Vampire: The Masquerade Fourth Edition

Vampire: The Masquerade Fourth Edition announced today at GenCon. Well then.

See Jane Play!

From this year’s UK Games Expo, Paco Jaen had Cat Tobin organise a panel - she chose representation as her topic, and got Monica Valentinelli and Dr. Esther MacCallum-Stewart to talk about it. The video is now up here.

On the Path ahead

The Onyx Path 2015-16 brochure is now up for free download, with first word on books for The World Of Darkness, Vampire: The Requiem, fiction for Vampire: The Masquerade, a guide to Rich Bastards for Mage 20, and first news of Deviant: The ???. (I kinda hope it keeps the ??? subtitle...)

And a Pugmire promotional booklet too.

Spaceships in trouble

And as I consider the next game, I seem to be thinking about spaceships a lot. Spaceships in trouble.

Thoughts on a second game for this year

Leaning towards an existing setting, which may or may not have an official game attached.

Since V20 is centred on a small location, going big. Travelling.

Something relatively low-prep.

Probably episodic rather than heavily serialised. More action.

Not horror. Fantasy, SF, spies?

Depends who’s around and what they’re doing, of course.

What to do, what to do, what to do...

Still not sure what to run next academic year, other than continuing V20. At the “too many options” stage. Haven’t heard what anyone else is planning. Would of course like to play some time as well.

Doing something else during an apocalypse

The Resident Evil films started in 2002 with a very loose adaptation of the original game, and since then the series has come back every couple years, surprisingly heavily serialised as it bounces between genres, cheerfully lifting and discarding bits and pieces from various games while an unstoppable original character stomps through it slaughtering everything in her path. It’s... quite odd.

But anyway, after the first film the zombies are pretty much an occasional nuisance, so the characters get on with fighting among themselves, teaming up with different groups, coming back from the dead and trying to stop an A.I.

Ever done something like this, throwing in what might normally be a campaign premise in its own right as an added complication?

All things considered, I'd rather be heading for Gen Con.

In the meantime, here is just one of the Wrecking Crew games:

For our test recording we will be recording an NWoD Mortal one shot. This game is a sci-fi mirror using the NWoD (non-God Machine) rule set. The story is called 'Singularity' and will focus on themes of transhumanism and body horror. Here is the hook for the game:

+++++MESSAGE RECEIPT+++++
Transmitted: UNFM Command, Belt Sector HQ
Destination: Commanding Officer, UNSS Roanoke
Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2042 09:19:05 EGMT
Author: Captain Andries Brink
Ref: Possible Homicide
+++++BEGIN MESSAGE+++++ 
To the commanding officer of the UNFM patrol frigate Roanoke,
Approximately twelve hours ago Belt Sector HQ received a request for assistance from Ivan Volkov, Security Chief of the Cheiron Group space station Psychopomp. The dead body of one Dr. Cassandra Russell, Station Director, was found within her private laboratory. Station Security processed the crime scene, but only transmitted their initial findings (report attached). Psychopomp Security has failed to submit any further data, and attempts to contact the station have not received any response. 
You are ordered to rendezvous with the transport vessel Clear Horizon to take on two representatives from the Cheiron Group as advisors. You will then proceed to space station Psychopomp and assess the situation, as well as investigate the possible homicide of Dr. Cassandra Russell.
Good hunting,
Captain Andries Brink, Commanding Officer, Belt Sector HQ
 +++++END MESSAGE+++++

What's Up, Doc?

Happy 75th birthday Bugs Bunny!

And happy birthday to my sister-in-law too.

Hmm... quite a koinkidink.

Why am I mentioning this here? Without TOON I might have fled RPGs after MERP never to return...

Need some ancient manuscripts?

Via Paco Jaen: The Vatican has put 4000 of them online for free viewing.

Leverage: The Tabletop Job

Having finally gotten a hardback copy of Leverage, and being one disc away from the end of the show (awww), seems like a good time to think about running it. It’s more mechanically hefty than I generally go for, but the heft supports the style of play - Flashback activation, complications paying off.

My natural inclination after doing it straight is an urban fantasy version with crooks battling vampire gangsters. I’ve done games without the option to drop in monsters, but only for select audiences and there’s usually been something crazy in the premise, like superspies.

Jamie of TWH fame mentioned wanting Shadowrun with a different system in a recent RPGnet thread, and that’s certainly something it could do, short circuiting the frequent issue of spending more than half a session planning a break-in. (Idly thinking where I could get cyberpunky Tolkien races to do a fake credit sequence...)

Or Mission: Impossible. Or...

See also Sabotage for a practical example, complete with series creator John Rogers talking about the Actual Play. (Of course I’m jealous!)

Christmas In July

Bargains, bargains and bargains at DriveThruRPG.

(looks at Leverage Companion paperbacks... looks thoughtful...)

Reaper Bones III

The Reaper Bones III Kickstarter ends this evening, having raised over two million dollars for the production of more plastic miniatures. I’ve bought some Bones in the past, notably from their Chronoscope range of anything and everything rather than their main fantasy line, and the quality is very nice and the price a lot better than metals. Just about everything come on sale in their regular catalogue in time, so there are bits and pieces I’ll be tempted to pick up even though I use miniatures purely ornamentally.

The Middle Age Of Heroes

As part of the new Secret Wars reality fracture crossover, the X-Men get old. Cyclops’s optic blasts go the way of everyone’s eyesight. Wolverine trends towards Old Man Logan (another alternate take getting another airing). Comic Book Aging is a common complaint, so seeing it done away with is always interesting.

This goes to other fantastic styles as well - Conan was still beheading people in his seventies, following Beowulf’s example, as commented on by Cohen in Discworld. James Bond has regenerated almost as often as the Doctor. And vampire stories are at least partially about the desire to never grow old.

A title sequence for someone else

The Chronicles Of Cidri, for Tim Knight of HeroPress fame.

Please note that I do not intend to make a habit of this. :)

Destiny merchandising spreads to the physical world

A high-end 12” figure of the first of the character classes for Destiny, coming soon from 3A. I expect the other classes will soon follow, then the major aliens, then perhaps weapon and armour packs, then maybe some specific NPCs.

And then I wouldn’t be surprised to see some smaller scales, like the 5” scale Halo figures from McFarlane, complete with swappable gear packs. And hopefully miniatures, and tabletop games, and other things we have for Halo...

In the meantime, what might you use for a Destiny RPG? Maybe Trinity tech, Adventure! toughness and 3:16 mass of kills?

The raid on Innsmouth was just the beginning

Via Mark: The Litany Of Earth by Ruthanna Emrys pictures a world where the government reacted to Cthulhu worship rather more thoroughly. Maybe too thoroughly. Maybe not...

Got some gangsters? Share!

I didn’t start the “It’s My Birthday, Give Me X” threads on RPGnet but I certainly helped popularise them, so I post on most of them if I can. I’m currently the only respondent to thealmightyrob’s request for gangsters. Come on, folks, let’s make this a thing!

Edit: A few more there now, and another of mine, which lead to my learning about the first ever car chase. Which is hilarious.

And a new birthday request from DeathbyDoughnut, for steampunk magitech.

"D&D saved my life"

The New Yorker on the cultural impact of Dungeons & Dragons.

Kros: Hallowed Ground

A Kickstarter signal boost for Kros: Hallowed Ground, a graphic novel by John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake (Grimjack, The Spirit) about a one-man war against vampires in the shadow of the battle of Gettysburg.