Interest Check: Paint the Town Red

Be sure to read and follow the community guidelines.

OpenCustomPublic1 / dayLazyFlux
A Paint the Town Red oneshot...

You're a crew heavily involved in Phoenix, AZ's underground street racing scene when you accidentally swerve into a deeper conspiracy. Can you live your unlife a quarter pint of blood at a time?


Mar 21, 2026 4:08 pm
Howdy! New to the forums, and only returning to pbp after a very, very longtime away. With all that in mind, are people around here interested in Paint the Town Red, likely modern day, and a limited run of the system (playing through just one city as oppose to doing multiple cities).

Basically, you play as vampires who're more interested in their own Passions and goals than any sort of stuffy faction politics. The game itself calls out stuffy politicking as something more apt for a WoD/CofD campaign. In a normal campaign, you're usually a more transient group where a campaign would see you go through several cities (and potentially timeframes). There are other supernatural splats, but as it turns out a lot of them are just vampires with different moods/priorities (werewolves have very specific Passions, ghouls are particularly sad, liches are obsessed, etc.).

Originally imagined this taking place in modern day Phoenix, AZ, because I wanted the events to be loosely tied to future Chronicles of Darkness games that would take place there, but am open to other places/timeframes if that means more interested players.
Mar 21, 2026 6:53 pm
Just to clarify - it will be a Vampire the Requiem game with a focus more on personal horror aspect vs. factions/politics/big plot lines?

Which edition we will be using? I'm not familiar with CoD, but I've read an opinion that only a few splats improved in second editions.

Is Paint the Town Red a name of chronicle book? Will I need that one and VtR core both?
Mar 21, 2026 7:15 pm
reversia.ch says:
Just to clarify - it will be a Vampire the Requiem game with a focus more on personal horror aspect vs. factions/politics/big plot lines?

Which edition we will be using? I'm not familiar with CoD, but I've read an opinion that only a few splats improved in second editions.

Is Paint the Town Red a name of chronicle book? Will I need that one and VtR core both?
Hey! Great questions. I can see how my OP could use some sprucing up for clarity.

Paint the Town Red (PTTR) is it's own bespoke system.

CoD/WoD gets a mention in my OP for two reasons:
- I was paraphrasing PTTR, which does a callback to CoD/WoD. Basically, PTTR is about a certain vampire story/experience, and the factional play you'd see in WoD/CoD is normally better played out in those systems
- I have some measure of hope of translating whatever happens in this PTTR game to a future Chronicle in WoD/CoD;

That's all to say: WoD/CoD is not the game system here. It's just a touchstone for the game.
Mar 24, 2026 8:43 pm
Not familiar with that system, but it does sound interesting. It is hard to learn? The only review on drivethru mentions that it is more "rules-light" type of game. Is there a lot of setting/metaplot material or does it follow more CoD-like schema?
Mar 24, 2026 8:54 pm
Nope, not at hard at all! Core mechanic is roll 2d6+Stat (there's only 3), and try to get a 9+ for a success. They have a dis/advantage system where you add more dice and discarding the lowest or highest result depending on whether you have the upper hand or are against the odds. Powers here are either baked into the stats and narrative (e.g., having a high Savagery stat and rolling well with the Upper Hand might look as cool as having high Potency in VtM).

It's simplicity on that front is why I wanted to go with it while I test the waters for the website and learn how to do pbp campaigns better.

There's a pay-what-you-want (potentially just $0.00) quickstart that goes over some of that stuff.

As far as setting goes:
- One of the fun things that we'll do is actually roll the banes that all vampires suffer in our campaign. There's a d100 table of banes and you always roll 3 for the campaign, with players accruing personal banes as the campaign goes on. So you might have one campaign where decapitation, burying a vampire at a crossroads, and running a saint's fingerbone over their skin are all what it takes to kill a vampire.
- They have some pages dedicated to what vampire society can be like, but I wouldn't say it's robust like WoD. It's probably closer to CofD where things are murky. The game's freeform enough IMO that we can inject ideas we like from those established universes into our game though.
Mar 26, 2026 4:17 pm
Wound up with 2 players though they're not on this site yet. One final bump to see if we can round this out with a third (maybe even a fourth).

I'm pretty keen on this being "two-shot" size as far as the length goes, and just going to pivot to this being a full on recruitment thread.

KCCInactive for 1 months

Mar 26, 2026 4:36 pm
I think I’d like to give this a try. I ordered the book and it’ll be here the middle of next week!
Mar 26, 2026 4:48 pm
KCC says:
I think I’d like to give this a try. I ordered the book and it’ll be here the middle of next week!
Awesome! Count yourself in.

I'll be refreshing myself over the weekend for the rules. I'm on travel, so I probably won't stand up proper thread until about Tues/Wed anyhow, but I'll get the other players to sign up for gamersplane and we'll game here.
Mar 26, 2026 7:10 pm
Well, I got the quickstart of the drivethru, will give it read on the weekend. Based on all that I've heard so far I am tentatively interested in trying this out as well.
Mar 26, 2026 7:49 pm
Great, I'll put you down, assuming you're fine with this premise (which is what I sold the first two players on buuuuut neglected to put more firmly here):

> You're a crew heavily involved in Phoenix, AZ's underground street racing scene when you accidentally swerve into a deeper conspiracy. Can you live your unlife a quarter pint of blood at a time?
Quote:
In Paint the Town Red you play as vampires trying to feel alive in their otherwise dreary immortality. In this Thunderbird Road campaign (homebrew adventure), you'll be vampires living it fast and furious style, either directly involved as a racer or on the sidelines as the crew's mechanic, enforcer, or whatever else you can think of to inject yourself into the underground scene.
Slightly a little goofy-fun here premise-wise, but otherwise playing PTTR by the book.

If I don't get to it tonight, I'll stand up a thread by Tuesday/Wednesday when I'm back in town from travel. Happy to hear alternate pitches in the meanwhile; I'm pretty sure everyone signing on is more into just trying out Paint the Town Red vs this Fast & Furious adjacent slant I'm pitching.
Mar 29, 2026 2:57 pm
Didn't finish the quickstart yet, but did manage to whip up a quick sheet for the game:
[ +- ] Paint the Town Red
For the new folk - first, click on "create character" and add a name (can be changed later). Do NOT fill anything yet. After you added the sheet, go the "Characters" tab on top, pick the sheet you just created and fill it there.

As for alternative ideas, after seeing "Fast & Furious" reference, this came to me:

BLOOD CRUISE

You've been invited to a large vampire party-gathering on a massive cruise ship by a city's fanged head honcho. While the mortals dance away on the main deck, the bloodsuckers are tearing it down on the VIP deck's dancefloor. Blood and music abound, you loose yourselves in a bloody revelry. Until two boatloads of cutthroat Somalian pirates show to take the whole ship hostage! It's time to show the bastards the true meaning of the word "bloodthirsty"!

Sounds even more ridiculous than the vampire drag racing (though there were character like that in VtM's "NYC by Night" book), and, once I thought about it, is kinda like the first "Siege" movie.
Mar 30, 2026 4:39 pm
I can't join the game, but just wanted to say that I love street racing being mentioned! It's a theme I'm quite interested in, and this is the first game on this site I've seen using (or considering using) it, and a second involving any kind of racing. Even if you go with something else, it still delights me that it's being considered at all. :D
I hope your game goes well, and good luck with the vampiring! :3
Mar 30, 2026 7:09 pm
Tch-Aaahhhh
[ +- ]
Last edited March 31, 2026 4:05 am
Mar 31, 2026 12:43 pm
Woah, thanks for the example sheet!

I got back home late from my travels (going to be very jet lagged), but I'll stand something up likely tomorrow. I gave our non-gamersplane players the link to this thread specifically.
Quote:
I can't join the game, but just wanted to say that I love street racing being mentioned! It's a theme I'm quite interested in, and this is the first game on this site I've seen using (or considering using) it, and a second involving any kind of racing. Even if you go with something else, it still delights me that it's being considered at all. :D
I hope your game goes well, and good luck with the vampiring! :3
Yeah! I like the kinetic theme of that style. I've only ever used that premise for oneshots (this will be the second vampire-themed fast & furious thing I've done specifically). It works the best when you have PC's actually stat'd out to do the racing, else you just have a game where the party ignores it entirely and try their best not to get involved.
Mar 31, 2026 12:43 pm
Quote:
As for alternative ideas, after seeing "Fast & Furious" reference...
Is this from anything in particular, Reversia?
Mar 31, 2026 12:43 pm
Quote:
As for alternative ideas, after seeing "Fast & Furious" reference...
Is this from anything in particular, Reversia?
Mar 31, 2026 2:15 pm
LazyFlux says:
Is this from anything in particular, Reversia?
The blood cruise thing? If so then nope. Just came to me. It is very "Siege" though. The only thing that's missing is a now-chubby Seagal-esque poser vamp.
Mar 31, 2026 3:44 pm
Hey everyone! I'm one of the people recruited elsewhere, excited for vampire street racing!
Mar 31, 2026 3:57 pm
Hey, welcome! There might be a Vampire the Masquerade (20th ed) game starting soon on here, so keep an eye out if you're interested! Oh, and a Werewolf the Apocalypse (5th ed) too!

You do not have permission to post in this thread.