Started by Chuck Wendig, Tales From Black Friday is only a slight exaggeration of the "event". We don't even have Thanksgiving here.
"Snow falls inside Target. The eyeless angel wears BEATS BY DRE headphones. It promises you savings. You puke coins."
Friday 28 November 2014
Star Wars
I'm of the generation that went geeky through Star Wars, so the first footage from the new sequel trilogy (by one of my generation) was always going to work on at least some level.
Spaceships and blasters and running and explosions and lightsabres and monsters and droids and snark and who'll end up with who...
And it's so very playable as well. Half a dozen characters in a broken spaceship against an endless army of supervillains and planet-busting weapons. Played it a lot, and even run it.
And then there are the prequels, which tried something different - a big sweeping epic about the central people caught up in a tragedy. They were just uneven, and weren't much fun. Still, points for trying.
Spaceships and blasters and running and explosions and lightsabres and monsters and droids and snark and who'll end up with who...
And it's so very playable as well. Half a dozen characters in a broken spaceship against an endless army of supervillains and planet-busting weapons. Played it a lot, and even run it.
And then there are the prequels, which tried something different - a big sweeping epic about the central people caught up in a tragedy. They were just uneven, and weren't much fun. Still, points for trying.
Topicality
So this week we've had rioting, scandal, a national holiday in the US which we don't celebrate here and yet still Black Friday is apparently a thing here. How much would you put into a game set around the present?
The Ferguson rioting feels too close to do more than mention it. I had Occupy appear in games when that was going on - the difference being that it was peaceful, it didn't feel disrespectful to reference it.
Scandal... eh, there's always scandal.
Thanksgiving probably gets a passing mention as I'm running a US-set game for non-US gamers and not all of the PCs have homes to go to. Christmas is the big "home for the holidays" event here, and wrapped up in midwinter and rebirth and angels and stuff, so it's going to get a session to itself in a few weeks.
Black Friday invites a few jokes, nothing more.
The Ferguson rioting feels too close to do more than mention it. I had Occupy appear in games when that was going on - the difference being that it was peaceful, it didn't feel disrespectful to reference it.
Scandal... eh, there's always scandal.
Thanksgiving probably gets a passing mention as I'm running a US-set game for non-US gamers and not all of the PCs have homes to go to. Christmas is the big "home for the holidays" event here, and wrapped up in midwinter and rebirth and angels and stuff, so it's going to get a session to itself in a few weeks.
Black Friday invites a few jokes, nothing more.
Tuesday 25 November 2014
Nosferatu!
In twenty-three years I've never seen someone create a Nosferatu in a tabletop Vampire: The Masquerade game.
It nearly happened at a recent session of an ongoing Masquerade game I hear about regularly-ish... then didn't.
The fact that I've seen one in each of the last two Requiem games I've been in - one monstrously ugly and one not ugly but still scary - makes me think the fact Masquerade Nosferatu must always be ugly could be what puts people off.
I've seen some in chats - usually "alt" secondary characters though, even there.
Masquerade LARPS, meanwhile, have lots of Nosferatu, mostly played by people who want to show up to games in monster makeup.
Likewise, if the WOD MMO had come out, I would have at least tried out wilder options for making a character avatar. A strong visual and a virtual dressing-up box is always appealing.
Then again, nobody's played a particularly attractive character in the last couple games I've run either. That's probably stranger... The games have tended towards investigation rather than social interaction, so standing out either way wouldn't really help.
It nearly happened at a recent session of an ongoing Masquerade game I hear about regularly-ish... then didn't.
The fact that I've seen one in each of the last two Requiem games I've been in - one monstrously ugly and one not ugly but still scary - makes me think the fact Masquerade Nosferatu must always be ugly could be what puts people off.
I've seen some in chats - usually "alt" secondary characters though, even there.
Masquerade LARPS, meanwhile, have lots of Nosferatu, mostly played by people who want to show up to games in monster makeup.
Likewise, if the WOD MMO had come out, I would have at least tried out wilder options for making a character avatar. A strong visual and a virtual dressing-up box is always appealing.
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| It's the combover that really kills it. |
Then again, nobody's played a particularly attractive character in the last couple games I've run either. That's probably stranger... The games have tended towards investigation rather than social interaction, so standing out either way wouldn't really help.
Saturday 22 November 2014
What We Do In The Shadows
... Yeah, that looks quite a lot like what we do in the shadows. Out here now, months ahead of the US.
I imagine as bands have taken to This Is Spinal Tap, WOD games and especially Vampire game groups may start dropping the odd quote. Hopefully not as many as Monty Python And The Holy Grail quotes around any game of Pendragon - no game can survive that!
"Vampire! Vampire here! Vampire! Right here!"
I imagine as bands have taken to This Is Spinal Tap, WOD games and especially Vampire game groups may start dropping the odd quote. Hopefully not as many as Monty Python And The Holy Grail quotes around any game of Pendragon - no game can survive that!
"Vampire! Vampire here! Vampire! Right here!"
Thursday 20 November 2014
In last night's Walking Alone, the Puny Mortals got into that warehouse.
And soon wished they hadn't.
And soon wished they hadn't.
Tuesday 18 November 2014
WOD MMO galleries, in French and Russian
When the WOD MMO shuttered, so did most of the English language fan sites, so a lot of the revealed art has become scarce...
... except in France, or Russia.
... except in France, or Russia.
New Bremen memories
New Bremen, the official moderated cWOD Java chat that run from 2000 to Gehenna.
A souvenir: VTES cards. Made by Jae, TPO Claudia Welles among others:
A souvenir: VTES cards. Made by Jae, TPO Claudia Welles among others:
There are only so many cool names out there.
Or: Why NB had so many guys called Marcus.
Repost from 2011:
So I'm naming Vampire NPCs, and they generally have Anglo-Saxon names as the game's set in Britain, and they really need names the players will take seriously. Sure, the Prince could be called Fred, but no.
(For the record, the Prince is called Michael. Scary angelic reference, hard K sound in the middle. Sure, it could be shortened to Mike - or Mickey - but none of the other NPCs will do that...)
Not a problem for those I can just give nicknames to, or those who get non-Anglo-Saxon names, and less a problem for those who only really need a first or last name, but I'm already flipping back and forwards to see if I already have a Simon. And yes I do, damn it.
Repost from 2011:
So I'm naming Vampire NPCs, and they generally have Anglo-Saxon names as the game's set in Britain, and they really need names the players will take seriously. Sure, the Prince could be called Fred, but no.
(For the record, the Prince is called Michael. Scary angelic reference, hard K sound in the middle. Sure, it could be shortened to Mike - or Mickey - but none of the other NPCs will do that...)
Not a problem for those I can just give nicknames to, or those who get non-Anglo-Saxon names, and less a problem for those who only really need a first or last name, but I'm already flipping back and forwards to see if I already have a Simon. And yes I do, damn it.
Playing a vampire versus playing Vampire
Repost from my LJ, 2012:
So I'm watching Near Dark again ("Best vampire film ever." "I knew there was a reason I liked you." "That and I'm adorable when drunk.") and thinking that:
(a) this kind of thing happens in the world of Vampire all the time, having been one of its defining influences and influenced in turn by its number one source Interview With The Vampire,
and (b) unlike Interview it never connects to a wider world. And it would be very different if it did. Like Dracula they could be the only vampires out there.
Would Jesse (or indeed Dracula) be less cool if we knew his backstory? Probably a bit. Would he be a less threatening figure if he mentioned avoiding big cities because they're crawling with other vampires?
Being Human, meanwhile, has made a WoD-y Interview-y world of hidden vampire conspiracies and outcast werewolves and stuck ghosts work by making the vampire protagonists outsiders who want no part of it, at least partially defined by their enmity to the local kings and the Old Ones, and sometimes pulled in against their will. So, hmm.
When playing Vampire one's PC being a vampire is somewhat secondary because it's far from unique. So if I wanted to make a big thing of a PC being a vampire, I'd do it in something else or at least take it out of the wider milieu. (This might factor in to the old "I'm running Vampire - " "can I play a Mage?" problem, which I saw in action just a few weeks ago.)
It's certainly encouraged me to keep the number of vampires in The Centre Cannot Hold (my Vampire game at the time) down to a minimum, but the support framework of bosses and rules and clans and covenants is still there. Hmm. Maybe next time I'll go all the way. The PCs and starting NPCs are the only monsters in the whole setting. It'd be interesting to try, certainly.
So I'm watching Near Dark again ("Best vampire film ever." "I knew there was a reason I liked you." "That and I'm adorable when drunk.") and thinking that:
(a) this kind of thing happens in the world of Vampire all the time, having been one of its defining influences and influenced in turn by its number one source Interview With The Vampire,
and (b) unlike Interview it never connects to a wider world. And it would be very different if it did. Like Dracula they could be the only vampires out there.
Would Jesse (or indeed Dracula) be less cool if we knew his backstory? Probably a bit. Would he be a less threatening figure if he mentioned avoiding big cities because they're crawling with other vampires?
Being Human, meanwhile, has made a WoD-y Interview-y world of hidden vampire conspiracies and outcast werewolves and stuck ghosts work by making the vampire protagonists outsiders who want no part of it, at least partially defined by their enmity to the local kings and the Old Ones, and sometimes pulled in against their will. So, hmm.
When playing Vampire one's PC being a vampire is somewhat secondary because it's far from unique. So if I wanted to make a big thing of a PC being a vampire, I'd do it in something else or at least take it out of the wider milieu. (This might factor in to the old "I'm running Vampire - " "can I play a Mage?" problem, which I saw in action just a few weeks ago.)
It's certainly encouraged me to keep the number of vampires in The Centre Cannot Hold (my Vampire game at the time) down to a minimum, but the support framework of bosses and rules and clans and covenants is still there. Hmm. Maybe next time I'll go all the way. The PCs and starting NPCs are the only monsters in the whole setting. It'd be interesting to try, certainly.
Vampire LARP advice from a Vampire LARP developer
Jason Andrew, including an early version of The Economy Of Cool, an article in their new ST advice book.
Night And The City
My last game, Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition. (Blood And Smoke, the new Requiem rulebook, wasn't out yet when we started.)
A Brujah, a Gangrel, a Toreador, and a Puny Mortal.
A bastard Prince. Some nice Anarchs, some stupid Anarchs, and some scary practical Anarchs.
A dangerous drug gang that isn't even backed by vampires.
Sabbat occultists who turn up to steal an artefact and that's all. Tremere looking into it.
A plan to oust the Prince. By someone the PCs don't like either.
A scary door.
A Brujah, a Gangrel, a Toreador, and a Puny Mortal.
A bastard Prince. Some nice Anarchs, some stupid Anarchs, and some scary practical Anarchs.
A dangerous drug gang that isn't even backed by vampires.
Sabbat occultists who turn up to steal an artefact and that's all. Tremere looking into it.
A plan to oust the Prince. By someone the PCs don't like either.
A scary door.
Monday 17 November 2014
Walking Alone
My current game, Puny Mortals! stumbling into the (n)WOD, using the second edition rules as previewed in The God-Machine Chronicle.
A cop, a coroner, a college girl whose brother disappeared under suspicious circumstances, and the brother's roommate. They have a few ways of looking into suspicious events, and they all have reasons to.
They looked at a weird crime scene (the brother's ID being found with the corpse, which wasn't his).
They were warned not to look too closely at a turf war between two gangs... backed by vampires.
This led to a sit-down meeting with a vampire in a dark scary nightclub - the coroner already knows about vampires.
They met the other side (and a neutral werewolf) while sneaking into a fancy Halloween party. (Other possible "Halloween special" ideas I discussed with other STs and GMs included a haunted house and a Scooby-Doo mystery, but the fourth session was a bit early for a Scooby-Doo ending.)
This led in turn to stopping blood donation thefts - good for humans who need blood, likely to annoy vampires.
And pursuing another lead, they tried to get into a warehouse. (It was a short session.)
A cop, a coroner, a college girl whose brother disappeared under suspicious circumstances, and the brother's roommate. They have a few ways of looking into suspicious events, and they all have reasons to.
They looked at a weird crime scene (the brother's ID being found with the corpse, which wasn't his).
They were warned not to look too closely at a turf war between two gangs... backed by vampires.
This led to a sit-down meeting with a vampire in a dark scary nightclub - the coroner already knows about vampires.
They met the other side (and a neutral werewolf) while sneaking into a fancy Halloween party. (Other possible "Halloween special" ideas I discussed with other STs and GMs included a haunted house and a Scooby-Doo mystery, but the fourth session was a bit early for a Scooby-Doo ending.)
This led in turn to stopping blood donation thefts - good for humans who need blood, likely to annoy vampires.
And pursuing another lead, they tried to get into a warehouse. (It was a short session.)
Sunday 16 November 2014
Boo!
Hello, world.
So, yeah, RPGs, Storytelling, that kind of thing. Because I've been posting it on LiveJournal. And it's too cold to play outside.I've been into RPGs since, er, the 80s.
Why blog now? Well, it's the tenth anniversary of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, and a couple days after I started WODhappens, a Twitter about what I'd be doing if the World Of Darkness MMORPG had come out. Which is mostly jokes about how annoying life events would be cool features in a WOD game, and jokes about crappy MMO features as well.
Currently I'm running a "new" World Of Darkness second edition game about Puny Mortals! called "Walking Alone". I'll ramble about that here sooner rather than later.
I miss New Bremen.
So, yeah, RPGs, Storytelling, that kind of thing. Because I've been posting it on LiveJournal. And it's too cold to play outside.I've been into RPGs since, er, the 80s.
Why blog now? Well, it's the tenth anniversary of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, and a couple days after I started WODhappens, a Twitter about what I'd be doing if the World Of Darkness MMORPG had come out. Which is mostly jokes about how annoying life events would be cool features in a WOD game, and jokes about crappy MMO features as well.
Currently I'm running a "new" World Of Darkness second edition game about Puny Mortals! called "Walking Alone". I'll ramble about that here sooner rather than later.
I miss New Bremen.
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