# [[02 Roleplaying and Storytelling|Roleplaying and Storytelling]] Storytelling began with humanity, as language transformed us from fire-using apes to something else. Those stories, we tell ourselves, began around a fire as warnings of real or imagined dangers and temptations waiting in the darkness outside. Our stories changed from campfire warnings to epic poetry, plays, novels, and operas. They added new dangers and temptations, many of them now waiting inside us. $\quad$In the 20th century, stories moved out of human voices and minds into display and spectacle. Movies, comics, television, and the limitless reaches of digital entertainment still kept that flickering light in the middle, even as they carried our stories almost as far as our imagination could go. Almost. $\quad$Roleplaying games, as one of the newest storytelling art forms, complete the arc from those first firesides to the modern monitor glow. In roleplaying games, players tell or act out the stories for an audience of themselves, guided by the rules or logic of the game, but limited only by their imagination. If you’ve never played a roleplaying game, don’t worry – it’s as easy as playing house or bang-you’re-dead was when you were a child, and as endlessly fascinating as the most recondite cable TV series. ## The Storyteller As a player of **Vampire**, you take on the persona and role of a character that you create, and you then pretend to be that character during the course of the story. One of the participants, the *Storyteller*, creates and guides the story. They build the setting and populate it with a supporting cast of Storyteller-played characters (SPCs). The Storyteller describes what happens in the world as a result of what the [[02 Roleplaying and Storytelling#The Players|players]] say and do. It is the Storyteller who arbitrates the rules and springs horrifying new challenges into the game. $\quad$The Storyteller’s primary duty is to make sure the other players have a good time. You do that by telling a good story. Unlike novelists or film directors, however, you don’t simply tell the story from hook to climax. You create the setting and set the plot in motion – and then let the players live it out in the roles of the primary characters, changing your story and your setting as they go. You must maintain a careful balance between narration and adjudication, between entertainer and umpire, between story and game. Sometimes you set the scene or even describe the action, but mostly you decide what occurs in reaction to the words and actions of the characters, as fairly and impartially as you can. ## The Players Although the [[02 Roleplaying and Storytelling#The Storyteller|Storyteller]] plays the game, and indeed portrays dozens or hundreds of characters, *the players* refers to those participants at the table who assume the roles of the central characters in the story. As a player in **Vampire**, you create one main character and then roleplay them. You speak for them, you impel them to action; you decide what they desire in the world of the game and how they want to attain or accomplish it. The Storyteller tailors the story to those desires; the players [[31 Character Creation|build characters]] who have a role in that story, and whose actions complete or transcend it. $\quad$Often after describing the actions you want to take, the Storyteller tells you to make a dice roll to see if you succeed in doing what you have illustrated with words. Your character’s [[32 Core Traits|Traits]], descriptions of their strengths and weaknesses, dictate how well your character can do certain things. Knowing your character’s abilities, both natural and supernatural, gives you the menu you can choose from in order to provide the best chance of succeeding. $\quad$Thus, a good player balances acting and strategy, considering their character’s personality and [[33 Beliefs#Desire|desires]] along with their Traits. You employ your character’s strengths and work around their weaknesses to achieve your goals – even as the world remains hostile and dangerous. Your character’s actions can shape the world; as a player, you can also add ideas and elements to the story. The Storyteller incorporates them (or chooses not to) in order to foster the most dramatic, interesting, and challenging narrative possible at the table. $\quad$With its potential for intensity and intimacy, **Vampire** rewards player focus: on their own character, and on the dramas and desires of their fellow player characters. Much of the game’s mystery and flavor is lost when players must compete for the Storyteller’s (and each others’) attention. The story likewise can become unfocused if it must share the spotlight among a large entourage of “main” characters. We find that Vampire plays most enjoyably with one Storyteller and a troupe of only three to five players. ## Play Aids For the most part, we designed **Vampire** to be played at a table. There is no board, but dice, pencil, and paper require a table for proper use. Tables also provide a common focus for player attention. You need photocopies of the character sheets (at the end of the book or downloadable from the White Wolf website) and something – a large piece of paper, a cork board or whiteboard, a tablet screen – to hold the Relationship Map ([[31 Character Creation#The Relationship Map|p. 142]]). The dice required are 10-sided, available in any game store. You need two colors of dice: one color for regular dice, and another color for [[42 Hunger Dice|Hunger dice]]. We suggest red. Look for Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition special dice wherever roleplaying games are sold. [[01 A World of Darkness|⬅️ Previous Section]] | [[Vampire - The Masquerade 5th Edition Core Book#Structure|Table of Contents]] | [[03 V5 Example of Play|Next Section ➡️]]