Chimerical Realm

In this post, I want to look at The Last Night , the sample adventure which comes with the V5 Pre-Alpha rules set . There's actually quite a bit going on with this slim 56 page book, and as such, I want to  approach it in a couple of different ways. First, what is the adventure itself and how does it work on its own terms? Secondly, what does this tell us about the world and setting they have lined up for V5? Finally, what can we glean as far as the mood and themes of the game going forward. Needless to say, this post is full of spoilers. If you intend to play this adventure, please do not read any further. The Adventure Itself Since the adventure is freely available , I'm not going to spend a lot of time recapping the events here. What I will say is that the basic framework is pretty well setup. The players are a pre-existing coterie with a strong reason to be together and to engage in the adventure. The first significant scene (Siege of Golden Gate) is tense and exciting...

So, I picked up a copy of Requiem 2nd Edition, hoping to give it a second chance. A lot of people speak very highly of the game, and a Vampire game with a murkier back story, no metaplot, and a stronger Humanity focus sounded perfect. Unfortunately, I don't think this game is for me. I still can't get into it. I've read maybe half of the core book, and I can't bring my self to finish it, not even to do a few "Let's Compare" posts, let along to run it.  This pains me, because it's not the ideas of the game itself that are turning me off. I mean, there are some really awesome ideas in there, that occasionally make the whole thing tolerable. It's the art, and the writing. Most of the art is just boring. There's no passion or anything interesting going on, and the bulk of it looks like clip art or something like that. There's no depth of field or tension in it. I don't think I can adequately express why the art is bad, since I do not ha...

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...