Jaded Gamer - Vampire part two

As I said at the end of my last post the 'when' part of my upcoming Vampire game is rather important. So I'm rolling back the date to the original year the game came out. I'm running Vampire 1991.

There are a few reasons for doing this and of course one of those is the nostalgia feeling once again. I mean that's the year I started running VTM back in the day. Another is technical limitations while being on the very brink of big technical advances at the same time. Two places in particular are with the internet and cellular phones.

1991 is the AOL broke out onto the public market in a big way. Up until then most of what was could be classified as the internet was limited to connections between universities and government offices along with so many small time BBS's that you could not keep track of them all. In that one year so many things changed in the way we could communicate and share information.

Also portable phones were still a rarity in many areas. Those that did exist were either mounted in cars or were big bricks that had to be carried around. They weren't cheap and they were pretty shaky on what areas they would work in well enough to be useful. The first digital cellular service was launched in 1991 across the pond in Europe. But the movement forward of the technology gained speed rather quickly.

Why are these two things important in the WoD? The instantaneous transfer of information changed a lot of things on all levels. Anybody doing some detective work could network easier than ever before. Hunter groups could now exchange their leads and years of data. It became less of a chore to track down who owned what and for how long making many centuries old kindred estates vulnerable to anyone, anywhere in the world. This put a lot of vampires and their holdings at significant risk rather quickly.

Of course the ability to adapt quickly to new and changing situations isn't something the kindred are known for. Especially those who have become comfortable I their old ways and learning new tricks and not something they do easily. The most logical step to help them react to this would be to either ghoul or embrace those who are knowledgeable of such things. So a jump in newly created vampires would occur starting a population rise that may put some Princes on edge in their carefully controlled cities. Plenty of drama and plotting to work with there.

Also this gives a great entry point for new characters. Those who picked the lower generation background may have simply been created to hide their sires computer trail in the real estate business. Or to infiltrate various groups who are now communicating online more and more. It could place more value on them than they would normally get if their technical skills are high enough.

That's all for this time. See you next week.