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You are never more alive as when you begin to taste death. This may sound macabre. I suppose it is, but nevertheless, it is true. At its core, all Vampire lore is an exploration of our own morality through a metaphor of the "undead." Whether the monsters chronicled is the journey of Dracula, as Bram Stoker told, or that of Lestat and Louis debating immortality as in Anne Rice's Interview With The Vampire, we are able to share philosophy of the living through the experiences of these lost souls.

Imagine this scene. A father drops to his knees, clutching the cold body of his baby girl in his powerful arms. Her tiny lips are blue. Her skin is slick with sweat. She is not breathing. Desperately, he places his own lips over his daughter's and passes his life's breath into her clogged lungs. She doesn't respond, so the process is repeated, over and
over again until sirens are heard drawing closer. Paramedics arrive and a man pulls the lifeless body from the father's arms. He watches as his child is placed in the vehicle and
driven away. Now, he is alone.

Tragic; a frightening nightmare no human should endure. Now, imagine the adverse. It is not the child who dies, but the father. It is the father who is ripped from everything he loves, everything he knows and is forced into a life of the undead; those who may not live, but may not die. Forever, he will be alone as a creature of the night.

Vampire; The Requiem is a gothic storytelling game that allows the participants to chronicle their own characters while studding views of mortality through their epic tales. There is a storyteller who must establish these elements and move the other players forward in some kind of a plot. The players must react to each new discovery as they believe their character would, acting, speaking and "living" as their character. It is not so much a game about death as it is an exploration of living. How far would you go to "live" despite having all external vestments of the living taken from you? Could you really love? How deep could you hate? What is truly worth fighting for when there will always be another night?

Theme, mood, character and plot are critical in story-based role playing games, ever so much more than in a standard role playing game such as Dungeons and Dragons. The technical rules are secondary and only a means to drive the plot forward. But who you are, and why you chose to act as you do are woven together with the storyline to create a mood of gothic horror. These elements of this style of game have always been more satisfying because the characters actually mean something. Their feelings almost become human, and by extension, a mirror of our own.

The possibilities are endless and are only bound by the imagination of the group.

Learn more about this author, Aaron Graham.
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