The New Mutants

31 Days Of Horror Movies 2026

Film 7 but entry 9, “PG-13” - wow, I have a lot of recent options, but have seen most of them. Mostly 15s here, some 12s.

(I will get to 7 and 8 with streaming trials.)

The New Mutants (2018-20)

Trailer

An X-Men movie-verse spinoff with no recurring characters, mixing its superheroic zapping with a horror-tinged story taken from the comic.

Some newly-empowered mutants who all have tragic backstories are being trained / imprisoned in a dingy old hospital, and now having mostly backstory-related nightmares that start to affect them physically. In the meantime they have some understandable YA issues, do some The Breakfast Club stuff unsurprisingly, and make existing fans wonder why Illyana has Kitty Pryde’s sidekick dragon as a hand puppet and is being so racist.

An outright horror with superhuman characters in danger is an interesting take, but does the tone mix work? Not really, no.

Not helped by some choices like the TV showing Buffy, where this does work, including an episode which draws immediate comparison to a much less scary monster design used here.

The medium: Disney+

Gameability: The trick would be balancing the horror stuff and the heroic stuff so it takes a while to get to the big zappy final battle.

Buffy news this week

Sarah and David at the Emmys..

Sarah shared a photo from Scooby-Doo: Origins wrapping, showing McKenna Grace who plays Daphne in a Buffy T-shirt.

McKenna Grace (Daphne) and Maxwell Jenkins (Fred)
But what does his shirt mean?

Most photos suggest more traditional costumes but if the shirt appears in the show it causes a delightful reference paradox.

RPGaDAY 2026 30. Pride

#RPGaDAY 2026

30. Pride

30. A game event that you are still proud of.

Some of the high concept episodes of The Watch House, notably the time two of the PCs found themselves behind the scenes of the TV series they were in the cast of, the time Natalie became a fairytale princess, the flashforward to a hellish possible future. You can trace where I swiped and adapted from, gotta know your classics. (And see how many Supernatural did after us.)

And some the players brought in that caught me by surprise as well, like the Milli and Ziggy bodyswap, Andy the werewolf getting split into human and superwerewolf with his player stepping up to play both, and Matthew’s player dropping the spell to make Natalie see her possible new boyfriend in a negative light going wrong as he grumbled jealously about how cool he was...

And some of the developments in season arcs as well, like a villain reveal, a starting Big Bad being written out, heel and face turns and more.

Autocratik

Runeslinger

RPGaDAY 2026 28. Devotion

#RPGaDAY 2026

28. Devotion

28. Devotion: Game you have played the most!

GMed - Due to a long history with it and several year-long runs recently probably Vampire: The Masquerade, though Buffy The Vampire Slayer is the longest I’ve run a series, almost six years.

Played - Star Wars is probably up there, mostly the D6 classic but also tried others (and wanted to go back to the D6 classic). Also a lot of the various Star Trek games almost all with one keen GM, up to Star Trek Adventures currently. Longest single games, there’s the four-year Werewolf: The Apocalypse run with that Star Trek GM and about as long with a Silver Age style Marvel SAGA game.

Autocratik - “If you’ve done every day of #RPGaDAY since it began, this is your 400th entry to the challenge. I feel tired just thinking about that!”

Runeslinger

Buffy comics delayed

The new Buffy and Angel comics that were due to start weeks ago have now been resolicited to launch later, with bigger first issues. Fingers crossed?

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...

RPGaDAY 2026 18. Directness

#RPGaDAY 2026

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.

Autocratik

Runeslinger

RPGaDAY 2026 13. Strain

#RPGaDAY 2026

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 customised six inch scale action figures of the PCs for the players of The Watch House. Not actually that heavy but certainly bulky.

Autocratik

Runeslinger

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 campaign of British indie horror game Principia Malefex 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?”

Autocratik

Runeslinger

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.

Autocratik

Runeslinger

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.

Autocratik

Runeslinger

Cara action figure happening

Found the long-haired Black Widow head, looked at available bodies that might work, bought one - X-23 from Deadpool & Wolverine. Right sort of height, decent articulation, plain grey trousers, black T-shirt and combat boots. The head is a bit high on the neck, but probably fixable. Now to look out my bits box for a sword, and separate the fingers and thumb on the right ungloved hand to hold it. Might remove the vest and T-shirt decal and repaint the sleeves so the T-shirt matches. if I get really ambitious, might Milliput on cargo trouser side pockets.

I would like to get a leather jacket torso and arms for her signaure look, maybe keeping the legs I got here, but given the current Jessica Jones is (a) in a two-pack with Daredevil for 55 quid and (b) sold out, that might have to wait.

There’s a reason I mostly did this for The Watch House during the run of Buffy and Angel figures.

Update update: found a Buffy figure jacket. Will see if the joints are at all compatible.

Update update update: found upper torso, took off X-23’s, not a perfect fit for lower torso or neck so some work still to be done. After that might go all in and paint her face.

And this is why I keep running Buffy

I have a terrible idea for a Sounds Like Hell episode. It must happen. If the player involved approves.

Buffy's best Monsters of the Weeks

You can probably guess 1 and 2 of these 15 at Reactor but plenty of interesting notes on why the listed MOTWs work.

Making a literal cat in the Buffy RPG

Making a literal cat in Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Starting after four minutes of preamble.

"Yeah ours won't talk" as they noted when I mentioned having tried with Mittens.

They are new to the system, and one new to the show.

Buffy and Angel comics interview

kelly Thompson talks to Fangoria about the initial arc and further plans, with a little new interior art too.

Sarah Michelle Gellar is the Grim Reaper - in a romance with the Devil

Thud (not a Discworld adaptation) from director Mali Elfman pairs SMG with Rudy Pankow when the Grim Reaper and the Devil meet on the job at a destination wedding.

Chosen at 23

Buffy The Vampire Slayer consluded on this day in 2003.

Ghost Of The Robot, Civilized Man

Ghost Of The Robot, Civilized Man video, featuring lead signer James Marsters in full Spike style.

Nationals 2027: Noir

The Nationals 2027 theme is Noir.

(Themes are optional, some categories fit some themes better than others, so no need to. And in 2024 they went with Gothic and added Vampire: The Masquerade as a separate category from World Of Darkness and I ended up running that. With the PCs as members and hangers-on at a Goth band, as the other game was about a haunted space. So I feel like I’ve paid my dues there.)

Can I do that, at least a bit?

Probably, depending on category...

Can I do Noir in Urban Fantasy? Sure. City Of Mist for one. Bloodshadows but don’t be silly.

Can I do Noir in Buffy? Yes but don’t wanna.

Angel yes, Buffy no.

Let other GMs do the heavy lifting, maybe throw in a reference of some kind. A statuette of a bird.

Or a time warp back to the 40s.

But if I was going to do a time warp to the mid 20th century in Buffy it would be to a 50s high school monster movie.

Hmm...

--

World Of Darkness? Sure. Period or modern noir, could absolutely do neo-noir Vampire. Or a Memoriam sequence for both.

--

Action & Adventure? Ehh. Pulp and Noir both often have 30s-40s settings but they’re not the same. Maybe see what a full tilt Pulp Maltese Falcon looks like, with Templar s still around and all.

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Horror? Val Lewton.