Okay! Let's inject some life into this forum!

I've run a couple groups through their first exposure to the World of Darkness games, both Old and New. I might have the opportunity to do so again soon and want some help coming up with a good plot or story line to get them hooked.

The group is three or four players who have a lot of experience with Dungeons and Dragons and have recently fallen in love with Call of Cthulhu (because I exposed them to it). Three of the four are pretty good roleplayers and capable of deep in-character acting and the fourth is less skilled at it (but he may not be joining the group, so it's not an issue).

They seem to enjoy the horror elements of Cthulhu and are eager to play Mage or Vampire or something, so I'd like to hear some tales of your first play experience, games you ran for others' first play experiences or even just really good games that would get some first timers hooked on the game.

My first play experiences are always: Make a tank. I'm new to the game, I don't want to die in the first night.

First vampire experience: I made a gangrel based off of Sabretooth. Fortitude out the wazoo and stamina to match. All i can say is that I remember tearing down an apartment complex because a cat wants to go the the basement of the building.

Good story hook for a vampire, my old standby, Ventrue grocery run. Have the PCs kidnap people to locate blood for a Ventrue's dinner party. Each person kidnapped could lead to another plot hook later in the game.

Also, all my games seem to have Torrie princes, just because I make them dispassionate enough about their job to introduce obvious Promigen competition. I know nothing made me angrier than seeing a Prince with ALL of his/her primogen standing firm behind him/her and with NO obvious chinks in the facade.

I've discovered that my best first play experiences to any new game I know nothing about is "make a really dumb character." That way I don't have to know anything. ;) It usually leads to a lot of humorous situations.

My first successful vampire was an 8 year old kender Malk with no common sense whatsoever. Rather than tanking his way through combat, he ran off and hid until it was over - which probably helped force the ST to come up with things to do other than hack-n-slash. He eventually became a very good thief.

Also:

I'd say it depends what the focus of the game is - it'd be a bad setup if your PCs are supposed to be engaged in political power struggles. But not all games are about that.

My very first vampire was in megadeus' run through of the Vampire Demo, and that was fun while it lasted. I was playing the Ventrue, and my guy managed to shout "STOP" and accidently use Dominate to get the guy who was running away from us to stop dead in his tracks.

Ahh, good times...

The first time I played VtDA I was an Assamite pretending to be a Ventrue.  I infiltrated a party with the intention of picking them off one at a time with the help of my evil henchmen.  Well things didn't go as planned and my first victim, though wounded, used obfuscate to get away.  As he was hiding in the shadows my character yelled "Just give me the Book!".  In reality there was no book but the other players spent the rest of the game ignoring the plot and searching for this mystical book.

In addition I convinced them that I had a magical sword that let me do aggravated damage to vampires when in reality it was my blood rubbed across the sword.  To further this illusion I purposely broke my sword on a faked botched and then whined over it for days.  They felt so bad for me that they started trying to find me another sword as well.

Ahhh...funtimes....funtimes....

The first game I ever ran is on this site a VtDA game, and its so convulted with doppelgangers and double crosses that I'm convinced my players don't really know what's going on but they seem to enjoy it.  There is a plot running but through all the smoke and mirrors its hard for them to easily see it.  Though I do drop major clues every so often.  Mostly I think the sense of distrust of everyone in the game keeps the players on their toes and interested.  I have one player who constantly uses Auspex on everyone because they are so paranoid.
This message was last edited by the user at 04:18, Sun 24 Aug 2008.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to play my first vampire for that long. It was more than ten years ago now and we only had some meetings before the group split up.

Anyway, what I remember is that I had a female Toreador called Rebecca. And the darkness in The World of Darkness appealed to me. We had after all played Kult right before we started with the oWoD-game. I don't know if anyone knows about Kult, but it's a swedish horror roleplaying game. I sometimes find nWoD to have the same feeling as Kult. And my husband has worked on some sort of fusion between the two game systems.

If you haven't heard of Kult, here is a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kult

As I've said before, Kult looks really cool. We'll have to persuade a certain somebody to GM it one day on RPoL (khm, khm:P).

As for my memorable first play experience...my group started playing VtM as the development of a home made system and setting we created. As we played it, the ST and I researched vampire lore and myths on the net, and ran into VtM. So we gradually transferred from our home made game to VtM.

One of the characters I'll always remember was this blind Malkavian...he had really high Auspex and a supernatural sense of hearing, so he basically 'saw' better than people with eyes (but that didn't stop him from convincing everybody that he couldn't see). He had sanguinary animism (he was convinced that when he drank somebody's blood, a part of their soul would impart on him for that night). This 'imparting of souls' could go so far to take control over his body (despite the 'parts' of the soul being just a figment of his imagination). To top that, he had a condition that he had to keep his blood pool constantly full. This meant that he had a bunch of souls in his body every night, which sometimes took control over his body.

This was hilarious (at least for me and the ST:D) when we were attacked by a Kine SWAT team. My Malk managed to kill one, and drain him. I botched my roll, and the ST let me RP the SWAT team member's 'soul' taking over. He donned the guy's body armor, took his sniper and started sniping the other players (and remember, he's blind):D

He pulled a bunch of pranks on the other players (and on the Prince, which almost proved to be fatal). That was the best darn character I've ever made!

As for RPoL VtM gaming... I ran a short VtM game on RPoL once. Sadly, and mostly with me to blame, I closed it down after a couple of months.

Oh, and hi all. This is my first post on your board:P

I remember playing Werewolf: The Apocalypse, and being so happy that I got a Blood Elemental to live in my sword.

And they being really pissed because I never got to use it. Storyteller always had us wandering around mazes in the Umbra, talking to spirits. I wasn't even the heavy hitter in the group, and I was just itchin to hit something!

Yeah, the GM always needs to make sure that he gives players what they want (or deserve).

First WoD...

Well originally it was a Changeling the Lost game. But as I didn't design the character and it was a quick one night game, so I don't count it. It was still good fun but one night games end too quick for my liking.

No I think my first true game was my Spoiled brat Fate Mage in Mage the Awakening, (I have yet to play oWoD.) Lovely girl almost useless for a while, until I got a sword and convinced the gm to modify Lucky Coin so the sword became a lot better.

Unfortunatly I got in trouble a lot as the Guardians of the Veil had limited Vulger magic due to the abyss becoming narrower and blah blah blah. This whole attitude put me at odds with the Silly Guardians, but as a Silver ladder who was I to care.

However I enjoyed Paradox. My characters are usually not normal anyway, and the Paradox made playing a perfectly sane character easier. However getting Narcissism, then Paranoid is the one fight was a bit extreme. Especially since the mind mage decided to 'fix' it.

Btw that game was just last year. I may be slightly new to the WoD but its great fun.

Ahhh...my first time. A Lasombra punk. My first goal was to feed, so as a n00b I decided to try and pick up a bum off the streets. Instead of getting easy prey I picked up a Malkavian disguised as a bum. When I tried to use my vampiric powers on the "bum"...let's just say things didn't go according to plan.

Hmm, first time vampire was actually a Larp, 10 years ago, I was 15 at the time. About 50 players all in all. I was the 2nd Ventrue player in that game. A Ventrue Lawyer. I didn't know what to do at first or what was expected of me.

I had read the base book up to that point a few times but never had gotten to play.
It was cleared with the ST's that my character was a few years old so I could focus on getting to know the game, instead of worrying to fit in.

So there I was a new Kindred in the Elysium, Then the other Ventrue player, my sire informs me of the fact that he steps back as Ventrue primogen, so that he could become the Keeper of Elysium. So suddenly I'm a Primogen since local tradition dictated that every clan must have a representative if available.

Exactly 30 seconds later, I get informed of the fact that there will be a primogen meeting held *now*

Nervous as hell as a player, I sit down next to a table filled with elders, who know next to nothing about me. All I knew about this was that this was supposed to be a formal, civilised meeting.

As soon as the Prince declares the meeting for open, a few primogen start shouting their business, and the way they think that it should be handled (the malkavian primogen was shouting along because it seemed like an interesting thing to do). Then responses were shouting. Not being able to contain myself, I muttered "Wasn't this supposed to be a formal, civilised thing?"

The Senechal who was sitting next to me, heard it and thought that this was a good time, to put the new primogen in his place.
Getting everyone to calm down, he mentioned that I didn't think that the rest primogen were civilised.
Yeah, I went from nervous to being able to lecture tomatoes on hot to red.
The Prince snorted and suggested that I should give the example then and show them how I thought things should go then.
I almost panicked and thought "What the hell, I'm dead anyway, so I might as well have some fun and make as many enemies as possible."
I stood up and glared angrily at the Senechal, I kept the glaring expression and looked around the table.
"Shouting is for apes, Elders worthy of respect present their business and let the cause speak for itself. If anyone who needs to shout to make their point clear, then they don't think that they have an actual point."

Silence on the table. I didn't dare to look at the elders, I just walked around the table passing by the Gangrel and Nosferatu who both had their boots on the table.

"Sitting upright in your chair and using the floor with your feet also shows that you atleast have an inkling of what you're talking about. If you want to make a position about something, let the people see your face, instead of the soles of your boots." (The nosferatu did growl at the face thing)

"Organise, the Camarilla itself shows what organisation can do to Kindred society. Go step by step, in an ordered fashion. This way everyone gets heard. Afterall if you're busy shouting your opinion on something, how can you refute your enemy who is shouting about something else?"

After that I took a sheet of paper and let every primogen state their business and wrote them down. I presented the sheet to the prince.

"Now the one in control of everything can see what is on the agenda and make sure everyone is heard."

I sat down and then took a conscious effort to breath again.

The prince had a sense of humor and thanked me for my contribution. After the meeting, I had the reputation of being a big Elder from another city who likes to be in control. I never did get along with the Senechal. And I got a warning from the nosferatu not to mention his face again.

An adrenline rush and the rest of that session was a haze, but that moment got me hooked on vampire.

I hate to do this without adding another experience, but that has to be the best first game moment I have heard in a while Trabian

Not my first game but the first one with this particular character.

It was mine and another players first game at a LARP.

I arrive the arrogant Lasombra-antitribu convinced of the superiority of my blood. I am given the primogen seat because my other clan mates are the sheriff and Harpy.

He arrives the arrogant Ventrue convinced of the supremacy of the Ventrue. He walks in and takes primogen from its current player because all but the Prince are relatively passive players and he is arrogant and loud. It happened with a speech akin to, "I am Primogen because you are all screw ups."

So the Toreador Primogen comes to talk to us both and introduce himself. What he says is that is always good to see another member of the Clan of Kings.

So at the same time we both turn and say thank you.

The ventrue looks at me and says your no King, your clan are a bunch of pirates who pretend to be noble.

I'm insulted and start to speak my mind saying that his blood came from a bunch of Greek boy loving democrats who could barely wield a pen, let alone a sword for the life of them.

The argument goes on for some five minutes on a vein that gets increasingly harsh and insulting. And the eyes of the whole room are on us. I start to notice the ventrue (5 of them including the prince) crowding around me and the sheriff was out of the room. So all I had on my side was the Harpy of dubious combat ability.

To try and back out, I ended with a snide "I can't be bothered with you". At that two of ventrue snap and frenzy. My only option is throw up Shroud and start to run. Our ST states that once you take a body position in combat you hold it. So you can't see what's going on unless your facing that direction. I take the next three rounds just running wondering why I'm not being hit. So I reach the door call fair escape and come back a few minutes later wondering why I'm not dead. It turns out that the 7 Gangrel including one who was the Keeper had been looking for an excuse to take down the prince for months and seeing all the ventrue break Elysium to pound on the little Lasombra was the final straw. They had gone wild on the Ventrue the second I ran. As a result our Harpy was able to claim the Prince's seat by playing on the sympathy for me.

So first night I caused the biggest fight in the games history and got my clan into Primacy all over a moment of pride between two fresh minted neonate primogen.
This message was last edited by the user at 16:56, Wed 11 Nov 2009.