Monday 31 October 2011

A Night In The Lonesome October: Vampire plot hooks

After the Buffy adventure, and similarly a 1900-odd-word Doctor Who adventure, The October Country, I figured I should do something different for Vampire (Masquerade or Requiem, these would fit both with little effort, although the references and font style are Requiem-ish) so here's a cryptic essay and five somewhat developed plot hooks to catch unsuspecting vampires unawares as the nights draw in...

The Skies They Were Ashen And Sober

Part of A Night In The Lonesome October.

Last one. Couldn't resist.

Saturday 29 October 2011

A Night In The Lonesome October: Buffy Hallowe(')en Adventure

PDF version - which is nothing fancy, but I trust is legible.

Probably also useful for other urban fantasy monster hunters, or supernatural-dealing low-level superheroes or the like.

Part of A Night In The Lonesome October. The idea's simple: something of unspecified length based on the above title. It comes from a Poe poem, and became the title of a Zelazny novel, but in general it suggests autumn, isolation, the approaching Hallowe(')en and general creepiness.

So what to do... well, restrict myself to adventure hooks, or slightly longer somewhat-developed adventures. There's one up already that runs over 2000 words. But what games? Well, my defaults tend to be Adventure!, Buffy, Vampire and Doctor Who. Adventure! doesn't quite mesh, although I have a plot hook to do with a fake haunted house that could work, that still leaves three...

Applicable photo, by Joanna Wilson

Wednesday 26 October 2011

New Bremen: The Classic World Of Darkness chat game

New Bremen was the official moderated DigiChat game for White Wolf's classic World Of Darkness, like a global LARP (but played in a chatroom) running from 2000 to 2004 with thousands of players at its height.

Following a series of discussions about chat games at The Grand Masquerade, Ian Watson acquired the rights to revive New Bremen, as well as the official New World Of Darkness chat games, so as one of those several thousand players, I sent him the email bolded below to ask about his plans for the game.

Saturday 15 October 2011

Vampires and technology again

After this post: Masquerade Anarchs in the present specifically but relevant to modern characters in any urban fantasy setting with old stick-in-the-mud authorities.

Of immediate relevance - my one house rule for Requiem is to eliminate the blurring of vampires on cameras and reflections, since London has half a million CCTV cameras.

See also Me Versus Dracula from the TGM guest photoshoot.

Tuesday 11 October 2011

Vampire: The Requiem Actual Play trailer

APs take a while to write, and I only have one session's worth, so a bit early to show, but here's a hint of the creepy things that have happened so far...


Something lunges out of the dark.

Jerome wakes face down on a warehouse's concrete floor. The only open entrance is a skylight twenty feet above him.

Derick scowls as Camille looks down from a rooftop and casually drops off.

Stan's lip curls as Williams smiles and beckons over a half-starved runaway.

Carter looks at Jerome and sneers, and just for a moment we see blazing yellow eyes and a mouthful of serrated fangs like a bat's.

The Sibyl sits alone, dressed in white, sticking plasters on her fingertips.

Strange, Dead Love interview II

Following this, there's this. S,DL is getting a lot of press, it seems.

Thursday 6 October 2011

The Fades

A new genre show from the BBC, and it's... Hunter: The Reckoning? Well, not far off it. People with "Angelic" powers fighting the flesh-eating walking dead, ghosts trapped on Earth unable to ascend who have figured out how to return to life and whose plan threatens an apocalypse. And our saviour is a dorky Inbetweeners-y kid. So no worries there...

One interesting note is that some of the Fades are individualised, notably the charming Polus (add him to your visual library of Nosferatu types) and the twitchy what's-her-angle Natalie, who the leading Angelic warrior seems to have known for a long time.

Having monsters whose behaviour suggests there's more going on than simple threat might intrigue players, and if they can seemingly appear and disappear at will this will help prevent "there it is, kill it" syndrome.

Wednesday 5 October 2011

V20, observations

I have discharged my duty and given the not-mine copy of V20 to its waiting owner.

Some reactions to it: "Ooooh, so shiny..."
The Bradstreet Toreador illo: "oh, that's perfect, all the textures..."
The new Toreador clan weakness: "yeah, that works..."
Generally: "this is so cool, thank you!"

And in case that's made you want a copy, there might be a few left.

Tuesday 4 October 2011

Sunday 2 October 2011

And so...

Vampire: The Requiem is go, Uncharted is not. Not a big surprise, evening is bigger than afternoon, so playing Matt's space opera game in the afternoon.

Four players, all somewhat (or in one case very) familiar with Vampire in either iteration, playing characetrs about to get thrown into the war about to begin. Heh heh heh.