Article:
The Isles of Darkness: A Storyteller's Life

One of the many hats that I wear involves being the Venue Storyteller (VST) for the Isles of Darkness (IoD) Vampire: The Requiem LRP in London. The Isles of Darkness were formerly the Camarilla UK, but the society continues to run a national, integrated cross-venue game set in the World of Darkness. Or, at least, that’s the theory.

It is true that once you’ve created a character for your preferred Venue (e.g. Vampire: The Requiem, Werewolf: The Forsaken or Mage: The Awakening) you can travel to any other game in the UK and play the same character, building up experience points (XP) as you go. Beyond that though things get a little tricky.

It should be the case that your actions in your local game will have possible repercussions on both a) the games in different Venues in the same location, and b) other games in the same Venue in other locations. The problem with this is that the Storyteller of each of these games needs to be aware of your actions so that they can play out these repercussions. This is far more easily said than done.

The IoD has created a structure for coping with these demands, but it doesn’t always work. In theory, a VST reports the goings-on of their monthly games to a Domain Storyteller (DST) who oversees all the games that take place in their area and works out what impact they have upon each other. For example, as the VST of London Requiem I should report to a DST of London, who should oversee all London games, and who should be the one to tell me when werewolves, mages or whoever might be stirring stuff up to effect my vampire players.

The DST in turn should report the goings-on of each Venue in their area to an Assistant National Storyteller (ANST) who should collate and oversee everything to do with a given Venue at the National level. There is an ANST for each game Venue, and they all report to a National Storyteller (NST) right at the top. This structure is supposed to ensure that the society is capable of running an ongoing, integrated, cross-Domain, cross-Venue chronicle.

The reality is that, although the society’s structure is helpful, it falls way short of delivering on this mission statement. The work required at every level of the organisation to achieve these goals is way beyond the ability of a single person to manage or keep up with. Recently it was acknowledged on the society’s UK-General mailing list that the turnover of VSTs is quite high due to a ‘burnout’ factor, and I can fully understand why.