#Dracula as RPG

[penig]

When I first read Dracula, lo these many years agone (40 or so; I wonder who lives in that house now, where in the winter the cold was cupped inside like something precious and I read curled up in bed at night or in a chair in the sunroom?), I came away astonished at how good it was, yet a bit disappointed by the climax. It seemed anticlimactic to me, raised with cinematic climaxes even in my books; so many pages, so much tension, dissipating on the turn of two sentences into dust and Quincy’s blood on the snow and the minions and wolves sensibly fleeing into darkness as the sunset falls on Mina’s stainless forehead, and Mina didn’t get to use her gun.

Today, I feel very differently about it.

Today I have been crammed full of long, drawn-out, cinematic climaxes. I revolt against them; I begin to think about the lines in the restroom and will the mid-credit scene be worth the sitting? (It won’t.)

Also, today I have participated in Boss Fights many times; and this is how they go.

I played D&D back then, but it was a very different flavor of D&D, all dungeon crawls and party composition shifting randomly depending on who showed up, no continuity to speak of, no goal but to fight the next monster, solve the next puzzle, loot the next treasure, pile up the experience points for that next hard-earned level. It was fun but it had no pay-off, no plot, very little strategy because next session would be entirely different, or even teamwork, because next week Charlie’s parents would be visiting and he wouldn’t be able to come and the DM would have a research paper due so you’d be in a different dungeon with the person currently playing the 12th level monk behind the screen, running a dungeon he’d generated to test a computer program he’d written for his Trash-80. Whether you were fighting a horde of orcs or a Huge Ancient Red Dragon or even the actual BBEG at the bottommost level of the dungeon, you and your ragtag group of adventuring buddies would have at most a patchwork history with the enemy or the rest of the party or the dungeon itself. The thief would listen at the door and check for traps, you’d go in, and you’d do the best you could. And that’s not a boss fight.

No, for a Boss Fight, you have known for some time that you’d be coming up against the BBEG whose evil machinations have been making you tear your hair out since Level 1, whom you loathe with every fiber of your being even if you haven’t ever laid eyes on them before - you, and your seasoned party of close comrades. You know what they can do and you know what each and every one of you can do and you have discussed to death every countermeasure, every contingency. You have poured out your treasure like water to have the right equipment, the right buffs, the right protections in place. You have bribed and intimidated and persuaded and scryed and spied and burned the midnight oil to have every scrap of intelligence it is possible to glean. You have deployed your forces to maximize their effectiveness. Your game mechanic and your rules lawyer have found the exploitable loopholes and closed the loopholes the DM was hoping to exploit. You’re all of one mind. You’re ready.

You go in. You roll initiatives. You move, in deadly unity of purpose, you each do your job, you strike, and some of you miss and some of you hit and the BBEG’s minions try to distract you but you will not be distracted and They Are Gone, The Evil is Defeated and most of the time? If you did it right? If the dice aren’t cursed and the game mechanic and the rules lawyer are any shakes at all? The party is unscathed, the BBEG never got off a single attack. Anybody who did take damage probably got it from a trap or a minion, and it was probably a sacrifice move on the PC’s part to enable a bigger gun to get their hit in or to make sure that the PC’s own attack lands with full force on the actual target, denying them any chance of escape, recovery, or retaliation.

And Team Get Dracula did it letter-perfect.

The only reason Quincey died was because the mechanics of the system in use didn’t allow for massive HP accumulation or magical healing. Jonathan straight-up critted his Intimidation rolls so he didn’t have to deal with minions at all; one minion critted on Quincey and got through his parrying rolls and Quincey either didn’t have a mulligan left or decided to use it in a way that ensured he’d reach the coffin, when according to the mechanics evading the crit would have cost him either a precious round of movement or the to-hit bonus he was counting on to make the heart-strike.

 And Mina didn’t get to use her gun but that’s okay, because she knows, and they all know, but no one will say out loud, that if the plan didn’t work, if it came down to her using the gun, it would have been part of failing, or at best of Pyrrhic victory. In the circumstances of this combat, Mina was the weakest link. If the sun had gone down on Dracula, odds are good that his first act would have been to exert (or try to exert) control of her. She was inside the protection of the holy circle which might or might not have worked to protect her. She was bait, and distraction, and part of a Hail Mary play, and she knew all about that. She was the game mechanic and Van Helsing was the rules lawyer. Probably she had a Charisma-based feature that allowed her presence to provide bonuses to die rolls. She had done her bit in the planning and organizing and information-gathering stages. I have been in the Mina position and let me tell you, the satisfaction isn’t any the less for not having had to roll a single attack.

This time around, I am satisfied.

[another-chaotic-bisexual-vampire]

Bram "The GM" Stoker: Jack's lockpick roll was a success, so the bolt shoots back with a rusty clang, the hinges creak, and the heavy, oaken door opens wide. What do you do?

Arthur: Are there rats? I've got an anti-rat whistle! It's got a +9 against rats!!

Bram: You don't have darkvision, so... *rolls dice* ...you don't see any rats, per se.

Jonathan: Okay, then I want to do a spot hidden che--

Van Helsing: Too late! I've already walked in.

Jonathan: What?!

Jack: I guess I follow Van Helsing inside, but only after I mutter some pretentious prayer in Latin, then I go in.

Bram: Classic Jack. Well, since no one did a spot hidden check *rolls a big pile of dice*

Jonathan: *groaning*

Bram: *rolls even more dice* Now as the door shuts behind you and you all search through the decaying ruins, the pungent stench of mildew emanating from the wet stone walls, your dim lanterns barely pierce the thick curtain of darkness, you find only cobwebs and more shadows until... Jonathan, you can't get it out of your head that this feels like Transylvania all over again and maybe, just maybe, there's someone else here. Give me a sanity roll.

Jonathan: UGH! *rolling dice and sweating*

Quincey: Can I cast gun at the darkness?

[draculancer-flow]

NHP gal let me hit it because I have that six points in engineering, and I survived the dick-flattening because of my six points in hull

[oldschoolfrp]

Dracula in Various Game Systems -- stats for Call of Cthulhu, Traveller, The Fantasy Trip, and Champions (from "Roleplaying Count Dracula" by W Peter Miller, framed by Denis Loubet's illustration, Space Gamer 74, May/June 1985)

[bevirspnsblmnt]

dont forget your supply pack when u go out adventuring

(lately I've been thinking about what happens to them after, once the whole brain worms thing has been taken care of. I think they'd stay in Baldur's Gate for a while, fix up that one lil house that you see in the camp in low town. Jaheira probably tries to recruit Khael in the Harpers, which he always declines, but he does help out. he's mostly interested in information and connections, as he's looking for a way to let Astarion walk in the sun. Astarion remains hopeful, but much more interested in making a new life for himself than trying to get rid of his sunlight sensitivity.)

[vintagerpg]

Let’s round out October with some horror fiction!

These are the first five of Fred Saberhagen’s Dracula novels — The Dracula Tape (1975), The Holmes-Dracula File (1978), An Old Friend of the Family (1979), Thorn (1980) and Dominion (1982). There are more, but Saberhagen returned to the series in 1990 and the covers just aren’t that swell from that point on.

The first novel is sort of an attempt to do what John Gardner did with Grendel (1971) to Dracula — tell the “true” story from the villain’s perspective, make him empathetic while still preserving the danger that is central to his appeal. It kind of works. Its fun, at least. As the novels goes on, the saga gets more preposterous and Dracula becomes ever more heroric, but the series never really runs out of charm. Worth pointing out, too, that the first novel is a recorded interview, a conceit Anne Rice would use for Interview with a Vampire the very next year.

First three covers by Bob Adragna. Thorn is uncredited. Dominion, surprisingly, is by Howard Chaykin.

[haveyouplayedthisttrpg]

Have you played DRACULA DOSSIER ?

By Kenneth Hite

Entirely improvised campaign based on the novel "Dracula" being both a true story and a resource for the players, complete with an annotated version of the novel that exists in the world. Different campaigns will tell very different stories.

[slutpoppers]

Dark lord Soma Cruz

Castlevania Aria of Sorrow (2003)

[moneyhoneyps]

Kim Dracula - 400x640 Pour Aster (Crown Of Serpents) <3 Avatar 1, frame found here

[dungeonofthedragon]

It's disability pride month! Let's check out some ttrpg content from disabled creators, shall we?

This Game Takes Place in Dracula's Castle by Jack Blair

Jack has created several very cool block tower games, but this one is my favourite. I don't know if it's the clever premise, the art, or just the fact it's about vampires that got me, but this duet game of tensions between Dracula and Jonathan Harker is simply fantastic.

Homebrew Disability Systems for 5E by harpoon_gun

D&D 5E is still one of the most popular games out there, and this homebrew system is invaluable when creating disabled characters. Using these comprehensive guidelines you can create characters with impaired vision, movement or hearing; chronic fatigue, chronic pain, limb differences, or even a panic disorder. Also included are a variety of assistive aids for your characters.

GRIM by EfanGamez

An FPS inspired game where skills are divided into Combat Skills and Roleplaying skills. There's some really intriguing worldbuilding here too! On the planet GRIM, the only structure is an ancient obelisk. Countless explorers have set out to explore the area, but none have returned. Now it's your turn!

Eureka by Agency of Narrative Intrigue and Mystery

Supernatural urban investigations! This game recently had a successful Kickstarter, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of it in the future. You can play a Normal Person, or a monster who is stronger in combat but has some monstery weaknesses (which may or may not involve needing to eat people.) I'm all about playing monsters any chance I can get, and this one might have gorgons in the full release, so I'm sold.

Blades in the Dark: Mobility Equipment by Aurelia

Aurelia sells a lot of cool accessibility related content (including accessibility cantrips for Pathfinder and D&D), but I have a weakness for Blades in the Dark and so this is the one I'm linking too. The idea of a Hound with a clockwork animal companion is just too cool! Our group's Hound has a ghost cat. Maybe they would be friends.

Feel free to reblog with additional content!

[iodine-cyanide]

I think this game fucked up my brain

[sylvanus-cypher]

Imagine: Lancer shitposts in the style of Dracula Flow

"Opps was gonna sell me out to the DoJ/HR, so I fed em to the Balor!"

"The shit Juan puts in his spaghetti got me higher than twenty percs"

"OSIRIS got that NHPussy making me violate the First Contact Accords"

[internetdruid]

I think tumblr users should play at least one game of 1000 year old vampire

[draculancer-flow]

The zaza got me exploring niche TTRPGs with a decidedly left-wing perspective and a primarily queer audience

[marquise-onion]

✧ one of two pieces for a horror rpg maker zine

[devileaterjaek]