Interregnum is a Live Action Role Playing Game. In case you’ve never heard of Roleplaying Games before, in short, it’s a bit like one of those murder mystery parties that people sometimes host, only rather more freeform, with an ongoing narrative, and the world and characters tend to be rather less like our own. For more, we’d suggest reading Wikipedia’s article on the subject – it goes into the subject in rather more depth than we have space to do here.

In Interregnum, the players take on the roles of Vampires who are part of an ancient conspiracy that has ruled the world for time out of mind – as the game begins, these Vampires find that they’re been given a very unusual opportunity, the like of which hasn’t occured in centuries. But, of course, this opportunity is not without a number of attendant risks…

When Is It?

It runs on the second Sunday in the month, in a central London location. The first game will take place on Sunday the 13th of July from 7pm, in the function room of The Blue Posts pub on Newman Street, off Oxford Street.

Can I Play?

Absolutely. We’d love to have you. We don’t care if you’ve never played in a Vampire LARP, or any kind of LARP before. We’re friendly, welcoming, and will do everything we can to help you join in. (And if you’ve played in hundreds of Vampire LARPs before, well, we’d love to have you, too.)

How Do I Join In?

Well, to start with, we’d suggest that you read the various bits of our guide for new players.

People who’ve never played Vampire before, well, we’ve written all that to help you get a handle on the game, but please, don’t panic if you’ve read it all three times, and it still sounds like Ancient Greek as translated by a Martian. You aren’t expected to memorise all of it. This is not a test.

Drop the refs a line, and we’ll be happy to talk stuff through with you at any time. And if all else fails, then simplest option for new players is to just turn up early to a game. Our game starts at 7pm, but there will be refs on hand from 5pm to help people get things sorted out. We like to meet new people.

For Beginners

If you have no idea what the Vampire: the Masquerade setting is, then you’ll want to start off by reading about the basics of the setting and the lexicon, just to give you some idea what you’re getting into. From there, you might want to go and read the character generation, and the more detailed background to Europe.

If you’re familiar with roleplaying, and what to get some idea what your character generation options are in more detail, then you’ll also want to read the sections on Influences, Backgrounds and Downtimes, although in any case if you’d prefer to simply get assistance with generating your character before the first game, just turn up early – the refs will be there to help you from 5pm.

If you’d like to get your own copy of the rulebook ahead of time, then PDF copies are available reasonably cheaply here, but it’s not really something you need to do unless you want to – the refs will have everything you need available at the game.

Experienced Players

People who are familiar with Vampire LARP can skip a lot of the basics, but it’s particularly worth reading the Character Generation, Backgrounds and Downtimes sections, just so you’ve got an idea of what we allow, and how stuff works, and you might want to take a look at the setting detail about London and Europe, just so you have some sense of the world.

What Makes Interregnum Different?

In short: we think we’ve come up with a setting that will allow Camarilla and Sabbat characters to mix without devolving instantly into open war, which will provide roleplaying opportunities that are not available in a normal LARP. As a secondary concern alongside this – we’re attempting to do away with the usual overt power-divide structure of Vampire society, and run a relatively low power game in a manner that still provides for political tension.

And as a final consideration: unlike many other World of Darkness LARPs, Interregnum has no sister games containing other types of supernatural creature. This has two benefits: firstly, and most importantly, there is only one narrative in the world, and it is focused entirely on the PCs in this one game. Secondly, it means we’re not bound by any published information on the other types of supernatural creature, allowing us to inject a sense of the unknown back into the world.

Item #1: Fun!
We play games to have fun. This doesn’t mean there won’t be serious, sad or horrifying moments, but it does mean that we want you to enjoy the game.

Item #2: PC Primacy.
The game is about your characters: their unlives and history. The world will change depending on the actions of your PCs and their interactions with each other. There will be plot that is not player derived, and there will be NPCs, but the NPCs will not drive the game unless the players quite literally do nothing. Which is unlikely.

Item #3: The Setting.
The world does have certain defined elements of setting and plot created to allow the thirteen clans to co-exist and interract. London has a specific history, for you to discover in game and will remain a Neutral city throughout the game.

Item #4: NPCs.
The game contains NPCs to enable the world to operate and to provide adversaries as needed. NPCs are meant to be game enabling, allowing players access to information or to plot that can’t be provided in any other way. PCs make the game. There will be the odd occasion when an NPC is required to control player actions in a specific way to enable the game as a whole to continue. One such NPC is the Giovanni Arbiter. They will only ever impose the most basic rules and these will be clear, predicatable and controllable by your characters.

Item #5: Suitable PCs.
Some character concepts will be unsuitable. We may ask you to modify them or potentially reject the concept entirely. Certain concepts are more risky than others, and we will let you know if this is the case so you can decide. For example, characters belonging to Independent Clans will be less protected than those in the Camarilla or Sabbat.

Item #6: PC Death.
We believe that challenges are part of gaming. Your PC will be presented with difficulties to overcome. varying degrees of surmountability. Your PC may come out of it well, or badly. They may even die. We assume that any player taking a risky action (if players aren’t sure how risky an action is, they are free to ask) is aware of the possible consequences, even if their character isn’t. We will not particularly protect you from PC death, but neither will we drop a piano on your head for no reason.

Item #7: The System
The rules system is a version of Vampire: The Masquerade, 3rd edition (PDF copies available reasonably cheaply here). Players will be asked to use their own judgement as to inter-PC conflict resolution and to roleplay accordingly as much as possible. Feel free to consult a ref for advice or a quick ruling, but unless it is vital that dice be rolled, or there is a need for dramatic action that requires that other players around the room be notified of what’s going on, we’d rather not break the flow of your actions. We think that the system is less important than fair and balanced play. We will try and sort out any rules problems ahead of the game and please let us know if you think any big action you are planning might cause interesting problems…

Item #8: Live Action Roleplay
The game is Live Action. This means that you perform your characters words and actions. The game is not full-contact and we especially mean this with relation to violent or sexual behaviour, however, there will be some contact. Any contact that would be a normal part of acceptable social interaction between players (based on their OOC relationship, not their IC one) is fine. Anything further is not, without the clear prior consent of all parties involved.

Item #9: Acceptable Behaviour
We understand that your character may be rude, unpleasant and generally horrible. What you chose to play and how other players react to this in character is part of the game. Any OOC harassment, bullying, bigoted or just plain disruptive behaviour, either physically or digitally, will not be tolerated. Anyone who engaging in this behaviour will be given one warning, and then asked to leave. In extreme cases, the warning will not apply.

“Time in” is the term used to describe the period of time when the game is ‘live’ and players are playing their characters. During this time you are expected to look, speak and behave entirely “in-character” (also referred to as IC, as opposed to Out Of Character or OOC). We aim to time in around 7pm, and time out between 10:30 and 11pm. We’d ask that players aim to be at the venue at least half an hour beforehand, longer if you know you’re going to need help with a character, or anything that’s likely to take much of the refs time.

Rules During Time In

• Refs: If you are given an instruction by a ref, follow it. This is a catch all rule, as much for saftey reasons as anything else. Obviously instructions like “You, go to the bar and buy me beer.” are not really legitimate instructions. (Although, if you’re buying…)
• No fighting: In the event that in-character violence occurs during a time in, you’ll first need to work out the exactly what happens with a ref, and which point the players can mime as much or as little of what other people would see as they are comfortable with. Anyone being physically aggressive in any way during a time in will be asked to leave.
• Out of character remarks: Try and keep these to a minimum. There may be times when you need to ask about player, or a ref, for information, and that’s fine – preface your question with something like “Sorry, quick out-of-character question”, find out what you need to know, then continue with your in-character conversation. There is a designated out-of-character area – if you need to have a lengthy bout of character conversion with someone, please do so there so as not to disrupt other people’s in character experience.
• Hand signals: There are a number of hand signals that can get used to indicate the use of various powers. The refs will run through these prior to time in, but if someone is making a gesture you don’t understand, just ask them what it means.
• Time stop: If one of the refs yells “Time Stop” then stop what you’re doing, listen to them, follow their instructions, and then, if/when instructed to do so, time back in and react to whatever the ref has just told you is happening as your character would.
• Cost: Your first game is free. After that, we ask that you chip in toward venue hire – it costs us 50 quid a time for the room we use, and we try to split the cost evenly between all the players and refs, but you won’t be asked for more than a fiver, even if there are less than ten people present.
• Drinking: The game takes place in a pub, and we want them to like us, and let us keep using the facilities, so please, do try and buy a drink or two if your budget will stretch to it. That said, while we’re not going to dictate what is a matter of personal responsibility, we would prefer it if you didn’t turn up and get drunk – even if it doesn’t spoil your gaming experience, it may spoil other peoples’. Buying soft drinks is an excellent option.

Costume

You should wear clothing that is appropriate to your character. When in Time In the clothes you are wearing are the clothes your character wears. Similarly if your character has a scar, is deformed (Nosterfatu and Tsimisze particularly) it is important that this is represented by make-up etc. Effort put into this really enhances the experience and mood for everyone.

The game is set in the present day, so it is perfectly possible to come with costumes out of your own wardrode, but we do encourage people to think about their character’s mindset, and how they would dress. A stuffy lawyer with a century of formality behind him is as unlikely to dress in ripped jeans and an old t-shirt as a 21 year old former gang member is to wear a suit. Which isn’t to say that there couldn’t be reasons for either, but if you dress in a way that’s at odds with your character background, there really ought to be a reason. There are plenty of second hand shops in London where you can pick up excellent costume items cheaply.

Particularly good costumes may receive a small amount extra XP in consideration of the effort the player has put in, and conversely, someone who consistently dresses inappropriately is likely to find they will lose out on a small amount of XP.

Props

If your character owns any unusual items that you think may be relevant or useful – jewelery, mystic items, books and so on, you’ll need to bring along something appropriate to physically represent them. It doesn’t have to be a perfect copy, just something that looks a bit like the thing in question.

Weapons

There are a couple of extra rules that apply to people who want their characters to carry weapons.

• Absolutely no real weapons. Period. Guns should be toy guns (and should look like it – please do not bring anything that could possibly be mistaken for anything other than a toy – think brightly coloured plastic, please), and any melee weapons should be LARP-safe – made of foam rubber. This also applies to “magical objects” like ritual wands/knives/staves. Nothing real.
• If the refs haven’t seen it and approved it as safe, your character is not carrying it. It’s that simple. We don’t care how self-evidently safe an item is, we still need to see it and OK it. Anything not approved by a ref must be put in the out-of-character area and not used.