Jamie's Winnipeg Role Playing Page
This part of my site is dedicated to role-playing, as well as the many characters that I play in various role-playing games. But first, let me give you a little background information about me: I'm a 29 year old, University-educated white male. I've been roleplaying for about 15 years, starting (as most people my age did) with Dungeons and Dragons. From there I graduated to Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Battletech, Warhammer 40K, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Heroes Unlimited. About 6 years ago I began playing Vampire: The Masquerade. It was through my future wife, Michelle, who was already into Live Action Role Playing, that I was introduced to the Vampire genre and have been an active player and narrator/storyteller ever since.
My First LARP Experience (or, How I Became a Gamer)
Michelle and I met November 11th, 1995, through a local computer billboard system (BBS). What first drew us to one another was a mutual admiration (some people close to us might prefer to use the term "obsession") with 70's Heavy Metal icons KISS. Soon after we met and began dating, she asked if I would be interested in coming to see this "vampire game" that she was involved in. She had explained it to me earlier as being a cross between a traditional role-playing game and a play, one where you went "into character" at the event, and dressed and acted as your character. These events were held once every 3 or 4 weeks at a local Goth club called Die Maschine. At the time, I was intruiged by the concept of crossing role-playing and theatre, and the concept piqued my interest, so I agreed to come out and have a look. A few days before the game I was to attend, Michelle introduced me to some of the people of her "vampire family", or Clan. They got together every two weeks to discuss the events of the past and upcoming games, to plot their political manouvers and forge alliances against common threats. This was the group of people I would be playing with the most closely: the vampires who composed Clan Tremere.
I attended the first game in January of 1996, and Michelle helped me dress the part: Black formal wear. Upon arriving at the bar and entering through the back alley (it was Sunday, and the bar was closed). The sight that greeted me was something that I hadn't ever seen before. At the time, Die Maschine was an underground club of sorts, catering to the Goth and Fetish subcultures. The entire room was painted black....walls, ceiling, everything. Dim red lightbulbs hung suspended from the cieling on wires, augmented by black lights. There was a dance floor in the middle of the room, surrounded by a 15-foot chain link fence. Dark brooding music filled the room, quiet enough to allow for conversation, and yet loud enough to set a dark and foreboding mood. The smell of incense and clove cigarettes permeated the air.
Inside Die Maschine
Towards the rear of the room, on a raised platform, was a long table, bedecked with a red tablecloth and several black candles. Behind the table, talking to a group of players was a young man who stood out among the crowd. Tall and very slim, he wore the requisite black and white formalwear, but his was....older. A high-necked vest accented his mandarin collar, and his hair hung shoulder-length and loose, framing a set of small, round framed glasses. Michelle saw me looking at him and whispered to me "Remember him....that's Wolfram....he's the Prince". There were about 60 or 70 people milling about the bar, and Michelle quickly identified a few of them and dragged me off to a group of young men sitting in the corner. Here I was introduced to the storytelling crew and assisted in making my first character: Radu Florescu, 11th generation Tremere scholar and student of the occult. My concept was based on a real person. Radu Florescu is, in mundane reality, a rather notable published scholar of the occult and expert in the field of vampire lore. The character lasted all of 3 games, before he was exterminated for a very public breach of the Masquerade involving two police officers, a wrecked police cruiser, and a panicking young Tremere who didn't quite have a handle on the nuances of Theft of Vitae....
Following Radu's destruction at the hands of his own Regent, I created what has become known as my "signature" character: Skruface of Clan Tremere. I lifted the idea for the character from the well-known Steven Segal movie "Marked for Death", in which he takes on a vicious gang of Jamaican druglords, led by the Voodoo shaman Screwface. I took this base concept, extended the background by another 200 years, and had my character: 7 feet tall, cold, calculating, ruthless, a master of the unspoken arts and practicioner of Haitian Voodoo Magics. I even braided my hair into dreadlocks and got a Rastafarian hat and medicine bag filled with baubles and trinkets to complete the look. Many players were taken aback to see a 5'8" white man trying to pull off a 7' Rastafarian, and I often stood on a chair and talked down at the other players to give an impression of his size. I have played this character ever since, and have been Primogen of Clan Tremere, Sheriff of the City, and as of June 7th, 2000 will be celebrating the second anniversary of his Princeship of the Domain of Winnipeg after claiming Praxis on the domain when the former Prince, Damian McAllister of Clan Ventrue, disappeared.
Michelle had a falling out with some of the storytellers of the chronicle we played in, and so we set out, with the help of a few friends, to start our own chronicle, unrelated to the original (or as it affectionately called) "Big" game. We began in the fall of 1996, with Michelle as head Storyteller, and our friends Dallas and Diana and myself as narrators. The Genesis Chronicle was born, with about 20 players who were looking for something different from a Camarilla-only game.
We gave them a ever-evolving plotline that involved the Sabbat, led by a dastardly Lasombra named Lucien Thorne (played by Dallas), a host of Lupines howling for vampire blood, and the wily (some would call him "that bastard") Anton Giovanni (played by me), an independent profiteer who played all sides of the conflict, working for whomever could meet his prices, but whom you could never, ever trust. Mix in some intrigue caused by a Sabbat Archbishop masquerading as a Justicar and a mysterious stranger who may or may not have in fact been the First Among Us, and you had a game with a subtle mix of conspiricy, backstabbing and deception with a healthy threat of violence and strong political undercurents.
One of the things we pioneered (at least to our knowledge) with the Genesis Chronicle was the judicious use of our local tourist attractions. Our chronicle has played in a variety of locations, and were the first local chronicle to make use of many of Winnipeg's local landmarks to play. We played outside when the weather allowed, often in the ruins of the old St. Boniface Basilica (incidentally, it was the first Roman Catholic Cathederal built in Western Canada), our provincial Legislative Building, and The Forks tourist Area. When the weather became too harsh to allow for outdoor games, we played in a rented dance studio, or the houses and apartments of some of the participants in our game.
Old St. Boniface Bascilica
Manitoba Legislative Building
The Forks National Heritage Site
Due to the lack of an appropriate (or large/cheap/warm enough) place to play, the Genesis Chronicle went on hiatus through the winter of 1998. We re-emerged with the coming of nice weather, and started a new chronicle called "Covenant", set 150 years in the future, after a holocaust created by the earth being nearly destroyed by a meteor shower. The Genesis Chronicle expired in July of 1999 after an almost 3 year run due to lack of commitment from players, many of whom wanted a more traditional style of game, and several new games had just been created by enterprising players who wanted to try a hand at running their own game.
The Genesis Chronicle paved the way for many other independent chronicles to start up, covering all genres of White-Wolf's World of Darkness. There are (or have been) several Camarilla-based Vampires Chronicles, an All-Sabbat Chronicle, a Werewolf chronicle, a short-lived Changeling game, and other games based on the Star Wars universe, as well as a Live Combat Role Playing game called HAVOK! (think Live Action Dungeons and Dragons). More detailed descriptions of these games can be found in the LINKS below.
Links to games I play in:
LARP's in Winnipeg
Characters I play...
About the Author
Email: skruface@hotmail.com
