My wife and I have been wanting to play tabletop again. Since I like running better than she does, I stepped up to run a Vampire: the Requiem game. After some thought, I have decided on the setting and basic backstory. However, I have 2 different ideas on when to set the game and would like some outside opinions. (Normally I would bounce ideas off my wife. However, I want this to be a surprise to the players, so obviously can't tell her.)

The players will be told they live in Named City. (I do know what city, but the exact location isn't relevant here.) Since I don't like playing with "embraced last night," all PCs will start with Creation +XX XP. (Maybe 30, maybe 50.) I'll leave clan (and bloodline, if desired) to the players, but will have final say and veto power. (For example, the En will not be allowed.)

Once the party has been built, I will have them summoned to meet the Prince of Named City. Here's where the twist comes in... The Prince is going to tell them he wants to expand his influence to a nearby (about 30 miles away) college town. (The college is my alma mater.) The party is tasked with traveling to the College Town and making it acceptable to "proper vampire society."

1) I am not sure when to set the game. It makes a lot of sense to set it late 19th Century, which would be about 10-20 years after the founding of the college. At that point, College Town would be just starting to grow and its clear the college is going to succeed. With the small city, there would not have been any reason for Kindred to have been there before and no reason for it to have attracted the Prince's attention until recently. On the other hand, part of me wants to set it Modern Nights. By now, the college has grown and I am much more familiar with the campus as it is today, rather than how it was 100+ years ago. But that raises the question of why NOW is the Prince expanding? Why hasn't someone - ANYONE - taken over College Town before now?

Thoughts? Ideas?

2) I am split between allowing players to pick their covenant (limited to the major ones), or tell them they all have to be same covenant. (If I set it late 19th Century, Carthian will not be allowed. It would be too new at that time.) I know my wife prefers to play Ordo, but the Dragons can be tricky to new players (which 2 of my expected players are). If I do allow them to pick their covenant, one OOC is that the party has to find a reason to get along. It may be as simple as "we were told to by the Prince," but I am not cool with backstabbing.

Thoughts?