The Dracula Dossier: What Went Wrong?

So, did you all enjoy my meticulously curated ramble through the Dracula Dossier? Yeah, about that……..

We played 21 sessions before the campaign was staked and decapitated. There were several reasons for me not delivering on my original promise to run the whole thing, come what may. The main reason is that I’m full of shit, thankfully my players know this and love me in spite of it. Rather than ramble on interminably about the variety of other reasons that curtailed our war against the Un-dead, I’ll summarise and then move on to brighter RPG news, in subsequent ramblings.

• Firstly, allow me to state clearly that I admire the hell out of the Dracula Dossier, it’s an impressive beast, beautifully designed and well written, a landmark in RPG campaign design. In many ways I wonder if I wasn’t up to the challenge of running it.
• The main challenge was the sheer depth and complexity of the thing. From the outset I knew how much information was contained in the Director’s Handbook and the Dracula Dossier itself, what I didn’t appreciate was the temptation to include as much of it as possible within the campaign, a temptation to which I succumbed. Information overload for the players was an inevitable consequence. Too much information often leads to decision paralysis for players, and we definitely saw this happen.
• One of our players had a crisis of faith regarding RPGs and left the game. It’s important to note that the game itself didn’t cause this, the player was contemplating walking away from the hobby altogether, but I feel that the way I ran this campaign may have acted as a catalyst. Thankfully our player recovered, with some help from the RPG Re-indoctrination Service, and is once again a fully functioning RPG nerd.
• I became frustrated with a falsely perceived lack of progress. The players were burning through leads, in actual fact, using the Dossier to great effect whilst scouring London for evidence of the Count’s minions, and dodging EDOM. Naturally they were in no rush to head to Central Europe until they were 100% confident in their ability to confront and defeat Dracula, and who can blame them? Consequently, in my eagerness to move forward with events, I pushed them out of London precipitately by raising Heat to an unmanageable level. How big a tosser am I?

So, paraphrasing JK Simmons in ‘Burn After Reading’, what did I learn?

• You really don’t need to try cramming in all the material for this campaign. A crude estimate suggests that around 25% of the material will give you and your players a fantastically memorable game.
• I’d avoid the standard NBA approach of the PCs being out on their own, or have them go up against either Dracula or EDOM, not both. My preferred approach would be to have the PCs as EDOM agents looking to recruit or destroy Dracula.
• Don’t over promise and under deliver as a GM. Set achievable goals, after all you have a responsibility to your players when you step into the big chair. I’ve left players unfulfilled on this occasion, for which I can only say sorry and buy them a pint.

Right, that’s enough navel gazing and self-flagellation. Tune in next time to discover what has been occupying our gaming hours for the last six months.

Game on!