]- **Digression: The Mayoral Race** >I wish I had given this more time. > >The mayoral election starts as a subplot in Act II, a special election to replace a resigning mayor so that the hunters can run their own candidate, in a continuation of the 'city rejecting the court' storyline. I expect this to be a small story, that maybe three or four characters engage with, as the hunters play more and more of a role in high society. I half expect that I'll get no real buy-in, but still launch the plot, as I know I'll still be able to use the election as a proxy for how much influence the hunters command. > > And then another player manufactures a body double of Arthur Primm, wealthy hotel magnate, announcing his candidacy for mayor. And it is beautiful - a political attack that doubles as a piece of spectacle for the players. I mean, I just had to. > >I sit down that weekend and build out the full field of candidates (inspired by the core cast of *Succession*, because I happened to be on a rewatch) and use Chat-GPT to help write out a range of political platforms. I seed them with a couple of ties to the supernatural (Mallory is a hunter, Willowsby is funded by the Sables, Lukas Vander died two years ago and was reanimated by the Sable Family as part of a longstanding deal). The stage is set and the information is released to the players. The problem is that I've spent a lot of time setting the stage and not nearly enough time plotting the race out. And it turns out, there's not that much to do. After the spectacle dies down, there are still only three or four characters in the game inclined to delve seriously into mortal politics. Actually simulating an event like a fundraiser or some piece of political theater is a significant amount of writing each time, and one that only covers one-sixth of the field each time its done. > >In the end, the mayoral race is a bit of flavor for Arthur Primm, and something to joke about on the Discord. That isn't a bad thing - it still does what I wanted it to from the original, which is to signal the rising influence of the hunters to the game. But I feel that the election is one of the big 'missed opportunities' of the game, something I might have managed to do more with had I come up with a better way of handling it, or given it more of my time. In retrospect, the hunters don't do what I want them to in the story. They *do* achieve the threat level I was after - they come onto the scene with a big splash and remain relevant for a good portion of Act II - until we reach the point where Franklyn Burgee begins to overshadow them. Then we're into Act III, where xp has reached the point where hunter attacks aren't a serious threat. I still get to run some excellent scenes in Act III with people chasing the hunters down, but those scenes involve a group of 2-3 characters battling their leadership instead of 5-6. Here also, the lack of personality hurts. Susanne Hopler is a great early face for PHA, but I don't replace her with anyone after her demise. The nature of the threat the hunters represent is faceless, which makes it challenging to characterize. This one is definitely a failing, but one that I'm not entirely sure how I might have fixed. Simply replacing Susanne Hopler with another hunter in her role reduces the impact of her death, and leaves the court feeling as though they are simply knocking down leaders as they rise up. There's an extent to which the hunters *should be faceless*, a mass resistance rising up against the court - but the lack of a name to put on the enemy makes it difficult for the court to fully tackle the problem. Ultimately, because of this, the death of Susanne Hopler marks the point at which the hunters stop being synonymous with the Pittsburgh Housing Authority, which weakens some of the narrative purpose they serve - a housing authority group would see the Court as an object of oppression and gentrification, a political theme that the Court could meaningfully grapple with. Luckily, Act II still ends strongly, because of our *second villain*... ### The Mad Prince > "You can't do that! That's illegal!" > Brittney, upon the murder of the Family Man, realizing the Prince had broken his own laws. First, a brief digression. The question of how to begin a vampire game is a tricky one. Presumably many of these characters know each other already, and have a history that goes back dozens or hundreds of years. If the court is not a new one, there is an implicit web of politics and alliances that are already in place - in large part, stories that are being told in the middle of those longer struggles and narratives is what vampire is *about*. This is in tension with what we're actually doing - starting a new game, with characters that aren't entirely defined yet and a setting still being built. This creates an interesting conundrum - on the one hand, we need a setting that characters can play off of, place themselves in, and respond to; on the other hand, the setting itself needs to be built out of the player's own actions and relationships. There are a number of strategies and compromises you can make to navigate this tension. One of these is what I call 'the Mad Prince' - at the start of the game, the court is ruled by an NPC prince who proceeds to absolutely lose his mind. He might order executions, reveal his status as an infernalist, conspire with the Sabbat... anything that *forces* the game to come together, kill this complete maniac, and raise a new prince. This maneuver accomplishes a couple of things - the opening fight is a nice opening tutorial to combat for those new to the system, your Mad Prince's ravings can contain hints and foreshadowing to future plot (some discerning players might ask what *exactly* drove the Prince mad), and an ensuing rush to build a new court gives everyone time to find their place within the burgeoning political structure without worrying too terribly much about what the *old* political structure looked like. I'm not knocking this approach by any means - it's one that I've employed before, and have played in regularly. What are the drawbacks? Well, characters don't always work out. Sometimes we find that a character we invested a lot into just... doesn't have staying power. That's no problem - if the character doesn't click then you can put them aside and try again - unless you agreed in game 1 to step forward and take over as the next Prince. Now, A) you feel obligated to continue playing a character that you don't enjoy because of the role of importance they jumped into without a *ton* of thought going into it, or B) the game cycles through leaders until it finds one that sticks (usually ending with someone who is used to playing leadership roles, driving player burnout). Either of these is liable to drain any interest or enthusiasm present in the political game that's present. But what if the Mad Prince wasn't obviously mad? Imagine a Prince who starts off withdrawn, dangerous, eccentric, but still...stable. Now imagine over the course of a year this Prince becomes steadily more unhinged - he issues strange threats, launches attacks against members of the court seemingly at random, seems to harbor criminals or be implicated in assassination attempts, and gives increasingly villainous speeches at the end of each game. All the while he shirks more and more of his duties as Prince, leaving the court to learn to operate around him until finally, they are left with no choice but to rebel against his authority, and in doing so fully take over the reigns of the city. Enter Franklyn Burgee (PC who gradually changes into an NPC, played by Joseph Perry). Joseph and I work out Lyn's arc during the December - January break in 2023, with the story as follows. As Pittsburgh goes through a period of deindustrialization, Lyn falls deeper into his eccentricities. Somewhere along the way, he becomes obsessed with the idea of asserting *true* ownership over the city, an idea that he ultimately conflates with a kind of apotheosis. He performs his ritual sometime in the 80's or 90's and perceives it as a failure. Lyn imagines that he is literally stuck on his throne because if he were to move a muscle thoughtlessly, it would cause a building to collapse, or trigger an earthquake. In fact, what Lyn's ritual did is imprinted part of his personality and philosophy onto the spirit of Pittsburgh, which began to manifest with an obsession in asserting its divinity. This becomes the 'source' of PHA's power. I leave this thread ambiguous for a while - would this be a piece of dramatic irony, where the characters would slay Lyn only to find out it was his dark reflection that was the true problem? Would it be a one-two punch of finding out that Lyn *had* created a god? Where we land is in emphasizing the *pathetic* nature of Lyn's obsession. Franklyn Burgee descends into madness, terrorizing his court and scheming ultimate power, but any kind of real power is beyond his grasp, because he is a small, petty coward who hides in a tower and imagines a victory that he feels entitled to. The god he accidentally creates (or Mister Pitt, as he is eventually named) is the coda on that story - even in the world where Lyn *did* ascend to godhood, *did* get everything he claims he wanted - he is *still* a sniveling coward who loses because he can't imagine any world in which he hasn't already won. Franklyn Burgee embodies *entitlement*. As a villain who changes constantly in presentation over the game, he should first inspire *fear*, followed by *curiosity*, then *pity*, and finally *disgust*. Lyn's death in November is a scripted moment (so scripted, in fact, that I set a timer more than six months in advance, counting down to 10 PM on the date of Lyn's death, and put the current state of the timer into different Oracular Visions), and represents the point at which the players have fully taken control of the city. There are changes I could make in hindsight to make parts of 2023 flow better (in particular, reaching out to prospective candidates for Prince earlier so that I had a better sense of the landscape that Lyn's death would leave), but this is one of the plots I'm happiest with. >[!INFO]- An Alternative Ending to Act II >One of my early ideas was to have the hunters launch a mass attack on PPG place in November, having them tear through many of the defenses Lyn had, and allowing the Court a more direct route to his throne room. The reasons I discarded this were mostly logistical - it would require me to be in several places at once and coordinate timing between multiple groups. If I had more resources, I probably would have gone with this, which would then let me represent the hunters as a broken fragment of themselves in Act III. ### The Bitter Street Witch The key word for Act III is *consolidation*. Lyn is thrown down, many of the secrets of the city are opened up, and the court is capable of movement in a way that's been difficult up until this point. The question is what they're going to do with it. I leave a lot of this in the hands of the players, and there are many routes available to them. Will they destroy their enemies, solidify their power over the city, and establish a Camarilla court in truth? Will they find stability with the hunters, Sables, and other threats? Peace may be possible, though it will require compromising certain core ideals. And what about the internal threats of the court? It is perfectly possible for the court to fracture with the loss of its longtime prince, with the surviving vampires forming into a handful of feudal 'petty courts,' each of which only holds domain over a single feeding territory in the city. This was *not* my original plan for Act III. When I sat down before the game had begun, the key word I chose might have been *revolution*, or maybe *emergence*. The idea is that Johnny Wright, having successfully pushed the court to slay the former prince, will work with a kind of spirit named the Bitter Street Witch. The Witch is a kind of patron saint in Pittsburgh, dating back to early fires in the city, and would offer aid just as easily to neonates as to the weak among the city. The initial plan is for Johnny Wright and the Witch to offer a kind of pact to various neonates and ancilla over Acts I and II, using Lyn's madness as a way to incite their followers to oppose *all* elders of the city. The ultimate goal of this would be to have the sworn characters destroy the court of Pittsburgh and launch the Third Anarch Revolt. Why didn't this happen? Well, for one, the Bitter Street Witch was caught too early by several Malkavians, who managed to acquire a huge amount of information about her. This severely limited her range of motion, and made it much more likely she'd pull back and play the long game then risk exposure. There was still room for me to run this with Johnny, but I struggled in finding recruits early in the game. Part of this was undoubtedly due to distraction on my part while running the main plot - this is another place where I would have benefited from a third assistant facilitator. Recruits are also difficult to find because demographics work against me - there simply aren't many neonates in play, and despite my efforts, the elder population only grows. By mid 2023 I had largely closed this plot (though I kept some of the philosophy for the Dreaming Tyrant), and knew that the antagonist of Act III would be the one that the players selected. The most likely foe for the court to set its eyes on is, of course: ### The Sable Family > "Sable is the color of mourning. We shall give these pretenders something to mourn." > The Marquis of the Shadowlands, upon joining ZOO in his war. The Sable Family embodies *tragedy*. They should inspire *distrust*. As an antagonist, the Sables are set apart from our other figures by dint of not being fighters, in either ability or inclination. Every time they 'win' an encounter with the players, it should be through subversion, calling in debts, or playing people off of each other. Where before we were playing with the Court as a parasite on the city, the Sables are a kind of parasite on the Court - drawing on its own resources to fight their battles. Because of this, any fight will be a protracted one, as the Court will need to limit the Family's reach and influence before striking. If the court manages to entirely disarm the Sables, then the final battle will be a curb-stomp; they are totally unsuitable for mass combat. To ensure they have a healthy base of debts to call on beyond being an available resource, they are included in the boon lottery and provide the 'silent auction' towards the end of 2023. This is a surefire way of preparing them, as they are offering items that will aid in the upcoming fight against Prince Lyn. In addition to boons, the Sables collect hearts. In Acts I and II they are on the lookout for vulnerable characters - someone who fair escapes a combat and is left to wander the streets downtown while wounded will almost certainly be attacked. Ultimately they collect hearts from four characters - three players and the Golden Boy, and use these with varying degrees of success. This was a cool idea when I had it at the beginning of the chronicle, but it probably should have stayed an idea. Ultimately I am not actually willing to walk up to a player and tell them "your character turns to ash without warning," and so ultimately the threat the Sables are leveraging is a hollow one. I will threaten players with the destruction of their heart, but it is not a threat I am prepared to carry out. Let's take a moment to examine the Sable Family's motivations through the game. I've mentioned that they give me a way to sell anything to the players, whether rare disciplines, thaumaturgical items, or exotic lores. They also play a useful story role in Act I, where they can act as a go-between for the court and the Sabbat. Several players will use this, purchasing information on the Sabbat (several others realize that the Sabbat are doing the same thing, purchasing information about the Court). Behind the scenes, the Sables are using this opportunity to test the Court. Some of them may hope that the Sabbat will win, and that the Sables will then be able to take full control of Pittsburgh - but most know that the Court will be victorious. This is their chance to study the Court, and to make themselves useful. The East Coast Paladins quickly go deeply into debt to the Sable Family, so that when the bulk of the pack is destroyed the remainder effectively turn into the Sable's weapons. In Act II, tensions deepen. The Sables begin to consider Lyn an enemy and this increases their hostility towards the Court, as they cannot be sure who is and isn't loyal to him. They offer assistance against Lyn, mostly with information, but their auction includes several items that will prove useful in the fight against him. They also interfere in the competition to select a replacement Prince. They naturally favor Primm, as a character who is *deeply* in debt to them, but they are careful to hedge their bets, offering subtle assistance to Mother Karina as well. The only candidate they openly oppose is ZOO (PC, player Frank), who has been a constant thorn in their side. He is the only candidate they cannot work with - and when he successfully takes the throne, they know that the city is about to become much more hostile. Now we arrive in Act III. The Prince of the city is an old rival to the Sables - ZOO has been fighting against them through necromantic proxies for decades. At the same time, the Prince that they ceded much of their territory to is dead, and the city has been badly wounded. The Sables have endured attacks and insults from the Court (conveniently forgetting the attacks and insults they have levied against the Court, naturally), and with the opportunity they see, it becomes harder to stomach treading lightly. Why shouldn't they test boundaries, they ask? Why not reach out to claim more of the city? The Sables worked, in that they certainly inspired distrust from the court, and were an antagonist that many players focused on. Unfortunately the final battle with the Sables was a decisive court victory not because the court successfully disentangled themselves from the Sables, but because they largely elected to ignore the debts that were held. The threat of being named boon breaker rings hollow in the final game, and there are few tools by which the ST can compel player behavior. I'm pleased with the overall role that the Sable Family served, but I won't deny being pretty disheartened by how the core of their story failed because boons function erratically in play. ## Conclusion > "You know what the exact moment was, Arthur? When I felt like an Elder. It wasn't when I claimed my title or even when Elder Saint called me Elder for the first time. Or bestowing my favor. It wasn't hatching a plan or seeing it succeed. > It was..." *Deep breath*. "When I took the crown. When years of scheming came to fruition and I on some level _won_, I thought to myself. 'Who do I want to share it with?' > I wanted to tell Elder Sylvia, the Family Man, even Franklyn. On some level I wanted them to be proud of me. But I realized they are gone now. Almost everyone is. I had chased acknowledgement so hard and so long that... > I realized there is no one left alive I want or need to be proud of me. I outlasted all of them. I realized that if I am going to continue--and I am--that I can't be that person anymore. > > That was the moment." > Elder Prince ZOO, upon getting everything he ever wanted. There is a lot that went into this game. A frustration with Camarilla games I had played in the past, lessons I've learned from the *many* mistakes I've made running other games, a deep love of the story of rat kings, an unexpected obsession with the second largest city in Pennsylvania, and an overreliance on Max Gladstone quotes. There are things I would have done differently and ways that this game could have been improved, but the truth is that these are details. For the first time in my facilitator career, I am genuinely proud of the game overall. Ultimately, that doesn't have much to do with me. This retrospective is an attempt to show you what the blueprint for City of Providence looked like in my head, and what the experience of implementing it was like. But a game doesn't happen until it gets into the hands of its players, when an idea held by a single person is instead held by twenty, thirty, forty different people, each with their own ideas and interpretations and enthusiasm. Immediately, I began to learn things I didn't know about my own game, discover themes and ideas I wasn't prepared for, but that so obviously fit. This is the reason that I keep coming back to LARP, no matter how many times it frustrates me - there is no other storytelling medium that offers this much variety, this much ability to explore and discover the story, even when you're the person writing it. This game doesn't belong to me anymore, if it ever did. It belongs to the people who brought it to life. To all of them, thank you. [[Projects#A Truth More Precious than Gold|And I'll see you next time.]] *Author:* [[Jacob Shpiece]] *© Copyright 2024 Spectacle Ink. All rights reserved.*