[nWoD/GMC] Has anyone ever played an all-Minor Templates game?

[Kiero]

I'm guessing for the most part the Minor Templates (Wolf-Blooded, Ghouls, Proximii, Enchanted Mortals, etc) see very little play outside NPCs. I've been playing them alongside the Major Templates (XP-adjusted to compensate for the lack of powers), but I've always thought there's an interesting premise to be had with a whole group of them.

There's broadly two options; they could all be the same type, where you'd effectively be playing a different level of focus in the same game. Perhaps they're a specialist team of fixers employed by the Major Template to handling things more subtly than sending in the Majors. For example it might be The Day Shift, an elite Ghoul kill-team who clean up threats the vampires can't get to during the day, beneath the noses of the authorities.

Alternatively, in a mixed group you have the option of taking Minor Templates from any of the lines, so you might have a Ghoul, a Wolf-Blooded and a couple of Proximii teaming up. That would seem to lend itself more towards either a Hunter-style game, or else something more mortal-focused, where the PCs are a cut above regular people by dint of their supernatural connection.

In either instance you'd give them bonus Experiences to start with (15-40 depending on how much extra juice is desired), so that they can get some real differentiation and start out competent enough to do more than milk runs.

Sound interesting? Has anyone done something like this?

[sktarq]

I played two shortish games in pre GMC nWoD. One who were all ghouls and supposed to represent their torpid mistress between visits from her childer. Was interesting to say the least.

Other was arguable as a "Minor template" as they were all sorcerers from the Second Sight book. Was very fun-more fun than I ever had in mage.

So yes these types of game are very doable and can be lots of fun-but from what I've heard somewhat more work to ST as. There is less written and more new thinking to be done-which may be part of the point.

[Kiero]

I played two shortish games in pre GMC nWoD. One who were all ghouls and supposed to represent their torpid mistress between visits from her childer. Was interesting to say the least.

Other was arguable as a "Minor template" as they were all sorcerers from the Second Sight book. Was very fun-more fun than I ever had in mage.

So yes these types of game are very doable and can be lots of fun-but from what I've heard somewhat more work to ST as. There is less written and more new thinking to be done-which may be part of the point.

The rest of my group played a Vampire game where they ran ghouls as secondary characters, but that was in a troupe-style multiple-character thing, rather than being the sole focus.

Do you mean more work if they're still going to throw Major Template supernatural threats at the PCs?

[sktarq]

It's more a matter that consequences and meanings are different for ghouls for example. These ideas are mostly laid out for vampires-but how does a promotion of a regent is say the Ordo translate to how his ghouls are treated? Are there say social rules for traveling through a domain of vampire not allied to your regent? Even if you need to say go to DMV for your car? Or do the boarders only matter at night? How much to ghouls know/understand? Etc etc.

[BBJimmy]

I once ran a campaign where the players were all Minor Templates (rolled randomly at char-gen with an option to use some starting xp to pick one). They were all convicts at the Supermax prison ran by the Vanguard Serial Crimes Unit (VASCU, a department of the FBI), and were going to be paroled on a work-release. Think Suicide Squad.

Long story short, our little team of a Skinchanger boy-scout, Proximus businessman, Possessed cheerleader, and amnesiac Immortal hunted down and defeated an Apocalypse cult in Boston before they could bring about the realization of their Dark God onto our plane.

That's right, a group of non-Awakened defeated the worshippers of the Prince of 10,000 Leaves and saved the world.

By the end of the game, the Skinchanger was given a full-ride to Harvard by a local gentleman's club (one of the Mage Cabals, out of gratitude), the cheerleader was shipped off to Italy (read: Lucifuge) for "study" halfway through the game and was replaced by a pyrokinetic nun, the Proximus Awakened and joined the Silver Ladder (and arranged for the scholarship for the scout), and the Immortal returned to VASCU to act as a Special Asset (and be well paid for his efforts).

Overall, it played out like a H:tV game, but with much broader types of Endowments flying around.

[Kiero]

I once ran a campaign where the players were all Minor Templates (rolled randomly at char-gen with an option to use some starting xp to pick one). They were all convicts at the Supermax prison ran by the Vanguard Serial Crimes Unit (VASCU, a department of the FBI), and were going to be paroled on a work-release. Think Suicide Squad.

Long story short, our little team of a Skinchanger boy-scout, Proximus businessman, Possessed cheerleader, and amnesiac Immortal hunted down and defeated an Apocalypse cult in Boston before they could bring about the realization of their Dark God onto our plane.

That's right, a group of non-Awakened defeated the worshippers of the Prince of 10,000 Leaves and saved the world.

By the end of the game, the Skinchanger was given a full-ride to Harvard by a local gentleman's club (one of the Mage Cabals, out of gratitude), the cheerleader was shipped off to Italy (read: Lucifuge) for "study" halfway through the game and was replaced by a pyrokinetic nun, the Proximus Awakened and joined the Silver Ladder (and arranged for the scholarship for the scout), and the Immortal returned to VASCU to act as a Special Asset (and be well paid for his efforts).

Overall, it played out like a H:tV game, but with much broader types of Endowments flying around.

That sounds like one thoroughly awesome game. Don't suppose it was ever written up/podcasted somewhere?

[BBJimmy]

That sounds like one thoroughly awesome game. Don't suppose it was ever written up/podcasted somewhere?

Unfortunately, no. There was some blue-book work done by one of the players, but we've had a falling out since then, so there'd be no way for me to get a copy. A real shame, too, as I still consider it as one of the best games I've ever run.