You've got players. You've got a venue. You've got characters approved and a setting sketched out. Now you have to actually run the thing.
Your first session will not go the way you planned. That's normal. The goal isn't perfection. It's getting your players into the room, into their characters, and excited enough to come back next time. Everything else you can fix as you go.
Here's how to set yourself up for a good first night.
Before Game: The Work You Do in Advance
Most of the work that makes a session run smoothly happens before anyone shows up.
Know your characters. Read every approved character sheet before game night. You don't need to memorize them, but you should know each character's clan, their general concept, and any backstory hooks you can use. If a Tremere's backstory mentions a missing sire, that's a thread you can pull during the session. If a Brujah wrote that they hate authority, you know exactly which SPC to point them toward.
Prepare your SPCs, not your plot. New Storytellers tend to over-plan plot and under-prepare their Storyteller Portrayed Characters. Flip that. You need two or three SPCs who have clear personalities, clear goals, and clear opinions about the player characters. If your SPCs are well-defined, they'll generate story through interaction. A Sheriff who's suspicious of newcomers, a Harpy who collects gossip, and a Primogen with a grudge will create more drama through conversation than any scripted event.
Have one catalyst ready. You don't need a full plot arc for session one. You need one thing that creates urgency or tension. An announcement from the Prince. A rumor that someone in the city broke the Masquerade. A mysterious newcomer who won't explain why they're here. Give the players something to react to and they'll generate the rest.
Set up your space. If your venue allows it, designate different areas for different in-game locations. A corner for the Prince's office, a hallway for private conversations, a main room for Elysium. Even rough designations help players feel like they're moving through a world rather than standing in a rented room.
Brief your co-Storytellers. If you have other Storytellers helping you, make sure everyone knows the plan. Who's playing which SPCs? Who handles rules questions? Who's watching for players who seem lost or disengaged? Divide responsibilities before game so you're not figuring it out in the moment.
Opening the Session
The first thirty minutes set the tone for everything that follows.
Start with an out-of-character briefing. Before the game begins, gather everyone and cover the basics: where things are in the space, how to signal that you're speaking out of character, any safety mechanics your chronicle uses, and how long the session will run. Keep this short. Five minutes, not fifteen.
Open in-character with a gathering. Your first session should start with a reason for every character to be in the same place. An Elysium event, a court summons, or a city-wide announcement all work. Don't expect players to organically find each other on night one. Put them in a room together and let the social dynamics do the work.
Make the first SPC interaction count. Within the first few minutes of in-character play, have an SPC engage with the group. The Prince making a short address, the Harpy greeting newcomers, the Sheriff checking credentials. This sets the political tone immediately and gives players someone to react to.
Managing the Middle
Once the opening scene breaks and players start pursuing their own agendas, your job shifts from director to air traffic controller.
Let players drive. The biggest mistake new Storytellers make during a session is intervening too much. If two players are having an intense in-character argument, let it play out. If a group is scheming in a corner, leave them alone. Your job is to facilitate, not to steer every conversation.
Watch for wallflowers. Some players, especially new ones, will hang back and not know how to engage. This is where your SPCs earn their keep. Have the Seneschal approach a quiet player and ask what brings them to the city. Have a Primogen recruit someone for a task. Give disengaged players a reason to act without putting them on the spot in front of the whole room.
Be available, not omnipresent. Pick a spot in the room where players know they can find you. When someone needs a rules call, an SPC interaction, or a private scene, they come to you. The rest of the time, you're observing, not inserting yourself.
Handle rules quickly and move on. When a challenge comes up, resolve it as fast as you can. If you're unsure about a ruling, make a call, tell the players you'll verify after the session, and keep the game moving. Nothing kills momentum like a ten-minute rules debate in the middle of a tense scene.
Run simultaneous scenes. This is the part of LARP Storytelling that's hardest to learn and most different from tabletop. Multiple things are happening at the same time. Two players are negotiating in one corner while a fight breaks out in another while a third group is interrogating an SPC in the hallway. You can't be everywhere. That's why co-Storytellers matter, and it's why your SPCs need to be well-defined enough that you can play them reactively rather than needing to consult your notes.
Use notes, not memory. Keep a small notebook or your phone handy. When something important happens, jot it down. "Malkavian told the Nosferatu about the Masquerade breach." "Ventrue publicly challenged the Primogen's authority." You won't remember everything that happened across a four-hour session, and these notes become the foundation for next session's hooks.
Pacing
Pacing a LARP session is more art than science, but there are a few principles that help.
Front-load the energy. The opening of the session should feel dynamic. An announcement, a confrontation, a surprise arrival. Give players a burst of energy to carry into the rest of the night.
Let the middle breathe. The middle of a session is where players do their own thing. Negotiations, private conversations, investigation, scheming. This part should feel spacious. Don't rush it by throwing events at the players every twenty minutes.
Build toward the end. If you have a second catalyst planned (and you should, even if it's small), deploy it in the last hour. This gives the session a natural arc: opening tension, exploration, escalation. It also means players leave on a high note rather than a slow fade.
Call time clearly. Announce when the game has thirty minutes left so players can wrap up conversations and make final moves. When time is up, call the game out of character and make any end-of-session announcements.
Handling Problems
Things will go wrong. Here's how to handle the most common issues.
A rules dispute escalates. Make a ruling, tell both parties you'll review it after the session, and move on. If a player pushes back, remind them that Storyteller rulings are final during the session and you're happy to discuss it afterward.
A player is uncomfortable. If someone signals discomfort (using whatever safety mechanic your chronicle employs), address it immediately. Pull the scene in a different direction, call a brief pause, or check in with the player privately. Player safety isn't negotiable.
Nobody is engaging with your catalyst. This happens. If your big announcement lands with a shrug, don't force it. Let the players pursue whatever they are interested in. Sometimes the best sessions come from the players ignoring your plans entirely and generating their own drama. You can reintroduce the catalyst next session with higher stakes.
Two players have a real conflict. If an in-character dispute starts bleeding into out-of-character tension, intervene. Pull both players aside separately, check in, and remind them of the line between character and player. If needed, call a brief break for the group.
After the Session
What you do after the session matters almost as much as the session itself.
Debrief with your co-Storytellers. What worked? What didn't? What surprised you? What do you need to follow up on? Do this while it's fresh, even if it's just a fifteen-minute conversation in the parking lot.
Send a follow-up. Within a day or two, send a brief recap or set of rumors to your players through whatever channel you use (Discord, email, a post on your chronicle's site). This keeps the game alive between sessions and gives players something to plan around.
Process downtime actions. If your chronicle allows between-session actions, set a deadline and process them before the next game. Players who submit downtime and hear nothing back will stop submitting downtime.
Review your notes. Turn your session notes into next session's hooks. If a player made a bold political move, there should be consequences next game. If an SPC made a promise, they need to follow through or break it. Continuity is what turns a series of sessions into a chronicle.
How Cities of Darkness Supports Storytellers
If you're running your chronicle as part of the Cities of Darkness network, several of these logistics are handled through the tools at citiesofdarkness.com and the companion Discord bot.
Character sheets live on the site, so you can review them before game without chasing down PDFs. XP is tracked centrally, so you're not reconciling spreadsheets after every session. The Discord bot handles between-session mechanics like hunting, so downtime stays active without requiring you to manually process every action.
Scene requests, player room tickets, and other coordination tools keep communication organized between sessions. The less time you spend on administrative overhead, the more time you have to think about story.
Your First Session Will Be Messy
Accept it. Your SPCs will forget their own names. A rules call will take too long. The big dramatic moment you planned will happen when half the players are in the hallway. Some players will have the best night of their LARP career and others will feel like they barely got to do anything.
All of that is normal. The only thing that matters is whether your players want to come back. If they do, your first session was a success, and the second one will be better.
Cities of Darkness is a fan-run chronicle network using Laws of the Night V5 by By Night Studios.
Cities of Darkness material is not official World of Darkness material. Portions of the materials are the copyrights and trademarks of Paradox Interactive AB, and are used with permission. All rights reserved. For more information please visit worldofdarkness.com.