From Caduti to London Falling.

Written by Nikita.
In October 2022, just 8 months into the first season of Caduti di Napoli, I decided I wanted to run a ‘weekender’ event set in the universe I had created. This started with an idea my husband had; that it would be the gathering of Princes [leaders of vampiric groups] across Europe on a yacht in the middle of the ocean. 

Admittedly it didn’t take me long to take that idea, run with it, and shake off the things I felt didn’t make sense [which he was none too pleased with, let me tell you.] and before long I was submitting a game request for this event that I hoped would introduce some interstate players, and give my current players a new perspective on the world. 

What I didn’t expect was the sheer difference in the amount of planning for what was now a 12 hour game compared to my regular 4 hour monthly game, and the things I’d have to do to make it beginner friendly.

Step 1: Context

People new to the game wouldn’t understand the rules of Vampire: The Requiem, the system Caduti di Napoli and London Falling both ran from, I had to simplify immensely. They also didn’t know the overarching lore of the world I had created. It helped that yes, most of my players in the end were my regular players, but there were some who had played in the initial runnings of the game [back in 2017, ran online on Discord across Australia] who didn’t have the context of the current game. 

These new players wouldn’t know that Abraham Van Helsing was out to kill all the vampires in the world, that he was a vampire, that his vampiric children had infiltrated vampiric groups across Europe. They wouldn’t know all the different supernaturals that existed, and what I’d changed about them from their rulebooks, and they certainly wouldn’t know specific vampire terms, or powers, or anything like that.

So how did I make it work for them?

I pre-made all the characters. I had names, the country and city they were from, and their clan [family group] and covenant [political group] picked out. Players were assigned one based on the countries they showed interest in, and were allowed to change their clan and covenant if they were uncomfortable with being something in particular [which I respect, not all of us want to be part of the group of vampires who are a Catholic allegory who worship the guy who stabbed Jesus, right? That can give people who are actually religious the ick.]

From there, if possible, I worked with them on backstories, on how they became Princes, and especially on what they were bringing to the table. I posted out to each of them a document some 5-6 pages long with an in-character letter from the proprietor of the location they’d be going to and names of other Princes and who their characters were friends [or enemies] with for a little flavour. Then, I included information that explained everything in the letter. It told them what dress style suited their groupings, WHY they were friends/enemies with those people, but most importantly, it explained who their characters were, what being a vampire in this setting meant to them. 

It was often hard remembering I was explaining things to people who didn’t know, so another thing I did was make sure that the rulebook for the game laid out all the abilities and such in a simplified manner. I took out so many mechanical parts of the game and lay it bare bones at the feet of the committee to show them that it would be as beginner friendly as possible, and I would do my damnedest to ensure that my players had a good time…and I wanted it at a venue we hadn’t used before.

Step 2: The Venue

When you host an event with any club, they usually have set locations they like using, places they’ve been, have a rapport with the owners, etc. For regular Caduti we use a scout hall, and it’s a great location with lots of space and spare rooms for players to split up. But it doesn’t have the vibes of some fancy hotel in the middle of London, and honestly I doubted my ability to bring set dressing to make it work that well. The other thing was the fact that we were running with a $40 ticket price. I desperately wanted this to be something the players would walk into the venue of, see the outside of, and be in awe, amazed, and a little frightened of. I wanted it to feel like the fancy hotel in London, the top floor ballroom with an external garden…

So I contacted Carclew House as soon as I could. Carclew House  is a stunning heritage listed property in Adelaide’s CBD with manicured gardens, a gorgeous ballroom, boardroom, and a range of other adaptable rooms all available for hire. Also, all money raised through venue hire supports Carclew’s work with children, young people and early career artists, which is amazing, and as a not-for-profit

And I wanted that ballroom desperately. 

Thankfully, it was all booked easily. They were amazing, and because they do deals with not-for-profits we were able to get into the location 2 hours before start, and stay for 2 hours after finish for set-up and pack down for no extra charge. And thanks be to everything, my regular players who usually help with the same things at the regular game stuck around to help us do that, even though they’d been in character for 12 hours in formalwear. Really couldn’t have done it without them, honestly. 

But still, we set up the ballroom, we prepped the food [that was honestly the hardest part of the whole day] and we made it work and turned it into what I would say was a fairly good first attempt at running a long game with myself and my husband as the GMs of the event, and only one active NPC in play. 

Step 3: The Set-Up

I had to, of course, prepare for this event in the monthly game world as well; after all, how could I just have a big bad show up at one thing when they affected the whole game world in general? Sure, I could just have a news article in the regular game “Oh no, London Hotel blows up!” and nobody would have context…or, I could hint and tease and do major reveals throughout the regular game season that would blow not only my regular players minds, but do it twice if they participated in London Falling, and still provide an immersive experience for the new players. 

So it started with a new player [who had no prior experience with the game], who when I smiled and asked if they wanted to be a part of the meta[overall]-plot for the game, and with the warning it could lead to their character’s death fairly quickly, they jumped on it. 

Thus entered Persephone. Persephone claimed her husband, a man she knew as Hades, dropped her at the airport and left. She was scared, alone, distraught, and determined. She gathered friends, accomplices, and quickly became a character that the other characters wanted to be protected. This was due to fantastic work on her player’s part and I’ll never be happier seeing how that all built up to the moment, the reveal when she found out her husband was Van Helsing, and especially when he arrived for the first time after, during an event known as a Grand Elysium, and revealed himself to everyone. 

This was, incidentally, the session when Persephone was trying to escape being connected to him, so naturally it ended badly for those who were helping her [no character deaths, but for sure character trauma.] and it meant that the very next month, those who had experienced this, who knew about the build up, would go to play their Prince roles at London Falling. 

Step 4: The Fallout.

How to make this reveal just as if not more worrying for the players when they were going into a situation they had vague awareness of? Well, apart from trusting them not to meta-game [use out of character knowledge in character], I had to add another element of surprise.

The event was going smoothly. The Princes all mingled, chatted, spent a long time going over their individual city issues [I didn’t plan for enough time on that one, but more on that later], and eventually hell came to town. See, I’d asked one player to hold back on giving their speech til the end. This was because their speech would be a reveal of what was happening with Van Helsing, and this would set off a chain reaction I knew would not necessarily derail the game, but it would certainly throw off the timetable i’d created, and I was worried about people eating at the right time [a silly worry, but let me tell you, eating at a LARP is so important if you’re there for 12 hours or more.] This backfired in that character’s face, leading to a whole new list of in game issues, but it led to the reveal that Van Helsing planned on literally blowing up every single one of the hotels that were created by his family, knowing that vampires were in them…but especially this one. 

A man walked in with a bomb, threatened everyone, and people didn’t know who to turn against; this new guy? The actual child of Van Helsing who was hosting the event, or the Prince who held back the information until it was too late. But they dealt with it, in quick accordance; the man was ash, the child escaped, and the Prince was banished from the meeting, with her title stripped and her life potentially on the line. 

The event ended with them voting in a new Princeps Europa [Prince of Princes within Europe, who would speak on their behalf to the rest of the world] and discussing their next moves in regards to Van Helsing and everything else that went wrong that night, feeling accomplished, and though the day were done. 

Not bad, all in all…considering it was marketed as High Lethality because they were all meant to be destroyed in the explosion.

What I Liked About It All

I loved how into the problems some of the players got. There were literal powerpoint documents filled with information just shown on the wall with a projector. People put actual research into it and made it sound realistic and sometimes horrifying. Those were the times I enjoyed sitting on a chair and observing and honestly wishing I had popcorn to munch on. 

Everyone’s costuming game was insanely amazing. I didn’t recognise some of my regular players in their new outfits, I didn’t know the extent of their talent in costuming, in accents, in generally portraying another character because i’d never seen them do it. It filled me with such glee to do so…and sometimes it was like seeing what their regular character would have looked like had they picked another path in life. 

The general patience people had with me. There were a lot of questions asked, things I hadn’t considered needing answers for at the time, as I wanted people to be able to freestyle as much as possible. I had to explain my Player Card system [a system I created for the game to make it easier for new players] a few times before it stuck, and I was mildly injured so was immoble for some parts of the day but still determined to run it. 

What I Would Change Now

I’d have given people a strict time limit for how long they could speak about their city’s issues, or given more information to others so they could have spoken for longer. The issues section was pencilled in at an anticipated 2 hours and ran for almost five instead.

I’d have picked different foods, or seen about catering – The kitchen was tiny, something I didn’t know until the walkthrough the day before, after we’d already determined a menu. It was hard to cook on an old stove and we had 3 slow cookers running. We also forgot basic kitchen utensils like a sieve, which was silly in retrospect. 

I’d be more attentive to trigger warnings, reminding people of certain things that if said may hurt someone else. Several times we had players affected by an event that happened, or something said without thinking, and I still feel greatly sorry for those moments of a game that was supposed to be an escape from real life affecting them in both their real life and within the game.  

Conclusion

I’ve learned from this experience. I’ve learned I cannot control everything, but I need to learn how to control more than I did before. I need to have an exact list of what’s meant to go down for my side, but not the players, and I need to account for the fact that whatever train I put them on, it’s going to derail at some point and I have to figure out how to let that train go where they take it and roll with the punches. 

I allowed them to end on a high note of winning rather than my original plan and I think that saved the game, but in the end I think there were some teething issues, some definite problems revolving around triggers and such, and ultimately I needed more assistance in running the game than myself and one other person. 

I am appreciative that my one NPC [an assistant GM in the regular game] stepped into a role to assist when needed, but they shouldn’t have had to. 

Overall, I think it was a good game, and I’d run another one, maybe, in a few years. But I should definitely plan for more than 8 months on it, get the teething issues out…and maybe not serve pasta again.