Vampire LARP one-shot systems

A request for help with a first Vampire LARP reminded me that, as an observer from a safe distance beyond one-shots, I actually know a bit. Published LARPs, variant systems and the like. Might as well put my links here.

By Night Studios have resources (enough to run a V20-era LARP with a tablet) as well as a quickstart and Storyteller advice.

Published adventures, not many but mostly available on DriveThruRPG

Some free unofficial ones, among other genres

The really really system as used in End Of The Line and Enlightenment In Blood, nice and simple.

Vampire: Empire 2026 1

Vampire: The Masquerade fifth edition

Empire

1. In The Blood

Daisy, Toreador jazz singer and club owner

Silas, Ventrue enforcer

Jesse, Tremere phlebotomist and Circulatory System supplier

Emmet, Hecata researcher

(Echo, Malkavian fortune teller)

New York City.

The equinox, the end of summer, and Kindred in good standing are invited to the ballroom of the Delancey Hotel for an open court with the Prince.

Daisy and Silas hunt in or near her club - Daisy so impresses her victim that he might be a problem later.

Jesse and Emmet deliver blood to a non-Camarilla vampire called Franklin. He seems on edge, but then that’s normal for the trade... right?

The court is busy, maybe thirty vampires and various in-the-know mortals. One notable absence is Ella, head of the System.

The Prince has a warning, and a request for assistance with a hint of a possible favour in return. A new drug has hit the club scene, and Kindred who drink from its users find themselves agitated, tense - reportedly some are overcome by their violent instincts.

Daisy offers to help and... shall we say encourages the others.

Saint, Host of the Rack, confirms there was an incident in one of its clubs, and Thea, host of Paradise Lost, advises them to check with the Anarchs.

Before they can leave, the Malkavian Harpy Colette approaches, clearly shaken by a premonition that Daisy might be another victim soon, three nights from now. Something involving a vampire called Dane that none of them know, and someone else that she can’t see.

Jesse knows the best place to contact Anarch leader Stirling. He arrives soon after being contacted, like he was expecting someone to visit, and takes the group to a lockup nearby.

In a locker bolted to the floor, a vampire lost in a berserker rage...

V5 Empire references

Some from New York By Night and other official sources, some old friends

Camarilla

Outsiders

The living

Strangers

Small tweak, use Rebecca Ferguson as Hellene

Hail to the Prince

Vampire: The Masquerade - Empire 2026

Vampire: The Masquerade fifth edition

Empire

When I am through with you
There won't be anything left

We have...

A Toreador jazz singer turned club owner looking for the soul in music

A Ventrue former labourer looking to move up in the world

A Malkavian seer looking to make a buck with their gift

A Tremere phlebotomist looking for independence from the blood trade

A Hecata scientist looking to challenge death itself

I’ll have to be sure to connect the first three and last two so this doesn’t feel like two games at one table. (Still better than five one-player games!)

Looking to be a less scruffy bottom rung of the ladder game than usual. I’m sure there will be plenty of ways to get them in trouble though, just starting in nicer scenery.

CHVRCHES V

The new CHVRCHES album preview starts at the same time as my fortnightly Vampire: The Masquerade session. This seems like a trick by a cruel god.

I mean

Come ON

Vampire: The Masquerade - Nocturne 2026-7

Reused placeholder chronicle title subject to change depending on emergent theme

Vampires hunt for blood in a world that looks like ours. They have their own societies, their own laws, their own conflicts, but they also walk among us, trying to hold onto their humanity - to some extent, at least.

Vampire: The Masquerade is a modern horror game where you are the monster. Knowledge of the system and setting are not required, the system is straightforward and the setting is full of mysteries.

CW: Horror and action violence, political and occult themes, metaphorical addiction, uneven power relationships, and blood.

V5 one-shot autumn 2026 edition

Vampires hunt for blood in a world that looks like ours. They have their own societies, their own laws, their own conflicts, but they also walk among us. Tonight, some of them just want to hear a singer's set and have a night out. But things are rarely that easy.

Vampire: The Masquerade is a modern horror game where you are the monster. Knowledge of the system and setting are not required, the system is straightforward and the setting is full of mysteries.

CW: Horror and action violence, occult themes, addiction with possible alcohol and drug use, and blood

Complaining about having to do a Vampire one-shot again

The age-old issue (ca. 1991) of preparing one-shots for an RPG with a complicated secretive background, for players who might never have played it or any other RPG either.

Setup for people I expect to know the game can go wild.

Setup for people I expect to know RPGs in general suggests a classic like a heist to show how differently vampires approach it.

Setup for possibly total newbies and... um...

Yes I could run a one-shot for something else, but I’m planning to run Vampire and I don’t like showing something I’m not planning to continue.

VTMDND Bones Of The Empire

Jason Carl demonstrates the D&D version of Vampire: The Dark Ages, from Gen Con 2026. Hopefully we can get the V6 demo back soon too?

(Update: 22nd September)

In the meantime the small number of Blood Points and the various uses for them is interesting - especially having to use one not a Frenzy.

The Blood Of Dawnwalker

The Blood Of Dawnwalker, not Blood Of The Dawnwalker so dangerously close to The Rise Of Skywalker.

As a game, third person medieval superhuman with a ponytail stabbing things so basics of The Witcher. As a vampire game, one character seeking revenge in the Middle Ages so a bit Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption. As a vampire story, medieval guy trying to use his vampire powers for good without going full vampire during a ticking clock, so kinda Dracula Untold. Will we get HAND O' BATS as a late powerup?

Also amusing that his remarkable ability among vampires used to be normal until 1922.

Ravenloft live-action Netflix series

Huh. okay.

Though still waiting on various other D&D things, as this announcement news mentions.

And hey, that World Of Darkness series...

RPGaDAY 2026 28. Devotion

#RPGaDAY 2026

28. Devotion

28. Devotion: Game you have played the most!

GMed - Due to a long history with it and several year-long runs recently probably Vampire: The Masquerade, though Buffy The Vampire Slayer is the longest I’ve run a series, almost six years.

Played - Star Wars is probably up there, mostly the D6 classic but also tried others (and wanted to go back to the D6 classic). Also a lot of the various Star Trek games almost all with one keen GM, up to Star Trek Adventures currently. Longest single games, there’s the four-year Werewolf: The Apocalypse run with that Star Trek GM and about as long with a Silver Age style Marvel SAGA game.

Autocratik - “If you’ve done every day of #RPGaDAY since it began, this is your 400th entry to the challenge. I feel tired just thinking about that!”

Runeslinger

V5: City Of Angels 41

Vampire: The Masquerade - City Of Angels session 41

Paris got to use her event planning skills for the third time this chronicle, to make it look like we weren’t just hiring a venue as a potential ambush spot.

And on meeting a Nosferatu spy: “Rat? What, were you at the end of the line for nicknames? Or the start?”

Vampire: The Masquerade V6 alpha playtest

Overall, this feels like an edition I could run, with quite a bit of houseruling and throwing some of its changes out entirely. Combat (physical and social) both feel more systemised. Clan Traits push clans too close to classes as is. STs not rolling dice is fine but NPCs having mostly flat difficulty feels a step too far. Coming after one of my favourite edition and getting rid of its biggest innovation, this feels like a step back while trying various new things.

(Also the feedback form really needed some N/A options for STs rather than players, and an Other spot for the list of other RPGs played.)

RPGaDAY 2026 21. Charity

#RPGaDAY 2026

21. Charity

21. Share an RPG charity past or present that moved you.

Tim Bradstreet had his signed early Vampire: The Masquerade art portfolios for sale at the 2011 Grand Masquerade convention in the US and I went to get one to put into the Conpulsion auction here, I mentioned this and he gave me it for free. (I bought another for myself, naturally!) And I was glad to let him know it was the first lot to go for more than £100 that year.

Photo by Martin Ericsson

There was also the time a family illness led to Conpulsion switching charity for the auction, for which I am forever grateful.

And as GM Ian mentions, the long-running Marvel SAGA game where I played Charity Chance, Agent Of SABER!

Autocratik

Runeslinger

RPGaDAY 2026 19. Desire

#RPGaDAY 2026

19. Desire

19. A huge risk taken because of desire?

A two-player Vampire: The Requiem game I observed about a vampire boy and a mortal girl.

Autocratik

Runeslinger

RPGaDAY 2026 18. Directness

#RPGaDAY 2026

18. Directness

18. A fast introduction of a new PC or player?

If I know players are likely to come and go I’ll try to have onboarding options and avoid cliffhangers. Emphasis on try.

Some games and settings are better for this than others, mechanically and narratively.

Overlooking the old “why do we trust this total stranger walking up to us in the middle of a secret mission?” and the magic power of the PC Glow...

D&D style fantasy calls it “West Marches” when every session begins and ends with the PCs in their base and venturing out from it. That cuts off things like multi-session dungeons and heavier ongoing plots unless you use the old un-narrative kludge of teleporting PCs in, but it’s a good idea for an open table.

Star Trek (a setting where characters can just teleport in and out mid adventure) would do this if it were realistic about its Luxury Space Communism and faster-than-light travel. Ha ha. Star Trek Adventures makes you pay player resources to get specialist NPC crew to go on camera, which is the model-the-show way of dealing with this. Star Fleet Battles RPG Prime Directive goes the other way and has a completely different command structure for its variant universe.

Mission: Impossible on TV started with selecting agents with relevant skillsets. I’ve seen someone suggest pregens in dossiers before.

(Note that the films acquire a consistent team as they go along, leading to narrative issues like needing something for both the computer geniuses to do.)

Last academic year I had a large amount of player turnover in Vampire: The Masquerade and that isn’t ideal for it or how I run it. Even then, if I’d known I could have tailored the chronicle setup to PCs being part of a group that could explain PCs coming and going and make sessions less serialised. Not ideal for personal horror or slow unravelling of mysteries but I could give it a go. Hmm.

My most setting-of-the-week one-and-done game is Doctor Who, which also has fast character creation... but following the series model really expects the PCs to be the one point of consistency.

If I want to go full “jump in any session” open table, I might go with a light superhero game like ICONS with a big team. Fast character creation, largely self-contained adventures. I’m sure threads would reappear at some point, but I can juggle and improvise so we don’t end up with too many “this should be a Penguin adventure but Batman’s player isn’t here” situations.

A large kitchen sink also helps if I want to come up with a largely standalone adventure every week.

Hey, Buffy is a light superhero game too! Albeit one that also expects a consistent Scooby Gang.

Autocratik

Runeslinger

RPGaDAY 2026 17. Integrity

#RPGaDAY 2026

17. Integrity

17. A satisfying example of a character’s integrity.

Matthieu Lasalle, doctor turned street medic for the French Revolution turned vampire, died fighting for the rights of the people twice.

Alternate word:

Intensity

I suppose my games are fairly chill usually. I can dial it up for horror and the like, but usually have space for a tension breaker.

Autocratik

Runeslinger

RPGaDAY 2026 16. Composure

#RPGaDAY 2026

16. Composure

16. One thing that will cause a character to lose their composure?

Paris in Vampire: The Masquerade - City Of Angels would love it if she could go a week without discovering some new atrocity being committed by somebody who’s supposed to be on the same side as her.

(So we’ve had questions about breaking Resolve and losing Composure now. How very Chronicles Of Darkness of us!)

Autocratik

Runeslinger

ST starting tips

Five tips, and a bonus, and a second bonus, for VtM but often for city games in general, from Sed8ed Princess