The Onion won the war against info.

FiveEvil: Wakefield House

Morgan Davie runs a short demo version of one of the FiveEvil adventures.

Star Trek modelmaker Bill Krause

Star Trek 3D starship designer and modelmaker Bill Krause (Picard, the Ships Of The Line art books) now on Bluesky, posted his recreation of the FASA Baker class.

And this is a little model for him with no lights

Thanks to TardisCaptain for reposting his work.

Star Trek: Lower Decks

I started on Star Trek: Lower Decks as the first two seasons are on Prime after an STA session and after seeing Strange New Worlds: Those Old Scientists. It helped finally getting past that opening scene of Mariner drunkenly maiming Boimler with a Klingon bat’leth, to meet the more immediately likeable Tendi and Rutherford. Mariner remains a lot throughout the first two seasons. As each season is about four hours, progress is quite fast.

I laughed a fair bit, could have done without some other stuff. I also appreciated that the command staff foils are mostly heroic Trek types with some foibles.

Favourite episode so far, We’ll Always Have Tom Paris, which rolls with the kinds of problems Trek tech and people woudn’t really have but we would have with that level of technology which still requires human(oid) oversight.

Favourite little side joke, the Andorian called Jennifer.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning trailer and talk at Empire. Previously Dead Reckoning part two...

V5 Empire 1.07

Picked up and used some SPCs Jason Carl was kind enough to leave in the toybox.

The Malkavian fortune teller is working on seducing the leader of the anarch thugs, which I was not expecting.

Tony Todd

I got to meet Tony Todd at our local horror festival Dead By Dawn, where he was presenting a short film he was proud of working on and a feature that, as he put it, we should have fun with. At one point I was alone at the bar and he came in, and due to my smile at this that I should be laughing nervously to be alone with Candyman we got to talking about Goodfellas and gangster movies, so I got to see him enthuse about one of his favourite genres.

Terminator Zero

Terminator Zero might not have been the best relaxing watch. Kind of interesting but ohhh so much philosophising.

Star Wars Episode ?!

Simon Kinberg (writer of X-Men: Dark Phoenix, but also some of Rebels) is developing a new Star Wars trilogy. Well, so am I, and mine is more likely to happen.

Mass Effect Prime

Prime planning Mass Effect series. As they routinely throw money at things like The Rings Of Power and Citadel I can imagine them actually going through with it.

Happy N7 Day!

One For Sorrow

One For Sorrow by Jamie McKelvie issue 1, introducing the Magpie hunting wrongdoers in 1900 London and a cast about to get caught up in the chase. The big format shows off the art very nicely. I guessed something like one of the reveals but not the specifics.

Unasked for advice

Unasked for advice

You’re in shock right now. Like an unexpected death or betrayal. 

Eat what you need to. No guilt about that today. 

However you feel is the right way to feel. Anyone who tells you you’re exaggerating or being overly dramatic you walk away from. 

If you can meditate, do so for 10 min.  Lots of youtube videos from Headspace and other places for that. They help to self regulate. 

Limit your time online, it’s not helping right now, it will in the future. 

Nothing can be fixed today so just take care of yourself and those you love. 

If you can play a video game or watch an old movie or tv series do so. With a new one you’ll probably lose track of the plot as your mind wanders so old ones from the past are better.

With a video game you’ll have a dopamine release for winning small victories and when you beat what seems like an impossible boss.  

Write down how you feel. Write it all down. By hand if possible. Then fold it and put it somewhere. 

Look at nature if you can for a while.  

Know that even though there’s hate in the world, you’re loved. You really are. 

Let’s get through this day after a terrible night.

Ian Boothby

Haunt Season

Haunt Season (2024) (trailer) wuld have been a nice late entry in 31 Days if I’d spotted it sooner. A horror comedy about a haunted house attraction - from the POV of the “theatre kids who never grew up” who work it. Yes, there’s a slasher involved, but until that gets going it looks pretty fun, and when it does get going everybody acts pretty sensibly after a moment of shocked disbelief.

Be surprised. Be very surprised.

I was not expecting another film fpllowing David Cronenberg’s The Fly, let alone one a decade longer after it than it was after the original.

V5 Empire 1.06

They checked on the possible victim, who is fine, but as a result might be slightly at war with the alleged killer because they questioned her intentions.

Playing a game together or just sharing a table?

The Lost Boys looks like two movies with a small crossover when the brothers are in the same scene.

Action!

After a month of horror movies, a change of pace with an action movie about...

checks notes

... organ thieves.

The Cure, Songs of A Lost World

The Cure, Songs of A Lost World album launch concert

November

Halloween Boxing Day seems like an odd day for The Cure to release a new album, but here we are.

FiveEvil

FiveEvil is live! Evil. On Kickstarter.

Heretic

Heretic (2024)

Trailer

A pair of young Mormon women go to visit someone who claims to be curious to learn more, but the avuncular Mr. Reed actually wants to teach them something.

Heretic got Halloween “previews” before a regular Friday release, so much so that the adverts on the side of buses say PREVIEWS OCT 31 with a cartoon jack o’ lantern for the O, so I saw it in the afternoon with enough of a crowd to share chuckles at the jokes. Said adverts focus entirely on Hugh Grant smirking evilly. He’s having fun in his villain era as he did in Paddington 2 and Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves, while Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East have the less showy roles in what is largely a three-hander. They get to be smart enough to hold their own against Mr. Reed’s arguments as it moves from the living room to the also much advertised basement.

Also the first film I’ve seen to include a note that no generative AI was used in the production, which gets it a bonus point from me too.

The medium: The cinema!

Gameability: A sinister host presenting a game and a puzzle in a purpose-built “dungeon”... And at one point Mr. Reed calls someone an NPC!

Agatha All Along

Agatha All Along stuck the landing.

(It also confirmed that Buffy The Vampire Slayer exists as a show in the MCU, which of course starts up a paradox as Marvel Comics exist in the Buffyverse.)

Annihilation

Annihilation (2018)

Trailer

Due to its extremely limited cinema release, Annihilation became a rare thing, a Netflix movie that has staying power. Based on a novel by Jeff VanderMeer, adapted and directed by Alex Garland, it stars Natalie Portman as a biologist joining a team heading into a zone affected by an unknown source of change. It’s more SF than horror, but has some gruesome moments as well as an overall grim tone. It has some striking visuals as well, although the abstract look of the climax does end up looking like an update of 1980s-90s “look what CGI can do!” animation demonstrations.

The medium: Netflix

Gameability: A small team goes in to investigate strange phenomena, though in this case the modern team dealing with a threat plays more Call of Cthulhu than Stargate.

Halloween

Halloween, Halloween, Halloween, Halloween

Halsey, Lonely Is The Muse

And when you're done, you can discard me

Like the others always do

And I will nurse my wounds until

Another artist needs me new

Halsey, Lonely Is The Muse

Marvel D+ 2024-5

A lot of release dates in under two minutes!

What If for Christmas. Daredevil this spring! Ironheart in the summer. Wonder Man next Christmas. The Spider-Man and Wakanda animated series as well.

Google Halloween 2024

Google Halloween Kitty Drawing Game returns, this time IN SPAAAAACE

Late Night With The Devil

31 days popout

Late Night With The Devil (2024)

Trailer

I skipped this at the cinema after learning it used Plagiarism Algorithm for station ident drawings, something it could easily edit out, but oh well.

But it’s really better suited to TV anyway, as it presents itself as a 1970s talk show. It’s not as good as Ghostwatch inevitably, but the period mix of sideburns and Satanic Panic works well. I wish the Randi-esque token sceptic hadn’t been such a dick though.

Gameability: Like the original plan for Ghostwatch as a regular drama with the live broadcast being the finale, how would modern protagonists deal with a TV crew getting in the way of a monster hunt or wanting to interview them afterwards?

Oddity

31 Days popout

Oddity (2024)

Trailer

After a creepy played-straight introduction that cuts before the key murder, the victim’s sister seeks answers, using her power of psychometry and an array of cursed items, including the heavily featured lifesize articulated wooden carving of a screaming man, which is mostly there to be weird and disturbing in a sort of funny way. And the whole film pretty much feels like that, which worked once I got on its wavelength.

(At another scare point I realised I’d seen writer and director Damian Mc Carthy’s work before, as he revisits early short Hungry Hickory that screened here at Dead By Dawn.)

With a less prominent example in Black As Night, it made an unintentional double bill featuring an uncommon development -

V5 Empire 1.05

Tonight in Vampire: The Masquerade, the PCs may or may not have sent a runaway victim back to a killer vampire because the possible killer’s enemy annoyed them more.

Azrael (2024)

31 Days popout

24: Azrael (2024)

Trailer

Did you know Azrael is out on Shudder after a limited US cinema run last month? I only found out by seeing it mentioned in an io9 list as Shudder itself didn’t want to tell me. Indeed, when I checked Wikipedia after confirming it was there its still listed as streaming on Shudder “at a later date”. But it’s there, honest! (At least in the U.K.)

Azrael stars Samara Weaving as a post-Rapture survivor who like many has had her vocal cords seared, including a local cult out collecting sacrifices to feed and placate the “burned people”, vampiric things living in the woods. This sets off a roaring rampage of revenge which is great fun and might have been even more fun played purely as grisly action without the possible supernatural side.

Contains at least one full helping of F YEAH.

The medium: Shudder, despite its attempts to hide it

Gameability: A story where hardly any of the characters can speak would be tricky to play in a vocal medium like RPGs, but the switch from description to lack of dialogue would stand out.

Halloween One-Shot: Sinking

An ocean research submersible descends to investigate an anomalous reading. What will the crew find, and will they get to report it?

Using the World of Darkness 5 system of escalating threat dice for a submarine in trouble, drawing on Grace Under Pressure and Grave And Watery and that genre.

Update: I got players! Four of a possible six, so I only really mauled the NPC aboard, though I ended with worrying uncertainty. They liked the rising threat dice mechanic, which I thought would work well for something like this. (Should have given them less Willpower for rerolls!)

Predator: Badlands and something more

Thanks to Dan Trachtenberg, director of Prey, two new Predator movies come along at once, one we knew and a whole other one.

Important Agatha update

“We are not cool, Teenager!”

“Damn, using his full name.”

Open letter against Plagiarism Engines

The AI training statement, open for signing.

No dinner but a show

As is traditional, we once again didn’t get to the dinner party in City of Angels. Maybe next time?

The Blair Witch Project

October 21st marks the thirtieth anniversary of the last day anyone saw film students Heather Donahue, Mike Williams or Joshua Leonard alive.

V5 Empire 1.04

The players gathered on a dark and stormy night, a week early for Halloween special...

Bram Stoker's Gibbet Hill

A Bram Stoker ghost story found and to be reprinted for charity after 134 years.

Prince Charming

Disney making a Prince Charming origin film, with Paddington 1 and 2 (and Wonka) director Paul King involved.

As someone who couldn’t find a name or origin for the Fairy Godmother and so unilaterally made her Aglaea of the Three Graces for Relics, I can hardly talk.

Besides, ridicule is nothing to be scared of.

View-Master: The Motion Picture

I can imagine how a View-Master movie could work... as a jokey horror movie...

Only Murders update

I figured out the latest development largely by checking how many episodes we have left.

Trail Of Cthulhu 2nd edition

Trail Of Cthulhu 2nd edition, now live on Backerkit.

Language Barriers

Inspired by Watcher (31 Days Of Horror 2024 Day 13), where a couple move to a country where only one speaks the language and it adds to the other’s isolation as she starts to worry she’s being watched, how would a language barrier complicate an adventure?

V5 Empire 1.03

Tied up the missing sire plot in three sessions rather than, say, twelve.

Not today

Half-hour-plus update for Windows 10 proved to be Copilot. To be fair, it has an easy right-click Uninstall.

Jurassic World: Dominion

31 Days Of Horror Adjacent In This Case

12: Jurassic World: Dominion (2022)

Battle At Big Rock short film set between Fallen Kingdom and Dominion, which gets to the scary part right away

The Jurassic Park and World trilogies have always been on the horror-adjacent adventure end of “monster” movies, more so than Jaws, Steven Spielberg’s adventure-adjacent horror with a big carnivore. How much horror gets in varies from film to film, but there’s always at least one “stalked by a dinosaur” scene.

And since I also watched a couple of full-fledged horror films this weekend that had nothing I felt like writing about, here we are.

That introductory short very much plays up how scary these things could be, but this particular film doesn’t, instead playing a sub Indiana Jones international adventure romp with added dinosaurs in the black market sale and roguish pilot until it inevitably gets to the enclosed area full of dinosaurs. And those bits are fine, but after the first World was a retread of Park like its own sequels I like that the World follow-ups mix in different genres.

This has the legacy sequel crossover problem of too many characters which the first two World films avoided and this one jumps straight into, but balances them... okay. The ending didn't entirely convince, after nearly six films of people being worried about dinosaurs getting out it's not really that big of a deal?

The medium: Netflix, also home to the YA animated series in case there aren’t enough kids in danger normally.

Gameability: There are RPGs and setting subsections about avoiding being eaten by dinosaurs through cloning, time travel and the like. This opens a setting so that could be a regular issue.

Salem's Lot (2022)

31 Days Of Horror

Salem’s Lot (2022)

Trailer

Apparently director Gary Dauberman handed in a three hour version, released at just over two it’s by far the shortest adaptation and loses a lot of the flavour of the town slowly falling, but the streamlining is largely fine, remixing the 1979 version in particular. Someone coming in unfamiliar with the book or the previous adaptation would get it, though might wonder why it was named after the town. I largely nodded along, and thought a couple of bits didn’t hit, but I really liked the play on the sunset race at the end.

It escaped its streaming doom here, and seeing it in the cinema probably helped with some of the little details seen only in the dark.

Gameability: Small group of regular people (in this very quickly) discovering and facing horrors in a small town. So, yes. Although Mark’s clearly playing a different game system to everyone else. (RPG fan bonus, a Vampire: The Masquerade Actual Play regular baring fangs on the big screen.)

The Thing

Kali Wallace on John Carpenter’s The Thing for Reactor’s Science Fiction Film Club. I knew the dog was creepy but this really lays out why. Also that the original review were bad, but oof.

Jentry Chau Vs. The Underworld

Guess they finally made that animate Buffy show after all. Trailer.

Crushing

Got a tub of “spooky” sweets as it appeared to contain Skull Crushers, the skull-shaped white chocolate shells with red fondant filling from my morbid childhood, but no, these were just solid white chocolate with a dash of red colouring.

Skulls not crushed. Only I was crushed.

(Skull Crushers are still made and available by mail order but this seems a bit of an extravagance even for me.)

It's What's Inside

31 Days of Horror more or less

It’s What’s Inside (2024)

Trailer that reveals the premise that I’m spoiler-blurring and comes up quite early but it has only been out for four days

Spoilerfiic writer-director interview

Getting its own entry as it’s new to Netflix as of this weekend. Horror-adjacent as a dark comedy with an SF/F premise.

A group of more-or-less friends meet up years after their college closeness, including a tech genius who brings a game of sorts...

Halloween one-shots

I know that GEAS one-shots after Welcome Week are hit and miss, but Halloween is my hour, so.

Nothing Darkness-y for simplicity.

Not Dread as I doubt we would have a room to ourselves so crashing Jenga tower would bother other tables.

Dead Of Night for something basic? Slasher deconstruction, haunted house, zombie apocalypse, that kind of thing. Maybe the crime gone very wrong subgenre? Paranormal investigators on camera and see if it ends up as Found Footage?

(Could also use Cthulhu, EPOCH, Fear Itself, FiveEvil, mortal WoD...)

ALIEN? Eh.

Ghostbusters? Back in public consciousness, though through movies I don’t rate.

V5 Empire 1.02

Vampire: The Masquerade - Empire

1.02

Trying not to overcomplicate why a PC was abandoned by the vampire that turned them, as I often do.

Angel at 25

Cue the cello.

Star Wars Rebels

Star Wars Rebels premiered ten years ago today. A space adventure in the lead-up to A New Hope, with a lot of fun, the occasional hefty moral question, maybe slightly too much Force mysticism, and showed its WEG RPG influence so much that one episode adapts one of the adventures.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Well, that was thirty-six years in development and felt like two first drafts held together with unabsorbed studio notes.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, among other things, has the worst case of sequel villain bloat I’ve ever seen and I’m pretty sure it was by accident, replaces the musical stylings of Harry Belafonte with those of Richard Harris, goes to great trouble to include Charles without featuring the original actor except in stills and also writes out the Maitlands in a way so lazy it’s almost ballsy in its audacity.

I also kind of admire their commitment to the Mario Bava and Soul Train references, though would have more if they’d been in any way funny and/or a good two minutes shorter each.

Although Delia gets more to do, which is nice.

The medium: well, the cinema seat was comfy.

Gameability: About as much as the first, though I’d include a “people can find those they care about in the afterlife very conveniently” power.

Escape From New York

Science Fiction Film Club at Reactor gets to John Carpenter’s Escape From New York and as writer Kali Wallace provides context for the films here sets the dystopian cyberpunk mood with “some fun facts that are not remotely fun” about America’s actual crime rate and the national mood of the times.

31 Days Of Horror 2024

31 Days Of Horror XIV: Officially A Reimagining, Bur We Don’t Know Why

at RPGnet

Also at Bluesky

I will, as is traditional, also try to mention gameability of the films.

--

Curseborne Kickstarter

Curseborne is live on Kickstarter, and I believe my pledge put it over the halfway point after eight minutes. Fully funded in thirty-two.

OCTOBER

RELEASE THE BATS

Vampire: The Masquerade - Empire

Photo by Andre Benz on Unsplash.

Nosferatu 2024 trailer

I wish me a merry Christmas.

V5: Empire 1.01

Vampire: The Masquerade - Empire

The PCs managed to annoy the Circulatory System before the game started. This is fine.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Empire

Photo thanks to Bernd Dittrich on Unsplash.

Super Hero

Did you know the term Super Hero was trademarked by an alliance of Marvel and DC? Well, not any more.

This doesn’t mean that all superheroes are public domain or anything like that.

I try to be positive here but sometimes I am snippy

I see that the digital release of Alien Romulus will have “a guide to all the Easter eggs you probably missed.”

I assume these subtle references were hiding behind the massive number of crashingly obvious references.

Agatha All Along 1.03

I don’t know if that was a shot-specific Buffy reference (Restless) in this week’s Agatha All Along but that’s how I choose to interpret it.

The Escape Room vibe could go either way.

Some real creepy and some real silly. Favourite bit: Agatha almost helping pull Sharon out but not.

The Cure, Alone

Alone, from the new album by The Cure.

This is the end of every song that we sing

One For Sorrow

A sixteen page preview of One For Sorrow issue 1, Jamie McKelvie’s new comic series of supernatural crime in 1900 London, ahead of its November launch.

Oh, Louis...

I love Louis in all versions of Interview With The Vampire, soulful and long suffering and often hypocritical as he is, but also laughed long and hard in season two of the series when Santiago looked at his photographs and just said “Wanker.”

(And for context Santiago was out and about in full Dracula costume at the time.)

The BBC Sound Effects Library

The BBC Sound Effects Library, free to use non-commercially, and searchable.

And yes, the horror spot effects are here.

(By way of example, the wolf used in Doctor Who: The Meddling Monk and I think The Late Show.)

Or maybe Empire State, not just Empire.

Zola Jesus, solo piano tour

My soul.

Sinners trailer

Sinners trailer, Michael B. Jordan fighting 1920s vampires, directed by Ryan Coogler. Due March 7th, which seems cruelly long.

Thunderbolts*

Thunderbolts teaser, revealing that it has half Discord coding for italics.

GEAS 2024

24 pitches across the three slots:

Wednesday evening 10

Sunday afternoon 6

Sunday evening 8

I dnt know how many are going, but its definitely most of them.

11 D&D 5 (none using the new update) and the only other game with more than one pitch is Call Of Cthulhu. I do rather envy the D&D gamers getting to specialise earlier.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Empire

Vampire: The Masquerade V5 game for two familiar and otherwise all new players, so straightforward setup:

Anarchs in modern New York. 

Provisional title “Empire”, because I can never not go ominous.

Autumn

The autumn equinox is today, for one of our finer seasons. Also a good day to start a Vampire game.

The Klingon D7

I was today old when I learned (hi Dave!) that the classic Klingon D7 starship was the result of Star Trek designer Matt Jeffries knowing the owner of a model kit company who wanted something to market next to their Enterprise, so Jeffries designed it for him to make a film model. As arguments in favour of talking to the toy people go this is one of the better ones.

Vampire: The Masquerade - ?

While I will probably go with something fairly neutral, I have an assortment of chronicle titles that could nudge things in different ways. Largely stolen from music, sometimes prose and poetry

Destroy Everything You Touch

Dominion

Love Dares You

Midnights

This City Will Kill You

Vow

What Went Down

You Should Really Run Away

Vampire reference library 4: Strangers

4: Strangers

Vampire reference library 3: The Living

3: The Living

Vampire reference library 2: Outsiders

And more

2: Anarchs and independents

Vampire reference library 1: The Camarilla

And now to upload a whole lot of images:

1: The Camarilla

Vampire: The Masquerade - TBA

GEAS. Sunday evenings. Quite possibly the only WoD game, so likely to be core ideas (modern Camarilla city, etc.) and nothing nailed down yet.

Vampires hunt in the shadows of a world that looks like ours. They have their own societies, their own wars, and their own parties. What kind of monster will you be?

FiveEvil Splinters

FiveEvil Splinters, a step-by-step adventure introducing the horror turning-inside-out of D&D 5E.

Our Brilliant Ruin: Clawmoor Heights

Clawmoor Heights, an audio drama in Our Briliant Ruin.

Agatha All Along

Agatha All Along is so very my thing, from the gag in the episode 1 credits to some of the references in the lap-of-honour end credits to the use of the Salem Seven.

Agatha herself is a great example of a villain protagonist, horrible in an entertaining way and just sympathetic enough in her not-wanting-to-die-right-now motivation.

International Talk Like A Pirate Day

Hoist the colours!

GEAS Wednesdays

Looks like GEAS has roughly enough GMs for Wednesdays. I’ll keep a look on the request bit of the Discord just in case.

Going along also meant I have now met all the Nocturne players!

Aesthetic Alert

Puzzled by the variant D&D 5+ PHB cover that makes it look like Vaesen.

Welcome one-shots 2024

GEAS had twenty-odd GMs and pretty much every one ran. Lots of D&D 5 in various tones but also Vampire (yes that was me), Cthulhu, Deadlands, Thirsty Sword Lesbians and Lasers & Feelings.

I got largely familiar players so didn’t have to explain as much as I feared, including a player who had been running Vampire for seven years and never had a chance to play it so I got to feel good about that.

I did lean too much into in-the-know humans without establishing them being somewhat common. Last Dance had a human in the band, which definitely helped.

Some surprising content warning from the other GMs, including Americans for Deadlands, and a horror fantasy game where the upper limit for gore would be the chestburster in Alien.

Miami Vice

Miami Vice premiered forty years ago tonight. It started here in February, on right after the news so not so late I couldn’t watch it, not that I understood all of it at age ten, but I could tell it wasn’t like most cop shows.

By the time I was into gaming a couple years later it wasn’t my aesthetic, modern games tended to be more grimy New York style like The Equalizer, but looking back now, I could go for New Wave Requiem...

Nocturne 2024 6

Summer Vampire: The Masquerade game ended with substantially more betrayals than I would have expected in just six sessions.

The Banu Haqim thief abandoned by his sire managed to find him, and he told him he was recruited to steal from the Church of Caine as they’re getting too powerful. The Church priest Ventrue who’d been helping him until he went through with the robbery handed all of this off to his superiors and the Sheriff. The Nosferatu ally of the priest who had helped the thief rob the Church tried to avoid taking the fall.

And in the end, the thief did exactly what he feared his life would end like, and vanished without a trace.

YA Dystopia Resurgence

The AV Club looks at the YA Dystopia boom and bust and possible resurgence, as the Uglies series that predates The Hunger Games launches an adaptation. As I noted at the time I was surprised nobody made an RPG for the formulaic version before it fizzled. (Not counting Cybergeneration over a decade earlier.)

International Observe The Moon Night

NASA introduce Introduce Observe The Moon Night for the fifteenth time.

V5 1shot

Vampires hunt and hide in the shadows of a world that looks like ours. They have their own society, laws, culture and celebrations. Tonight bands prepare to play for the end of summer, but someone wants to make sure the show can’t go on.

Friday The 13th: The Day

First of the year, and the real terror begins...

'Salem's Lot (2022-4)

Trailer for the new version of ’Salem’s Lot, now going to streaming in the US sadly but sounds like in cinemas here.

They’re really leaning on the 1979 version’s vampires. Well, if it ain’t broke...

Frankenstein (2025)

Guillermo del Toro is currently directing Frankenstein here. There are blinds up around the sets, though the local newspapers got some nice shots yesterday, showing a period version.

A drab street market outside St. Giles Cathedral.

V5: City Of Angels 1.23

Tonight in Vampire: The Masquerade - City Of Angels, Paris is no longer concerned that one of her allies is going to murder several people on her behalf, but the backup plan makes her sad for different reasons.

Paris's immediate plans

James Earl Jones

James Earl Jones counts to ten on Sesame Street, as a small example of what such an actor can do.

Star Trek: Prodigy

Star Trek: Prodigy has been a lot of fun in a quick Star Wars Rebels -y way as, among other things, one Star series looking at another. More alien aliens, a sinister parent and a shiny dark robot secondary villain, scruffy space colonies, but also this small misfit crew figuring their way through some classic Trek situations. (Also Dee Bradley Baker in the main voice cast! As the happy little rainbow slug thing!)

One particular comparison point - making the communicator translation system hugely important to these various aliens who otherwise couldn’t understand each other, unlike Wars aliens who generally can while speaking alien languages with or without subtitles, which highlights the importance of being able to communicate.

Oddities include a very helpfully slowed down Borg threat to make them kids’-show-friendly followed some of by the most badass Romulans ever.

A smallish largely automated starship that can function with a crew of half a dozen follows Picard 1-2 in dodging the Trek number of expert crew ready to answer questions, and fits here better due to the lack of sorta-responsible adults.

Paralympic 2024 closing ceremony

The Marseillaise is the reason we have national anthems and none of the others are as good.

I was not 100% prepared for the sad version of the Paris 2024 theme as the flame went out.

Star Trek Day 2024

This year, the mission generator for local good causes including STEM education and equal rights.

“This Star Trek Day, we invite you to take the chair, make an impact and help us build a brighter future.”

Tabletop Scotland 2024

Tabletop Scotland 2024 was nicely busy. Hello people I saw! And people I didn’t!

Witch of the Vale, 100 Ways To Leave Vol. 1

Witch of the Vale, 100 Ways To Leave Vol. 1 at Bandcamp. Four new songs and two remixes.

“I don’t love you any less but I should have been someone else”

Zola Jesus, Plyve Kacha

Zola Jesus, Plyve Kacha (Пливе Кача)

A Ukrainian folk song, The Duckling Swims in the Tisza

'Tis the season

Sparks have their Halloween sweets in!

Sadly no Oozing Skulls.

This year they have chocolate shelled “Bursting Blisters” but they sound disgusting.

I mean, they have apple filling.

Star Trek: Picard

I have now seen season three of Star Trek: Picard. I skipped season two following reviews suggesting that as someone who largely liked season one for some particular reasons I had better not. Season three takes one character (after five minutes with another) and one major plot point from S1 and otherwise acts like a different show. Specifically, Star Trek: The Next Generation.

As someone who largely liked but didn’t love S1 I am a tad irked, and can imagine someone who really liked it being a tad more irked by S2 and then by S3 as well.

It doesn’t even keep the theme music - the theme from First Contact is lovely, but...

Storypath Ultra Core Manual

Storypath Ultra Core Manual funding on Backerkit and already funded in two hours.

Twisters

Twisters didn’t really need to be a sequel to Twister, although both of them do feature heroic scientists trying to learn more about tornadoes.

(So they’re Trinity Continuum stories, which is why I pitched a reference in the setting info.)

It’s not about academic versus corporate science this time, so less pointed while still having two competing groups of storm chasers with different motivations.

And it’s about weather being strange while not mentioning any possible cause. Big tsk.

But as a ride it’s fun.

Batman: Caped Crusader

Batman: Caped Crusader makes good use of the period setting, and the Year One dialing back, though it leans much more into Batman being cold and aloof, something the Animated Series version just pretended, which results in my not really liking him.

The definite highlight for me was the final two-parter. Less sold on Harley Quinn as Hugo Strange or the “yeah, not interested” take on Catwoman.

Lots of nice little details like the makeup effects artist in the fun Clayface episode being based on Universal monster makeup head Jack Pierce.

Vampire one-shots again, oh no

Two and a half weeks to GEAS returning and two weeks to one-shots, and as is traditional pondering Vampire and that is not good for new player one-shots.

Yes I did this at the Nationals but that was in the Vampire: The Masquerade category so some buy-in was a reasonable expectation. And while I did plan for some first time players I expected (and got) first time players who had some idea what the game is about. And we also had five hours plus rather than about three. So... hrm.

I have a few tricks I could use (heist but with vampire powers) but... hrm.

September

GEAS returning! Tabletop Scotland! Two months to Halloween!

#RPGaDay2024 Roundup

#RPGaDay2024

Roundup

I once again posted something for every day. A few haven’t directly applied to me, mostly about stuff like dice and gadgets, so needed a bit of thought. I was glad to have the alternative prompts on those days.

David Chapman and Runeslinger video retrospective

See y’all next time!

#RPGaDay2024 31a Alternative - Amazing anecdote

#RPGaDay2024

31a

Alternative - Amazing anecdote

Simon’s player joined TWH after coming to the society and being brought over by another GM. Which is how he met Natalie’s player, and they went on to marry and have kids. And this was all based on an okay nod from said other GM.

Alternative Alternative - Alternative

Present me with an opportunity to play something simpler than D&D and I’ll give it some thought.

#RPGaDay2024 31 - Game or gamer you miss

#RPGaDay2024

31 - Game or gamer you miss

Oh, they know.

31a - Miss

“You miss” is a fine response to failing a hit roll in some cases, but can feel disempowering. If I’m playing The World’s Greatest Martial Artist, I want to be actively dodged or blocked, at least in the narrative.

31b - Dragons

Being me, of course I had a dragon as the final monster in a season of The Watch House. Buffy and Angel each had dragons show up at the end of season five, but ours was in season six.

Thanks to Reign Of Fire.

David Chapman

Runeslinger

Deep Space Nine: Past Tense

It’s Bell Riots Day. Still better than reality in so many ways. Content warning for real recent history like the Grenfell fire.

Update thanks to Wil Wheaton, from writer Robert Hewett Wolfe:

This is just to say the Bell Riots don't take place on August 30th. That's the day Sisko, Dax, and Bashir will have been being arrived* in San Francisco. The Riots will be September 1-3, 2024.

That said, instead of rioting, today I honored Gabriel Bell's heroics with a donation to a couple of charities that help the unhoused and the hungry. I've donated to the Hollywood Food Coalition and the SF Marin Food Bank:

Hollywood Food Coalition Building Community since 1987 - Hollywood Food Coalition 

San Francisco-Martin Food - Every $1 Donated Provides 2

I made the donations "In Memory of Gabriel Bell." Please consider honoring Gabriel Bell with donations of your own to these or other organizations that helped the unhoused.

Thank you! Stay safe out there. Live long and prosper!

*Tense is tricky for time travel.

#RPGaDay2024 30 - Person you'd like to play with

#RPGaDay2024

30 - Person you’d like to play with

A Leverage game with series creator John Rogers would be tempting.

30a - Person

“You are being watched. The government has a secret system - a machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because... I built it.”

Person Of Interest is great apart from the lead. An Equalizer style procedural where the source of cases turns it into day-one cellphone cyberpunk about the birth of A.I.

It’s also much more like the opening narration of Knight Rider than Knight Rider ever was, being “a shadowy fight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist...”

30b - Trap

Messing with the idea of trap-filled dungeons and who maintains them, as mentioned on day seven.

Some of the traps were still functional enough to be dangerous, the trap door had long since fallen in so needed to be avoided anyway, and the arrows slits became useful for the first time in centuries when the PCs had to fight a rival expedition.

Also, I think Admiral Ackbar would have been a beloved Star Wars day player even without an accidental catchphrase.

David Chapman

Runeslinger

Terminator Zero

Releasing a new Terminator thing on Judgment Day is a cute marketing bit but means everybody looking for Terminator on socials is going to find regular T2 references first. Ha ha.

Timothy Olyphant does not do an Austrian accent.

Being animated, they have to do more work to make one particular human-looking character seem inhuman.

#RPGaDay2024 29 - Awesome app

#RPGaDay2024

29 - Awesome app

Does making notes in email and sending them to myself count?

29a - App

Researching online is about as much of an issue for horror as mobile phones. But it’s also an opportunity to have demons on the internet.

29b - Knight

Knights in shining armour are among my childhood heroes, collections of toys and the like.

I have Playmobil Knights dating back to when they were localised as Playpeople.

I don’t think I’ve ever quite played one though. Partially from not playing a lot of fantasy, partially from getting into deconstructing it early as a Warhammer GM, partially from the main fantasy game being zero-to-hero so it would take levels to get to that point, and partially from running Pendragon for one session due to too many Monty Python And The Holy Grail quotes.

And after this thought I now want to do this properly.

David Chapman

Runeslinger

New TV insights, in Buffy inevitably

The book on top of the stack Giles is carrying when he meets Buffy is a Gothic romance with the presumably-selected-for-this-reason title “The Legend Of The Seventh Virgin”.

In her first appearance Harmony is wearing a unicorn T-shirt.

The Paralympic opening ceremony was lovely but did not introduced any character I want toys of.

#RPGaDay2024 28 - Great gamer gadget

#RPGaDay2024

28 - Great gamer gadget

Something that seems to have vanished - novelty keyrings with sound effects. Nowadays if you want a lightsabre whoosh or a Wilhelm Scream there’s an app for that, but I’d prefer a suitable little toy with buttons.

Of course I’d really want one I could choose the sounds for.

This dates from around 2012.
TARDIS, Sonic, Daleks, Cybermen, K-9, Judoon gun
What does a Judoon gun sound like again?

On that note, starting a new Star Trek game and I’d pick up a proper toy phaser if there was one on shelves at the moment that would be nice. Particularly tempted if it makes zappy sounds.

28a - Gadget

My favourite gadget rules, as seen in games as diverse as TOON, Leverage and the Preparedness skill in Night’s Black Agents, are a bit of a specific take on player influence on the narrative where instead of the GM working in the gadgets a PC has, the player gets to say “I have a gadget that does this!” when the GM presents a problem.

28b - Mimic

A day after Shapeshifting, so taking mimics and mimicry in a different direction, mundane disguise. (Which can also tie in the gadgets with the Mission: Impossible masks.)

David Chapman

Runeslinger on dogs

Only Murders In The Building season four

“It’s true, we’ve been very lucky with people dying in our building.”

Oh yes Only Murders In The Building is back.

The initial did-they-find-the-body-oh-no scene is a little masterpiece itself.

#RPGaDay2024 27 - Marvellous miniature

#RPGaDay2024

27 - Marvellous miniature

Many miniatures are marvellous. Especially these days with the kind of thing you can do with computer sculpts and 3D printers.

And I get some every now and then as things to have. But I don’t use them in RPGs, because I feel like if I started seeking exact matches for the PCs and properly artistic maps and scenery I’d have trouble stopping.

And that would get in the way of improvising location details for stunts and the like.

Of course I want this table, but I would also need the rom it goes in.

So even before a Holodeck becomes available, a holotable would be great for tabletop gaming.

27a - Miniature

And the somewhat obvious alternative spin for the prompt - PCs being miniaturised or otherwise small in a giant-sized world. A time when one could use miniatures to represent the PCs while using your regular surroundings as the scenery. And there are full games for Borrowers sized PCs, tiny human-shaped supernatural beings, intelligent mice and so on.

27b - Shapeshifting

It’s one of the classic powers, but I don’t think I’ve ever played a full-on shapeshifter outside of Werewolf: The Apocalypse where the rules for their five forms a rebuilt in and anything else requires special abilities. I have played a superhero who could control different specialised artificial bodies, but he just had a few as well so I only needed a small number of stat blocks.

Also the coolest scene in Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves. Doric obviously specialised heavily.

David Chapman

Runeslinger

Armies often had musicians but...

Seeing a bit of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, I always wonder how you get a job like lead electric guitar for the Marine Corps.

#RPGaDay2024 26 - Superb screen

#RPGaDay2024

26 - Superb screen

I don’t use GM screens - I don’t keep enough notes that I’d want to hide from players, and if I did these days I’d have them on my tablet. Which is also a screen in a way, but not as much of a division as a laptop. And so...

26a - Screen

After the past four years I more strongly associate screens in RPGs with playing online by video or voice. I’ve gotten more used to it, lessening the feeling that I should act up because I’m ON CAMERA, but I still definitely prefer playing in person because it’s a lot easier to read the room when you’re in a room.

I’ll make an exception for games like Viewscream that are designed to be played in a conference call, I’d like to try one of those.

26b - Tattoo

A Buffy worldbuilding question that came up in The Watch House:

Does a cross tattoo repel vampires?

I ruled yes, because if you’re prepared to spend that much time getting jabbed with needles you should get that small benefit.

(Do other flat depictions of crosses like paintings or photos work? Er, maybe. Probably the painting, I’d say.)

A temporary tattoo, probably not.
Unless it's an official Buffy one.

David Chapman

Runeslinger

#RPGaDay2024 25 - Desirable dice

#RPGaDay2024

25 - Desirable dice

It’s less about the dice and more about the results they can produce.

Okay, an ancient Egyptian d20 has a certain appeal.

I was very grateful to get an original Trinity D10 as a gift from a friend.

25a - Dice

I mean, I like things like V5’s Hunger Dice and ALIEN’s Stress Dice as an added wrinkle, when they don’t throw in too many complications.

25b - Mutant

Comic-book mutants like the X-Men might make more sense if they could only do things found in nature, so nothing like teleporting or travelling in time, but that would be less fun.

I already mentioned mutants in passing when talking about Genetics. Probably should have mentioned clones or something then. So...

Ever done a game like Rogue Trooper or The Bad Batch with genetically engineered PCs?

David Chapman

Runeslinger

#RPGaDay2024 24 - Acclaimed advice

#RPGaDay2024

24 - Acclaimed advice

I already mentioned writer and designer Greg Stolze’s free-to-all articles on playing and GMing RPGs once this month. Go and look at them! (Attribution/Non-derivative Downloads second from the bottom of this page.)

24a - Advice

Mentors and advisers are one of the most often NPC-only figures in RPGs because they typically know a great deal about the setting. A mentor PC can work if the player knows a lot as in a published setting, or the player can create a lot like a co-plotter. (Which is also advice from Greg Stolze!)

Now I will use a picture of Dungeon Master. He could be a PC in a setup like this. If the other players don’t mind him vanishing for big chunks of every adventure and being no help in fights.

24b – Antique

I’ve talked about a magical antique shop as a setting before, borrowing from Friday The 13th: The Series, so what else?

How far away does a given time feel? The 1920s-30s setting for Call Of Cthulhu and the likes, contemporary when the source stories came out, feels a lot more modern than just a generation earlier. Movies and especially talkies are definitely a factor there, but fashion is too - the tuxedo hasn’t changed much in a century and a lot of flapper dresses wouldn’t look out of place at a cocktail party tonight.

David Chapman

Runeslinger

The Crow (2024)

The Crow (2024) is fine.

Better than the sequels to the 1994 film, though that wasn’t hard in most cases. (Though I still have a soft spot for City Of Angels, and Salvation lifted an interesting plot twist from one of the novels.)

Different enough from it to have been worth doing, while departing further from the original so being more accurate wasn’t the reason - it adds in two things that weren't there, and makes one direct reference so it's not a nostalgia trip either.

If it hadn’t called its central couple Eric and Shelly it would probably have been accepted as another of the franchise’s many other one-story main characters like the previous films and most of the comics.

The most interesting choice is probably also the one that will most bother people who know the general plot, let alone the other versions:

#RPGaDay2024 23 - Peerless player

#RPGaDay2024

23 - Peerless player

A good player brings ideas, shares the spotlight, helps with focus, and lets you know if they’re running late. An entertaining character is nice too. Maybe knowing enough of the rules to get by.

23a - Player

I’m more GM than player, but I do find it helps to play. It lets you try something new, see a familiar game from a new perspective, and also take a break from Forever GMing. I hope I qualify as a good player by my own standards...

23b - Ritual

There’s a reason so many Call Of Cthulhu and other horror adventures involve disrupting a ritual. A ritual takes time and preparation, and is conducted by people who are easier to fight than the extraterrestrial horror they’re trying to call down.

The episode of The Watch House where I accidentally gave the PCs a couple of days more than they needed to thwart a summoning ritual was a comedy highlight of the series. Good thing I didn’t do that in a more serious game.

There are quite a few comics like this but this one seemed nice.

David Chapman

Runeslinger

Alien, canon and story worlds

Morgan Davie pokes Alien: Romulus and Alien canon, and media canons in general, thoroughly.

“It was an Alien film with too much Alien film in it.”

#RPGaDay2024 22 - Notable non-player character

#RPGaDay2024

22 - Notable non-player character

Less is often more. Even characters who have a lot of table time like NPC party members, sounding boards and connections chosen by players still need a clear hook and a couple of traits you can put across reliably.

They can also be narrower than I’d choose for a player character. They can be too powerful or informed, not powerful or informed enough, or overall unsuited to the kinds of situations player characters often get involved in.

Some could be adjusted so I could play them but they’d often lose something central as a result.

Someone as powerful and informed compared to the PCs as Yoda should probably be an NPC.
Especially if he talks like that all the time.
Which Yoda actually doesn't but never mind.

Also, I could have been even more on the nose and used Dungeon Master.

It helps to have some spare NPC basics ready to go, with a few names and descriptions noted down, so it isn’t as obvious when the players move out of the material you have prepped and meet a stranger called “Uh... Bob...?”

22a - Character

When someone has character it shows courage and integrity and generally positive traits.

22b - Interdimensional Space

Not very different from the Parallel Worlds prompt, just more...space-y? Maybe the differences are more “gravity is different” than “evil you has an eyepatch”.

David Chapman

Runeslinger

Chronicles Of Darkness at 20

Chronicles Of Darkness (then The World Of Darkness) and Vampire: The Requiem launched on this day in 2004.

RPGnet Ask Me Anything featuring a playlist by Rose Bailey.

#RPGaDay2024 21 - Classic campaign

#RPGaDay2024

21 - Classic campaign

Since we’ve already talked about well supported campaigns and a lot of the obvious classics have been rereleased with support so I’ve talked about them already, which ones haven’t?

Orpheus, probably the most successful series of adventures the World Of Darkness has ever had. The Orpheus Group got enough coverage in Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition that you could probably run it with the slightly updated rules, but a new edition could be a big success.

I know it says "Don't look back" but here we are.

21a - Campaign

I prefer the term series as it better reflected the kind of game I run. But anyway.

To look at this one-word prompt another way, a political campaign.

Parlour LARPs often feature PCs looking to acquire power and title. In many settings it’s more about collecting support to seize a recently vacated throne than conducting an orderly well-vetted vote. The PCs trying to take it may well be the ones responsible for it being vacant as well. See the long list of short-lived immortals who claim the position of Prince in many Vampire LARPs.

I know Aberrant and Shadowrun at least have adventures about a prominent NPC seeking to become President of their future USAs. The Aberrant one has an option for a PC running as its characters could be suitably high-profile. Obviously that could change the focus of a series quite extensively.

21b - Disaster

One of the groups I fleshed out for Trinity Continuum is the Neptune Foundation, an emergency disaster relief group, people that go into danger to save people and stop threats when they can. It could be a great setup for an entire series.

See Calamity from RPGaDay 2019.

See also the example Cortex Prime game Hammerheads.

Disasters can also strike settings in ongoing games. Do the PCs have the power to have a big effect like superheroes, or will they just have to struggle to survive like the motley protagonists of a disaster movie?

David Chapman

Runeslinger

The Crow 2024 soundtrack

The Crow comics had lyrics quotes and a soundtrack, the 1994 film had a run of classics built around cover versions and City Of Angels had its share too.

Now in 2024 we get a track listing just before the new film comes out.

“Des Pas Sur La Neige” - Debussy

“Disorder” – Joy Division (Joy Division being mentioned in the comic and covered by Nine Inch Nails for the 1994 film)

“Fall” – The Bug Ft. Inga Copeland

“Thin Flesh” – Traitrs

“The Killer” – Phil Kieran and Aaron Thomas

“M.E.” – Gary Numan

“Total Depravity” – The Veils

“Boadicea” – Enya

“Meaning” (choral version) – Cascadeur

“What Went Down” – Foals

So not new recordings, which explains the lack of an earlier push. It certainly sounds like a suitable sort of playlist, but not an album of interesting new stuff.

The Acolyte

Star Wars: The Acolyte will not be coming back, which is a shame as it was an interesting experiment, even if not what I was expecting from the pre-publicity or what I would have gone for with a High Republic series. Not really a surprise overall, but a bit of one as it was one of the four things featured in the Disney+ advert I saw yesterday for current and forthcoming shows over summer.

#RPGaDay2024 20 - Amazing adventure

#RPGaDay2024

20 - Amazing adventure

I’ve actually used a published adventure this year! A published adventure for Vampire, no less, as Masquerade fifth edition has several. This one was Auld Sanguine, and granted I changed the enemy motivation and adjusted the hook to involve someone the PCs already knew, but that’s a lot more than usual.

I’ll reup my 2014 recommendations as well, as I started writing about Fated Voyage again.

20a - Adventure

Adventure! Tales Of The Aeon Society makes me happy simply by existing. The Trinity Continuum version actually getting supplements is an added bonus.

Happy anniversary!

20b - Battle

I am not a big tactical map thinky person. Despite having a fight scene in just about every episode of The Watch House for six years and some seasons ending with actual hordes-of-monsters battles, the best I managed was largely by accident, and resulted in a request for a sketch map to do it properly.

A fight with a pack of vampires during the day in an old house with heavy shutters. How many could the PCs open, keeping the vampires at bay, and keep open as they went from room to room?

David Chapman

Runeslinger

Alien: Engineers

In the runup to Alien: Romulus I read the original Engineers script that became Prometheus, and while it’s for sure not good, it at least doesn’t press the Hubris theme by making side characters incompetent - the guy who gets lost isn’t the mapper and the guy killed by an animal isn’t the biologist and doesn’t poke said animal.

And the person running away from a big wheel tries to move out of its path.

Alien: Romulus

Alien: Romulus (2024) was fine. Which is the best result since Alien³. We were promised a back-to-basics Alien movie and we got that. It has none of the ambition of Prometheus, but doesn’t faceplant like it either. It’s a straight-up monster funhouse ride with very few surprises.

Which is cool as I hated the biggest surprise it does have.

#RPGaDay2024 19 - Sensational session

#RPGaDay2024

19 - Sensational session

The Christmas special of a Vampire: The Masquerade chronicle where one of the PCs stopped an elder vampire hunting a pregnant woman through the streets for his “Christmas dinner”. In their quest to keep the target safe one of the other PCs saw a shelter volunteer was actually an angel, but being a Malkavian she figured she was just seeing things. And it ended with a fight to the death outside the hospital delivery room as bells tolled midnight. Ho ho ho.

In my defence I didn't have a monster come down a chimney. This time.

Photo by Distinct Mind on Unsplash

19a - Session

When emulating episodic TV I always aim to have a session equal an episode. I don’t always succeed, sometimes an idea overflows or something else takes over, but three and a half hours can produce about forty-five minutes of ‘screen time’ highlights.

19b - Hologram

Starfleet should have an emergency engineering hologram that, when activated, sighs “What’ve you done this time?” in Colm Meaney’s voice.

David Chapman

Runeslinger

#RPGaDay2024 18 - Memorable moment of play

#RPGaDay2024

18 - Memorable moment of play

The moment I knew The Watch House was going to be more than a monster-of-the-week game was when Milli’s player asked Jake’s if he was cool with Milli being in unrequited love with Jake. And this was right after Jake started dating Emma the helpful friendly witch NPC so it would create a love triangle. He chuckled and agreed and we were off to the heartache races.

Of course it ended with a swordfight. This was a Buffy game.

18a - Moment

Time travel games are the most likely to let PCs have “save points” where they can go back and redo something. It’s rare otherwise despite being a popular choice in computer games and ever since flicking back in a gamebook after discovering a choice led to a trap, because the GM and player have to do the rewinding rather than the system doing it for them.

18b - Curse

I feel like this could have been day 13.

A curse is a good way to motivate PCs to action, especially one with a countdown attached. (See M. R. James references on day one.)

David Chapman

Runeslinger

#RPGaDay2024 17 - An engaging RPG community

#RPGaDay2024

17 - An engaging RPG community

I’m an RPGnet Forums stalwart. Been there, done that, and literally got the T-shirt recently. The Watch House sits there in Actual Play transcript format, I’ve been doing play-by-post games there since that started twenty years ago, and I try to help with things like the birthday idea requests.

NERD!

17a - Community

It’s hard to create a sense of community including the PCs and NPCs from the start. It’s more likely to come with time. Games based in one location like a city will have a bit more than games that travel all over, because you’re likely to see the same NPCs more often. (Note that one of the most traditionally one-city series of games is Vampire, where the community is far from welcoming.) There are games that do it, but that tends to be a major focus - Beyond The Wall has a lifepath system where every option connects or relates to your home town, but it only has so many options.

17b - A.I.

Actual A.I. could be a wonderful thing. Don’t let plagiarism algorithms steal the name too.

David Chapman on RPGaDay

Runeslinger

GEAS plan update

I might well have a player for Vampire already, so Vampire takes the lead.

Vampire: The Eternal Struggle at 30

Vampire: The Eternal Struggle was first released (as Jyhad) on August 16th 1994.

I got it at the time and have played it twice, though not due to its quality.