Introduction of the new Storyline Coordinator

Some of you may already know me for my work in supporting the play of VTES in the UK, or from my attendance at international VEKN events. Some of you may also know of my past work for White Wolf in designing the Vampire: Prince of the City board game.

What is much less well known is that I have been a Storyteller of Vampire: The Masquerade tabletop games since 1991 when the first edition of the game was published. I own pretty much every single original Vampire book (along with many other White Wolf books) and I have regularly enjoyed roleplaying in the World of Darkness over the last 21 years.

On the subject of common knowledge it's also now a pretty open secret that I have been helping Ben Peal with the design of the VEKN's first official card set. In fact it is this work which led to the invitation by Johannes and the IC to take a more active role in the Storyline side of things.

In regards to the organisation of Storyline VTES events after some discussion we have decided to change things up a little bit. We know that there are a lot of players out there who would like the opportunity to influence the story associated with the game, but they can't necessarily get enough people together for a proper multi-round tournament.

We have therefore proposed a new way for handling Storyline: single pickup games which can be played by any group of any size any number of times. As long as every deck used is Storyline legal (in the established fashion) and the results of the game are submitted using the appropriate form then they will be included in the final tally.

The results will be used to plot the course of future Storyline games, cards and short stories. In fact, with the advent of the Onyx Path there may even be an opportunity to work closely again with the guys behind the RPG and cross over between the two games once more.

We plan to use the European Championship in Budapest as the first opportunity to try this new format out. Any pickup VTES games played by anyone with Storyline legal decks during the week of the event will be eligible for inclusion. We'll conjure up a little fiction for people to read and hand out forms and cards for people to use.

If it works out well the we hope to present similar limited, geographically themed games at other national and international events in the future.

I hope you enjoy it - and see you in Budapest!

Mike Nudd
Storyline Coordinator

New Marketing Team

Dear fellow Metusalehs,

I am happy to present you the new marketing team we have formed within the V:EKN: Michal Kazmierczak (Migalart) and Radoslaw Staszewski (Szewski), both from Poland.

While Szweski will formally hold the position of the Marketing Director, they will act as a team with the goal to turn up the publicity on V:TES. They both have real life expertise in this regard and are part of the successful V:TES scene in Poland, which is contradicting the downwards trend we have seen in other nations.

They are currently forming a strategy on how to do this, of course, depending on how the long term plans of having V:TES in print turn out. Feedback and contributions from the community are appreciated by them, and I think they will soon turn to you with relevant questions and discussions.

Once the strategy is in place and specific actions and programs are due, they will trickle this down the existing network of volunteers, the National Coordinators and Princes.

Johannes Walch
Chairman of the V:EKN