Hello Young Neonate,
If this letter finds itself in your hands then you have been selected to partake in a dark tradition whose practice spans decades and many generations of players. I myself am of the 8th generation of players. By embracing you, you shall be of the 9th. This macabre tradition is known simply as House Games.
To suspend the Kayfab for a few paragraphs , House Games is an informal system of table top roleplaying. You may be familiar with popular High Fantasy RPG systems such as Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder. We are currently in a Golden Age of Table Top gaming; and even I must admit these systems are the most popular systems for a reason. However House Games is a very different beast than systems you may be familiar with.
A World of Darkness
House games is by and large built on the classic White Wolf’s roleplaying systems from the 90s and early 2000s. These include systems such as Vampire the Masquerade, Werewolf the Apocalypse, Hunter the Reckoning, and Mage the Ascension. Collectively, these various source books make up a shared world known as the World of Darkness (WOD). WOD is thoroughly low fantasy. It is about the forces that drive our world, of the things that go bump in the night, of the sinister intentions behind the stranger who keeps staring at you.
Though today WOD is not popular as their high fantasy D20 system competitors, it nonetheless have a strong cult following. Mechanically it is extremely different from a D20 system as well. A set of at least a few d10s are the only thing needed to play WOD (and by extension House Games). There are no classes, only skills and attributes; and skill checks involve rolling both. The goal of the games is to tell a collaborative story.
What are House Games?
House Games are a set of homebrew rules to play in the World of Darkness. You play as High Rollers, people of incredible determination and grit. They can best be described as a Snowflake of Carnage. They are recruited by the Harbingers to play the House Games, who reward gifts upon success.
All House Games follow the same basic structure. A group of characters are rounded up and presented with a deadly task which they must attempt to complete. Each session is a self contained story, with the player characters being all that carry over from session to session. Upon success characters are given rewards by the harbingers, XP, and various traumas from their experiences.
The Procedural Format
You may be wondering how any character progression is possible without an intertwining campaign. Enter the Precession and Side Sessions. Before each game you and an agreed upon Storyteller will do some role playing to advance the story of your character. Side sessions in turn allow you to roleplay out more impactful moments. Between the two, this gives you a chance to role play your character in their day to day life, facilitating a story of personal growth and change. The story trajectory and progress of your highroller is entirely up to you. Fleshing out your character is both encouraged and rewarded mechanically.
A great analogy is House Games is a procedural show. House MD is a great example. (In fact Dr. House is the perfect type of character who would be in House Games.) The bulk of an episode is dedicated to the ‘mystery of the week’, the patient with the disease. But threaded throughout the episode are also small moments used to flesh out the characters, to give them overarching character arcs and story lines. The best storytelling with this method will subtly intertwine the two story beats.
No Gods, No Masters, No Perma-GMs
There is no perma-GM in House Games. Storytelling in House Games is conducted Round-Robin style. A healthy playgroup will have multiple people As every session is self contained, anyone can volunteer to host and run a game. If you are normally a player and you wish to try Storytelling, give it a go. You will be rewarded with additional XP for doing so that can be put towards your characters. This is a mechanical incentive to pick up the responsibility, and make up for missing a game as a player. House Games is not a campaign level commitment. You are free to come and go as you please.
Why House Games
Lets review the gameplay loop that we just discussed real quick. The loop of House Games is as follows:
- Each character will conduct a Pression with the Storyteller of the Week.
- The Storyteller will conduct the Session, playing out the story for the week.
- Upon completion, the Storyteller will hand out earned rewards, tramuas and XP to each character, as well as earning XP as a reward for conducting the session.
- Players will use this down time to roll for progression and calculate skill progression.
- In-between sessions, a player and a agreed upon Storyteller will conduct side sessions, giving
This type of non-conventional gameplay loop does not occur by mistake. The system is designed to encourage a system of collaborative story telling, in which every player shares a bit of the burden, rather then a single game master responsible for running the game. This is to solve a common problem in tabletop roleplay, the need to keep a consistent campaign together.
People get busy, sick or have schedule changes. This includes the Game Master. How to account for a missing player is always a thorny issue in any system. But in House Games, missing a session is no problem at all for any player, because the responsibility is more spread out among the troupe.
Now that you know the what and the why of the system, you can learn more about the how. For further introductory reading, see New Players Start Here