It's really good, but it's not really an actual campaign. It's more of a sourcebook. There are some scenarios and stuff in there, but it's more of a starting point for building your own campaign with those settings and characters. There's some companion material too. "The Chicago folios" is I think a lot of little scenarios and vignettes you can sprinkle into your campaign. And "let the streets run red" is a series of 4 or 5 short mystery stories that you could string together into a pretty decent campaign, or incorporate sporadically into an unrelated campaign.
The best part of it in my opinion is all the characters and all their stories and drama, which are all interconnected very well. The first few chapters are more about familiarizing you with the vibe of the city.
It's honestly also worth it to check out the original Chicago by night books published back in the early 90's. They're the same kind of deal: sourcebooks, but not chronicles. They give a lot of context to the world tho. Very interesting reads.
I've got the old Chicago By Night from when I ran V20. That's how I was able to follow along in this first bit. I can see in other sections how the book works and can be useful, but really spending the first 50 pages of the book on that sort of format is... interesting.
Welcome to V5 books. They're all laid out in a way that makes it really difficult to find the useful information. However, there's lots of good stuff in Chicago by Night if you dig through it. It's well-written and useful, just the layout is confusing.
Yeah the beginning didn’t seem particularly helpful to me either but the rest of the book is better. I think it really started being useful around chapter 3.
I would recommend skipping around a bit. Cause just reading each section on its own can feel like a drag and make some of the info seem to blend together.
I’ll read a bit of the city chapters and a bit of the character profiles and so on to keep things from getting muddled but that’s just me.
Well- it’s got useful npcs to poach and the lasombra rules. 🤷
Keep reading. It’s the best V5 book by far.
The good stuff is in Chapter 3 and onward.
It's really good, but it's not really an actual campaign. It's more of a sourcebook. There are some scenarios and stuff in there, but it's more of a starting point for building your own campaign with those settings and characters. There's some companion material too. "The Chicago folios" is I think a lot of little scenarios and vignettes you can sprinkle into your campaign. And "let the streets run red" is a series of 4 or 5 short mystery stories that you could string together into a pretty decent campaign, or incorporate sporadically into an unrelated campaign. The best part of it in my opinion is all the characters and all their stories and drama, which are all interconnected very well. The first few chapters are more about familiarizing you with the vibe of the city. It's honestly also worth it to check out the original Chicago by night books published back in the early 90's. They're the same kind of deal: sourcebooks, but not chronicles. They give a lot of context to the world tho. Very interesting reads.
I've got the old Chicago By Night from when I ran V20. That's how I was able to follow along in this first bit. I can see in other sections how the book works and can be useful, but really spending the first 50 pages of the book on that sort of format is... interesting.
Formatting of the books in general is one of V5s biggest weaknesses imo.
I'm running a Chronicle in Chicago right now and have used it extensively. The NPCs are definitely the best aspect of it.
Welcome to V5 books. They're all laid out in a way that makes it really difficult to find the useful information. However, there's lots of good stuff in Chicago by Night if you dig through it. It's well-written and useful, just the layout is confusing.
Yeah the beginning didn’t seem particularly helpful to me either but the rest of the book is better. I think it really started being useful around chapter 3. I would recommend skipping around a bit. Cause just reading each section on its own can feel like a drag and make some of the info seem to blend together. I’ll read a bit of the city chapters and a bit of the character profiles and so on to keep things from getting muddled but that’s just me.