Star Wars at 49

A merry Orthodox Star Wars Day to all who celebrate.

V? playtests planned

Vampire: The Masquerade new version playtests outside of con spaces are planned, not sure how yet.

V5 had an adventure anyone could run and report feedback on. Interesting as a historical document for how it featured specific Resonance victims in multiple scenes. (And how it was pretty much guaranteed to end with the PCs dying and encouraged the players to feel they deserved it.)

So probably a new or newish Vampire: The Masquerade core

The future of Vampire: The Masquerade

Panel 1

Panel 2

Thanks to Leticinios

Panel 2 on YouTube, with some wobbly camera but easier to jump in time. That last question from Leticinios here.

Pre-alpha mechanics, ahead of public playtests, stating theyre not sure if would be 5.5. or 6.

V5 wasn’t a surprise as a new company doing a heavy refresh, but was a surprise in being the biggest mechanical change between editions.

No idea where it goes from here.

Not panicking personally yet. (Plenty are.) Guess we’ll see.

Last time this happened I got an edition I liked more than the previous ones overall, so that can also happen.

I was on the whole happy with V5. Hunger issues can come up too often if you roll a lot but I like the constant thought of it. The greater variety of ways to keep to Humanity. Discipline power variety.

The core book itself could certainly use a refresh, even if it’s not a major change by comparison.

I haven’t considered running or felt like playing a previous edition since. But then I’ve always done that. I have plenty of other games where I’ve stuck with an edition after bouncing off a new one.

Guess we’ll see.

Elysium style

Vampire: The Masquerade Reddit question

What does your character wear to Elysium?

The three I’ve gotten to play rather than ST in the current edition all reflect their attitude to large formal vampire gatherings:

Paris, Toreador events promoter: look nice, blend in, dark dress, hair up, shoes she can run in just in case.

Michael Sorensen, Tremere occult investigator: black tie formal, saving full white tie for a special occasion like the winter solstice or being the target of a Blood Hunt.

Matthieu Lasalle, Brujah firebrand of the French Revolution: never went to Elysium but would have accessorised with a cavalry sword and an angry mob.

Vampire: The Masquerade - ?

Observing the wild mass guessing about the new Vampire: The Masquerade project to be announced at Gen Con, Thursday 30th July.

It has playtests during the con, as well as an Actual Play show at the end on the Sunday.

The new project is our love letter to the 30+ years of vampires that have led us here. We’re celebrating the connection between lore and mechanics, rules and storytelling. The design is focused on player agency, collaboration, and making the experience feel personal. The art direction is built around illustration, with a strong commitment to human-made work.

We’re also looking at how we want to work with the metaplot in future books. The sense that history is moving and your chronicle exists inside something larger matters to people. It matters to us too.

The AP show description:

Be there as we share a glimpse into the future of the World of Darkness. This is a live, in-progress TTRPG Actual Playtest where you’ll see brand-new ideas, evolving mechanics, and bold experiments play out in real time. It’s raw. It’s unpolished. It will change. That’s the point. What you’re watching isn’t the final product; it’s the game becoming what it’s meant to be.

So many people guessing other World Of Darkness gamelines which is one of the things it’s stated as not.

V6 seems unlikely at this point, but you never know.

V5 Revised is a popular guess, as a cleaned-up rulebook would be worth having. That feels big enough for an announcement about an announcement.

Dark Ages is known to be coming, which is at least in the ballpark.

My thinking based on the mentions of metaplot and feedback and reactions would be a toolkit like a Storytellers Handbook.

And the metaplot has me thinking something like Time Of Thin Blood, a “this is the new normal” book which throws in some big changes while keeping them optional? That seems likely-ish as a secondary release if this is a mechanical update?

A few words on the metaplot from the Darkness Emergent announcement video, thanks to Josh at Strange Adventures (warning for video motion)

Full panel thanks to Leticinios (audio pretty quiet)

New ankh. Even pointier.

UPDATE 9pmish after getting the full panel video and a second: too early to say as the plans are pre-alpha but it could be 5.5 or 6 depending how it goes. (!)

The Mandalorian And Grogu

The Mandalorian And Grogu is basically a great big episode of The Mandalorian. And I for one am cool with that!

Star Wars hasn’t had a life-changing movie for me since The Empire Strikes Back, so a largely fun movie is plenty.

Kinda bitty here and there, like including things like a space dogfight because it’s the first Star Wars movie this decade, but still a fun space dogfight.

While also having big damn hero action scenes like the opening give it a different feel.

And lots of bits gave me a big silly grin, like realising why the fighting match was named that, the gearing up montages, and the way a couple of the robots moved.

People who haven’t kept up with the show but know who Baby Yoda and More Likeable Boba Fett are will probably have enough information from the mini opening crawl.

No end credits scene but there is something fun if you stay to the end.

World Goth Day 2026

“What’s today?”

“Pardon?”

“What’s today, my fine fellow?”

“Today? Why, today is World Goth Day!”

“It’s World Goth Day? I haven’t missed it! The spirits did it all in one night! They can do anything they like! Of course they can. Of course they can!”

“Uh... of course they can...”

Choose Your Own Adventure Movie?

Via Deadline:

Radio Silence will direct a feature film adaptation of the classic Choose Your Own Adventure books for 20th Century Studios.

The classic books take an interactive approach to storytelling, allowing readers to make decisions that shape the story.

A film and not, say, an interactive streaming show? Hm.

One film for a series of books with no consistent setting? Hm.

(See also the Until Dawn film, which adapted the games multiple paths into a setting element by having the characters stuck in a time loop.)

I would guess something like Jumanji with more reading aloud.

And a bit where someone dies and the others flips back to the previous paragraph to undo it :)

The Mummy by genre

I probably wont need to explains Nationals genre categories to anyone, but I want to get this down as I gave it too much thought. I can give an example of different versions of a media property fitting different categories by emphasis...

Okay, I could give a lot, but this is the one I thought about a month ago when a new film came out...

The Mummy.

The Mummy (1932) is definitely Horror, and would also fit in Call of Cthulhu with ease, Cthulhu has plenty of Egyptian adventures and the film starts with an investigator failing his Sanity check.

Boris Karloff’s performance informed fantasy mummies as well, if you meet one in Dungeons & Dragons or Open Fantasy in general it might be a take on him, or the shuffling bandaged type that followed in this series which get increasingly Action And Adventure until finally Abbot and Costello bring it into Humour.

He also influenced the Mummy PCs in World Of Darkness and Chronicles Of Darkness.

The Mummy (1959) - same deal. Now period Horror, could be Cthulhu-ish.

And then...

The Mummy (1999) is Action And Adventure. (As I’ve seen said before the American party is playing Call Of Cthulhu and the heroes are playing Adventure!) Higher Weird Level than the Indiana Jones movies but the setting still keeps it out of Open Fantasy for me, it has two scenes that would count as Horror, and the PCs are still heroic normals until the second film when they get retconned magic and it becomes Supers or maybe Myths And Legends.

The Mummy (2017) I would put in Urban Fantasy due to its modern setting and hefty worldbuilding. Could reasonably be Action And Adventure but Nick has some superpowers, and as such if the Dark Universe had happened it would also fit into Supers.

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy (2026) isn’t an adaptation of the same story dating back to 1932, with a different origin and motivation for the mummy curse. But it’s still called The Mummy and it’s what got me thinking here. Anyway it’s definitely Horror.

So across five films and their follow-ups we have Horror and/or Cthulhu, Action And Adventure, Urban Fantasy and Horror again, with arguments to be made for half a dozen more options and motifs appearing in several game-specific categories as well.

My favourite RPG classes

My favourite TTRPG classes:

N*zi-Puncher

Vampire Slayer

Moral Centre

Bodyguard

College Band Member

One-shots - how in theme and how weird?

Nothing like a quiet day soon after the Nationals announcement and someone I told about the Discord opening reupping the offer to GM (hello!) to encourage more thoughts.

Depending on how categories shake out, happy to be not very Noir at all in Buffy but would be very Noir in other options.

And as that offer would be for Vampire: The Masquerade and that was the last thing I did run I have OPINIONS on that too.

And category breadth and Weird Level in general.

I feel that at least one of the two days should be fairly normal for the category and/or the theme. Category ahead of theme because that’s what players choose, and some categories apply better to some themes than others, hence theme-specific categories.

Ideally GMs can coordinate across the category so there isn’t too much overlap and players don’t get two weird adventures in a row. Because yes, weird adventures are easy and fun to prep, but I want at least one day that’s in the ballpark of the category.

There are four kinds of RPG category and this applies in different ways to all of them.

Individual RPGs like D&D obviously have system expectations as well as their own culture, even if they can be quote broad - if you get Planescape one day and Dark Sun the next and no classic dungeoneering you might be miffed.

Specific settings like Star Wars that have some RPGs attached but could also go with unofficial games should still feel Star Wars.

Genre categories like Urban Fantasy free up system requirements but still have some expected feel. And I think should also exclude RPG and setting categories that fit, so I wouldn’t want Cthulhu games in generic Horror for example.

Finally system type categories which are mostly Homebrew, Indie (which is surely everything except D&D) and Systemless (and LARP) are grab-bags where anything goes except obvious examples of the previous categories.

Since the first year I attended that had a theme - 2001, where it was Monoliths - I’ve seen it ignored, give lip service, played with or played up across categories. IIRC in 2007 we didn’t have one.

(In 2001 I played Star Wars, one day we didn’t have a reference and the other it was the central MacGuffin and in Star Wars a shiny black rectangular thing is clearly of the Dark Side. So that set my expectations for themes early on.)

Chosen at 23

Buffy The Vampire Slayer consluded on this day in 2003.

Ghost Of The Robot, Civilized Man

Ghost Of The Robot, Civilized Man video, featuring lead signer James Marsters in full Spike style.

Nationals 2027: Noir

The Nationals 2027 theme is Noir.

(Themes are optional, some categories fit some themes better than others, so no need to. And in 2024 they went with Gothic and added Vampire: The Masquerade as a separate category from World Of Darkness and I ended up running that. With the PCs as members and hangers-on at a Goth band, as the other game was about a haunted space. So I feel like I’ve paid my dues there.)

Can I do that, at least a bit?

Probably, depending on category...

Can I do Noir in Urban Fantasy? Sure. City Of Mist for one. Bloodshadows but don’t be silly.

Can I do Noir in Buffy? Yes but don’t wanna.

Angel yes, Buffy no.

Let other GMs do the heavy lifting, maybe throw in a reference of some kind. A statuette of a bird.

Or a time warp back to the 40s.

But if I was going to do a time warp to the mid 20th century in Buffy it would be to a 50s high school monster movie.

Hmm...

--

World Of Darkness? Sure. Period or modern noir, could absolutely do neo-noir Vampire. Or a Memoriam sequence for both.

--

Action & Adventure? Ehh. Pulp and Noir both often have 30s-40s settings but they’re not the same. Maybe see what a full tilt Pulp Maltese Falcon looks like, with Templar s still around and all.

--

Horror? Val Lewton.

Nationals 2027

Nationals 2027 will be hosted by HUSSARS in Stirling.

Which is a surprise as they’ve often done well and passed on hosting due to lack of a good venue. Sounds like they have some plans in place though!

Dates TBC

Theme is Noir.

Can I do Noir in Urban Fantasy? Sure.

Can I do Noir in Buffy? Yes but don’t wanna.

Hope (2026 film)

Hope trailer and talk at Empire. An animlastic alien attack from Na Hong-jin, director of The Wailing.

Vampire: Stolen, for realsies

Since the art and antiquities theft setup for Dominion / Stolen became an orphaned idea, a Vampire chronicle about thieves and smugglers and black marketeers. Possibly set in a free port.

Yes I’m thinking Les Fantômes. But more horrible.

City Of Angels observation

Craig (Paris) — 4:13 PM

Also am I reading too much into lots of Kindred not remembering the Pack's names until we remind them?

Cameron (Storyteller) — 4:14 PM

(No ;) )

Craig (Paris) — 4:15 PM

Yay for observation! Yikes for implications!

Eurovision 2026

Nah.

Might watch Lordi doing Save All Your Kisses For Me in the voting break later.

V5: Stolen 2.07

Vampire: The Masquerade

Stolen

2.07

The Last Hope

Beck

Robin

Vince

Robin takes the driver to the hospital and leaves him to be found, sneaking away unnoticed. He calls Beck.

“What?”

“Did you get the scroll?”

“Yes, it’s safe. I, ah, may need some more help tonight.”

“What about Vince?”

“Not his help.”

“... What do I get out of it?”

“We can discuss that in person. My superiors can offer more than I can.”

--

Beck looks around the church, pausing at Alice, pressed against the wall so she can see the door.

Mother Melise lays the scroll out on the altar, presses a finger into a fang to draw blood and places it to a faded red mark in one corner. Blank areas on the scroll start to fill with writing in blood.

--

Happy birthday to George Lucas, who has probably been sick of May The Fourteenth jokes since 1978.

Erin LeCount

I have not missed going through to Glasgow for gigs. Oh well.

Live footage if someone posts. In the meantime, an official live video of I Believe from a previous show.

Morecambe and Wise

Eric Morecambe (John Eric Bartholomew) was born 100 years ago today. With Ernie Wise he brought a big dash of surreal non sequiturs to light entertainment.

Osprey Games board and card division up for sale

Osprey Games have just announced that their owners, Bloomsbury Publishing, has made the decision to sell the card and board game division.

Link via Angus Abranson, ‪Iain McAllister‬ and James Wallis.

RPGs and Wargames are not affected, they’re staying with Osprey Games. It’s only the board/card division.

Angus

Witch of the Vale, Lovesongs For The Damned

Witch of the Vale, Lovesongs For The Damned on Bandcamp. Three new songs, four alternate versions, their cover of Hurt.

(Fake) Happy After Laughter Day

All that I want is to wake up fine

Another idea?

Might do a Star War.

The Crows

I was playing The Crow soundtrack and wearing my Hangman’s Joke T-shirt while idly thinking of a summer game when someone on the World Of Darkness Discord server asked what Eric would equate to.

I know a sign when I see one.

I have naturally considered this before.

Of course I’d use another system, better for action and unstoppable-until-not characters. Hell 4 Leather for a one-shot, what for a miniseries...?

Also do I have it star Sophie Thatcher?

Victorian Age Vampire

Could totally do Victorian Age Vampire though.

It still loses the juxtaposition of the seemingly mundane world with the monsters and all, of course.

Victorian urchin monster hunters

Not running a game about poor kids in 19th Century London having to fight monsters.

Not doing this. No having plot ideas.

No plot about Spring Heeled Jack. Or about having to blag their way into a fancy party with fake accents and stolen clothes to fight a rich cult. Or about having to hop a train to get out into the country to stop something evil rising in a stone circle. Or...

In the Buffyverse the Watchers would probably be able to find a slayer in London and hopefully at least offer room and board in exchange for pressing her into service, so I’d need a way to avoid that undercutting the whole setup.

Looping back towards The Nevers.

Still not doing this.

One day since finishing a game...

Summer TTRPG ideas.

Absolutely should not be thinking of a Buffy or somesuch RPG in Artful Dodger style scruffy Victorian London. No. Stop.

(I blame time travel in the Mage game. And we haven’t even done Victorian times. Yet.)

Keep Banging On Your Drum

Keep banging on your drum and your day will come.

A reminder from Craig Ferguson.

V5: Stolen 2.07

After a delay, closure achieved. And a moral quandary which split the group, as they will.

Sir David Attenborough at 100

Many happy returns, Sir David!

Jelani Rose

Jelani Rose on Spotify, as suggested when I was looking at Vampire: The Masquerade on Bluesky and a string of posts mentioned having found someone who sounds like that through videos of him sitting on TikTok as an example of not needing slop marketing.

Voting Time

Voting time

Time for you to go out to the places you cast your votes

Our hero

Cara the Akashayana Vampire Slayer monster hunter as photomanipped by one of the other players in our current online not-too-serious-for-it Mage: The Ascension game.

She is beauty, she is grace
She will stab you in the face

As well as by me.

Attending the Tradition Halloween formal.
Of course she could fight in this.

And the results making me want to look for a head for a figure custom. Darn the lack of Teen Wolf series toys.

PR0GR3SS!1

A couple of the buttons on the new TV’s remote control didn’t last as long as its first set of batteries.

Cool cool cool.

Sure, it’s the remote control equivalent of “return/enter” and a couple next to it, but that’s why keyboards have two of those.

V5: City Of Angels 39

Vampire: The Masquerade - City Of Angels session 39

Debts are repaid, suspicions are raised.

And Eve’s player waited till I came back from a break to make sure I’d heard about Eve planning to do something behind Paris’s back. Which was nice.

Interview With The Vampire at 50

Interview With The Vampire was first published fifty years ago, per Anne Rice’s diary. A seismic change for that monster as metaphor.

The Sheer, Unbridled Joy Of Star Wars

The Sheer, Unbridled Joy Of Star Wars by Emmet Asher-Perrin at Reactor.

“Star Wars: A New Hope is pure mythology, distilled down to some of its simplest forms. Good and evil. Life and death. Triumph and defeat. Light and dark.”

There’s a reason we still go back to it almost fifty years on.

Star Wars Day

And lo, Baby Yoda Day is upon us this very month!

Down By The Water

V5 Till Death has involved more diving than I was expecting.

Star Trek: Ariel 1.04a

Star Trek: Ariel

1.04a

We certainly annoyed the miners. But we got them off the planet that started to self-destruct after we looked at something, so hey.

It's a Banksy

Banksy steps up from wall art to install a statue in central London overnight.

A suited figure strides forward holding a flag which has blown around to cover his face,
about to walk right off the plinth.
Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect

Which feels like full on V For Vendetta shit.

May

The sun has risen. Which was what, three to two odds tops this year?

May

Update pending the sun rising.

Description note rather than dialogue for later

I just described turning away disapprovingly as a full-body eyeroll.

SE!ZE

SE!ZE is a new boardgame “blending ideas from chess, draughts, tafl and Mariokart, with powerup spaces on the board” quoting designer James Wallis, created to advertise Chivas Regal whisky inspired by and with input from F1 driver Charles Leclerc.

Zach Cregger's Resident Evil

Zach Cregger (Barbarian, Weapons) rebooting Resident Evil films to somewhat resemble the games in tone? Teaser which amusingly starts rather like Barbarian.

Bring me the head of...

See a great suggestion for a head for a custom action figure, look on eBay, find the figure unusually cheap, and the seller notes they took the head for a custom. (Rose McIver as RPM Yellow Ranger for Olivia Holt.) I wonder if it’s the same person.

Summer games, 2026 edition

Vampires? Vampire Slayers? Something else?! Thoughts are forming.

Vampire: Straightforward plot, not an open city. Anarchs or outcasts, Camarilla peons. Doing some specific thing.

Buffy: One season. Graveyard Shift? Sounds Like Hell? Prepare?

Other?

A PC for NPCs

A computer I can be heard over in video chat could mean running games online again. Hmm.

Dawn over Prague

Just in time for the end of Bloodhunt. :/

Clean PC who this

Six years of dust can make a difference to a couple of small computer fans. Thanks to Alan!

ALIEN DAY

Also the 42nd of June.

Chernobyl at 40

One of those terrifying news stories I remember vividly.

Roleplay Ukraine 2026

Roleplay Ukraine 2026, May 1st-3rd with Ukrainian and international players and GMs raising money for support.

Thanks to James Wallis for the link.

Stranger Things: Tales From '85

This is, pun intended, a strange thing to have made.

Very much focused on the kids.

And also everybody seems strangely resistant to falling damage.

Does that Arcane thing where stuff like fire is more stylised.

The music budget may be too high. A comedy monster chase set to A Forest by The Cure?!

But I very much appreciate it addressing one of the historical accuracy issues of the original series.

Monster Manual II for ADVANCED Dungeons & Dragons!

Dustin goes on to mention Gamma World later in the same scene.

What would the Happy Meal friendly animated interquel of your series be like?

Can a conspiracy survive an idiot?

Greg Stolze plans out a Delta Green plot hook about recent government slash and burn tactics.

OK, my idea for DELTA GREEN, which someone else could definitely write or homebrew is, in short, DOGE found The Program.

The Buffy RPG history

Rascal looks at the history of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer RPG, some of which I heard through the same recent source but some also news to me.

Thanks to David Chapman. “As someone who worked for Eden, and worked on the Buffy RPG, there is a heap of info in the article even I didn't know. Really fantastic read.” And to Gar Hanrahan for reupping the link.

And sometimes you find just the right photo to edit

To pitch something that would rock.

Sophie Thatcher in a leather coat, edited to paint her face like Eric in The Crow.

Real love is forever.

Dialogue for a Western or something like it

“First shot’s a warning, Second shot’s a wound. Third shot’s a widow.”

St. George's Day

SLAY

Earth Day

Do some good.

Knutepunkt 2026

Seasons of Larp, the Knutepunkt 2026 book, is now online free, along with videos of a number of the conference talks.

Of most immediate interest to me is 10 Years of Reinventing Vampire Larp by Juhana Pettersson, which includes a look at End Of The Line and Enlightenment In Blood.

Gar Hanrahan on DIE: The Metadungeon

Gareth Hanrahan on the DIE RPG: Metadungeon at DIE creator Kieron Gillen’s RPG blog. “Declarations of conflict of interest are for lesser bloggers.”

“Possibly it’s all an attempt to justify the piles of RPG books I bought but never actually used. Exorcising the ghosts of games unplayed.”

Summer?

 Game?

OO7 First Light

The new James Bond game version gets a full on title sequence with song by Lana Del Rey and David Arnold.

Having it start with a massive explosion on an island is... a choice.

Robert Johnson, Cross Road Blues

A newly discovered recording lets you hear Delta Blues legend Robert Johnson in stunning clarity

Cross Road Blues, take 2 test pressing

Uncanny.

Buffy comics news

Buffy comics news!

Arriving July (22nd according to writer Kelly Thompson, not 27th) and this update includes a hint of where it is on the timeline and variant covers, not just the one shown at launch (that I always thought looks more like Anya Taylor-Joy) so progress of a sort, as well as a cast lineup by artist Stephen Byrne.

Season five adjacent I guess?

And of course Byrne previously made a pretty impressive bit of fanart in another style: A Buffy animated title sequence.

Dungeon Masters D&D AP

Wizards Of The Coast get into Actual Play streaming a tad late, but with Jasmine Bhullar as DM and Mayanna Berrin among the players so good call there.

Nationals 2027 - ?

Still not sure where the Nationals is going to be next year. I hear Glasgow won and said no...

Unfriended Cinematic Universe

Dylan and Dalton imagining an Unfriended Cinematic Universe with Pete Volk

Expanding on screenlife films, especially horror, on various screens.

Haunted social media could be a lot of fun but hard to do in an RPG around a table, though we have Discord games and tech-centric games at the table like Alice Is Missing run by text.

And a shoutout to Host, waiing on their interactive spinoff Ghosts.

Conpulsion 2026 quiz answers

Answers. Can you beat the winning team, that got 47 out of 66, 8 on audio so 39 out of 54?

Conpulsion 2026 quiz

Conpulsion quiz went alright, I think. Of the six teams actually trying, the lowest still got 31 of 66. (The team anti-trying got 1, to their chagrin.)

Questions below, apart from the audio round. (So 54 points available!) Answers soonish.

Conpulsion 2026 day two

Saw people, was nice.

Conpulsion 2026 day one

Met someone I’ve known for a couple of years, which was nice.

Josie And The Pussycats at 25

JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS IS THE BEST MOVIE EVER join the army

Artemis II returns

Artemis II crew down safe.

Tearing up.

Modern pirates part two

Thinking about freeports as TTRPG settings now has me thinking of a modern Trinity Continuum series fully leaning into the charming pirate tone.

Modern pirates and vampirates

Talk about hub ports as settings for Vampire games now has me thinking about a game set in a freeport.

Probably influenced by the charming rogue Ravnos smuggler featured in my current V5 game Stolen.

He was a background character in a previous game but became more prominent in this one as the plan was to focus on crime, more than actually happened, hence the title.

And Ravnos should be the pirates clan, not Lasombra.

Hmm.

Nationals 2026

Guess what.

Given that the venue for Conpulsion is closer than the train station it’s not a hard choice.

So I guess we’ll see who hosts next time and if these two groups can avoid making it three times in a row.

Feels a bit weird not to be having to think up questions for the quiz...

Conpulsion 2026 Quiz Update, again

I now hopefully have all the questions I need for the Conpulsion quiz apart from a possible backup round.

Update 9.55: Off to take advantage of endless university printing!

DIE: The Metadungeon

The Metadungeon for DIE, now on Backetkit, from Gar Hanrahan.

The internet: (sometimes) fun while it lasted

Internet has conked out for the second time in about six weeks, fun. (Phone internet still on.)

Onyx Path Convention, June 5-7 2026

Game listings are now live for the Onyx Path virtual gaming convention.

Maul: Shadow Lord

The artist formerly known as Darth Maul returns for an animated bridge between where he was in The Clone Wars and in Solo and then Rebels.

He really likes slicing up lots of goons in corridors.

He’s so much more English voiced by an American.

New characters introduced so that we aren’t just dealing with Evil Vs. Evil.

There’s a good cop. Weird these days. Also amusing that he’s the only human in the main cast.

I keep referring to the old Jedi as Reverse Splinter because he’s a wise old mentor living in the sewers who looks like a turtle.

Biggest stylistic shifts from previous series in the line, the lightsaber fights are really fast and the sabres themselves give off a lot of light so sometimes we have fights with half silhouettes lit in pink and blue.

The Masque Of The Red Death

The Masque Of The Red Death on the big screen for Roger Corman’s centenary!

And now I want to run Warhammer.

Easter

Welcome the bunny!

Summer games approaching?

No more GEAS sessions, Conpulsion next week...

Trying to dodge hail as I consider this makes it seems less imminent.

I do of course have at least one terrible idea. Hmm.

Hello, World

The Earth from Artemis II. This got me choked up.

NASA, Reid Wiseman

See the article for the much bigger version.

Good Friday

Sadly Father Brown ended last Friday.

Conpulsion Quiz 2026 Update

I have now done one of the two rounds I have to actually research.

I have a Buffy question and a Sarah Michelle Gellar question. So there.

Artemis II

Artemis II has launched. Going to be hopeful, and tense, for a while.

The Emperor Protects

The Emperor Protects: A Warhammer 40,000 Musical

Doing it RENT style really pushes it over the line.

April

Tread carefully.

Consider Halfway To Halloween as an alternative.

The Faculty

The Faculty was a particularly fun Screamalike as it applied a degree of Kevin Williamson script polish to an SF horror story, while still in high school, instead of a slasher.

The Pod Universe got a remake pitch from Taylor Ortega (spoilers for it, and Scream 4, and also White Nights) which got me to watch it again. And I now wonder if the final monster influenced the worst boss in Bloodlines.

Scream 8

Scream 7 did really well, unfortunately, so here we are. Scream 8 script order for Nora and Lilla Zuckerman, so yes, handing the keys to the big comedy slasher franchise to the writers of the Buffy: New Sunnydale pilot, which kinda seems validating after attempts to blame the script.

Ballad Hunters

Ballad Hunters, a GUMSHOE game of haunted folk songs and breaking the curse through ballad magic in 1813, Kickstarting now.

Conpulsion quiz update

Answer sheets off to be printed en masse.

Now to get enough questions.

Project Hail Mary

I loved The Martian and liked this.

Trying not to think about the science from a biology POV though.

Summer

Ah yes, British Summer Time, I can tell by the hailstones.

Manly Men With Uzis

Malcolm Craig on Delta Force and related 1980s action RPGs with the Historical Games Network.

The Airport

When a game creator is stuck in an airport... I think this is where Over The Edge began.

The Bunker Game is coming

The Bunker Games is a (mild) development of something I did with students on my Nuclear Cold War module at Edinburgh Uni between 2014 and 2016. You’re trapped in a bunker after a nuclear attack - who is allowed to survive?

This is not something I would run with students now, certainly not without considerably more preparation and buy-in.

However, it is an interesting artefact, if only from a personal POV, seeing how my pedagogical approach has evolved over a decade.

Malcolm Craig

Physical copies launching at Conpulsion!

Ryan Coogler's The X Files leads

Himesh Patel joins Danielle Deadwyler in the pilot for a new take on The X Files written and directed by Ryan Coogler.

For Hulu, so here’s hoping That Guy doesn’t get to decide if it goes ahead.

Hunter: The Reckoning - Deathwish

Trailer for an XBox game due next summer, from the makers of RoboCop: Rogue City who can certainly hit the vibe. Fingers crossed for a smooth development run.

The End Of Oak Street

It’s a pleasant surprise to get a trailer for an interesting movie I hadn’t heard of. The End Of Oak Street (trailer) (Empire talk) looks like a La Brea situation where a suburban street is transported to dinosaur times, stars Ewan McGregor and Anne Hathaway and is written and directed by It Follows creator David Robert Mitchell.

Late arriving horror heroes

An announcement for the new multiplayer game of John Carpenter’s Halloween has revealed that on the non-Michael side you can play Dr. Loomis or a deputy... after your first character dies.

Making a note of that idea for future horror games.

V5: Stolen 2.06

Vampire: The Masquerade

Stolen

2.06

Betrayal

Beck

Robin

Vince

Beverley holds the scroll case tightly. “This what you want? Back up.” She clenches her fingers and blood starts to drip out around her nails - and hisses and steams as it hits the floor, and she holds a hand over the case, ready to destroy it.

Vince takes a step back.

--

Outside, Robin knocks out Beverley’s driver with a single blow, then realises he’s concussed and needs medical help. He also pauses at the man’s exposed neck.

Making himself focus, he texts Beck that they’re at the dropoff point.

--

Slice of life games

A question on the World Of Darkness Discord about how to make more slice-of-life sessions. As I ran a Vampire: The Masquerade game which went this way, Last Dance:

I stumbled into running a slice-of-(un)life game because I got a group of friends in a suitably relaxed space, so as far as I can tell it very much depends on them.

But to try to help, I did include more “hangout” scenes, like going to a club to see a band and it not then shift to seeing an enemy there or something.

It helped that it fit with the setup, the PCs being in a band, so leant itself to low-stakes sessions, dealing with mortals and other Kindred on the music scene, only occasionally getting into general vampire trouble.

It also helped to have some examples among the SPCs, Kindred who were focused on mundane things. Like a had a couple of Harpies who’d just show up to parties and chat casually, getting on fine with the PCs.

Daredevil: Born Again 2.01

Daredevil: Born Again season two begins and gets to the cop-kicking part pretty quickly.

V5: City Of Angels 38

Vampire: The Masquerade - City Of Angels session 38

Paris got to be scared of new things as well as possibly dealing with some familiar things.

Deleted scene:

“Quoth the raven...”

“Not enough.”

Happy birthday Cat!

Wonder Man season two

Wonder Man getting a second season is a pleasant surprise.

Starfleet Academy 2

So the forces of evil in charge of Paramount have decided sixty years of Star Trek is too many. I mean I get it, I’d cancel something that tells me I’m an evil shit too.

Alex Kurtzman writes to the cast, crew and viewers.

Forbidden Planet

Forbidden Planet premiered on this day in 1956. So as we mark sixty years of Star Trek consider seventy of one of its parents. And celebrate the naming of the comics shop franchise.

Star Wars shooting day one

Star Wars began filming fifty years ago today.

Conpulsion games are up

Conpulsion RPGs up for prereg

Me? Run something? Hahahahano

Nicholas Brendon

54 is no kind of age for this.

The hosts of Buffy RPG page shared a video from him just five days earlier, talking about art, the weather and coffee. He was in a good place.

V5: Stolen 2.05

Vampire: The Masquerade

Stolen

2.05

Who Can You Trust?

Beck

Robin

Vince

Beverley meets Beck as arranged.

Beck can see Robin hiding, and see him tense, ready to spring, giving him a warning look.

He asks her to steal the Book of Nod fragment from Astor, if he already has it and is looking or more buyers. Noting the urgency, she recalculates her fee for a strike tonight.

Robin forces himself to wait for her to go before joining Beck.

Vince strolls up to join them.

Beck narrows his eyes. “What are you doing here? I don’t want you worming your way into this, unless you can actually help.”

“I can always find a way to help.”

“Sure you can, you slimy bastard.”

“Well, emotions seem high, perhaps a nice meal would help? I saw a couple of gentlemen at the pub shaking hands with their left hands?”

“I do not sully myself with the blood of inebriates.”

“I’m sure they were just having something light.”

“Perhaps you could do something for me instead?”

“Oh, I’m sure.”

“One of my bride is also helping our sire’s fundraiser. I don’t want to sabotage her, but I would like...”

“Revenge?”

“No, just to outshine her... a little.”

“I’ll see what I can do. But I’m just a little fish here, I’d never dream of crossing you.”

“Good.” Beck smiles thinly. “But there’s no need to be afraid of me. Well, besides the obvious.”

The three go their separate ways. Beck making sure the others aren’t following him this time.

Single Girl, nananananana Single Girl

Been a long time since I edited a fan vid, but I have just the song for Ready Or Not:

Lush, Single Girl

Ready Or Not 2: Here I Come

Ready Or Not 2: Here I Come (trailer) starts immediately after the original, embiggens the setting as lightly hinted at, retcons a minor detail to be a major plot point and - yes! - has Sarah Michelle Gellar getting stabby in horror-comedy action.

Samara Weaving and Kathryn Newton bounce off each other nicely. The enemies this time aren’t all as inept as Grace’s inlaws in the first, Gellar’s Ursula and Shawn Hatosy as her brother Titus providing most of the serious threat. The funniest fight with a couple of standout gags (one referencing the Schwarzenegger oeuvre) is intercut with the most serious, which was an interesting choice but does deflate the fun one for me.

Since it can’t match the surprise of the original ending it plays that card a few times unexpectedly.

Lacking that surprise and not being so nicely self-contained means it doesn’t hit as well for me as the original, but it’s still big fun.

The creators compared the setting expansion to John Wick and this is pretty literal, but does mean I got something Wick failed to provide in four and a half movies.

Spring

Well, it’s not snowing.

I have been summoned

Someone just asked for ideas for low-level powers and sources characters could have in a Buffy RPG.

I typed quite quickly for a few minutes there.

Stranger Things on disc

Stranger Things is coming to physical media, in 4K and Blu-Ray box sets. Which is nice.

Shaun The Sheep: The Beast Of Mossy Bottom trailer

Shaun The Sheep: The Beast Of Mossy Bottom trailer, and talk at Empire, “a race against time to save Halloween” so the September 18th release date for half-term is a bit early.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day trailer

Spider-Man: Brand New Day trailer and talk at Empire.

These have been a pretty consistently fun part of the MCU, something the MCU needs.

The Punisher! Bruce Banner! A changing powers storyline! Dealing with his last choice! Ninjas! Dropping off high things and it not being reversed to soar like in Spider-Verse!

And is this really the first time we’ve gotten a live-action version of the Amazing Fantasy 15 cover? Huh. Seems so obvious now it’s there.

(Edit: Sam Raimi did it in passing as Jameson looks at photos, but not the exact pose.)

And for me...

Been a while. Time to run Buffy.

I know the official system well enough to run it in my sleep (just about, GMing while unconscious doesn’t really work) but could look at alternatives that are in print if I’m feeling nice.

Yeah there’s Monster Of The Week but I will never forgive it for stealing that term for its title.

Where next for Buffy?

Assuming Sarah doesn’t burn that man down and overthrow the Hulu gatekeepers (which, fingers crossed) what next?

I would imagine the next attempt would be a full reboot with no-one back in their original roles. It’s been tried before in the 2010 film script by Whit Anderson who went on to work with Buffy writing veterans on Daredevil, and the Boom! comics - and also the show itself, which is why I’m always fine with this when it potentially comes up.

The New Sunnydale screenplay

According to Slayerfest 98 “the script leak floating around is an early draft - not the shooting script” so I’ll work from there.

I’d say it largely works.

And not just because Nova wants to go to Cambridge.

(Early naming, later Rowan.)

One of the possible new Scoobies gets to spotlight the horror of the whole thing well.

“What are you?”

“You know.”

It does feel very much like part one of an intro two-parter. Basically a whole story but ending on an appeal to come back.

And it’s very much a sequel, which is cool for audiences like me but I can see concerns about getting new people. I’m sure they could have gotten the balance in time.

Sarah Michelle Gellar on New Sunnydale

Sarah Michelle Gellar talks to People about being sad for the cast and crew and fans, angry about when the announcement came, and suspicious of one of the execs involved and merciful not to name him.

St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to those who celebrate!

Chloé Zhao on New Sunnydale

Chloé Zhao talked about Buffy on the red carpet at the Oscars, saying she was not surprised:

“I had an incredible, incredible time with Sarah, with all the cast and crew doing this. And we, first and foremost, see ourselves as the guardians of the original show. Our priority for Sarah and for us has always been to be truthful to the show, to be truthful to our fans. So, things happen for a reason, and we keep our hearts open and we welcome the mystery. And what this might lead us to.”

(She was all in black with a mourning veil, but says this was a themed look for her film Hamnet.)

Oscars 2026

Sinners did great, and I was sad but not really surprised it didn’t get everything

Most years, an action comedy state-of-the-nation piece about inept leftist terrorist heroes would be a very cool Best Picture win.

Best Supporting Actress going to Amy Madigan for a straight-up monster performance in Weapons is delightful.

Frankenstein getting the design awards, fair do’s.

K-Pop Demon Hunters getting Animated Feature and Song, cool too.

Yay for Jessie Buckley although it means for budgetary reasons I should stop fancasting her as the Doctor.

The Ides Of March

And Brutus is an honourable man.

Who would miss your alleged or actual villain?

Winter Paralympics 2026 closing ceremony

Closing ceremony starting rather TRON Legacy. No ninjas yet.

Now wanting a wheelchair using Jedi.

Danger danger snowglobe critical

Well, glad Brazil got a medal for the first time, after doing that at the Olympics too.

Firefly: The Animated Series

Firefly being pitched as an animated series, set between S1 and Serenity. Could work depending on style, if it happens.

That concept art looks realistic video game or Arcane ish. Could do okay.

If it can move, I guess?

Though I’m very aware it’s a decidedly grounded series considering the spaceship flying. Animation could tempt them to change it up - hopefully keeping no aliens but they could easily have more space action? Thinking of the Buffy animated presentation ending with fighting a dragon, as well as the canon comics not matching the live action series’s budgetary practicality.

But also Adam Baldwin is there. Can he keep his head down for a job?

Well, one of the showrunning couple worked on Agent Carter.

Panel video.

She is the slayer.

Ryan Kiera Armstrong sharing a costume test photo

I understand that this sort of thing requires ice cream of some kind.

Comfort food, episode, serious thought to running a Buffy game again.

Buffy: New Sunnydale not picked up

Sarah Michelle Gellar shares the news that Hulu has passed on the pilot.

Summary at Empire.

“If the apocalypse actually comes, you can still beep me.”

V5: Stolen 2.04

Vampire: The Masquerade

Stolen

2.04

Everything That I Love Will Destroy Me In The End

Beck

Robin

Beck joins Robin at a booth overlooking the dancefloor.

He confirms what he’s learned about Beaufoy having worked for Milliner, which Robin says is useful and asks if there’s more, Beck dangles the information about her hangout but Robin says they know that already.

“Guess I’ll be seeing her tomorrow by myself.”

“You’re meeting her? Where?”

“What would that be worth?”

 “I would like a chance to set a trap for her.”

“She’s nobody to me, just a means to an end. But it would be a shame if she found out you’re after her.”

“Are you blackmailing me?”

“Oh no, that’s such an ugly word. This is extortion.”

“What do you want?”

“One of the Tremere might have something I want.”

Robin agrees to check out Astor’s business.

Another year since lockdown.

The local wee rock club where we would sometimes go circa TWH is shutting down. Happy Friday the 13th...

Happy Friday the 13th! Again!

Second in a row due to last month being a non-leap February. And there’s another in November. Three is the maximum for a year.

The Bride!

The Bride! written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal reimagines The Bride Of Frankenstein as Mary Shelley returning from Purgatory to run wild, possessing the Bride before and after her revival.

Jessie Buckley snaps between multiple characters and shows the chaos that causes her and the world, with Christian Bale as “Frank” as her straight man as they run amok in 1930s America. He’s an interesting take too, emotionally volatile, superhumanly strong but prone to pain and a sometimes collapsing lung (and I love the line he uses to get Annette Bening’s Dr. Euphronius to help) but most of the big scenes and ideas centre around her, some barely touched on like her ability to see what wrongs men have done to women - or just remember these things and say them out loud - one of the things that starts a revolution in her image.

Sketching a world where the monster alarms some but less so others and Frankenstein’s work is known only in scientific circles, some choppy editing shows through just how many ideas are involved, but it looks great and sounds fun as well.

Sometimes violent including sexual threat but most surprisingly only a 15 considering some of the language.

Post Streets Of Fire dialogue

Based on how badly McCoy and Fish got along, if he ever had to work with her again:

(false smile) “Oh, hey, great to see you!” (smile drops) “Guard the door.”

Streets Of Fire

Game was postponed so made pasta and watched Streets Of Fire (free with ads on YouTube) for the first time in about thirty-five years. It really is a glorious mess that could have worked with someone else in the male lead.

I still doubt it would have been big enough to get the trilogy to happen because it’s weird and dumb, but could have been fun.

(The making of seems weird and dumb too. The storming final track was written in two days after the original ending had to be scrapped because Bruce Springsteen decided not to let them use a cover of Streets Of Fire and they’d already filmed that version, Which seems like an oversight. Even before knowing they had to rebuild the set.)

“Another time, another place” is mostly the 50s but partially also very much the 80s specifically in Jim Steinman style, and a mythical city that seems to be enormous judging by how long it takes to get back sneakily from the raid. (The Warriors works to make the geography track, this absolutely doesn’t.) And as the cops try to discourage player character duelling in the streets then shrug it off you can add Wild West town to the mix of eras. RPGnet overthinking thread! It seems like a fun place to hang out.

Buffyversary

Happy 29th anniversary to Welcome To The Hellmouth.

And if you need to look up a line, Buffy transcript search by ao01_design

New kettle

Higher spout angle so I have to be careful not to overshoot when trying to pour.

Glasgow Central Station

Another historic building burned. This one might be saved, at least.

Tonight part of the session was set in a shop I passed on the way there.

Purge them.

Inspired by Marathon and one of my current PCs, thinking again about a villainous space opera game like House Of The Dying Sun. Sinister agents of a fallen empire charged with revenge against traitors and breakaway warlords, where at best the PCs can decide to do some good on their way down, and everybody has dark armour and conflicting agendas and scary-looking fighters.

Winter Paralympics 2026 opening ceremony

Nice for the Russian and Belarus athletes. Less so for others who could have had those wild card spaces.

Start with ninjas.

Theremin made of wood from migrant boats is quite a touch.

The ninjas have laser hands. I REPEAT, THE NINJAS HAVE LASER HANDS.

Dialogue for later

“How’s your brother? Feeling better? Could he run if he had to?”

World Book Day

Happy World Book Day!

Teviot

Teviot Union, the home of The Watch House officially reopens after two and a half years. I’ll have to go see what they've done.

Update: Wee video. Main thing which meant the delay, great big balconied bar at the back, way in where the front desk used to be. The Mezzanine has stopped being the New Amphion and is now the Gallery, while still being a mezzanine. Otherwise quite a lot of grey walls where the wood panelling was, though not entirely. Hrm.

GM's Day

Be nice.

D&D 2024 is now D&D 5.5e

Which is nice, not acting like it isn’t.

V5: Stolen 2.03

Vampire: The Masquerade

Stolen

2.03

Favours For Favours

Beck

Robin

Vince

Beck arranges a meeting with his sire Alva, a wine bar around the West End. He asks about concerns with the Tremere and the Sheriff, and about finding a rogue Banu Haqim. In exchange she asks for help with a small charitable event, something his position in the Church of England will help more than the Church of Caine.

The next night, she updates him to say that the Banu Haqim has done something for Joseph Milliner, the Hecata investor.

Bruce Campbell

All best wishes to Bruce Campbell. And fuck cancer.

When he came here to promote My Name Is Bruce the first screening with Q&A sold out, so they put on another and he said he’d do an introduction but then he stayed for a Q&A after anyway.

The Thunder Perfect Mind

The Thunder Perfect Mind has arrived.

Coming soon, the first supplement, Terrestrial Court, including LARP rules.

The Nevers

The Nevers is streaming free with ads on ITVx. The last thing Joss Whedon created and left unfinished when he was revealed as a creep, I’ve never had a chance to see it short of buying the discs. So here we go.

Nine minutes thirty and Mrs. True has kicked a guy out of a window.

Marathon

Marathon is a new multiplayer action game from the studio behind Halo and Destiny. On a failed colony planet, various corporate and other factions send Runners in machine bodies to collect artefacts, bring back data about some mysteries, and fight each other to loot the wreckage.

With no single-player campaign and fairly light narrative development elements it doesn’t feel so heavily suited to story focused versions like tabletop RPGs as Halo and particularly the “why isn’t this an RPG?” of Destiny, though it could be the basis for a West Marches raid game, and looks really Mork Borg and the in-character multiple lives are pretty Paranoia.

Getting Poppy in for the launch video song fits.

It takes its name from a first person adventure with plenty of plot, a precursor to Halo, but while that’s part of the new game’s history it doesn’t play the same way.

Ultimately everybody kinda looks like an Infinity figure or crash test dummy. Not my jam.

March

Yes, do that.

Star Trek: Ariel 1.04

Star Trek: Ariel

1.04

Time to annoy some miners.

You have to earn that.

The new Hunter: The Reckoning book starts with a Buffy quote. How dare.

Pokémon at 30

Pokémon started thirty years ago. I was outside the demographic for it but respect the hustle.

Though I still think Pikachu looks more like a cat.

What's your favourite scary movie?

I aim to be positive here. There are a lot of things I like about Scream. Like so.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is a new SF comedy with a side of horror from Gore Verbinski, director of the Pirates Of The Caribbean trilogy and Mouse Hunt as well as the US version of The Ring and you can kind of see all of that here, from a script by Matthew Robinson, co-writer of The Invention Of Lying and I can see that too.

It stars Sam Rockwell as a man from the future come to recruit a seemingly random assortment of people to save humanity - or is he? He’s a lot less charming than Reese in The Terminator so has to rely on different ways to motivate his ragtag resistance.

I went in pretty blind thanks to a teaser that really only shows the setup, expecting more of some things than I got and not expecting some other things at all, so had a pretty fun wild ride so I guess I had good luck.

Content warning for flashing lights and Holy WOW jokes about people being blasé about school shooting.

Rob Grant

Rob Grant, co-creator of Red Dwarf, has died.

I stand with Ukraine.

The Backrooms

The Backrooms, a... concept? is getting a film. The director is twenty years old.

Return To The Spider-Adjacent-Verse

Having given up on the Spider-Man adjacent live-action movies last year, Sony are rebooting them. This comes a couple days after news of an animated Venom movie from the writers of Final Destination: Bloodlines and the trailer for the live-action Spider-Noir series spinning off from the animated Spider-Verse.

I mean, some of them were fine in places. I liked most of Madame Web apart from the actual Madame Web connections.

Tortilla Chip Day

It is Tortilla Chip Day. And unusually I have some.

And behold, I reached into the bag and withdrew the Triangle of Triangles.

Tortillaception

The X Files (202X)

Ryan Coogler to direct a pilot for a new take on The X Files, Jennifer Yale as showrunner, starring Danielle Deadwyler as one of its leads.

“Two highly decorated but vastly different FBI agents form an unlikely bond when they are assigned to a long-shuttered division devoted to cases involving unexplained phenomena.”

So could be a soft or hard reboot. sequel, requel, etc. etc.

8500

8500 posts!

Got the RPGs tag to be the biggest ahead of Films.

a|state sale

a|state second edition with free PDF for 24.99, 15 off, at Handiwork Games to mark Blades In The Dark sourcebook Blades 68 coming out using the Trouble Engine.

The City loves a bargain.

Winter Olympics 2026

Closing ceremony relatively sensible.

The horror...?

This week’s Radio Times (UK’s big TV listings mag) is a “horror special” due to the BAFTA film awards having some relevant nominations and the cover is a judge from Great British Menu cosplaying as Nosferatu.

Am I awake

Ken and Robin talk introductory adventures

Ken And Robin Talk About Stuff usually has something worth checking, but will add an extra plug for this week for the opening section on introductory adventures. They recommend going for the core activity and pilot episode. But how do you present that for something broad like, looking at a helpful example, Vampire? Examples are meeting to discuss big political change and the Prince giving them an annoying order and how to deal with it. Also blood-drinking as a terror tactic in war, disapproving father stock characters, and chess magic.

Game drought

Going to be zero for four this week. :/

Must not take this as a sign to start an online game. At least until I get the desktop’s fan fixed.

Buffy Vs. Big Foot

Wh*donesque asked what monsters wed like to see Buffy fight and Jane Espenson replied:

We used to joke about leprechauns. And I pitched a Big Foot episode once.

(Tell us more about the Big Foot episode, please)

Well the thing was, that was the pitch, pretty much. What if we did Big Foot?

--

Now given Big Foot is one the most widely seen and dismissed cryptids, I would imagine an episode with annoying cryptid chasers getting in the way of a regular monster hunt.

Alysa Liu is a big damn hero.

Alysa Liu is a big damn hero. As is her father, a political refugee after helping organise the Tiananmen protests.

I have seen the smiling fossil, thank you.

I have seen the smiling fossil, thank you.

Ghost In The Shell RPGs

You wait thirty-one years for a Ghost In The Shell RPG and then two come along at once.

Due to bitty licensing, one is based on the recent-ish TV series Ghost In The Shell: Arise and the other uses art from the original manga but the adjusted title of the next series The Ghost In The Shell.

So neither are directly the one from the 1995 anime which is the version I would be interested in.

The latter is from Mantic, with a miniatures game to follow.

Pancakes

Uncommonly, I actually had a pancake between this and last Pancake Day.

Year of the Horse

Happy lunar new year!

Babylon 5

Babylon 5 is now free on YouTube, a bold TV experiment with serialisation, CG space, riffing on and an early pitch allegedly being riffed on by Star Trek, and dialogue that I always thought nobody talked like until I read the creator’s book on dcreenwriting.

Yellowjackets

Due to the occasional weird licensing of streaming shows, Yellowjackets is starting on ITV. Heavily Lord Of The Flies it’s also like the evil child of LOST - plane crash, possibly mystery related to flashbacks, possible supernatural stuff, but with a lot more infighting and cannibalism than the network friendly series. I hear S1 is worth watching. Knowing as much as I do by unavoidable cultural osmosis, I appreciate the ominous foreshadowing not waiting around.

Valentine's Day joke 2026 edition

Roses are red

Other options are also available

Check local stockists

Winter Olympic 2026 update

UK first gold in throwing ourselves down a mountain on a tea tray. Wonder what this says about us as a nation.

V5: Stolen 2.02

Vampire: The Masquerade

Stolen

2.02

No Good Deed

Beck

Robin

Vince

A week passes and no apparent repercussions.

Beck watches the audience at his sermons.

Robin observes his family from a distance - not sure about this girl his son has started seeing.

Vince looks into the antiquarian book trade after Beck mentioned it.

He next sees Beck at Elysium, one of the smaller locations in a private art gallery. Noting Astor is there as well, he keeps his distance as they discuss business.

“Has there been any movement on my order? Time waits for no man.”

“Yes, I did hear you had some urgent business?”

Beck and Astor size each other up.

--

And at the same time, Robin is looking for a deserving victim when approached by Morland.

Icons of the Night

A year-long monhtly pin-up art contest for World Of Darkness. Sexiness not required but encouraged in several prompts.

Erin LeCount, Don't You See Me Trying?

Erin LeCount, Don’t You See Me Trying?

Everything that I love will destroy me in the end

So I break my own heart over and over again

And that’s a WoD playlist add. Even without the video dancing on a grave.

F13

And incidentally, a happy Friday the 13th to all of you at home!

The Rockford Files with David Boreanaz?

I can kinda see it... though it does make me think of the couple times Angel went undercover as a comically exaggerated doofus.

Also Rockford has a sometime sidekick called Angel.

Prequels are tricky.

Just read a prequel comic to a film, naming no names, and didn’t like any of the decisions it made. A new Big Bad claiming responsibility for the events of the film, more reasons to target the new main characters than were needed here or in the original, a monster that doesn’t fit aesthetically, a small twist that feels out of place cosmologically, and a zero sum ending above and beyond what was required to set up the start of the story as was.

(There was a bit I liked, the attempt to remove the monster failing and inverting the classic Alien method of getting it out of the airlock.)

How to apply this to RPGs? It’s good to make big swings, but not if you have to wind them back immediately.

Unsurprising news

Wanna get back to running Buffy.

TRON: Ares

I watched TRON: Ares because it’s on D+ and because it got the unique boost of two of its stars, Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith, having been on The Graham Norton Show the same week as Taylor Swift and therefore appearing in her new video for Opalite with Norton and all the guests because Domhnall Gleeson joked about wanting to be in one.

This is what it took.

(Added fun fact: one of the other guests and thus Opalite guest stars was Cillian Murphy, who cameoed in TRON: Legacy as a Dillinger heir and not in this one where Evan Peters plays a different Dillinger heir as the villain.)

It’s visually and musically interesting but narratively not good.

So, a TRON movie.

This still feels like a backdrop in search of stories. It would work for games if that’s not too meta.

Not helped by Jared Leto as Ares, though it only exists because of him so unavoidable.

(He will next be unrecognisable as Skeletor in Masters Of The Universe, which does feel avoidable.)

It was nice that it did a few things that weren’t revealed in the trailers, and one of those was indulgent but pretty fun.

I would have guessed the unnaturally calm F-35 pilots were a military cooperation directive but they were actually Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross VO cameos.

Some likely product placement but the biggest plug for some reason went to Depeche Mode.

I may have sworn when I saw this ad.

Infamously delayed game referencing being over a decade in development in its ad copy like that’s a good thing in this case.

No ICE in Minnesota bundle

$5000 worth of indie games for $10 including some tabletop stuff.

Super Bowl trailers

Great year for halftime show, bad year for adverts, fine year for trailers with more for The Mandalorian And Grogu (featuring halftime show guest Pedro Pascal) and Disclosure Day.

Winter Olympics nerdiness update

Amber Glenn, figure skater and Magic: The Gathering player

A murder of vampires

One of my Sunday afternoon Vampire players is now in a second game, mostly with members of the Murder Mystery Society, which is not a LARP society, really. Will this lead to a new Vampire LARP in the city? Possibly.

Star Trek: Ariel 1.03

Star Trek: Ariel

1.03

Watching all of Lower Decks in a few months may have made me nicer to the Orion pirates than intended.

Winter Olympics 2026

The Winter Olympics is here, and doing that weird thing where they have some stuff before the Opening Ceremony tonight.

A more low-key opening ceremony than the big but bitty (but masked torchbearer and Gojira) Paris summer 2024, the main tricky bit being the two city location for the athlete parade so there was regular cutting and probably some delays for teams coming in, but not huge ones. The now standard floating Olympic rings. An Italian astronaut. Nessun Dorma. A bit that had a slop sheen followed by Prisencolinensinainciusol making it better.

And many calls for peace and harmony and nice things like that, with the Ukraine team getting a big cheer. Strange to think it’s been four years.

Questions

And yes, once again, maybe for the last time... the Conpulsion Quiz.

Resident Evil Requiem live trailer

Resident Evil Requiem live trailer starring Maika Monroe. If I could get Maika Monroe to star in a three minute live-action film to advertise my horror game I would too.

It's The Muppet Show with our very special guest stars...

I wouldn’t put every PC group in The Muppet Show, but certainly some.

TOON, yes. Puppetland, no.

But as the token live-action people.

Buffy is too obvious. After all, they had episodes where demon hunters get turned into puppets in Buffy’s first season and Angel’s last.

If this game does this it's worth cover price

I know saying “kill the players” when you mean the player characters is an easy slip (that happens to make you sound like a sociopath) but still worth checking. I just saw an ad for a game about playing in the afterlife with the tagline:

A TTRPG (system redacted) to play after all the players have died

V5: Stolen 2.01

Vampire: The Masquerade

Stolen

2.01

Signs And Wonders

Beck

Robin

Vince

Beck manages to return safely as the pursuers turn on each other. He recognises Darvell, the Sheriff, at the back of the Camarilla group.

As they drive back to his haven, the girl introduces herself as Alice, and he can hear her heart pounding in fear. She’s alive.

“You’re a Thin-blood?”

“My father was.”

“You mean your sire?”

“No.”

Groundhog Day 2026

Considering the weather the US has had this week you’d think they’d have tried harder to stop the groundhog seeing its shadow.

The Thunder Perfect Mind

The Thunder Perfect Mind, an occult action thriller RPG from Tanya Floaker, now on Kickstarter and funded.

Return from the dead. Roll lots of d10s. Possible splatbooks.

February

We have a Friday the 13th this month and as it’s not a leap year there’s another one next month.

Character Creation Challenge 2026 Roundup

Character Creation Challenge 2026

Roundup

I came up with the idea to create parties for different systems than I’d default to at about 10:30 pm on New Year’s Day, a bit of a spin on previous years generating groups but different enough to run with, after drawing a blank for quite a while. ICONS and d6 Star Wars are the only games I used that I’ve actually played or run, so I still tried something new.

The characters I chose to build do mean that only the Elegy PCs are actually my creations, being adapted from an RPG rather than outside media. Maybe I should have done more there. Or less! But familiarity meant readers could get an idea of the system from how the characters were interpreted.

As noted when introducing the Fellowship I considered a couple other options, maybe for all nine, before the size of the epilogue in Stranger Things 5 reminded me of the film of The Return Of The King.

I also thought about using something like ALIEN or Mothership for Star Trek because if I ever ran Trek it would probably end up like that if not the zappy action side.

I considered Sinners with either a horror one-shot game or Hunter: The Reckoning.

And I came pretty close to doing the MCU Avengers with Angel to flip the Buffy with supers system but that felt too easy.

It was really good to have something to focus on daily this January.

Thanks to TardisCaptain for the challenge and everybody who took part or cheered us on.

Dedicated to SteveD

Character Creation Challenge 2026 Collection

Character Creation Challenge 2026

TardisCaptain introduction and after action report

RPGnet thread

0: PC groups for games I would do with different systems

Buffy The Vampire Slayer with ICONS Assembled Edition

1a: Buffy Summers

2a: Rupert Giles, Watcher

3a: Willow Rosenberg, witch

4a: Xander Harris, Scooby

5a: Cordelia Chase, Mean Girl

6a: Daniel “Oz” Osbourne, werewolf

7a: Angel, vampire with a soul

Leverage with The Score

8b: Leverage Inc.

Vampire: The Masquerade with Elegy

9c: Matthieu Lasalle

10c: Adamas lineage - Armistead

11c: Cassandra linage: Colette

12c: Deimos lineage: Piotr

13c: Kerberois lineage - Walker

14c: Narcissus lineage - Paris

Star Wars with Black Star

15d: Rey

16d: Finn

17d: Poe

18d: Rose

19d: BB-8

20d: Chewbacca

John Wick with Hell 4 Leather

21e: John Wick et al.

The Lord Of The Rings with Kids On Bikes first edition

22f: Frodo

23f: Sam

24f: Merry

25f: Pippin

26f: Gandalf

Star Trek 2009 with Star Wars 1987

27g: Kirk

28g: Spock

29g: McCoy

30g: Uhura

31g: Scotty

Roundup

Character Creation Challenge 2026 31g: Star Trek 2009 with Star Wars 1987 - Scotty

Character Creation Challenge 2026

PC groups for games I would do with different systems

31g: Star Trek 2009 with Star Wars 1987 - Scotty

And ending with a national treasure.

Actually using one of the templates as is. Though I could fiddle with the numbers, as Scotty is more socially adept than the default here. 

Montgomery Scott

Tongue-Tied Engineer