The Watch House

26. Regret

26. One game you regret not trying?

Having read the full adventure series for Orpheus I couldn’t really play it when offered a chance, though it was a few years later. I’d really have to run it.

And scheduling has prevented me playing Buffy and Adventure! at the Nationals, Alien and Mothership in the last two years at GEAS, and more.

As a GM there are... let’s say a few I’d like to get to the table someday. Including a break from “first chance to play this, do something normal” setups for the games I do run, like high society historical Vampire instead of usually scuzzy modern, or going all-in on the black market and thief setup that didn’t come together last year. Running Trinity Continuum would be nice too.

Okay, Orpheus is a good choice for one, as it’s a reference to someone who regrets looking back. Ha ha.

Coop

Coop was security director for World Of Darkness live events including the Grand Masquerade and recently Darkness Emergent, the first port of call if someone needed help or to find a safe space.

Tuesday, 25 August 2026

V5: City Of Angels 41

Vampire: The Masquerade - City Of Angels session 41

Paris got to use her event planning skills for the third time this chronicle, to make it look like we weren’t just hiring a venue as a potential ambush spot.

And on meeting a Nosferatu spy: “Rat? What, were you at the end of the line for nicknames? Or the start?”

Dolly Parton

“Find out who you are and do it on purpose.”

Her family ask those considering a gift support the Imagination Library sending books to children.

Her production company Sandollar got Buffy made, and when she learned Sandollar producer Gail Berman was being paid less than the other (male) producers she cut a cheque for the difference.

RPGaDAY 2026 25. Familiarity

25. Familiarity

25. One game you want to get more familiar with?

I would like a chance to play Storypath Ultra someday, and try the Quick Play variant too, as they’re streamlined next steps after the version used in Trinity Continuum.

Buffy toy update

A first look at Monster High versions of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel, and a newly announced Polly Pocket set coming out in September 4th. Why this is happening now I dont know, but okay I guess?

Can I use the school library mini-diorama...

Monday, 24 August 2026

RPGaDAY 2026 24. Distance

24. Distance

24. Your preferred distance in any type of RPG conflict?

I’m much more up for playing an in-your-face fighter than a sniper. I want to trade barbs as well as blows, and put myself between opponents and anyone else they might be targeting. It also means not having to worry about tactical positioning and all that kind of thing.

I did recently play a gun guy (who could also do magic, so another distance effect) but this was after playing the kick-down-doors sword guy with the same group.

I mean, I’m playing a sword girl in Mage: The Ascension.

(Though not in Star Trek Adventures. Even I have my limits.)

Sunday, 23 August 2026

Vampire: The Masquerade V6 alpha playtest

Overall, this feels like an edition I could run, with quite a bit of houseruling and throwing some of its changes out entirely. Combat (physical and social) both feel more systemised. Clan Traits push clans too close to classes as is. STs not rolling dice is fine but NPCs having mostly flat difficulty feels a step too far. Coming after one of my favourite edition and getting rid of its biggest innovation, this feels like a step back while trying various new things.

(Also the feedback form really needed some N/A options for STs rather than players, and an Other spot for the list of other RPGs played.)

Coyote Vs. Acme

Coyote Vs. Acme is a lot of fun. The “based on a true story” caption at the start got the first big laugh, and the dedication at the end to everyone who made noise to get it into cinemas was lovely.

Cartoon and live action integrates nicely OOC but is the core of the issue IC.

My favourite blink-and-you’ll-miss-it gag is when:

RPGaDAY 2026 23. Fortune

23. Fortune

23. An enjoyable moment of good or bad fortune.

Sometimes I want the system to add unpredictability to RPGs but quite often I don’t really.

A statistically odd roll can derail a cool moment, and that’s why most of the games I run have limited pools that players can use to convert failure to success. So my “and then I rolled a 1” stories are more about being annoyed.

The only system where I really like the risk in every “roll” is Dread, the horror RPG with Jenga as the mechanic where the tower falling when you pull out a brick writes out your character.

But there are influences outside of the way the dice fall which can affect a game too. Like the perfectly timed crash of thunder when a player mentioned a cult threatening the city.

Saturday, 22 August 2026

RPGaDAY 2026 22. Grit

22. Grit

22. An enjoyable moment of grit PCs did or did not tough out.

Sometimes it’s fun to play the muscle. Especially when the system and group work to make that feel valid and badass.

Playing the bodyguard for a Rebel cell in Star Wars (d6 Revised) in the hold of a stolen AT-AT full of thermal detonators our pilot was driving towards a recently unearthed Sith temple to blow it up. A Sith Adept with Temple Of Doom style killer hands jumped into the hold to stop us. None of the PCs had any Force so this was not going to be a fair fight. I charged him, grabbed his wrists and bull rushed him back out the open side door, just catching the ledge and hauling myself up. The Adept jumped back up - and that was when he discovered that while I was wrestling him out the cell’s thief had slipped a detonator into his robes.

Friday, 21 August 2026

Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma

Jane Schoenbrun follows We’re All Going To The World’s Fair and I Saw the TV Glow with Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma, in a which a young indie filmmaker with a longstanding interest in horror gets to make a bigger studio picture reviving a slasher franchise and it all goes a bit sideways. Funny, weird, deeply meta, gory, much more interested in the sexuality of the slashers than the slashers themselves. My favourite little trick is the soundtrack which gets all horror for various false alarms and then doesn’t for the massacre scene recreation.

RPGaDAY 2026 21. Charity

21. Charity

21. Share an RPG charity past or present that moved you.

Tim Bradstreet had his signed early Vampire: The Masquerade art portfolios for sale at the 2011 Grand Masquerade convention in the US and I went to get one to put into the Conpulsion auction here, I mentioned this and he gave me it for free. (I bought another for myself, naturally!) And I was glad to let him know it was the first lot to go for more than £100 that year.

Photo by Martin Ericsson

There was also the time a family illness led to Conpulsion switching charity for the auction, for which I am forever grateful.

And as GM Ian mentions, the long-running Marvel SAGA game where I played Charity Chance, Agent Of SABER!

Thursday, 20 August 2026

Adventure! Is! 25!

Adventure! Is! 25!

RPGaDAY 2026 20. Promise

20. Promise

20. Have the characters kept or broken more promises?

Overall, I go for characters who keep their word, with the power to make plans and promises and act on them. I don’t play helpless or struggling very often, and when I do they rarely have much of a chance to promise anything.

As a GM do I especially punish treacherous PCs? Hmm...

Currently in the captain’s chair in Star Trek Adventures, and I keep offering to negotiate with Romulans invading our side of the Neutral Zone. Hopefully they’ll listen one of these times since the game is set just before Nemesis.

Wednesday, 19 August 2026

RPGaDAY 2026 19. Desire

19. Desire

19. A huge risk taken because of desire?

A two-player Vampire: The Requiem game I observed about a vampire boy and a mortal girl.

Tuesday, 18 August 2026

RPGaDAY 2026 18. Directness

18. Directness

18. A fast introduction of a new PC or player?

If I know players are likely to come and go I’ll try to have onboarding options and avoid cliffhangers. Emphasis on try.

Some games and settings are better for this than others, mechanically and narratively.

Overlooking the old “why do we trust this total stranger walking up to us in the middle of a secret mission?” and the magic power of the PC Glow...

D&D style fantasy calls it “West Marches” when every session begins and ends with the PCs in their base and venturing out from it. That cuts off things like multi-session dungeons and heavier ongoing plots unless you use the old un-narrative kludge of teleporting PCs in, but it’s a good idea for an open table.

Star Trek (a setting where characters can just teleport in and out mid adventure) would do this if it were realistic about its Luxury Space Communism and faster-than-light travel. Ha ha. Star Trek Adventures makes you pay player resources to get specialist NPC crew to go on camera, which is the model-the-show way of dealing with this. Star Fleet Battles RPG Prime Directive goes the other way and has a completely different command structure for its variant universe.

Mission: Impossible on TV started with selecting agents with relevant skillsets. I’ve seen someone suggest pregens in dossiers before.

(Note that the films acquire a consistent team as they go along, leading to narrative issues like needing something for both the computer geniuses to do.)

Last academic year I had a large amount of player turnover in Vampire: The Masquerade and that isn’t ideal for it or how I run it. Even then, if I’d known I could have tailored the chronicle setup to PCs being part of a group that could explain PCs coming and going and make sessions less serialised. Not ideal for personal horror or slow unravelling of mysteries but I could give it a go. Hmm.

My most setting-of-the-week one-and-done game is Doctor Who, which also has fast character creation... but following the series model really expects the PCs to be the one point of consistency.

If I want to go full “jump in any session” open table, I might go with a light superhero game like ICONS with a big team. Fast character creation, largely self-contained adventures. I’m sure threads would reappear at some point, but I can juggle and improvise so we don’t end up with too many “this should be a Penguin adventure but Batman’s player isn’t here” situations.

A large kitchen sink also helps if I want to come up with a largely standalone adventure every week.

Hey, Buffy is a light superhero game too! Albeit one that also expects a consistent Scooby Gang.