V?????? playtest

The Gen Con listings for the new Vampire: The Masquerade project said 6th for edition, and now say playtest. Continue wild mass guessing.

June

Just checked and Edinburgh Pride is the 20th.

Aura Perception

Aura Perception from Vampire: The Masquerade 1-20 was basically “ST looks up what colour an emotion is, then player looks up what emotion a colour is” and so I don’t miss it. But I did manage to get a good jolt out of it a couple of times. Once when one of the PCs realised she was talking to an angel, and in another game when one of the PCs saw that a tree hated everything.

Electrician and Adventurer

Waiting on electrical workers, and so naturally pondering a game about this kind of job getting called in to fix things in houses and what you see as a result.

This could be played for humour, horror, or more. Ghostbusters is the closest I’ve done, and there you’re expecting weirdness when you answer the call. Also to a lesser extent Graveyard Shift, Buffy at a pizza place.

See also Bill Towner, Electrician and Adventurer from House II: The Second Story.

Or a serious take like Session 9.

Vampire: The Miniatures at Darkness Emergent

Josh at Strange Adventures was at the V6 (now listed as such in the Gen Con playtests) panel and also the mentioned in passing miniatures panel - which is about a forthcoming Dark Ages skirmish game. Video, timestamp to see concept video and art.

Christof?! Yes, it could be a different crusader but...
The creepy nun coukd be Serena too.
Though she seems to have a horde of severed hands.

So that looks interesting.

Marcia Lucas

Marcia Lucas has died. Former wife of George and editor of American Graffiti and Star Wars, who gave us the Death Star approaching ending out of edits and ADR, as well as Taxi Driver and New York, New York.

UK Games Expo was already too big for my comfort years ago. I wish it well.

The Maltese Falcon

Proof that remakes can be improvements even after just a few years.

A title can tell you a lot

Victorian Psycho (trailer and talk at Empire) indicates a very different vibe than calling it something like say The Governess.

Surprising Paddington 4 news

Armando Iannucci co-writing a Paddington film may seem strange if you consider what the likes of The Thick Of It and The Death Of Stalin are about, but makes perfect sense if you consider how they’re about it.

Jason Isaacs as Field Marshal Zhukov in The Death Of Stalin
making an entrance by shrugging off his coat in slow motion
to reveal enough medals on his jacket to count as mail armour

And Iannucci and Paddington both know Peter Capaldi.

The Tyrant Philosophers RPG

Coming this autumn from Handiwork Games, using the new a|State system, based on a fantasy novel series by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

hahahayikes

Nothing like having someone come to check a broken electrical thing, say “that’s the worst I’ve seen” and call for backup for safely ground it.

World Dracula Day

Just as Star Wars launched three wees after May the fouth, the publication anniversary of Dracula doesn’t quite line up with the May third opening.

Hammer announcing a 4K restoration of their classic version with restored cut footage.

Spring?

Warm weather? Springwatch? Its my birthday in a month? Feels more like March.

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.