The Grand Masquerade (part 1)

Yes, I admit it I went to a gaming convention, a White Wolf gaming convention no less....and it was a blast. I had already mentioned I would be going to The Grand Masquerade, but to admit I went is a big step. I get less weird looks when I admit to going to an anime convention than a gaming one and that is from fellow gamers. It was well worth the price of admission. I got to game, hear some announcements of things to come, and party like it was 1997.

Any way as I said it was a lot of fun. I met a lot of people that I had a really good time playing with. I played all vampire so that will have to be my fix for a while. VtM(Vampire the Masquerade), VtR(Vampire the Requiem), DAV(Dark Ages Vampire though I prefer VtDA), and then VtR again(twice). The table top games were hosted by The Wrecking Crew and they all did an awesome job.

Game 1
The VtM game was set in Las Vegas. The characters had been gathered by the prince to play protection for a visiting Vampire. We where told by the seneschal that the Kindred in question had some enemies among the Primogen of the city and that it was very important to keep him safe. We pick up the Vampire after he arrived in a private jet and found out that he was a Lasombra Antitribu. For those that don't know the best way to put it is you have the bad vampires then the really bad vampires. He was a part of a small group that was a part of a bigger group that are the really bad vampires. This small group doesn't like the bigger groups methods so they left. Needless to say neither group really trusts them.

After a few bumps along the way we found out that he was gathering other questionable groups to support the Prince. My character gets shanked a couple times by an Assamite(the assassins of vampires) and we just barely escape. I had fun and Justin from The Wrecking Crew did a great job as ST even if he did do the whole Gangster Guido character a little too well.... :) I'm not saying nothing for nothing I'm just saying.

Game 2
This one was set in New Orleans on Halloween. It was a scavenger hunt were a mixed group of creatures of various morals competed to collect the most items before the deadline. This was my first VtR game and it wasn't as bad as I feared. The game does play better than it reads, though I still much prefer OWoD. I played a Daeva(Vampire) and then there were also a Gangrel(Vampire), a Garou(Werewolf), and two Changelings(One Oger and one Elemental).

If I had fun in the first one I had an absolute blast in this one. We all worked really well together and if Dawn, the ST in this one, was a little quieter the situations she setup for us were not. :) Which in turn had us going to extremes in how we went about things. I laughed so hard a couple times I about cried. Our group ended up going after the high point items. Among other things our characters stole "toys" for the back room of a club, a limo that we shove the motorcycle into the trunk(and we delivered the two people that stole them before we could as well), but the piece de resistance was the statue of Andrew Jackson that we used a water cutter to cut from the base and a dump truck to hall it away. Needless to say I didn't do well at the very end. Lost to a frenzy check and ran from all the fire the Elemental was doing. :) The two southern gentlemen where quite nice and gave us a clap for a job well done at the end though.

This game also started the running joke for this character. I built this character with the thought that he was an elder character and wouldn't know how to drive. So when asked to drive the limo I explained he couldn't. He does however have a max Dex for his blood potency so he can manage in a pinch. One of the other players said don't forget to keep your hands at 10 and 2. So thus was the power of 10 and 2 born.

Game 3
This one was the DAV game set in Constantinople in 1100. We were invited to the Princes party for his favorite childer. The Gangrel in this one was bound and determined to be the first to gift to the childer, so much so that 3 of us had to restrain the character so that it wouldn't look bad on us. The first time we managed it, but we were too slow the second. After that the unknown to our characters Assamite presented himself as the gift, was accepted, and then promptly told to kill another of the party goers(not one of our party) who had done something(I can't remember what now). That was turning out really bad so two of our party finished the guy of to avoid our group being embarrassed further. Upset(as part of his path_ the Assamite attempted to kill the Tzimisce for honors sake. When he decided to take himself and the other off the side of a cliff my character took the opportunity to save a fellow party member and remove a not so fellow party member by kicking...I mean helping him off the cliff.

After that our group was tasked by an elder to intercept a caravan and retrieve two gifts they were bringing. Needless to say it all went south when the Assamites Ghoul betrayed us and we got jumped by 3 archers. My character ended 1 and helped kill another. The group had already beat trail for a ship one of them owned and the three of us that stayed to defeat the Assamite archers joined them.

The ST for this one was David and a bigger character I don't think you could ever meet. He did a great job in keeping it both light yet still presenting how monstrous vampires of extreme age can be in the VtX setting.

Game 4
This game was set in Phoenix Arizona and was a follow up to the first VtR game I played in. This one was also ST'd by David and was kind of broken into two parts. The first had that we needed to get a map from someone. When we agreed we found out that someone was an inmate at one of the prisons. My job in this was to drive a Van into the gate of a prison across town to distract the police. 10 and 2! I made the rolls and got away with no problem.

Meanwhile back at the first prison they managed to get a small group inside. High jinks in sued and the found out that the map was on the back of a prisoner. A kindly individual offered to get the map for them....Yeah. We got back to the contact and found our next mission was to go to an insane asylum and retrieve someone. The asylum it turns out had a gate to Arcadia (Which is a Changeling thing that I know very little about now). It was a 1800's London and after thinking about it we realized we just brought fairy London a Jack the Ripper. He managed to slip away as we boarded a train that it seems our target had gotten on as well. Which took us to a stage coach.

No one was going to drive so I invoked the power of 10 and 2(don't ask how that works with a coach, but it involves holding the reigns up high). The Garou with me took up the reigns but lost them when the horses freaked when he shifted shape. I being the extremely reluctant hero jumped on the back of the horse and snatched up the reigns. Neither I nor may character knew what might happen, but when faced with the fact that the road curved harshly up ahead tried to turn the horses just a little to see if how much force was needed for them to respond. Not much it seems as the ran right into the side of the mountain when he pulled on the reigns.

To shorten the rest of the story a bit. Crash, fall forward, kicked by dying horse, everyone out, big brass changeling falls taking stage coach with it, anther vampire fills chasing Werewolves with powdered sliver hollow points, save BBC, meet Francis Ford Cupola Dracula....out of time. We took much to long plaining the prison entry that we ran out of time at the end. My character did get a fairy cures out of it.

I'll follow up later with part two that contains the final game and talks about some of the announcements that were shown to us at The Grand Masquerade.