Mage: The Ascension 5ish

With Vampire: The Masquerade V6 moving closer to V5, how does this affect Mage: The Ascension which never got a V5 version after years of trying on and off?

Mage is trickier as making an M20 character reminded me, Vampire is a pretty straightforward game with a lot of optional stuff and Mage is a game where the optional stuff can be central. The current edition is 696 pages with two sourcebooks that feel, if not required then strongly encouraged, easily pushing it over 1000.

While Vampire fans may disagree on some major options, I see Mage fans like Doctor Who fans disagreeing on just about everything. Every Whovian has our idea of what wed do, and they’re all wildly different - because the show can do that. Same with this game.

I’m sure some of them would have been happy with a substantially streamlined M5 with Paradox Dice and no playable Technocracy, for example, but probably not a majority.

(Could you shrink Mage down enough that I might consider running it? Sure... it might end up looking more like Eden’s Witchcraft though.)

Vampire 6 Alpha 2

The Vampire: The Masquerade V6 Alpha 2 playtest starts now. Quite a few changes - many of them being changing things back after the bigger swings of V6 A1.

Hunger Dice are... sorta kinda back but not what I liked about them.

Drama and Quickening are gone.

6+ success is back, so Taking Half is back too. NPC rolling is an option again, with Taking Half for lazy STs like me.

Repitches

GEAS repitches mid semester are now optional. Did get me a possible new player though.

Rice Krispies

Kelloggs Rice Krispies have been reformulated to make them “now even crispier”. This is, it turns out, due to a shortage of rice. So they’re made with rice flour now. So they have to emphasise the crispy part as the rice part is now an exaggeration.

This also means they crackle slightly but no longer snap or pop.

And I understand are no longer gluten free.

This post is about climate chaos.

Warhammer 40

Warhammer Fantasy Role-play was released 7th November 1986.

The longest I’ve ever run a standard-ish elfgame, due to running it as The Enemy Within was coming out.

Once More With Feeling

Buffy The Vampire Slayer musical extravaganza Once More With Feeling premiered 25 years ago today.

A L I E N - RUN RABBIT RUN 1.04

Our first encounter with an unrestrained adult Xenomorph and, not unrelate, our first casualty.

Girling, J. engineer USCSS Fidanza.

A power loader has some nice bonuses but doesn’t feel as good as it should. But it’s naturally less useful when the alien gets the drop on you and you had no idea something like that existed.

But he still got in the way of the pilot running for the shuttle.

Cheering from afar

A long night ended in good news from the USA.

Dialogue thought via Lord Of Illusions

Half opens door to unwelcome visitor: “I can’t let you in.”

Unwelcome visitor barges past: “That’s okay, I’m not a vampire.”

Misreading Lord Of Illusions

At one point I thought there was an enemy that can appear in mirrors and arrack by reflection. That seemed doable in the setting. So, yoinked.

Lord Of Illusions

Lord Of Illusions (1995)

Trailer

Clive Barker’s expansion of a short story into a film as writer and director, rewat5ching for the first time in decades after seeing Book Of Hungry Names author Kyle Marquis mentioned it in a late Halloween film thread as the kind of thing worth remaking.

Imagine if two factions on a NIN message board were able to wage magikal war on each other.

Jessica Ritchey

It has some great stuff like a a really horrible cult a drive away from LA and a heroic treacherous apprentice, some interesting but odd stuff like someone doing real magic on stage and because of the big expansion of the initial story this not really being a big deal, a classic villain error, some CGI that works fine and some that looked like screensavers then.

And above all it has some really interesting casting against type. Of the main four, only Famke Janssen is playing her usual kind of thing. Scott Bakula plays shabby hard-bitten occult detective Harry D’Amour in a gap between spending years as warm trustworthy genre heroes. Kevin J. O’Connor is a bit weird and creepy but in a tragically heroic way rather than his usual weaselly comic relief.

Most of all, Daniel von Bargen does not have any standard Evil Wizard vibes - I could see him playing a cult leader well but downhome prepper nut cult. He normally played cops and military and had that look, here added with ratty robes and stubble so he looked like a squatter. Heavy magic people being out of society is an interesting idea, and contrasts with Swann’s success, but makes him seem unlikely as an apocalyptic threat. If this had been the third in a series or so this would have been a nice reversal of a norm that had already been established in the setting as well as in the genre overall, as is it’s a really odd choice, interesting but undercuts his villain style. Something to keep in mind for a Big Bad who isn’t the first the PCs face. (I suppose I’m thinking of the Mayor from Buffy.)

I recently reread the novella (The Last Illusion), which is solid, but the movie's basic premise of a dirtbag wizard war is so much more interesting than the demons in the original story. The novella is good--shades of Viy, Faust--but the movie is elevated by its creep-sleaze vibes.

Kyle Marquis

Mage 20th: Cara Lawson 3rd

Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition

Cara Lawson

Chronicle: A Door Out Of August

NYC Village Halloween Parade

Video from the NYC Village Halloween Parade, featuring the annuak mass Thriller dance and half an hur in the Queer Marching Band doing Pink Pony Club, and it being New York ending with a flotilla of Ectomobiles.

Nationals 2027 update

Urban Fantasy preliminary

Of course Angel is more naturally Noir than Buffy, but we can have a pool hall informant like Red.

Mage: The Ascension character ideas 2026

A bit vague, the setting being here and now with Paradox being strange.

That suggests an occult researcher, which suggests a Hermetic. But this may suggest that to the other players too!

Cara Lawson the Akashayana started with a group needing a fighter, becoming a Big Damn Hero because of a group needing a leader, and stylewise being because I don’t get to play enough Buffy.

I actually have a few fighter ideas. One of my ways to avoid spending too much time prodding at the freeform magic system too much.

Jim Lloyd the Orphan comedian was a result of nudging the premise lighter than other World Of Darkness games, for better or worse. Being able to fast-talk reality seemed to kinda work.

Lisa B the Ecstatic rap star was very much of the time and place.

Also last night there was a group on the bus in assorted costumes including a redhead in a leather jacket and combat trousers. That would be the costume for Cara so I took that as a sign to play her again. ;)

November

Or Noirvember as the Filmhouse calls it. Not going to try to watch a film noir every day... tempting though...

Hallowe'en 2026 review

Lot of pirates this year.

Lazy group costume option seems to be small teddy bear ears.

Someone got my reference! (The band T-shirt for Hangman’s Joke from The Crow. It was not the guy dressed as Eric.)

A Count Binface!

--

Via Mum’s neighbour kids:

“What did the cannibal get when he was late for dinner?”

It's Over 9000!

So this happened round about my Halloween post.

Happy Halloween!

It’s dark now so I can say it properly.

The Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack

The Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack with narration by Sir Patrick Stewart