Saturday, May 23, 2026

Vampire: The Masquerade V?

Vampire: The Masquerade 5.5 or maybe 6 on the way, depending how playtests go.


Cue the fandom panic!

J: I really liked V5, but I'm sure it'll go the way of Requiem

Friday, May 22, 2026

WGD 2026

So I spent World Goth Day seeing Baby Yoda's Big Day Out, which was not the most relevant option but was a lot of fun.

My favourite TTRPG classes

My favourite TTRPG classes:

1: Angsty Vampire
2: Princess
3: Protective Hero
4: Spooky
5: Comedy Sidekick

World Goth Day

And just like that, caught up on four years of reverse engineered blogging

Sunday, May 17, 2026

The WOD MMO looks like a game I'd have loved some of

Justin Achilli on social conflict in the WOD MMO

Ha ha ha, out of nowhere this reminded me of the WoD MMO. Early prototyping had the combat system in place (of course) and an source of endless disagreement was how the game would systemically model social conflict, which always just defaulted to combat but with reskinned actions (BOO TO THAT).

At one point we were having an off-site and each little teambuilding group had to do a skit in front of the other groups. The skit with the Programming Director was a mission with a quest-giver requesting the PC, "I need you to kill OR SEDUCE 20 victims."

That version of the game eventually gave way to better iterations, but the thing that got me was the fungible nature of the quest; hey, player, go inflict yourself on 20 different interactibles, and it's not really important how.

We had some UI problems during preproduction as well. Total Wild West situation, just stick whatever feedbacks or hotbars you needed wherever; it’s all good. One of the engineers doodled up this sticky by way of comment and I still have it, 15+ years later.

Monday, May 4, 2026

Mage: The Ascension Action Figures! (not really)

Mage: The Ascension group photo led to ST making fake toys with computer... and then spending hours making the packs match and the accessories scale together.

Yes I want the whole set.

And the followup Halloween Formal fashion dolls.

Set 1, based on the photoshoot




Didi comes with different hair and higher heeled boots because I couldn't think of anything.

Didi's mischievous / evil smile fits the group photo but not the figure set, so a variant with a more neutral expression. Still adorably life-ruining but maybe 30% less obvious about it.

--

Set 2: Halloween Formal

And like many real toy lines the accessories aren't 100% episode accurate. Nobody used the weapons included - Cara had to fight wrathful spirits with a hairpin - but we did use the wraps and purses and Simon definitely looked in a book.



Friday, May 1, 2026

Sunset City photoshoot

Mage: The Ascension: Sunset City

The visual references for the player characters from Mage: The Ascension - Sunset City
Michael (Luke Grimes), Didi (Ksenia Solo), Cara (Holland Roden), Alissa (Paris Berelc) and Simon (Rupert Evans)
together by the power of photomanipulation

My background-selecting hand hurts

And the Halloween formal last season. Should have thought "hey, don't have a background that matches somebody's hair"...


And for the Goth gig 4.19



Tuesday, April 28, 2026

Bloodhunt

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodhunt was a great looking fun game that I played on and off and never came close to winning a match. Sad that it shut down, but a free game that ran for four years is pretty impressive.

Monday, April 20, 2026

New Bremen

20/4/2000

When I was
a young geek
White Wolf dot com
took me into the city
to see Godzilla fight

Sunday, April 5, 2026

Easter

Happy day of eggs and bunnies and that as applicable!

8/5
Big egg opened because why not

11/5
Complete
J: I believe in you

Thursday, March 26, 2026

Funny VTM AP?

Funny VTM AP? Eh.

16/4
Have now seen the first minute. That was plenty.

Tuesday, March 24, 2026

Ready Or Not (2) Here I Come

Ready Or Not (2) Here I Come is pretty fun, though it makes a big retcon its emotional core and can't match the "wait, what?" original. And one scene that really made me wince, intercut with a funny one. But it has Sarah Michelle Gellar as a surprisingly un-comedic villain along with some funny ones.

Saturday, March 14, 2026