So each participant will create their vampire. I will talk each of you through this in PM’s.
You will start the game with 5 experiences , 3 characters (close relationships to your character), 1 immortal character (or another player), 3 resources and 3 skills. Your turning into a vampire you will receive a mark (something unique to you that identifies you as a vampire).
You will be given prompts to respond to based on dice rolls these may involve skill checks (this means you use one of your skills and cannot use it again). They may also involve the lose and gain memories, skills and relationships.
Memories are made of a maximum of 3 linked experiences (they need not be chronological order). All prompt responses must be summarised into a one sentence experience (what happened, how did you feel). When you have used all 5 memory slots you must start a new memory and score out an old one. Or move it to a diary.
You can have only 1 diary which can contain 4 memories. This is a record of your life you cannot remember but assume to be true. Diary memories cannot be further expanded with other experiences. If you create a diary it becomes a resource which can be lost.
If you are told to check a skill but have none available then you must lose a resource or vice versa. This should be treated as an addition to your prompt that something has gone horribly wrong to or for your vampire.
Your story will end when you are either prompted/told to check a skill but cannot/ told to lose a resource or skill but cannot (the above stated two possible substitutions is the only exception). At which point please use the prompt to summarise you demise. This could be a letter from a spectator to the event/ or a friend, or a letter you have written yourself before dying. The game will continue until the last vampire is no more.
Some basic advice to keep the multiplayer flow going. Basic improvisation rules of “yes, and” should be applied. Although if you can you may try and use your prompt to deceive another player but be aware that the other player may cement your deceit as fact before you have a chance to reveal your sneaky plan.
You letters need not always be to another vampire, you may be writing to any other character. A character you know, a historical figure. I would suggest avoiding other players characters as this could become convoluted and lead to multiple conflicting events.
I would suggest all letters take the form of something like:
‘6th April 690
To my dearest Eloise
I fear I must share with you the gravest of news. Our dear friend Jonas has gone mad. He is yelling about monsters in the house. I have locked him in a cage for his own safety, although I fear the madness is draining the very life from him.
It is like each day a little bit of his life leaves him. I fear he is not long for this world, maybe some acquaintances of mine can help him with his passing.
Yours eternally,
John’
Key details being, date-recipient-response to prompt.
In the normal game your entries should be relatively short. With this forum approach of letters there is no such restriction, although making them excessively long may lead to too much superfluous information. Remember your letter is written to address the prompt and this must be it’s focus. If you are writing a series of related prompts into a narrative you might find you need to abandon that narrative. This is fine. You might be able to pick it back up later or not, these are snippets from the life of your vampire not intended to be a cohesive story. The gaps add mystery.
The first 3-4 prompts should be in the first busy year with time advancing as it suits the narrative of the next prompt. If a player advances the time then within reason that will advance time for all of us.
One of the things that I think could be cool in this variant is the interaction of these vampires. They do not need to live together but throughout their life they may encounter and forget each other.