It’s not Spring Break yet so no new design posts from me. However, I think you should take a look at the posts I am linking to below.
Nothing happens in a vacuum, especially not creative endeavors, and since I both send links to my design posts to Twitter, as well as “think out loud” there, it is inevitable that a network of influences would eventually emerge. Take for example last week: I’m not sure how it started, but for some reason, my Twitter feed last week was awash in a number of conversations about the World of Darkness, both old and new. Over the five days of the work week, there was not one day when at least a handful of World of Darkness-related tweets flew by, sparking conversations and blog posts.
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Over on my personal blog, I have been writing about a project that kind of came out of nowhere and has shoved its way to the top of my list.
It all started with me writing a post about wanting to play Vampire: The Masquerade again and why. It then turned into a love letter to that game. And from there it erupted into a series of (ongoing) posts exploring how I would rebuild a game about vampires to tackle the essential themes I felt Vampire touched upon but didn’t press hard enough. And thus I’m now Rebuilding Vampire.
That tag will link you to all the posts so far in the series, with the most recent at the top. Feel free to read through and comment if so inclined (I love feedback!).
Is this for eventual publication? I’m operating on the principle of: let me get the game done first and then we’ll see what happens with it. Enjoy the ride.
To celebrate GM’s Day, we’ve joined the huge sale going on at RPGnow/DriveThruRPG!
From March 3rd to 8th, all our products are on sale for 25% off!
Be sure to also check out the amazing number of sales going on as well by browsing the main sales page.
To all the gamemasters out there, thanks for running awesome games for us players.
Rich, dude, this one’s for you for Lady Blackbird. 
I did this last year and had lots of fun, so I’m bringing it back for an encore.
From March 1-17, 2010, I’ll be hosting the a St. Patrick’s Day RPG Blog Carnival.
- Who: Open to any and all RPG/Hobby Gaming blogs (RPG-related content preferred).
- What: Write a post on anything dealing with RPGs/gaming and all things Irish. As long as your post is about Ireland/Irish stuff and gaming, it’s cool.
- When: Your post must be published on or before Wednesday, March 17, 2010. As soon as you publish, leave a link to it in the comments of this post. Feel free to use the graphic provided on your posts as well.
I will collect all the posts and publish a round-up on Wednesday, March 17 (though if I have at least 3 posts by St Patty’s morning, I’ll publish the round-up and update as I can during the day).
You can see the post roundup for last year’s St. Patrick’s Day.
I hope you’ll join me and celebrate the Emerald Isle. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments section.
It’s midterms this week so I’m taking a break from game design thinking. You can follow the posts in this series so far by checking out the tag “Rebuilding Vampire.”
In lieu of more design, I’d like to quickly address a couple of things, just to be clear to myself mostly, though others may find this useful as well.
First the caveat.
I think I already said this in a previous post, but it bears repeating to be 100% crystal clear:
I love Vampire: The Masquerade to undeath. Really, to little tiny bits. Thus, this game that’s emerging as I write along is *not* me saying “VtM Sucks!” Not even by a long shot. This *is* me saying, “VtM had some things that I felt got lost in the shuffle and here’s me trying to bring them back to the spotlight in my own way.” The latter does not detract from the former. If I wanted to be more dramatic in my answer, I’d say that this game is both my reply, and love letter, to VtM, my way of saying, “You made me think about these things, here’s what I thought of them; thanks so much, and enjoy the gift.”
Now the self-deprecation.
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As I have already mentioned, at the crux of the tragic story of the vampire is the fact that they are on a downward spiral towards damnation, destined to destroy all that they held dear. If you read through the comments on the previous two posts in this series you will find that over and over we keep going back to the simple, and very important, idea of why should one care about the vampire’s journey on the road of dwindling Humanity. Or put another way, why should I (the player of the vampire character) care about the loss of Humanity? Why stall it? Why not give in to the beast?
There are traits in the two Vampire games that sort of deal with this. In VtM we have the traits of Nature and Demeanor, which basically sum up what your behavioral essence is on the inside and how you project yourself to the world. These are good to help shape how you want to play your character, but they really don’t say much about who your character is, which ultimately is what we’re driving at when looking for the reasons to cling to Humanity. VtR uses Virtue and Vice to replace Nature/Demeanor. I like the contrast of these two traits because, while they can help you shape how you play the character, they now say something about who this character is, if maybe a bit indirectly. The Virtue/Vice split also hearkens back to classical philosophical thought, something I can totally dig. Both of these sets of traits, however, have the same drawback for me: they are too vague. This is great for the games in which they are used, as a limited number of combinations can be used to represent virtually endless characterizations across a number of games sharing the same basic system, but for what I’m seeking to do, I want something that’s a hell of a lot more focused.
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