What is Vampire LARPing? - The Perspective of A Long Term LARPer

My Perspective as A Long Term LARPer

I am Christian Keller a veteran of the One World by Night LARP Org with almost 10 years collectively in the org; as well as tabletop and other LARP experience. I was asked to give a bit about my personal point of view on One World by Night (OWbN). So it started when I joined the Always Comes the Evening, a Camarilla focused Vampire: The Masquerade game in San Francisco, CA. I started as someone completely new to the World of Darkness setting with only one weekend event at DunDraCon a few weeks prior for experience. What struck me was the moral nature of a lot of the stories, the fact that as a player of a vampire, a Kindred; That I would have to face the choices my character made. The morally questionable and, at times; the monstrous acts that one who no longer breaths does to survive among other undead predators. 

For me finding OWbN was finding a place with people like me. I grow up in a very conservative and economically depressed part of North Carolina and joined the Coast Guard to find where I fit. So there I was as an 18 year-old recent Cape May graduate joining a bunch of insanely creative people to tell stories about being monsters. And in the 20+ years since, including when I had to step away from the org due to moving; many of those people I meet that first night are still my friends. From there I branched out into the other genres found within the World of Darkness where I found my “home” in Werewolf: The Apocalypse. A genre that is less about the personal morality and more about you willing to do, what lengths will you go; what lines will or won’t you cross when the very nature of reality is at stake?

Set in the same shared world as Vampire it has become the place that I find fits my style of storytelling as both a storyteller and player. As a player I have been a Ventrue vampire who has rubbed shoulders with the most powerful of his clan. Striking deals of both boon and blood in a quest for political power and prestige. Alternatively I have been a feral Gangrel who believed that doing the morally right thing in the long term justified doing morally questionable things in the short term. I have helped to run a Werewolf game where I have caused characters to question the very nature of the reality they were in. From ghost stories of souls trapped within a nightmare caused by mortals that touched powers they shouldn’t. I have also told silly tales using dream logic where stuffed toys battled dark fae.

As a player in the Werewolf genre I have had many great stories. From playing Jordan “Stands Before the Innocent” a man trying to heal the wounds of everyone around him, while keeping his own pain hidden and untreated. Who went from building something of value in the world to letting his own selfish desires, his own fanatic belief that he could save everyone destroy him. He told himself one lie everyday; “You can’t save everyone.”

And today I play a Gallaird, a bard; called Maximum Verbosity a lad of Celtic roots who tries his best to do what he feels is honorable, though his passions and zeal for life tend to get him into trouble.

If one has not tried a World of Darkness game I would highly recommend checking it out. If a Gothic horror seeting where the player characters are the monsters in the night sounds interesting to you than what follows is a general introduction to One World by Night, crafted by Sheryl, Arielle and myself to give a brief introduction to our LARP community.

My LARP Community
Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Come, join me. Step through the veil between worlds, sit beyond the howls of the litany, remove that thin and flimsy mask, and listen through the silence. Do you hear it? Do you feel it? Do you hear it? See it. The world, the real world. It is not what mundane humans desperately wish it to be. It is a world overrun with us, the supernatural’s. The werewolves and wraiths, vampires, the fair folk, and even the creatures of the pit. Our world is at war. Are you ready to wage it?

Hello friends! 

We are One World by Night, a live action role-play organization approaching it’s 30th year of games and events. Our organization spans the width and breadth of the White Wolf series World of Darkness. This setting features an alt-noir universe where behind everyday life sits the personal horror for the world supernatural forces. OWBN is an organization that spans over 100 active games with some being fully live, some being based in discord, and others hybrid. This integration means that the actions your character takes can reverberate across many games at once. A non-boffer LARP that combines elements of improv, theater, costuming, and oral storytelling set by mechanics specifically designed for live action play. In short, it’s a game where you dress up and run around with your friends pretending to be monsters.

The setting is a rich environment with different genres having various themes. The most common by far is the morality play. In a game of horrible monsters, where do you draw your line. How far are you willing to go to reach your goals, and what is your character willing or not willing to do. The Garou (werewolves) see themselves as the warriors of reality, defenders, and giant furry rage filled murder machines. Vampire is a game of power, politics and grappling with the loss of ones humanness. Changelings survive in a desperate dying world trying to preserve the hopes and dreams of humanity through the dystopian nightmare of living on the brink.

Closing

If this intrigues you, if you’d like to learn more, or just find some fellow-minded gamers we have multiple ways to be reached!

•  Our website:                      One World by Night
•  Our Facebook group:        One World by Night
•  The OWBN Discord relay: One World by Night

Share Your Thoughts

We want to hear your thoughts! Please share what you think about our series “The Perspective of a Long Term LARPer.” You can check out previous blogs "What is Theater LARPing" from Adina and "What is LARPing" by Rick and reach out if you have a perspective you’d like to write about and share with our LARP community.

Call to Action

We want to thank Christian and Arielle for their guest blog and remind everyone that you can find a Vampire LARP near you by using LARP Portal’s Find a LARP tool. It’s easy to search by campaign name or by one of the many Vampire genres like Anarch, Camarilla, Changeling, Demon, Giovanni, Hunter, Kuei-Jin, Mage, Sabbat, and Wraith. 

Remember LARP Portal simplifies your administrative processes and gives you and your players more time to play the game. Contact us at demo@larportal.com today for a free demo.

         Christian Keller

LARPer, Gamer Geek, Filmmaker and Coast Guard veteran with a passion for storytelling and terrible puns. Been gaming for over 36 years starting at age 6.

         Arielle M

Arielle found her place in the LARP community a short six years ago in a Virginia OWBN game. Since then she has found a love of roleplay, a passion for storytelling, and enjoys helping others get introduced to the world of darkness.