Les Fantômes are loose

Les Fantômes, one of the Allegiance I created for Trinity Continuum, was a small side option in the core rulebook. But now they have a full writeup by Daniella Lauzon. 

An eight page PDF for $1.99, it’s a steal! (Sorry.)

Loki 1.04: The Nexus Event

Loki

1.04: The Nexus Event

“Frayed nerves and paranoia infiltrate the TVA as Mobius and Hunter B-15 search for Loki and Sylvie.”

44 minutes plus credits. including mid-credit scene! The episode photo is a bit of a spoiler in itself.

Coincidences

I’m not a fan of coincidences in fiction, which is one contributing factor to my conspiracy mystery plots.

Reminded of this because apparently in Blood Red Sky, a movie about a vampire on a hijacked plane (which unlike a Buffy one-shot I ran fifteen years ago isn’t called Stakes On A Plane) the hijackers aren’t vampire hunters or anything, they just managed to hijack a plan with a vampire on it. Oopsie.

Which, sure, okay for an inciting incident - Die Hard, Taken and John Wick all start with the antagonists accidentally messing with the protagonist - but somehow with a vampire involved it seems a bit much. And y’know, I throw vampires into different genres all the time. It just seems like them being after her specifically (possibly with incomplete information) would be one less implausibility to deal with.

Bloodhunt Update

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodhunt isn’t even out yet and already confirmed Ventrue as the first clan to be added after the starting Brujah, Nosferatu and Toreador. As the clans so far have two archetypes I would expect a Dominate one (affecting mortal SPCs as well as enemies?) and a Fortitude one (as tanking damage is clearly useful) as the Brujah didn’t get a Presence one. (Not that every power maps directly to a Discipline, one of the Nosferatu options is a supply of smoke bombs.) I would also expect to see them in sharp suits, fancy historical styles, militaria and maybe even armour.

Also, title sequence, featuring Katana And Trenchcoat.

Foundation rising

Apple TV+ and showrunner David Goyer adapt Foundation, the biiiiig space opera by Isaac Asimov, starting September 24th.

A galactic empire falls, and what will follow?

It appears to be a pretty loose adaptation. Jane Espenson talks about it on Twitter, with previous adaptation tryer John Rogers.

Among other things, the Encyclopedia Galactica reference in Hitchhiker’s comes from here, which really surprised me when I found out as it works so much better as a joke.

Pride was a riot

And it can be again.

RPGaDAY 2021 is coming

RPGaDAY, writing prompts for every day in August, returns, and the prompt graphic is already up at founder David Chapman’s home site.

Birthday 2021

47. Not a significant number, but feels like one.

Storytelling Secrets with Jason Carl

Jason Carl talks Storytelling and GMing, from the Elysium Weekend Of Darkness virtual convention.

The Bad Batch 1.09: Bounty Lost

Star Wars: The Bad Batch

1.09: Bounty Lost

“The Batch embark on a rescue mission.”

24 minutes plus credits.

Cad Bane has Omega! The Batch have to jump away to escape Crosshair! Todo 360’s leg still isn’t back on!

Know your enemy

“John Wick is coming for us! What can we do?”

“I have an idea...”

Loki 1.03: Lamentis

Loki

1.03: Lamentis

“Loki finds out The Variant’s plans, but he has his own that will forever alter both their destinies.”

A mere 38 minutes plus credits (including the Loki-specific Marvel intro with episode-specific music over it) so it makes sense that this was the episode where the least happens, as we basically follow one straightforward plot.

I presume a lot of that was done on green screen or virtual sets, although possibly with some classic Doctor Who quarry location shooting?

“How do I look?”

“Like someone with a shit plan.”

Also: 

“You’re a prince, must’ve been would-be princesses? Or perhaps another prince.”

“A bit of both.”

Series director Kate Herron talks about the importance of that moment on Twitter.

World Of Darkness - Crimson Thaw

World Of Darkness - Crimson Thaw, a comics mini-series spinning off from Vampire: The Masquerade - Winter’s Teeth will feature a clash with werewolves.

(The solicit listing spoils a plot point in an issue for WT that hasn’t come out.)

Quake at 25

Today is the 25th anniversary of Quake, the 3D-polygon-based follow-up to id Software’s famous first-person shooter Doom.

Both of them feature design work and monsters by Call Of Cthulhu designer Sandy Petersen, who tells of why it was called Quake as a holdover from the protagonist wielding a ground-smashing magic hammer several iterations before the one we got.

Not that the story matters - Quake II dumps the original interdimensional medieval Cthulhoid setup for an alien invasion and has enough story to justify its action coherently, and some fans considered that too much - but the version that nearly happened sounds pretty fun too. It also explains why the protagonist has even less of a personality than the much latterly named Doom Slayer. (Not counting the Doom films, or the comic which gave him entirely too much personality.)

Add the creepy ambient Trent Reznor soundtrack and generally green and brown, rust and dried blood aesthetic and it can still feel tense after all this time.

Name a Rodent Of Unusual Size!

Specifically a Northern Luzon Giant Cloud Rat born at Edinburgh Zoo.

Leslye Headland on Star Wars and RPGs

To me, that kind of stuff is so fun, because I also played some Star Wars RPGs. And that’s my favorite version of Star Wars, the Star Wars where you get to make up your own Star Wars. So when people are like, what’s your favorite film? And what’s your favorite piece of media? I’m like, “I just really love the RPGs.”

The A.V. Club talks to Russian Doll co-creator Leslye Headland about her forthcoming Star Wars series: The Acolyte, the saga and setting, and making her own stories there already.

Thanks to Rob Wieland for the link.

The Rocketeer at 30

The Rocketeer came out in the US thirty years ago today. 

Watch The Rocketeer. It’s great. Example.

Taking a pitch from one style to another

Person Of Interest started with questions about the surveillance state and the possibility of A.I. affecting society and ran with it overtaking the original procedural premise, making great modern cellphone cyberpunk as it did.

But after following up Ian A. A. Watson’s snarky comment about Knight Rider with this one:

Most episodes never felt much like ”a shadowy flight into the dangerous world of man who does not exist” either.

Person Of Interest is a shadowy flight into the dangerous world of man who does not exist. It has them ”champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless in a world of criminals who operate above the law” as well. And it has a very small group (with a lot of financial clout, like FLAG) making a difference too.

At the time it was likened to The Equalizer, which it’s close to with a former secret agents taking on jobs of the week and a similarly gloomy tone, but that show never had an A.I. as a main character.

V5: Red Right Hand 2.01

Vampire: The Masquerade fifth edition

Red Right Hand book two

The PCs are given an assignment that involves modern media, so as recently alive people they might understand it. Not that they do.

Finding a needle drop for the first session made easier by a scene in, yes, a Goth club.

It’s dangerous

It’s dangerous to know

When it comes are you gonna throw

Your bite into the game

Know what’s right for your name

Lose your battle it’s all the same

Zola Jesus, Dangerous Days

Summer and winter

No, you’re writing up an Actual Play of the Christmas episode of your last RPG and listening to sad Christmas music a day before midsummer!

Okay, you’re probably not doing that.

Sarah McLachlan, Wintersong

Edit two days later: This album features a cover of River by Joni Mitchell from her album Blue, first released 50 years ago today, so yeah, sad Christmas music as far from Christmas as possible is a thing.

Vampire: The Succubus Club - an idea

A possible more thorough hook for an in-person game after more than a year of running games online with purposely basic premises.

Vampires who back, run, or otherwise have strong reasons to hang out at and care about a club. The music venue itself being important, with arranging events and and dealing with keeping it safe and reasonably neutral like Rick’s in Casablanca.

The key would be to make it not just a place for adventures to start, like my recurring idea of a Buffy game about a band where the band and monster hunting kind of get in each other’s way. (The characters could be a band in this too, an idea that goes back to the first edition Vampire: The Masquerade rulebook, since being a band while also being vampires would clash in a frequently plot-producing way, like vampires trying to do just about anything.)

The title is a placeholder from the famous Masquerade club from Chicago By Night, I believe the first of two individual buildings to get its own sourcebook. Could be run with Masquerade or Requiem. Probably V5.

In any case, should be run loud.

Juneteenth

Juneteenth is now a holiday, in a time when the knowledge of history it is part of is threatened.

The Bad Batch 1.08: Reunion

Star Wars: The Bad Batch

1.08: Reunion

“As they traverse a decommissioned medical facility, the Batch encounter an unexpected threat.”

23 minutes plus credits.

The Batch are still on the scrapyard planet Bracca... and Crosshair is on his way.

(Would it have worked better if we hadn’t known that right away? Hmm.)

Pig trailer

Pig, starring Nicolas Cage as a truffle hunter whose beloved pig is stolen, appears to be a serious take on that tagline.

Like any commodity of such high value for size, there is a black market for truffles. Leverage looked at it in The French Connection Job.

Picard season 2

A new Picard season 2 trailer for, of course, Captain Picard Day.

Time is broken. Q is here. Coincidence? Yeah, no.

Loki 1.02: The Variant

Loki

1.02: The Variant

“Mobius puts Loki to work, but not everyone at TVA is thrilled about the God of Mischief’s presence.”

Setting up the new status quo with Loki working with Mobius...

Marvel Multiverse more, maybe

Marvel Multiverse RPG playtest books are already up for preorder on Amazon in the US. Amazon is not the most reliable fact-checker for preorders, but it indicates a $9.99 price tag and a 3D6-based system.

Rasputin's effect on film credits

“This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.”

Why? 

“an exiled Russian prince sued MGM in 1933 over the studio’s Rasputin biopic, claiming that the American production did not accurately depict Rasputin’s murder. And the prince ought to have known, having murdered him.”

Slate article by Duncan Fyfe. Via QI on Twitter

Wizard / conductor

“Do you need wizard references? Google orchestra conductors.”

Comics creator and illustrator Isa M on Twitter

So now I have more Tremere than my new Vampire: The Masquerade game needs. You could fill a chantry with different personalities.

And now “Tremere who actually is an orchestra conductor” is in my idea pile as well.

Bonus: one of the conductors in the gallery is Elim Chan, who got into conducting to use a magic wand.

OPP Con and Elysium weekend

Quite a lot of news from Onyx Path and Renegade Games (including big reprints of OP V5 books by Renegade) - this is not all.

Trinity got a first look at Assassins and Anima and a reveal of Victorian SF setting Aether.

Vampire: The Masquerade 5 got art previews for Sabbat, Second Inquisition, and a deluxe prop box version of the Book of Nod. (Also this week the Bloodhunt trailer and a new Swansong trailer as well.)

Also I came joint third in the audience for the V5 trivia, tripped up which elder is a Gangrel.

Raiders Of The Lost Ark at 40

Empire talks to Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Lawrence Kasdan, John Williams and more for the 40th anniversary of Raiders Of The Lost Ark.

They Came From Classified

... is actually They Came From Classified.

West Of Darkness

Following a general World Of Darkness filmography thread where I went on an aside about horror and supernatural Westerns, a reminder on a Facebook group... Have I not done this here?

Near Dark is a Western in tone... with some characters dating back to the era..

High Plains Drifter is ambiguous, Ghost Town (1988) is more fantastical and adventurous, Bone Tomahawk is harsh, Grim Prairie Tales is an anthology so a mix of styles.

Dead Birds would work as a one-shot.

And they keep coming. I haven’t seen The Wind or The Pale Door.

For a bonus point, I imagine the second Sabbat Civil War looking like the start of Gangs Of New York except at night. Like The Warriors with slightly more top hats. (Note: derogatory language.)

And yes of course a horror Western is on the list of games I’d like to do.

The Bad Batch 1.07: Battle Scars

Star Wars: The Bad Batch

1.07: Battle Scars

“As they traverse a decommissioned medical facility, the Batch encounter an unexpected threat.”

24 minutes plus credits, the first episode not to be shorter than the one before!

(Inconsistent pluralisation, last week it was “the Batch encounters”...)

Following an in medias res opening Cid isn’t being very generous with the Batch’s cut on her jobs, when they’re interrupted by A Mysterious Stranger...

Garbage: No Gods No Masters

The new Garbage album No Gods No Masters shows a mix of classic Garbage-y sounds, a bit of a punky feel in The Creeps and a goodly amount of righteous anger in The Men Who Rule The World and Waiting For God.

As well as the already released title single and Wolves and an electric ballad called Uncomfortably Me, the last song is called This City Will Kill You. It’s like they’re offering Vampire chronicle quotes on purpose now.

Bonus trivia: The cover photo was taken by Shirley Manson herself in Edinburgh’s Dean Cemetery.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodhunt

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodhunt is the forthcoming free Battle Royale for the setting. 

It looks great, I expect to be terrible at it.

Trenchcoat And Katana!

It isn’t going to be like my Vampire games, but neither was Redemption, which was the first Vampire: The Masquerade computer game and the only one for four years.

The Lord Of The Rings: The War Of The Rohirrim

The legend of Helm hammerhand as an animated feature from Kenji Kamiyama, director of Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex. More at Deadline, mentioning Philippa Boyens working as a consultant on the project.

I was not expecting this.

SAC shows some great action sequences, and some good introspective dialogue scenes, both essential to a Middle-earth war story, especially with a war with people rather than the forces of Sauron.

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant is loosed upon the world.

Loki 1.01: Glorious Purpose

Loki

1.01: Glorious Purpose

“After stealing the Tesseract in “Avengers: Endgame,” Loki lands before the Time Variance Authority.”

The title comes from Loki’s introductory speech in Avengers, reminding us that were dealing with the Loki of that era, not the one who had three films worth of major character development since. even though tonally we’re closest to Thor: Ragnarok...

The Sandman behind the scenes teaser

Some props, some locations, a puppet bird... I will show you the future in a handful of behind the scenes shots.

Vampires in Goth clubs

Aesthetic and the baseline reluctance for countercultures to invoke mainstream authorities. Gothic culture's affectations make for a default baseline Masquerade, and the darker emotionality allows Kindred to indulge the memory of what it means to be alive.

Justin Achilli

Cloak & Dagger

Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger (S1 trailer) premiered three years ago today. A serious YA drama based on the comics duo, played by Aubrey Joseph and Olivia Holt, it dropped their drugs-related origin but keeps drug use as a plot along with institutional racism, homelessness, corporate negligence and police corruption and violence, and the main plot of season two tackles trafficking. It is, as you can guess, pretty heavy much of the time.

This interview with showrunner Joe Pokaski ahead of S2 and the linked PSA at Marvel demonstrate that.

It was part of a Freeform channel substrand along with the pilot for the much lighter-hearted New Warriors, and which also got a crossover with Runaways on Hulu.

Like the Netflix Marvel shows it stays fairly grounded in terms of character plots, costumes and villains. Unlike the Netflix series that kept everybody in New York, the show moves the unhappily empowered teens to New Orleans, a good choice for a different and flavourful backdrop IMHO.

Our young maybe-heroes’ powers reflect and complement each other, making for an unusual partnership. The series also runs with them being part of a pattern, a Chosen Two... with some trouble ahead.

Another reason to watch it is the involvement of writer and producer Christine Boylan, half of the producing team working on World Of Darkness media. She wrote the first episode after the feature-length pilot which has riot police with flaming torches and a 3D printed voodoo doll, great modern fantastic ideas.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Red Right Hand 2

A sequel to last summer’s V5 game and a partial reboot due to me having recycled some SPCs and other setting details.

Two returning characters, Val the Thin-Blood pathologist and Gabriel the runaway Lasombra doctor, with three new ones, so far two made, Briar the Caitiff vampire cosplayer and Jasper the Gangrel escaped shovelhead...

My previous game’s main plot hook of the city falling into chaos after the Prince leaves due to the Beckoning could work with this group unlike the season one group. Drat.

Having the same Prince vanish twice looks like carelessness.

Villain origins

Cruella looks fun, though... not much to do with Cruella DeVil, who wasn’t exactly a nuanced character to begin with. But it comes after Maleficent making the title character positively angelic, so so one takes what one can get.

Ultimately, if a villain origin story doesn’t have a FIST OF BATS then I might watch it but on some level I’ll be disappointed.

Even Monopoly can be good...

Even Monopoly can be good when modified to help WWII POWs escape. A small tribute to ingenuity on the anniversary of D-Day.

V5 Red Right Hand new

 I have players for my summer game starting tomorrow. Even a new one!

RPGs are an oral tradition

How did you learn to play or GM?

I had to learn GMing by reading and doing after playing once with someone who learned the same way, and even then advice in magazines was a big help, perhaps especially the conflicting advice. Getting to play with other GMs absolutely helped. I’m still learning.

John Rogers on Twitter cites a thread about how complicated RPGs can be, and picks up on the popularity of Actual Play video and audio as showing a version of what really happens at the table.

N.K. Jemisin's The Broken Earth

N.K. Jemisin has announced that The Broken Earth trilogy is coming to cinemas, and that she will be writing the adaptations.

Statline Acronyms

Following the announcement of a new marvel RPG with a statline that spells MARVEL, the resulting joke on Twitter about what DC would do led to other suggestions such as David Goodner’s opposed SUPERMAN stats and inevitable BUFFY and VAMPIRE jokes.

DC would of course want to reflect their core values:

Brawn

Agility

Toughness

Memory

Alertness

kNowledge

--

Brawn

Uncanny

Fight with weapons

Fight without weapons

Yelling (or DG’s suggestion for catchall skill Yada Yada Yada)

Brawn for strength and toughness, Uncanny for occult knowledge or power, Fight for fighting with or without weapons, Yada Yada Yada for any other special skill.

(Suggestion for second F by JobotBobica, Figure It Out.)

--

Violent

Angry

Mysterious

Plotting

Immortal

Regretful

Evil

Violent for fighting, Angry for being scary, Mysterious for trickery, Plotting for lying or spotting lies, Immortal for knowledge based on a long unlife, Regretful for dealing with emotions, Evil for not dealing with emotions...

And I have now created a thread on RPGnet to avoid derailing the Marvel Multiverse thread. Now a Staff Pick, including some previous published examples!

Summer pitches

GEAS summer pitches.

In my case, Vampire: The Masquerade - Red Right Hand season two.

(I probably should have updated the bit about the prince being missing. Oh well.)

Update: I have players for my summer V5 game starting tomorrow. Even a new one! Now I just need, like, a plan...

Marvel Multiverse RPG

Marvel announces the Marvel Multiverse RPG, described as “an accessible and easy-to-learn system for newcomers to tabletop RPGs” which seems like a good call.

A new unique system again, using dice (so not like the card-based Saga which my regular group still often plays, or the resource-counting Universe system which we read but never tried) and published by Marvel themselves like the Universe system.

Starting with a playtest book in spring 2022 before the full system in 2023.

Stats called...

Might

Agility

Resilience

Vigilance

Ego

Logic

Well, the statline certainly spells something more relevant than FASERIP.

The Bad Batch 1.06: Decommissioned

Star Wars: The Bad Batch

1.06: Decommissioned

“On a mission to acquire a valuable asset, the Batch encounters smugglers after the same target.”

21 minutes plus credits.

The Bad Batch answers the question of what happened to the droid armies after the end of the Clone Wars, as we see them being scrapped in a giant smelting facility. Cid sends the Batch to bring her a Tactical Droid.

“With clones now serving the Empire, knowing how to defeat them just went up in value.” Tech explains why.

So much so that they’re not the only people after the Droid.

V5 Nobody's Home Pride special

Celeste’s player talked to the World Of Darkness Stories Instagram for its Pride event.

Gar Hanrahan on The Pirates Of Drinax

Gar Hanrahan on The Pirates Of Drinax, the epic pirate-flavoured fully-stocked sandbox campaign he created for Traveller at Mongoose, currently at the Bundle Of Holding along with the RPG it was written for.

CHVRCHES, How Not To Drown

CHVRCHES, How Not To Drown, featuring Robert Smith, from the forthcoming album Screen Violence.

Eek. Straight onto the Vampire playlist for you.

The Hammer and the Stake

The Hammer and the Stake: 1920s era Eastern European socialists fight a tyrannical government led by Count Dracula!

Now on Kickstarter, with a currently PWYW quickstart, the RPG of the RPGnet thread.

WoD BNS Pride Store

The World Of Darkness and By Night Studios Pride store has a lot of symbols for a lot of flags on a lot of items, with 20% of proceeds to the Trevor Project.

June

If you want to do a Pride thing and can safely, do so.

I like Saturday Night Live’s reminder that Pride is a mixed bag like all big events.