CLEVELAND
BY NIGHT DEFINED
from
the cleveland by night storyteller team, as of february 2003
Disclaimer
1: The CBN organization is a
dictatorship, run by the ST (StoryTeller) crew, not a democracy.
This website is provided to clarify the organization’s structure.
The ST crew is not bound by information on this website. This is a player aid, not a constitution.
Disclaimer
2: CBN has no affiliation with White Wolf, Inc., or Mind’s Eye Theatre,
the creators/publishers of the system we use.
Neither White Wolf nor Mind’s Eye Theatre are in any way
responsible for events occurring at CBN meetings or games.
This
page briefly defines the goals, people, and duties by office of
CBN, with a list of acronyms at the end.
Send questions or feedback to CBNSTS (at) yahoogroups (dot) com
Goals
of CBN:
The
primary goal of CBN (Cleveland By Night) is to have fun playing live-action Vampire:
The Masquerade, a live-action role-playing game (LARP).
A
secondary goal is to create an environment that is:
-
Open to
all regardless of race, nationality, religion, gender, income, disability or
sexual preference
-
Free of
drugs, alcohol, and violence
-
Engineered
to maximize the quality of play
-
Friendly
to newcomers, inexperienced gamers, and old friends alike
Tertiary
goals include the constant improvement of the quality of game, the
minimization of costs to players, occasional charity events, and sufficient
recruitment of players to keep the game growing.
What a LARP is:
A
live-action role-playing game is a collaboratively created alternate reality
in which players engage in improvisational theater, acting out the parts of
characters they design. It's like a giant game of 'let's pretend', and
this one is goth, with people pretending to be vampires. There's a
rule system, based on rock-paper-scissors, which determines the outcome of
conflicts and random chance events.
People
of CBN:
The
ST crew of CBN includes one HST (Head StoryTeller), Peter Wells.
Pete is ultimately responsible for the game, and is the top
decision-maker for CBN. Also
included in the ST crew are AST’s (Assistant StoryTellers), who assist in
decision-making, and defer only to the HST.
HST and ASTs cannot play PCs (Player Characters) in CBN.
Narrators
are not part of the ST crew. These
are volunteers handpicked by the ST crew, responsible for refereeing
challenges when an ST is not present, and can play PCs in addition to these
duties. Narrators
adjudicate PC conflicts in which their own PC has no involvement.
Players who disagree with a Narrator’s rules call can appeal to an
ST. Narrators are chosen for their level-headed,
non-confrontational OOC performance at game, combined with a thorough understanding of the MET and house rules.
The only reward for Narrating is the prestige of being unanimously
selected as exceptional by the ST crew.
Players
can play PCs, and are the lucky people who get to do so without additional
responsibilities. CBN currently
boasts between 25 and 35 players per game session.
NPC
Players, are chosen by the ST crew from the player pool
to play non-player characters, those created by
the ST crew to further plot. NPC
agendas are set by the ST crew, and players of NPCs are subject to severe
limitations. NPCs do not
receive experience, but the players do, to be applied to future PCs, with a
maximum bank of 10 XP.
Acronyms
commonly used in LARPing:
CBN
– Cleveland by Night, Vampire LARP in NE Ohio
IC
– In Character, elements that are part of the fiction
LARP
– Live-Action Roleplaying, not seated roleplaying
LOTN
– Laws of the Night, the MET rulebook for V:TM
MET-
Mind’s Eye Threatre, LARP rules publisher
NPC
– Non-Player Character, played within limits set by STs
OOC
– Out Of Character, elements not in the fiction
PC
– Player Character, created and played by a player
ST
– StoryTeller, the White Wolf term for GameMaster,
V:TM
– Vampire: The Masquerade, White Wolf’s system
WOD
– World of Darkness, the universe setting for V:TM
XP
– Experience Points, growth and increase in a character
