Coming soon...

"Guess what happens when the lights go out."

In Memoriam...

I feel so bad about this.
http://imgur.com/a/UXN81

So much promise.
And now its gone.

World of Darkness MMO.
So sad you were aborted.

Demon The Descent brings back my Sidereal love

Had a one-shot game with some friends last night and we played Demon the Descent using the Quick Start characters and the Do Over room from the God Machine Chronicles book as the jumping point of the story.  Some reflections I felt I wanted to share from running the game.

The Classic Is Now Part of the New
When Exalted first teased its coming, there was a lot of talk about it being "Before the World of Darkness."

Before the Impergium before the Mythic Ages before the Sundering before there was a World of Darkness there was something else. And now it is revealed, at last. Come adventure in the Second Age of the World, the fantastic world of the Exalted.

The forums were afire with all these opposing views on whether or not it was a good thing to have a game supposedly set before the world became the World of Darkness.    Later books seemed to support things further when players saw parallels between Solars and Hunters, Lunars and the Garou, Abyssals and the vampires and so on and so forth.  Characters like the archer Yi from Demon Hunter X resonated greatly with the concept of the epic archers of the Exalted game.  A huge key to the concept of its connecting was the Sidereals book which spoke of them seeing the fate of the world falling into one of Darkness if the Solars were allowed to maintain their rule.

Now, the game seems to come full circle, as Demon the Descent seems to resonate a lot of how the Sidereals were written to work as.

Sidereals were the super spies of fate in the Exalted game, using Resplendent Destinies to conceal their identities and being forced to remain consistent with these identities at the risk of garnering paradox for breaking out of the roles they were playing.  They had abilities to Duck Fate and rewrite events to show the were "never really there" and the like.  They were agents of change and destiny that served the Maidens and the Loom of Fate which governed the destinies of every thing on Creation.

Fast forward to today, the Unchained as they are called are fallen angels of the Machine God.  They embrace Cover, human identities which become more "real" as they are more developed, but are compromised when they fail to live up to who the cover personalities should be.  They have embeds and exploits to ensure they were "Never Here" in scenarios that head south of their plans, and while they no longer serve the Machine God, there's no denying they relate to a massive entity or force that can be argued to have grand designs and "programming" set upon every thing in the world.

The old is new again.

If Exalted lead to the World of Darkness, and the World of Darkness ended for a new World of Darkness to be born, this new World of Darkness is now coming to a nice book-end point where the Unchained of Demon the Descent resonate the Sidereals of the old.

I know, I know, it isn't anything concrete.  It probably wasn't even intentional.
But the World of Darkness Storyteller in me is enjoying a lot the parallels and relishing the idea that everything in the game line is one connected complex timeline.

And it is bringing back a lot of the love I have for all those games.

Now if it is intentional...
Man, I'm even more excited!

The Krume Story : Vampire the Dark Ages + Mage the Sorcerer's Crusade

07/10/2012
The Krume Story
Vampire: The Dark Ages
Mage: The Sorcerer's Crusade

Antonin Krum was born a noble in 1305.  First born son of Marcelus Krum.  Very gifted at an early age.  A fast learned.  And for things he could not learn, he would talk his way around.  Charismatic and well-trained.    He was taught he has a right to rule, even before his Embrace.

He was eventually Embraced into the Tzimisce Clan by a Cainite called Gaius, who happened to be his Uncle.  This was on the year 1335.  They openly took over domains and expanded their influence.   The game begins in 1452.   Michael, the Patriarch, who watches over Constantinople calls all the Cainites of the city for a meeting.  There, he merely tells them telepathically to prepare for sleep.  The Cainites depart and Antonin joins his sire in the underground tomb to sleep as the Methuselah commanded, fearing the coming siege of the city.

When he wakes, however, he finds himself bathed in sunlight.  Rising from the silken sheets, Antonin discovers impossible things:  He is mortal, standing in the sunlight, and in some bed room.  Everything he knows of his city has changed.  The world has become a familiar yet different place.  Eventually a servant tells him it is 1916 and Antonin struggles to comprehend how this has happened.  He tries to wake from Torpor but nothing happens.  And when he punches the wall in frustration, he feels the pain and hurt of an injured mortal body.  The vitae is no longer there to heal.  The people refer to him as Master Krume and one young lady welcomes him warmly, answering his questions about the city outside his window.  He struggles to comprehend how it could be that many years since his sleep, and how his body could be mortal.  He asks for them all to give him space to think and locks himself inside the room.

Adding to the strangeness is a red-skinned spirit that he keeps seeing in the room, intangibly watching him.  The spirit turns out to be a daemon, and Krume senses somehow that the spirit is a reflection or representation of himself.  When the dowager countess of the house demands to see him, she chides him for his lack of proper manners and states, "I would have expected a better display of educated presentation from one of the Cosian Circle."

Krume eventually determines that this is either a fevered dream in torpor, a gift of Michael the Patriarch to those who serve under him, or him somehow possessing someone else's body far later in the years to come.

The young daughter returns and insists his "strange actions" are because she insisted that they last night try the absinthe that Master Krume had brought with him from Switzerland.   He hears a strange noise and outside sees a horseless carriage moving down the road.  Krume falls down, confused and lost and wondering what has happened to him.

* 

The game was meant to be a one-shot game, but admittedly I'm finding myself excited to explore this story more.  A pity Urim, the player in the game, had a sudden bout of asthma to deal with.  Price to pay given the cold stormy weather and having a dog in the house I guess.  My intermittent smoking for certain made things worse.  So sadly, we had to cut the game short, rush off to a nearby 24-hour Mercury Drugstore to get him what he needed.

But I guess yeah, that's the kind of game I end up throwing a player when I'm inspired by Vampire, Mage: the Sorcerer's Crusade, Downton Abbey and shows like Awake and Life on Mars.    Too bad the game was cut short.  But who knows, maybe I can throw this kind of twist again in a future session: One shot or not.

Cruel Cruel World : cWOD

07/20/2012
Cruel Cruel World
cWOD

Had a super short session with some friends using the infamous Black Dog Productions book, Freak Legion: A Player's Guide to the Fomori.  The book was released as a supplement for White Wolf Gaming Studios' tremendously popular game, Werewolf: The Apocalypse.  Why is it a Black Dog Productions book?  Because Black Dog is the line they used to release many of their more mature lines.  Think of how dark and frightening White Wolf games are as a norm.  Can you imagine what kind of content it would need to have a "For Adults Only" tag?

Anyway, it was going to be a very quick session, with JP, Tofie and Ryan playing.  Ryan went for a wall flowering kind of guy who happened to be a Federal Agent.  Tofie was a Crime Investigations Forensic expert who knew Ryan back from the academy.  JP opted for a high society hooker.  And yes, he decided to have fun by being a female character.

All three of them were on a bus headed home when the bus met an accident that was to change their lives forever.  A truck owned by a company called Pentex slammed into the bus and all of them were hurriedly gathered and taken away.  Very quickly, the three began to experience things shifting or changing within them.  All felt themselves changing in various ways.  And what first seemed like the emergence of super powers very quickly became something much more horrible as they realized what taints they were to carry with them as a price.  Worms.  Vomit.  Claws.  Blood.  Oh yes.

Here's one bitter gross example:  Ryan, after finding love and making love at last, kills his partner as his sexual member engorges to almost nineteen inches long, and rips her apart from within.  And yes, that is a power in the book called Savage Genitalia.

One thing is for certain, this taste of the World of Darkness was one which the players were going to have to remember each time they ask me to run them, "Something gross and gory!"

*

Admittedly, my recap of the game is spotty.  Having barely slept the previous night, I was literally falling asleep at times.  Ironically, it made certain scenes work, however since one of the players had a form of psychic hunger, which had any NPCs he was talking to slip into a coma.   Or at least, nearly into one.

But yeah, this could have been a better game.  Given how it ran for only an hour, I really just needed to get a dose of gaming into me.  It has been weeks since my last one and trust me when I say, I am feeling very very hungry for more.

Oh wait, was that a Bane spirit talking?
Pentex... Oh you....

Chilling Images Volume One : nWOD and cWOD

Chilling Images - Volume One
nWOD or cWOD
A compilation of horrifying imagery and disturbing vignettes that are certain to inspire or terrify you for your next World of Darkness game.  Written by various forumites from the www.white-wolf.com forums, I compiled what I could into this first volume for easy use.

I wish I was able to store the other entries and compile them to keep them all available.  But I guess, better one that none.
Hope you enjoy getting scared!

Download the PDF. 

A Second To Try : cWOD

A Second To Try
cWOD
A group of Changelings learn the truth behind the Great Engine that exists deep in the Dreaming and learn that they have been given the chance to make amends and try again.  Best used with the the Scenarios "Pick Your Poison", "The Great Purge" or "A Crown of Shadows" especially if your players fail to bring a more cheerful ending to the scenario.

Originally published in Ex Libris Nocturnis.  This was my entry that won in a small contest for the best Time of Judgment supplement.  Hope you enjoy this Changeling: The Dreaming mini-module that you can add to your Time of Judgment game session.

Download the PDF. 

Global Frequency : cWOD

03/26/2006
Global Frequency
cWOD

Based on the incredible comic book series by Warren Ellis, the role-playing game I ran had players be members of an international organization whose main form of communication is through extremely cool cellular phones.  They deal with threats and dangers which the ordinary person on the street never hear about, and the governments of the world would probably deny ever-having happened.  Of course I'm horribly over-simplifying the series, but let's just say you have to read the comic (or see the leaked discontinued pilot episode of what could have been a really good television series) to grasp how awesome the concept of the comic is.

So I created a one shot game to get my players into the feel of the comic, and after wards lent them my copies of the comic to enjoy and devour.  It was a great romp with the players coming up with their own tactical ideas on how to best fight against a hive-mind-like invasion that was infecting others through words.

Eventually the game spiraled into a larger scale, and I couldn't help but inject a bit more of Planetary into the stories.  Surprisingly, I cannot right now recall how the game ended.  But I definitely know it had a lot of screaming action sequences.

Giovanni Chronicles : cWOD : Vampire the Dark Ages

Around 2005
Giovanni Chronicles
cWOD  : Vampire the Dark Ages

This was my third time to run a Vampire the Dark Ages chronicle.  It seems my love for the game was an intense adoration that my players also had for it.  In as much as some of them were part of the second and first time to try the game, they didn't mind separating character and player knowledge for another spin at the game.

In this version of the Giovanni Chronicles, the game was merged with the events marked in the four books of Transylvania Chronicles and smaller game books such as Fountains of Bright Crimson and the like.   The players were given chances to shape the world and history during downtime sessions.

Sam, Seth, Aldwin and Awie portrayed their characters with much more pathos than I expected.  Anastasia di Pragha (Sam) embraced her Faith and struggled to find a means to show Vlad Tepes spiritual guidance. Niccolo di Medici (Seth) carefully played his hand as he verbally assaulted the Voivode of Voivodes Rustovich himself before the Ventrue Elder Dominus. Santiago de Saber (Aldwin) bravely presented his skills with both word and steel in his approaches towards the Furores and those present in the Convention of Hermandstat. While Harrad bini Alazeez ibn al-Faqadi (Awie) showed a powerful capacity for versatility in his scenes with the Toreador and the Tzimisce. 

I truly love how each time we play Giovanni Chronicles something new is explored and uncovered in the game. As much as the game may have been tread familiar ground, we keep finding new directions and themes to explore it with.

The 94th Day : cWOD : Vampire the Dark Ages

June 2010 - March 2011
The 94th Day
cWOD : Vampire the Dark Ages

Thirteen Individuals from varying backgrounds each receive an invitation to be present in a banquet being hosted by Lord Claudius Giovanni. Rich. Poor. Religious. Talented. Beautiful. Intellectual. Skilled. Each one a shining example of one virtue or another. Each one with a reason to accept the invitation.

On the 3rd of April, 1444, the thirteen arrive at the Red Lamb Inn and make the decision that will change their lives forever.

On the 94th day, the thirteen leave the Red Lamb Inn and make their way to La Bella Casa Giovanni. Little did the thirteen know this was going to be a day that rewrites the destinies of countless immortals forever.

This was the fourth time, to my recollection, that I have run a Giovanni Chronicles game.   Alas, this was one of the chronicles that had to be indefinitely on hold due to real life pressures and responsibilities demanding time from the players.    You can see how far we got in the game by checking out the blog I made for it.

In as much as Giovanni Chronicles has been described by many gamers as too rail-roady and a showcase for Mary Sue characters, I personally love it because it allows the players to experience key events in the classic World of Darkness metaplot and yet give them enough wiggle room to do things that are different and unique.

So who knows.  Maybe years from now, when the kids are bigger and life offers us more time, me and the four players of this game might see this page one day and decide to push through with it again?  Personally, that would be awesome.

Vampire and its lure is immortal.

Definitely.

Dead_Stories : cWOD : Wraith the Oblivion

Before 2009
Dead_Stories
cWOD : Wraith the Oblivion

In one of the Open Gaming Meets at Residecia, I ran a Wraith the Oblivion game for a bunch of guys who were close friends.  I opted to make them all part of a single band in order to push the game's fun factor and as a twist, had only one of them survive the traumatic accident that claimed the lives of their friends.

The game was a crazy compelling session with the players using what wraithly powers they had to try and save the life of their band mate as he struggled with survivor's guilt.  The group had a small taste of how difficult it is for a Wraith in the World of Darkness to affect the living, and how being dead doesn't mean the story ends.

Even more awesome, one of my players created a song for the fictional band in the game.  Check it out here.

Vampire Gehenna : cWOD

Before 2009
Vampire Gehenna
cWOD : Vampire the Masquerade

“And the third angel sounded,
and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp,
and it fell upon the third part of the rivers,
and upon the fountains of waters;

And the name of the star is called Wormwood:

and the third part of the waters became wormwood;
and many men died of the waters,
because they were made bitter.”"

-(Revelation 8:10-11)-

After thirteen years of wondering gaming and memorable stories, White Wolf's World of Darkness comes to an end with the Time of Judgment campaign.

This is my attempt to combine seven very special books released as supplements with the last 13 years into a single coherent storyline. The story would touch on action, drama, personal horror, intrigue, passion, wrath, death, and the price of Vampirism.

Let me use this opportunity to say Thank you! to White Wolf for the chance to explore their ideas and nightmares.

Much like the Changeling game, this game was created using the four offered approaches to the end of the world for a Vampire the Masquerade game.  With me being me, what was a Storyteller to do if not combine all FOUR plots into a single coherent story line.   Given this was a Gehenna game, I did not see any need to limit the players in their choice of characters.  

I realised I wanted to touch on many aspects of vampirism in the chronicle.  My group wasn't too keen to playing more than one chronicle of Gehenna too soon, and I didn't want the three other scenarios to go to waste. So I wove the whole plot into one coherent (for me) scenario.  Then added the craziness of The Lair of The Hidden and The Red Sign into the mix.  And as a final dash, added the ideas of Days of Fire (the Demon the fallen book) into the mix.

I asked my players to choose among all the White Wolf games we ever had the one and only character they loved the most. (Obviously, this was among their vampire characters) That character shall be the character they will play in the game.

I then asked them to re-create the character in three sheets: Dark Ages, Modern and newly embraced. That way, for flashbacks and the like, there are existing stats to use.

Then I asked them to submit to me a summary of the character's history, basing it on the events they recall that the character had gone through, and readjusting events when clashes/inconsistencies arise (for example: Two players had characters that went through the Giovanni Chronicles (Books 1 and 2). Since their games had differences in events, one was willing to adapt to the other's events.)  

Four players.  The world ends around them.

Eleven game sessions to end it all.

United States, City of New York
The current Malkavian Primogen, Angelique Beatrice Baptiste is waking from a nightmare. A strange feeling surrounds her. One of familiarity and fear. She feels the pounding in her blood and in her dreams hears the voices still counting as they fade away.

Spain, City of Aragon
The Priscus known as Shaman, a Gangrel anti tribu feels a strange sensation while sleeping beneath the earth. The sensation is a familiar one. Of a pair of arms that cross over his non-existent chest. Of a voice that seems to softly whisper familiar nurseries. The Gangrel wakes, feeling disturbed... none have ever made him feel any sensations in the past while melded in the Earth.

Canada, City of Montreal
The infamous Ulrich Von Magnusson, currently one step away from becoming a full-fledged member of the Red List, visits some old friends in the Sabbat-controlled city. He visits the infamous Tzimisce, the Rose and is invited to take part in some form of a conspiracy... one which so happens to be orchestrated by Ambrogino Giovanni.

And in Africa, the capital of Egypt, Cairo
A Lasombra anti-tribu named Pablo struggles to find direction and balance between his Faith and his vampiric nature.

This was their tale.

Changeling The Time of Judgment : cWOD

Before 2009
Changeling : The Time of Judgment
cWOD

After thirteen years of wondering gaming and memorable stories, White Wolf's World of Darkness comes to an end with the Time of Judgment campaign.

Just like the Gehenna game, this is my attempt to capture those 13 long years of beautiful stories, epic legends, heroic deeds and disturbing nightmares into one chornicle worth remembering.

Let me use this opportunity to say Thank you! to White Wolf for the chance to explore their ideas and nightmares.

"People think dreams aren't real

just because they aren't made of matter,

of particles.

Dreams are real.

But they are made

of viewpoints, of images,

of memories

and puns and lost hopes."

John Dee,

in Preludes & Nocturnes.

This was one of the most emotionally draining games for me to run.  It contained so much of what I love about Changeling the Dreaming and explored the many ways the fae would deal with the coming of the end.  The game had a shifting number of active players, with a range of stories to explore.  The recovered Geocities site shows both the Chronicle record and my storyteller notes for each and every session.  Sorta like an "Absolute edition" of a Tobie game.

It was sad though, how the game ended with more of a whisper than a bang.

But that's how it is sometimes.

Dreams just abruptly end.

And you have no choice but to remember what you can.

Memento Mori : cWOD

Before 2009
Memento Mori
cWOD

When White Wolf Gaming Studios released their Time of Judgment books, I wanted to run a bunch of games that commemorated the end of the World of Darkness.  Now, for the major lines such as Vampire and Demon the Fallen, I had run my own games for them.  For the smaller lines however, I realized I wanted to explore how they fared with the end of the world in their own way.

That is what lead to the creation of the Memento Mori sessions.

For those who don't know:
Definition:\Me*men"to mo"ri\ [L.]
Lit., remember to die, i.e., that you must die; a warning to be prepared for death; an object, as a death's-head or a personal ornament, usually emblematic, used as a reminder of death.

To help any players who wanted to have a session grasp what the world was going through, I created a news tickler for the Memento Mori game.  In the tickler, major events in all game sessions were noted down (all written with the viewpoint of a specific writer, typically mortal) and left for the players to interpret on their own.

At the end of every game session, I would then create newspaper clippings that captured the events of the session as new reports.  You can find these images below (which have been taken from the recovered Geocities website)

I had hoped for enough game sessions to have newspapers set all over the world.  Unfortunately, we only had enough for Los Angeles and New York to be listed down.  I had players who were Hunters from Hunter the Reckoning, asian vampires of Kindred of the East, and even normal folk who sadly had to face the changing world.

The Devil Made Me Do It : cWOD : Demon the Fallen

Before 2009
The Devil Made Me Do It
cWOD : Demon the Fallen

"Fallen, fallen,
is Babylon the great.
It has become
a dwelling place of demons."
-Revelation 18-

This was our group's first foray into a Demon the Fallen game.  Boy did we go crazy with the game, with players losing host bodies very quickly and in another case, a player needing to create a new demon to play as.    Set in Los Angeles, the players we given the freedom to create their own plots and their own schemes, which lead some of them to come in direct conflict with others.

Of course, the game was then further developed to move in both directions from its starting point.  Through numerous flashbacks the players would uncover lost memories of their time at Fiat Lux (which in the Demon the Fallen game referred to the beginning of everything) and the game sessions would then move forward from the present to the eventually major Battle at Los Angeles when the great one the world knows as Lucifer comes out into the open.

The game was a massive one, which touched on the Time of Judgment book line of White Wolf Gaming Studios, when they were releasing the books that were to end the old (now referred to as Classic) World of Darkness.

The game had me creating a few new Storyteller Resources too.
Read all about this game chronicle, and the optional rules on Torment, learning True Names and tracking Celestial Names by going to this recovered Geocities page.

Masquerade Grande : cWOD LARP

Before 2009
Masquerade Grande
cWOD LARP : Vampire the Masquerade

MASQUERADE GRANDE
He wore the gown.
The ebony gown that was his Sire's. No one liked her. No one in the room particularly even wanted to remember her. The Lady Jadviga Almanov of Bohemia was not one of the Kindred others would love to still see walking about. Her harsh tongue and cold heart were legendary by Toreador standards and quite frankly (though never admitted aloud), none in the room save the Toreador ever really cared for her passing.

Except to thank whosoever brought her death for making their own lives easier.

But SHE came back.

This was an awesome game, since it was one of the few games I ran which literally was held in public view.  The gaming area was cordoned off, as to avoid causing confusion with those who were not playing.  The game was held within a mall so it had a lot of exposure to people who were definitely not gamers.

My players were DJ Mojo Jojo, Isami, Tommy, Cliff with my then-office mate Joey (who never played an RPG before) playing the role of the Ghost who reveals to them the true reason the spirit of Jadviga Almanov of Bohemia returned.  Being an un-official LARP game, this game did not use the usual Mind's Eye Theater Live Action roleplaying game system.  Instead, depending on the clans of the players, I handed them each bunch of a small cards with the name of the Disciplines they had.  Each card could be "used" for an effect.  So one with Dominate, for example, can hand the card to another player, then say, "You will tell me who your sire is" and the other player get's forced to comply.  The system was crude, but it worked in keeping the game fun, that's for sure.

Purists will note that Jadviga is supposed to be Ventrue, but for this game I felt it would be awesome to have her as a Toreador instead. :-)  I guess only a Toreador would wear her gown to "remember her."   Of course, it was only later that the players realize the gown itself combined with this ring that she owned that was allowing her to manifest through her childe.  So they eventually strip the childe (me) of both the ring and the gown.

I still remember handling Joey the small note with her acting notes and asking her, "Are you sure this isn't too weird for you?"  She smiled and told me, "This is going to be fun!"

For the gown, I had to go to my uncle Ricky who was handling the theater group in Ateneo.  I asked him if I could borrow it and miraculously, the gown fit me (given I was what, a 5' 11" guy with a thirty six inch waistline by then?)    The old recovered site is here, but I decided to repost all the images in this page for easy viewing.  

Ah, LARP.

So much like theater.

So fun.

Yes, in our world, the Kindred drank Diet Coke.

Maynilad Dakong Takipsilim : cWOD LARP

10/2002 to 11/2002
Maynilad Dakong Takipsilim
cWOD LARP : Vampire the Masquerade Mind's Eye Theater



" Katawan mong madudurog,
uuuri't mabubulok,
siyang sinusunudsunud,
hinihimas, iniirog. "

I once had the opportunity to actually hold a series of LARP games that were considered official Camarilla sessions.  To be frank, I once felt this was a high point in my gaming hobby-career since it meant being part of something "officially international."  Now though I realize the high point is each time I see a player enjoy the game enough that they still remember it years later and compliment me for it.

We had three officers then:  Seth who handled Chapter coordinations, Me who handled the Storytelling (For Camarilla-Anarch sessions) and Gelo who was the Assistant Chapter Storyteller (and was Storyteller for Mage).  We had a modest number of members: Alvin, Joey, Tommy, Cliff, Sandor, Aldwin, Isami and Marco.

And we actually had an ongoing story-line which reached a second chapter.  The games lasted for two months, with numerous rumors of a Sabbat plot, of strangeness going on beneath the city, of political maneuverings and other story arcs that were deeply ingrained to old World of Darkness metaplot.  Admittedly, I love the character profile pages (and art) i made for them.

(Read more of this here.)

In the darkness of the shadows,

the Kindred plot and prey

and feast upon the blood 

of a thousand martyrs.

Alas, the group eventually broke off, after finding the official group to slow in approving story arcs and the like.  The freedom to just shape plots that make it more fun for your players is one of the big things that one loses in a game that's tied to an international level.  So yeah, we kinda decided we had enough and moved on.

Silent Hill : cWOD

Before 2009
Silent Hill
cWOD

Yes, I ran a one-shot game based on Silent Hill.  You can find the flavor text for the game here.  Can you believe it?  I'm such a huge fan of the franchise that one night I decided that I had the balls to actually run a game based on it.

I had two players for the game (Augs and Vic) and yes, I had the soundtracks from the videogames to compliment the session too.  This all happen way, way, way back before Silent Hill 4 and the movie ever came out.  To my recollection, the game was much more based on Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2.  The game also had the players learning of their psychoses and finding threats which were based on these hidden dementia.    The game also had pyramid head, which is always good.

Gosh, I love Slent Hill.  (But yeah, I'm not sure how to feel about the upcoming Silent Hill: Downpour seems it seems to be too different).  Maybe I should eventually come up with another Silent Hill session, just for fun.  Maybe best to do it without telling the players before hand.

Sacrament : cWOD

11/2001

Sacrament
cWOD

[sacrament] begins with four people find themselves drawn into a mystery that spirals around the fringes of their perceptions. All are aware that some strange manifestations have begun to come into effect, but none are sure of what is going on.

Appearances of strange visions begin to worry some of them. The sensation of being watched begins to haunt others. And when the truth of their gifts is revealed, most ponder on what other truths that man has long chosen to ignore shall once more be revealed?

When a single man known as Jude Hol begins to kill various individuals in the City without any rational pattern or reason, one learns to either trust in one's own instincts or have faith.

What is [sacrament] ?
[sacrament] was the mystery that unfolds in the game. The game itself was special and not approached in the the usual manner one approaches a role-playing game.

In this game, this is the unique twist: Many pieces of information, secrets, clues and mysteries connected to the game’s story were hidden in the website. Links to other information, sources or possible resources were also in the site. Lurkers (people who aren't officially in the game and want to just watch or observe) get to join the fun by searching the website for information.  Many portions of the game moved forward through email, chat as well as discussions via SMS messaging or telephone conversations.

The game had four players:  Aldwin, Isami, Tommy and Sandor.
The game also had the following people as lurkers: Oli, Cliff, Jae, James, Awie, Benjie, Robert, Hector and Marco.  (The handles were Ghost, TNH723, The Confessor, Kenneth Jenner, Recon, g8keeper, creed, Gil Perez, Guilty, Ambulas, Abarthach and Eye-Spy)

Lurkers, were permitted to join anytime and try to solve the mysteries. There was a forum where lurkers can discuss with other lurkers what the game is about. Sadly, the forum is down now.

The game used a modified approach to the White Wolf's Vampire: the Masquerade storyteller game, the rules tend to be following those in the rulebook. But I had generously changed many factors to add more mystery and darkness into the setting.

[sacrament] challenged the players as well as the Lurkers to think creatively to their limits. The game requires players and Lurkes to think out of the box.

Imagine scenarios such as the following:

1. Having to locate "demons" in real world scenarios within a prescribed amount of time. Success causes changes in the game.
2. Contacting other players using SMS (text messaging) without knowing whether or not they can be trusted in the game.
3. Researching the net for the meaning of names, numbers or terms used in the game.
4. Perusing photographs, planted evidence, articles and notes that might lead to clues on the game.Even now, this very page already has such information, or at least leads to such info. The former page had literally nearly a hundred hidden links for players to peruse.

In the end, the truth was revealed:
[sacrament] was about four people who were given the power to deal with the coming Tishri, a renewal of the world similar to the end of the world.  Jude Hol is revealed to be the angel Gabriel and he believes that the world must be allowed to come to pass as it was "written."  However, the four have inherited the power and rights that King Solomon once was given, and they realize the demons must be stopped before everything falls apart.

Thankfully, yes, the players did succeed.
But at great cost.

The Art : cWOD

Before 2009
The Art
cWOD

I once ran a game which was greatly inspired by movies such as Dark City and comics such as The Invisibles.  What I came up with was a game called The Art, which was even more infamous among my friends for having an intensely evolving website during the game itself.  Extra pages would pop-up overnight, new images would offer clues, and hidden links were abound.

If you want, you can try exploring a remnant of the site here.

The game had four players, which each player learning more about this ability to affect reality called The Art as the game progressed.  Part of the fun was how the characters could create magickal effects in the game by doing things as players.

The game also made use of what I called The Lurker System.

What is the Lurker System
Lurkers are players who are not part of the main table top sessions, but at times might guest in a session or may affect the plot indirectly through out-of-game moves. All Lurkers represent a particular NPC (Non Playing Character) who exists in the game. A Lurker, for example, might contact another Lurker and send him misleading information. Such actions are reflected in the table top game, and can lead to unexpected plot twists and sudden dramatic moments.

Lurkers are requested to have at least one, if not all of the following:
A working Email Address
A working cellular phone, with the willingness to cover for all the expenses that may be incurred using the phone.
A willingness to show up when vital for the story as a guest player in a game session.Lurkers tend to have certain knowledge of things that the Players would find very useful to gain. Gaining a Lurker's trust, however, remains in the providence of IC (In Character) communication.

Who thought of the Lurker System?
I came up with the Lurker System a few years ago when I ran a game called Sacrament. In that game, I had created a living, evolving website that reflected many of the game events as time passed. Soon, even people who weren't playing the game were perusing the site in hopes of learning more interesting information on the game. These people, whom I could not accomodate on a normal game session, wanted to some how be part of the game.
The Lurker System was born. 

The game had a very healthy host of characters in the game.  The players were composed of Alex, Henry, Seth and Trisha.  The game also had Patrick, Rico, Tommy and Cliff as Lurkers, who actively sent the players in-game information and clues through text messages, emails and other means.  One even met up with a player in secret to hand him a message.

Amusingly, there were also three people who frequented the game sessions simply to watch it unfold:  Patrick, Tommy and Nikos.

You can find the very informative Chronicle page here.