Chicago By Ludonarrative

Ludonarrative Dissidents look at Chicago By Night V5 and how it reflects changes to Vampire: The Masquerade.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Eternal Whispers

Vampire: The Masquerade - Eternal Whispers is an overhead rotaty CRPG, like Disco Elysium with the slow reveals or a presumably less violent Redemption, about, yes, a vampire awakened from a long time in torpor. In this case in post-Sabbat Montreal, as part of its vampire history.

Star Trek: Shadow Frontier

Star Trek: Shadow Frontier, a first person? horror??? Star Trek game! starring Ro Laren!!!

(Also announced a base building game,. Outposts Unknown.)

Moviedrome

The BFI looks back at Moviedrome, the BBC2 cult film strand that served as film school for 1988-2000 kids, with presenter director Alex Cox and show producer Nick Freand Jones.

A Giles moment

Giles Exposition Song custom figure, by me, September 2006

Anthony Head

Anthony Head has died, aged 72. I love his work, and his commitment to animal rights and causes.

The Power Of Pride Bundle 2026

The Power Of Pride Bundle 2026 “is a grassroots mutual aid bundle that showcases indie media from hundreds of queer creators across the globe and provides them with direct financial aid. The sales event begins on June 1, 2026 and runs until July 6, 2026.”

396 items from 284 creators, “contents include items such as digital games, physical games, zines, books, comics, ASMR, and even a book of song lyrics” and including NSFW items in solidarity with those affected by censorship of queer subject matter regardless of content.

$60 full donation or $10 pay-what-you-can

VTM GMT 0

Should I offer to run a VTM game for the VTM GMT 0 discord? Hmm.

As a hangout with mostly active fans and Storyteller types I would expect interest but also OPINIONS.

And if I did, what kind? Something straightforward for those who haven’t had a chance to try V5? Something offbeat to take advantage of the demographic? Probably something relatively normal for a first go...

John Blanche

Hugely sad. We've lost John Blanche. It's hard to know where to begin. He set fire to a generation's imagination, and those fires show no sign of stopping burning. His work very much illuminated the darkness.

Kieron Gillen

John Blanche, WFRP The Enemy Within Campaign cover

Blanche brought a riot of colour and Bosch-like strangeness to Games Workshop, Fighting Fantasy and beyond, and kept that energy through a career spanning decades.

Stargate

The new Stargate series is not going ahead at Amazon, Empire mentioning reports saying it was too fans-only. (Unlike, say, The Rings Of Power, where that fan owns the company.) Stargate being such an easy setup I would guess another one will be along sometime.

Darkness Emergent LA itself

With the natural focus on the V? announcement and related panels, a look at the Darkness Emergent LARP and related events from the POV of an immersive horror event fan which makes for interesting reading for those looking at running something big.

I was not expecting a giant puppet monster. Nice!

Onslaught by Adam Wingard

Onslaught trailer and talk at Empire. The director of The Guest is back on his supersoldier villain thing! Adria Arjona (Andor) is the big damn hero, and Michael Biehn adds extra Terminator cred.

Hey now, hey now now...

So this is quite a thing. Thanks S.

Quoting the source:

Hey do you love This Corrosion by the Sisters of Mercy? Do you wish it sounded exactly like Kylie Minogue’s Can’t Get You Out Of My Head?  

Well then Lauryl Sulfate & Her Ladies of Leisure have you covered!

I mean, they started it.

(And the cover of She’s Lost Control by Joy Division on the same EP is much more on-model.)

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.