For our third game Rose suggested playing a one-shot that would encourage them to role-play more, rather than projecting the same personality for every character.
Okay then, you’re going to be a gang in Vornheim, because I want to use my book.
I set out to use nothing other than Vornheim to run the game, aside from a couple of random encounter/reaction tables that I made specifically for the situation they were in, and any random gang members they might ask about would take their names from the cat name generator Rose and I are making.
I put together a neighbourhood map using the advice in Vornheim, and I think that is fucking genius. It’s simple, easy to use, and I even think it looks a bit pretty.
Oh and we all got to use the pencils Rose had made for me.
I wrote up a bunch of pre-generated characters complete with mini backgrounds and personality quirks, and randomly rolled for who would play who at the table.
If I hadn’t been delirious with allergies I might have also had the presence of mind to buy us a carton of this on the day:
In the end I can’t say as the whole “just play this guy” thing worked out the whole time; Rose’s charming rustic lapsed into a backwoods degenerate more than once, Ellen’s initiate gave up her hat, and Michael’s impeccably clean knife-thrower decided to rifle through bloodied corpses in a dive bar (I swear, that kid can’t help but steal from the dead), but it was a great game regardless.
As for Vornheim? Eminently usable. I’d never run a city game before, and while I want to work on making things feel more fleshed out, that book made it so easy to run. If you’ve missed out on a physical copy at least get the PDF.
The play report isn’t nearly as long this time around, don’t be scared.
Read the rest…
