Chicago: the White City

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is Roleplaying?

A: Basically, you’re roleplaying any time you take on a persona that’s not your own; acting—especially improv acting—is roleplaying, as is pretending to be a sexy, stranded hitchhiker on a CB radio as you’re driving through the Dakotas in the middle of the night. When we use the term, we’re usually talking about roleplaying games, which have been around for about thirty years and aren’t nearly as likely to leave you dead in a truck stop shower room.

Q: How does it work?

A: Every player involved has one character, a persona they adopt during the game (called a Player Character). Just about all your time at the game will be spent acting this part, so don’t think it’s weird if, by the end of the night, you’ve hung out with people for hours and still don’t know their real names. It happens to everyone. Somewhere in the mix, you have the Storyteller, who takes care of everything and everyone in the world that isn’t a player character. Cops, the mayor, homeless guys on the street, the force of nature…all of these are controlled by the Storyteller.

Q: What is LARPing?

A: LARP stands for “live-action roleplaying.” It’s a term we use to distinguish the type of game we play from the original form of “tabletop” roleplaying games. A tabletop game would have a small number of players, sitting down with a single Storyteller, narratively describing the actions of their characters. A LARP has a larger base of players, possibly more than one Storyteller, with everyone standing up, dressing as and physically acting out (to a point) their characters’ roles. Imagine a series of long-form improvisational scenes, but done for the players’ own entertainment instead of an audience’s.

Q: And what’s this Vampire: The Requiem?

A: Vampire: the Requiem is the particular setting we’ve chosen for our group; it’s a charming little horror-themed number in which the majority of the players take on the role of modern-day — you guessed it — vampires. But before you go to the cops, it’s worth noting that a lot of what’s traditionally considered part of vampire myth tends to happen “off-camera” in the game. Players spend precious little time standing around and pretending to drink blood of any such nonsense; that’s usually the least interesting part of the average vampire’s night. Instead, the game deals with the social interaction and politicking that happens among thirty-odd human predators, all packed into the same city.

It’s worth mentioning at this point that Vampire: the Requiem is published by White Wolf Game Studio, and that they hold trademark over the name and most of the game terminology we use while playing; we didn’t want anyone to get confused.

Q: White Wolf?

A: White Wolf Game studio kind of pioneered the whole live-action roleplaying thing in the early 1990s. They didn’t invent it, but they brought it to a new audience. If you’re familiar with roleplaying games at all, you’ve probably heard of our game’s predecessor, Vampire: the Masquerade.

Q: Vampire: The Masquerade?

A: Are you asking questions or just repeating the last thing I say?

Anyway, Vampire the Masquerade came out around 1991 as a tabletop roleplaying game, followed soon after by its live-action counterpart (and similar games, such as Werewolf: the Apocalypse and Mage the Ascension). Two years ago, White Wolf released Requiem as a kind of fresh start to the line. They took the ideas and themes they started with in Masquerade and went off in a slightly different direction. Masquerade still has a dedicated base of players in the area, but the books used to play are out of print and won’t be produced again.

Q: Aren’t you all just a bunch of dorks? Like that kid from the “Lightning Bolt! Lightning Bolt!” video?

A: Yes. But then again, so is this man:

Oh, did that get your attention? Vin Diesel will slap your head clean off, and then sew it back on because he’s that awesome. And he’s a dork.

We have players who are huge dorks. We also have players who are totally normal- they work 9 to 5, they have girlfriends and wives (when you have a wife, you call your girlfriend a mistress, just so you know), or boyfriends and husbands...if that floats their boats.  Some of us work out, others don’t. Some of us know exactly why Qasim Mitchell is bad; others have no idea who he is. We are a...quilt of sorts. A quilt of white guys mostly, but a quilt none the less.

Q: I heard most of you think you actually are vampires. So, what the fuck is wrong with you?

A: Somewhere on the Internet, this guy thinks he’s an expert on Illini football...I’m a U of I alum, but I don’t hang out with him either:

Some people in this hobby are crazy- it’s the byproduct of living in a country where crazy people live.  While we cannot promise that you will never encounter someone like this in your lifetime were you to start playing our game, we can say the storytelling staff dreads those encounters as much as you do. None of our current players think they are vampires, and we hope none ever will.  

Q: Do you all like Morrissey?

A: We all wish we could dance like Morrissey, for certain.

Q: “Chicago: The White City”...are you all racists or something?

A: No. “The White City” is a reference to the nickname given to the city during the 1893 World’s Fair. “The White City” had to do with the immaculate image the city presented during the fair, which was a distant picture compared to the previous ideas most around the world had of the city- a dirty town full of hog and cattle butchers. 

Q: I have never played before; can I play? What should I do to prepare?

A: First off, Chicago: the White City always welcomes first time players and promises to do its best to integrate you into play without any hassles or stress.

To prepare, first e-mail the staff at zincoxide@gmail.com to let them know that you are interested in playing. We would prefer to know that a new player is coming at least 3-4 days before their first game, but we won’t turn someone away for failing to give us a sufficient heads up. If we have time, however, the staff can give you more specific instructions on what to do prior to game based on your previous experiences playing in roleplaying games.

Also of importance, we ask players to come to game with some idea or ideas of a character they might want to play. The concept can be as simple as “plucky reporter” or “jerk in a po-mo kilt,” or perhaps you might want to play someone who was at the Haymarket Riot. Our house rules page has a section on character creation and concepts, so please read it to understand what kind of character would be good to play. While the concept may need to be flushed out or modified before you can play it, coming up with a concept that will be interesting to you is always the toughest job for a staff member to do on the fly.

Beyond that, if you have a chance to familiarize yourself with the rules and story of Vampire: the Requiem, we highly encourage you to try and give them at least one read-through. Understand that our house rules- posted on this site- are simply modifications to parts of the game rules, and are not a substitute for them. If you can’t do this, don’t panic. Players can go for several games without actually having to use the rules at all...instead choosing to just talk with other players and observe what is going on.

Q: What books do you use for the game?

A: We use the Minds Eye Theatre books for The World of Darkness and Vampire: The Requiem as our primary rulebooks, published by White Wolf Games Studio. In those books you will find information on the rules of the game, character creation rules, and an explanation on a variety of terms and concepts you will hear when playing the game. The books, currently, are only printed in hardcover and are fairly expensive–so if you are a new player we do not necessarily expect you to purchase and read those books before playing.  The staff has access to a few copies of the books open to the players at the site, and they can summarize most of the books quickly and eloquently.

As far as other materials–the main rulebooks for tabletop World of Darkness and Vampire: the Requiem contain most of the same information as the Minds Eye Theatre books, and the rules for the games analogous.  We do reference tabletop sourcebooks when Minds Eye Theatre does not have sufficient information on a topic, and we recommend our players at least try to familiarize themselves with the history of the City (you should know it caught on fire once, and we had a World’s Fair or two...and everyone loves Dick Daley).

Q: Where/when do you play?

A: As of the writing of this FAQ, the game plays on the 1st and 3rd Friday of every month, and our current site is The Echo Gallery at 1529 W. Chicago Ave, about 1 block East of Ashland on the south side of the street. Please check the front page of the site for an up-to-date listing of game dates, and the Site Map page for directions to the site and changes in site location.

Q: I’m thinking about playing, but I still have questions...

A: Any further questions should be e-mailed to zincoxide@gmail.com. From there, a friendly Storyteller will get back to you within a day or two to answer any questions you might have.