13. Strain
13. So far, what is the heaviest set of RPG things you have carried to play?
Probably the Christmas when I made half a dozen six inch scale action figures for The Watch House. Not actually that heavy but certainly bulky.
Thursday, 13 August 2026
ST starting tips
Five tips, and a bonus, and a second bonus, for VtM but often for city games in general, from Sed8ed Princess
Wednesday, 12 August 2026
Solar Eclipse Near Miss 2026
It is cloudy.
A pigeon outside is a bit confused.
This has been my eclipse report.
RPGaDAY 2026 12. Loss
#RPGaDAY 2026
12. Loss
12. Most things end. What is one RPG loss you still feel?
Among so many other things, he ran the first session I played in online, also the first session of the prototype The Night Watch which led to The Watch House. I got to join a session in Brisbane, one of the two times he hosted me going around the world. More recently I got to playtest his biggest RPG Relics and contribute to sourcebooks. A couple of my ideas got a laugh.
His last Patreon post from December 30th 2025
“You matter, and if you show up, you can change your fate, or someone else’s. And that is everything.”
Tuesday, 11 August 2026
V5: City Of Angels 40
Vampire: The Masquerade - City Of Angels session 40
After a summer hiatus. Paris went to what she thought was the least dangerous of three things she could do that night, found that was pretty wrong, and thanked someone she hates for finding a key piece of information and thus stopping a plan to make a deal with someone she hates more. So, ups and downs.
RPGaDAY 2026 11. Tact
#RPGaDAY 2026
11. Tact
11. A character made great by having or not having tact
Giles: “Cordelia, have you actually ever heard of tact?”
Cordelia: “Tact is just not saying true stuff. I’ll pass.”
Buffy The Vampire Slayer 2.18 Killed By Death
One of my Mage circle Didi’s main weapons is distracting opponents often by confusing or annoying them. She once defeated a probability-altering chaos mage by shouting obvious lies at him. “It’s Wednesday! Your shoes are untied!” Including ones she hoped he’d accidentally make happen. “I just won the lottery! I’m Mrs. Ryan Gosling!”
And after more than twenty-five years, still do I fondly recall the story of a horror campaign that ended early with one of the players having their character knock on a suspected cultist base door and ask “Excuse me, are you a cultist?”
Monday, 10 August 2026
RPGaDAY 2026 10. Secret
#RPGaDAY 2026
10. Secret
10. A secret you hope comes out about a character?
Neither of my current characters have any big secrets.
Not normally, anyway. “I’m actually a time traveller from over a century in the future” is a specific issue for a current adventure. Which I hope doesn’t come out too much as it could destroy the space-time continuum. But a few people finding out makes for fun complications.
We just finished a short Vampire chronicle, a game where this is a natural focus, where the city had a lot of secrets and enough came out in the end to start an open revolt, so that was nice. And my character there, the Tremere occultist, had his share as well, though the other PCs did get to discover the shocking reason he had a Tremere enemy.
HE STOLE SOME BOOKS.
In my long-running Buffy play-by-post there are some secrets about the setting I hope to get to, and at some point the secret that one of the PCs is a robot (which all the players know but none of the other PCs do) really should come out - I’ve resisted a couple of chances for an anticlimactic comedy reveal already, but now have an idea to make it an actual central episode plot.
Purely in-character open secrets and really secret out of character secrets give very different feels to games. IC secrets allow leaning in for oblivious PCs - although I’ve met players who cannot resist acting on OOC knowledge. OOC secrets are better for mysteries, but the lack of openness can affect the group. Best not keep them up for long.
Also, Top Secret. I should run a spy game again sometime.
Sunday, 9 August 2026
RPGaDAY 2026 9. Privilege
#RPGaDAY 2026
9. Privilege
9. Give one reason why it is a privilege to play with your group.
Off and on weekend group, not playing often but setting aside a big chunk of Saturday to do it including eating together ahead of the game, being proper social and all.
A chance to play a game I normally only GM has been grand with the Sunday group too.
And the online groups, being asked to play a specific game, trusted to bring the fun.
Getting to GM for new people and show them different games is a nice rare thing too.
Okay that’s multiple reasons. But for multiple groups!
Saturday, 8 August 2026
RPGaDAY 2026 8. Resolve
#RPGaDAY 2026
8. Resolve
8. A moment when a character kept or broke their resolve?
How much of a character’s resolve is the player’s?
“My character would / wouldn’t do that!” is often a problem in RPGs where a player uses it as an excuse to reject the premise of an adventure or otherwise disrupt things, but sometimes it’s about an issue to be addressed out of character, and sometimes it’s a genuine in character response to something like a moral choice.
My French Revolutionary vampire Matthieu was marked for almost certain death as the Montagnards and their Kindred allies took over, and while the game didn’t progress that far in the timeline I decided in the epilogue that his sincere support of the people would indeed get him killed again like it had the first time. I could have had him run and survive but he was always built to be doomed by his humanity rather than his vampirism.
And in another game, not to get into details, I wish I’d said “My character wouldn’t do that!” a lot earlier than I did due to a mismatch of ideas about what the setting’s main group should be like ethically.
Friday, 7 August 2026
RPGaDAY 2026 7. Mercy
#RPGaDAY 2026
7. Mercy
7. A moment of mercy received or given?
One of the things I often include when running something like Vampire is a choice between the right thing and the expedient thing. Ideally with some nuances in there too so it’s not just obvious.
My 2024-5 Vampire: The Masquerade game ended with some of the PCs deciding that the young hunter cell taking out prominent Kindred in the city were in the right and trying to get them out safely.
And other PCs disagreeing because hunters are still a threat and warning the Camarilla, who sent a hit squad.
And playing in the French Revolution game, Matthieu’s last act was to rescue Charlotte Corday from prison awaiting execution - with the assistance of a vampire loyal to Marie Antoinette, who asked the coterie to save her children as well. From his perspective saving two kids was the expedient choice as well as humane, even though saving royals also felt unjust and a possible threat to the republic.
Thursday, 6 August 2026
Exalted at 25
Exalted, White Wolf’s epic superheroic fantasy and very quickly not the prehistory of World Of Darkness, first came out on this day in 2001. Not my kind of thing but I admired the big swing, and the stepping back from that suggested connection.
John Wick: With The Animals
A video essay on the John Wick series with various asides but mostly about how assassin society works and how it could stop working. Sharing my biggest problem with IV while also having good things to say about some of its featured ideas, And a great point about markers and coins being overridden by the connections and relationships they abstract.
Clive Barker's Underworld
Clive Barker’s Underworld (1985) original trailer for the Arrow 4K rerlease
I once edited together a mood trailer for New Wave Requiem, the 1980s Vampire sourcebook. If I’d known this existed I could have used... basically all of it.
RPGaDAY 2026 6. Reach
#RPGaDAY 2026
6. Reach
6. Who would you like to be able to share RPGs with?
Some people, maybe not a lot but some, would probably be interested in RPGs in their preferred genres outside of the usual SF/F/H which we call genre because we’re in it. Of course I’m saying this as a genre kid, and I know SF/F/H makes the improv with action rules nature of RPGs easier to keep going - it’s much easier to improvise a locked room mystery if you can say “a wizard did it” when you get stuck - but the hobby has definitely grown and expanded when taking in genre edge cases.
Horror and mystery with Call Of Cthulhu - straight mystery largely stayed with prepared one-shots like Murder Mystery Party for the above hard to improvise reasons. Horror with heavy drama and romance with Vampire: The Masquerade, leading to more fully emotionally focused games like MonsterHearts - which still has monsters.
(Though Avery Alder is working on a new no-monsters game based on sports drama like Friday Night Lights.)
Not full-on mundane reality, but genre-ish asides. There aren’t many straight cop games but there are plenty of action movie and TV games where cops taking on somewhat or very heightened criminals works fine.
And in the general SF/F/H space there are a few subgenres that seem like they could be the basis for RPGs.
I’m still puzzled that we didn’t get a big obvious YA Dystopia RPG during the genre’s heyday.
And mentioning romance, there isn’t a big romantasy game yet either. (Blue Rose for its forerunners?) And how come we got an RPG for Battlestar Galactica but not for Outlander? I say this as a non-fan but a romance-focused game with sword fights and time travel seems like it would work.
Wednesday, 5 August 2026
Lore and unreliable narrators
Jesse Heinig on untrustworthy lore in settings, with Vampire: The Masquerade as a prime example.
One of the great joys of running a Vampire chronicle for people who have never played Vampire before is tossing them into a stew of contradictory conspiracies. Vampires love to present themselves as erudite and sophisticated, but they have very little evidence about their own supernatural world.
So far my group has heard...
* Three different creation myths about vampires
* Two different theoretical ways out of the curse
* About the existence of bloodlines, but not specifics
* About the existence of the Sabbat, with some (useless) history
* About werewolves and ghosts
They also heard about wizards ("they died out in the Middle Ages") shortly before meeting a mage, and about unaligned clans ("mostly weirdos who have very limited power") before running afoul of a Follower of Set/Ministry vampire.
They met a vampire who can survive sunlight at dawn
They met a mortal who can just see through Obfuscate. No idea why
They ran away from mortal hunters wearing FBI jackets, who were obviously not real agents
They have failed several gambits to get blood, and are coming to grips with the fact that they will have to do some questionable things
They discovered that animal blood is not very satisfying, then met a Kindred who feeds on animals exclusively
They heard that the Prince is Malkavian, then met her and the coterie's Malkavian immediately clocked that she is not
The Malkavian learned to aura read and has no idea how to interpret it
Everyone seems to be having a great time. It's a World of Darkness where there is lore, there is history, there are societies, but a rule is only a rule until it's broken. Supernatural things work the way they do because of magic, and symbols, and metaphors, not because of science.
Soon they'll get introduced to Gehenna, the End Times, Gehenna cults, and the mythology of the turning of the age. Probably hand-in-hand with crossing paths with actual Sabbat, an Anarch Revolt in their city, and thin-bloods looking for a place to survive.
The huge, sprawling metaplot of the World of Darkness causes some players to pursue setting mastery, to have full fundamental knowledge of the "truth" of the world, so I've made it pretty clear through events that "truth" is highly subjective and context-driven.
Everyone's got goals and agendas, but at the end of the night, it really comes down to, what will you do to survive? How are you going to make it happen? Where are you going to get blood? And who's going to pay the price for your sins?
RPGaDAY 2026 5. Burden
#RPGaDAY 2026
5. Burden
5. What burden is a character willing to carry until the end?
With great power comes great responsibility.
With that phrase of that idea, Stan Lee defined Spider-Man, why superheroes are heroes and not just super, and a valuable life lesson.
Player characters are often marked out by their power or the opportunity to act when no-one else can. They may not be the only group in the setting doing PC-ish things, but they are the ones that get the focus. Who else is going to save the day?
Some of my more serious character moments are about taking on a burden alone, and why this may not be a good call.
Of course if you really went to get to me emotionally, have someone pitch in to help.
“I can’t carry it for you. But I can carry you!”
Sam in one of the bits that makes me cry in Return Of The King
See also the first episode of Superman: The Animated Series, where Kal-El’s family help to make sure he gets away from Krypton even if they don’t as a result. It’s the only version of the story that gets to me.
Cthulhu Lives!
Cthulhu Lives! and the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society. A history by Thomas Manuel at Rascal.
I knew this tale from The Unspeakable Oath magazine’s history of the game and group, with a lot of the same photos in black and white instead of here in sometimes alarming colour, but it’s such a ride it’s always worth another look, and the bit with the helicopter is new to me.
The HPLHS went on to make printable and mail order props, audio plays, Christmas albums, and films including the silent black and white version of The Call Of Cthulhu (trailer).
And reading back it’s both a tempting thing to try and A Health And Safety Nightmare.
Tuesday, 4 August 2026
RPGaDAY 2026 4. Charm
#RPGaDAY 2026
4. Charm
4. An enjoyable moment of charm gone right or wrong?
There’s nothing like a Fancy Party Episode or other large social event to get people more dressed up than usual and being noticed in unexpected ways.
I have them occasionally in a lot of my games. Sometimes it brings the drama as relationships shift, and often it brings the funny as there’s a misunderstanding or somebody gets flustered.
“Do we get dressed up?”
“Of course.”
“I’m in.”
Angel 3.13 Waiting In The Wings
Which is a Fancy Party Episode which does indeed shift several cast relationships
Of course they’re a sometimes food. Pride And Prejudice has people writing letters and visiting each other’s houses as well as some fancy party chapters. ;) (Comics creator Trung Le Nguyen provides helpful and often hilarious commentary over one of the biggest Bluesky threads I’ve ever seen, collected here in 135 pages.)
Big social events are also good for changing the status quo, introducing new characters, having enemies meet in a situation where they shouldn’t start a fight, and more.
(Lots of NPCs can get hard to track. In some games use a map and tokens for scenes like this more than for combat.)
William and Charlotte got together in The Watch House in the middle of some other adventure when she pointed out they were while he hadn’t quite gotten around to asking her out. That can happen too.
There Will Come Soft Rains
Monday, 3 August 2026
Graeme Davis on the history of RPGs in the UK
When Dice Were Made Of Flint, a column at Tabletop Sentinel, begins in 1978 as he plays his first game of D&D and finds his way to Games Workshop.
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