So we had our first session of Vampire. I started out with a small introduction scene for each of my players before setting them up for the initial mission.

1995, Köln, Germany

- The Electro DJ is buying drugs of his cousin while they are discussing his aunts upcoming 60th birthday (he has cut ties with most of his family, except for his cousin). During the deal, they are interrupted by the policy and the DJ flies, dragging his cousin with him into the nearby club where he works. Using his knowledge of his surroundings and creating some incidents on the way there, he manage to lose the cops, but when exiting the building runs into another police officer, who locks the door behind hem and let's him go. The officer is clearly a vampire and now he owns a vampire he doesn't know something. The intro was mainly a test if the DJ would abandon or use his cousin to escape, but he stayed loyal, so he succeeds his first mission.

- The Surgeon receives a letter adressed to one of his previous names and takes his Ghoul nurse with him to meet up with his blackmailer. This turns out to be an ex-Stasi officer that once arrested the Surgeon back in East Germany 30 years ago, but due to his Ventrue contacts he was set free and the officer lost his career. Somebody unknown has put this officer back on the trail of the man that ruined him, but the Surgeon noticed that the officer has received false information (whether his sources were ignorant or setting the officer up for failure remains to be seen (spoiler: it's the second). The officer tries to blackmail the Surgeon, but a gun with silver bullets does no real harm to him and his Ghoul kills the officer while the Surgeon distracts him. Things weren't going exactly as I imagined but the Surgeon stayed true to his character, so he succeeds his first mission as well.

- The Professor receives a notice from his secretary that some unknown, but powerful group (2nd Inquisition, Order of St. Leopold, The Technocracy? Haven't decided yet) has put out some feelers due to some local incidents and wants information on employees that fulfill a certain profile. The Professor fits this profile (but his secretary has been running cover for him, so he is safe for now), but another employee, a Nosferatur janitor, also fits the bill. He gets the choice between selling out the janitor to protect himself or not. This one went very quickly, because the poor janitor was thrown under the bus within seconds without even a doubt. The Surgeon failed the test and lost humanity (he had the highest of the entire group).

- The Club Owner gets called by his club's manager regarding an incident that left a club girl nearly death and one of his security heavily injured and very clearly involved a vampire. The incident itself will be the first mission, but this introduction was to see how he would deal with the wounded humans. He called an ambulance and police for them eventually (lots of jokes about the absurd size of his mobile phone), but his first question was whether he could just dump the nearly dead girl somewhere, so another failure and another lost humanity.

The Coterie is gathered
The local Seneschal contacts the four and holds the Club Owner responsible for this incident. During the whole mission everybody will treat the Surgeon and Professor with respect. Nobody will treat the DJ with respect (the player is the most experienced role player and clearly enjoyed this). The Club Owner will get some disrespect and some undeserved respect (the security guard is overwhelmed with gratitude when his boss is visiting him in the middle of the night, taking his private doctors with him and one of his colleagues, even when it's clear that the Club Owner only cares about the incident and when the guard can go back to work. "See you tomorrow!") Running joke during the session towards the Club Owner whenever he makes these kinds of comments will be "How much Humanity do you have left?"

The Surgeon can tell enough that the wounds were inflicted by large claws and only few vampires have that ability (could be that it's really common in real VtM, for this setting and new players, only two clans can do it and neither have any presence in Köln.) With a bit of prodding from my side, they also figure out that they need to change the patient records to cover up what really happened and the injuries are now caused by a broken bottle according to the papers. The Surgeon tries to get both patients moved to his hospital, but the girl is still in critical condition.
Back at the club, they get some low quality video surveillance, combined with the information on the wounds and the interview with the Security Guard they know enough to make something of a suspect profile and want to contact the Seneschal, but it's nearly morning. So time for sleep.

The second day
The Seneschal brings them into contact with a member of the local police, the vampire that saved the DJ before. This vampire turns out to be a Gangrel himself and sends out some investigation to find any potential unregistered Gangrels in Köln that will fit the bill. A local Ventrue tailor analyzes the assailant's clothing and what they thought was an expensive suit is just a cheap suit. The tailor also gives some free criticisms of the Club Owner's suit (who is a Toreador and now obsessed for the rest of the session that he now can see the flaws in his suit.) and praises the DJ's club outfit (the one glimmer of praise and respect he's getting so far).
The group goes to investigate various clubs, but the Club Owner has to leave as due to some very, very bad rolls, his hunger is reaching critical levels. This causes a mess in his own club where he nearly completely drains one of his victims, so the Surgeon is called in to save the person in question.
So the DJ and Professor are alone to search the clubs and bars and manage to find a suitable suspect at their second club. With a bit of luck and skill, they manage to drag him out of the club, but the DJ gets into a fight with him and goes into a frenzied state. The rest arrives to calm him down and save the Gangrel that nearly got killed.
The Gangrel is taken to outside the city where they meet the Seneschal, the officer and a large Nosferatu they don't know (the sheriff). The Sheriff simply asks them if they are sure that this is the guy and they are able to present some reasonable evidence. At which point the Nosferatu calmly removes the head of the Gangrel without any effort, leading to both the DJ and the Club Owner falling silent and deciding that for once, they are not going to try and get an argument going.

Conclusion:

End of the first session, for the second session I want to involve the Professor's player more. He was new to the group when it came to RPG (we did play some board games a couple of times before) so he was mostly quiet, but he did seem to enjoy himself. I've asked the players for feedback and all of them were positive.

Plan for next time is that they are going to investigate where the Gangrell came from, find some links with the Stasi officer and some clues that both were manipulated by the same party. I had made a 4x4 screen of important character the players could encounter and they currently are at 3/16 met so enough room for more sessions.

Vampire was HUGE when I was in college (mid 1990s) every thought anything White Wolf was gold... the Larpers were everywhere.

I was never a huge fan, but I did like playing the 'Dark Ages' version... I played a ravenos (they have illusion powers) and min maxed the stats to essentially make him Green Lantern. Good times.. though my friend (the DM) hated it

What the Hell...I'll play along

-Started playing RPGs- 1981 or 1982

-1st RPG- D & D Basic box

-Favorite Overall System: Probably still first edition AD&D, because honestly I haven't played much else. 

-Favorite Setting: Grayhawk

-Least Favorite Mechanics: Psionics, which absolutely never worked. 

-Most Played RPG:  First Edition AD&D  By orders of magnitude. 

-Least Favorite RPG: Not a lot to choose from...but I remember Star Frontiers sucking pretty bad. 

-Favorite Class in a Fantasy Game: My favorite character of all time was a 1E bard.  But I also always liked 1E druids and illusionists.  I'm all about the fringe. 


-Favorite Adventure Module/Scenario: Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh.


-Currently Playing: I haven't played in eons.  Not since my boys were little. 


-RPG I want to Try: I always wanted to play Space 1889


-Favorite RPG Artist: Tim Truman.  I loved him from the very start


-Favorite RPG Book Cover Art: Fiend Folio.  That Githyanki is iconic...and I HATE that word.  

RPG survey/questionnaire
-Started playing RPGs- Don't know exactly somewhere between 1999-2002
-1st RPG- Shadowrun (don't know the version)
-Favorite Overall System: Call of Cthulhu D100
-Favorite Setting: Paranoia
-Least Favorite Mechanics: D&D 3
-Most Played RPG: Either Call of Cthulhu D100 or D&D 5th edition.
-Least Favorite RPG: Haven't played anything that I disliked
-Favorite Class in a Fantasy Game: Druid probably, but will play just about any class
-Favorite Adventure Module/Scenario: Never used a module.
-Currently Playing: DMing Vampire the Masquerade, playing D&D 5th edition (oneshots) and Icon (two-shot, still waiting for the second part)
-RPG I want to Try: Lancer, DIE
-Favorite RPG Artist: Tom Parkinson-Morgan
-Favorite RPG Book Cover Art: Can't think of anything right now.

The nearest Ollie's is just shy of 1000 miles away.

I've spent part of the week reorganizing my DMing space since we are on hiatus for the holiday. It's still a work in progress, but I updated my players with some pics this afternoon.

I have an L-shaped desk in the basement that serves as my center of operations, and behind it is the 2 folding tables in a t-shape that we play on, so I jut have to turn my chair around basically to be at the table.

I added an old 2 tier "shoe rack" we weren't using to the desk to the left of where I sit at the desk upon which I placed a number of small blue bins from the travelling toolboxes I used to keep my DM kit in when I had to travel to play. Inside are minis and scatter terrain I use so its accessible during games but out of the way when not.



To the right of my desk on a long 2 drawer file cabinet, I added more of those bins (inside the file cabinet is where I store some of my comics)



It's a start. I'm trying to maximize efficiency of space use while balancing having things be accessible during game play without it being in the way of doing other things when we are not playing.

Since a lot of my game stem from improvisation and reacting to what players do rather than trying to steer them (and since very little actually takes place in a dungeon any more), I am not always sure of what I am going to need in a given session or for a particular encounter, so I like having stuff available and accessible to keep my options open.

-M