Chimerical Realm

I'm really into Vampire: The Masquerade . I really don't know much about nor am I terribly into Vampire: The Requiem . These are two very, very similar games. Years ago, as Masquerade  was winding down, a friend of mine asked me what some of my issues were with it. As much as I love Masquerade , as the years went by I grew more and more frustrated with many of its elements, and I wasn't terribly shy about sharing these opinions.  Now, this friend of mine was a freelancer for White Wolf at the time--in fact, he's still writing for Onyx Path. I doubt my words had any real impact in the direction Requiem  went, but it was still interesting timing. I assume he was just "taking the temperature of the frustrated fan." You might just get what you want I wanted a murkier and messier origin story, not this "Caine is the origin, everyone knows it; there is no debate." I didn't want Gehenna. I hated the Sabbat, and wanted them to be mysterious and...

An old friend of mine is starting up a new AD&D campaign, here are the initial thoughts: General theme This setting (as yet unnamed) is one that rethinks the hackneyed genre of D&D campaign settings. We have become used to a particular feel in campaign settings, ones where fantastic worlds increasingly look like our own. Fantasy cities are places where half-orcs rub shoulders with halflings in ways that we wish various cultures did in our world today (much less in a previous time). Heroes with glittering magical swords stroll peaceably in full plate mail through city streets, and magical spells are routinely cast in a shower of colored lights. Taking a cue also from computer RPGs, disposable monsters pop up in creepy settings to be dispatched over and over again. But if we return to fantasy literature, none of this  feels  right. Tolkien is the inspiration for most of us who are fantasy fans – indeed, the Fellowship of the Ring feels like most adv...