tatankatonk posted:

Which Path is which Game of Thrones Character?

Pope Guilty posted:

I wrote this about Vampire: the Masquerade awhile back, might as well repost it here.

Shadow of the Vampire features John Malkovitch as F.W. Murnau, following him as he makes his unauthorized adaptation of Dracula, Nosferatu. Looking to make his film as realistic as possible, Murnau goes out and finds himself a real vampire, Max Schreck, played by Willem Dafoe. But Schreck’s been away from his humanity too long, and his self-control isn’t what it might be. If you’ve ever wanted to see a low-Humanity vampire struggling to interact with human beings, this film’s got you covered.

If you’re in the mood for some violence and one of the best vampire movies out there, check out Near Dark, with Bill Paxton, Lance Henrikson, and Jeanette Goldstein all fresh from appearing in Aliens. A traveling pack of vicious vampires roams the American Southwest in a succession of stolen vehicles, committing a string of murders while trying to integrate their newest recruit. The ending’s a bit of a copout, but if you’d like to see a nomadic Sabbat pack at work, you might as well go to one of the primary inspirations for the Sabbat.

I think it gets called out in one of the tabletop books, but The Godfather is the Vampire: the Masquerade movie. That scene at the very beginning, with the singing and dancing and partying of the wedding going on outside while behind closed doors potentially deadly business is being transacted? That's a Camarilla gathering if I've ever seen one. And the whole rest of the film? It's about an underworld of hierarchical secret organizations of people who covertly influence society and occasionally kill and die over their position in it. It's about loyalty and betrayal, about love and hate, and about wanting to do the right thing but being steered by forces not entirely within your control but not entirely out of your control either. See it because The Godfather is Vampire as all get out, or just see it because it's one of the best films of all time.

Blade does something that's a staple of Masquerade but which doesn't show up in a lot of vampire movies- the notion of the vampire Illuminati, pulling strings behind the scenes. Boardrooms of pale men who don't remember mortality versus a group of young, cosmopolitan vampires who want to overthrow them in the name of a dark god? Archives of information hidden behind innocent fronts? Human beings sworn to the service of vampires in hopes of being turned? A secret vampire mythology complete with its own system of prophecies? drat, yes.

Not all vampires live in boardrooms and move effortlessly among the kine- some just struggle to get by. Night Junkies is the Thin-Blood experience in a nutshell, as a desperate vampire moves through some grimy, incredibly seedy parts of London’s underbelly while beginning to suspect that the serial killer stalking London is him. For most of the Kindred, the Embrace comes with some pretty significant bonuses- sure, you’re losing a lot, but you’re also gaining quite a bit. For the desperate Thin-Blooded, well, not so much.

I can hear you laughing already, but watch a few episodes of Downton Abbey and check out the way the post-Edwardian class structure is acted out and enforced both by the Crawleys and their fellow aristocrats upstairs and the servants below. It’s not just the aristocrats enforcing the class structure- some of the servants are as ardent supporters of it as their counterparts upstairs could ever be. Replace “aristocrats” with “Elders” and “servants” with “neonates and ancilla” and you’ve got the social structure the Camarilla tries to enforce- one in which the younger Kindred are respectful, subservient, and know their place.

Lost Boys is one of those instant classics. I’ve heard people say it’s the Sabbat, I’ve seen people say it’s a gang of Brujah. Maybe it’s just about the fear of watching your kids grow up into somebody other than who you tried to raise. Heck, maybe it’s just a reminder that hunters are out there and if your characters aren’t careful, it’s not just their own necks they’re risking. And if nothing else, it’s got “Cry Little Sister”, so that’s good, too.

Se7en has no overtly supernatural elements, but every last inch of it captures the feel of the World of Darkness. The world is grey and ugly, full of people who are sick inside and out, and the only man with a solution for it is himself a violent, vicious serial killer. What sort of horrors does the awfulness of living in the World of Darkness spawn in your game? In your city? In your character?

Hmm, since I wrote that I saw this interview with MRH where he talks about how seeing The Lost Boys with Stewart Wieck was the original inspiration for V:tM.

Also a bunch of the players in my LARP are undergrads whose reference pools are significantly later than mine; I referenced Interview With the Vampire while talking a player through deciding how her character felt about Humanity, saying that Lestat and Louis are effective illustrations of two very different approaches, and discovered she hadn't heard of it. So I guess no matter how obvious it sounds, that's a good one, too.

Luminous Obscurity posted:

Kerberos, ....uh? I don't really know how to describe these, but Ferrinus should love 'em.

Swagger Dagger posted:

My copy of M20 showed up today and it is hands down the most well-produced RPG book I have ever purchased. They double-boxed it and had it shrink wrapped and also wrapped in some paper-net-wrapping kind of thing so it arrived completely unblemished. Totally worth the purchase price for someone as nostalgic about that system as I am.

Gilok posted:

You know, I haven't heard a lot of talk about it. Was it bad? I mean, compared to Mage Revised?

Mr. Belding posted:

Literally all of this would happen if this took place in the universe of the Invisibles (which OWoD more or less is, at least post Mage: the Ascension). I don't know if it makes a good roleplaying game or not (probably not) but most roleplaying games don't make good roleplaying games anyway.

Mr. Belding posted:

While those specifics certainly didn't occur they wouldn't be terrifically outside the tone of the books. Example scenes would include the extra dimensional sex party where the Marquis de Sade asks a woman if she likes to gently caress "as a dog" and preceding Lord Mob's kidnapping when Lord Fanny brings home a spook with the intention of blowing him, but when she attempts to remove his pants he puts a gun in her mouth. She witnesses this scene from the past as a 12 year old in a drug induced magical trance.

I say all of this not to imply that Bruccato is anywhere near as talented as Morrison (because of course he is not), but they are both crazy people who believe in magic and write about it and this particular form of insanity can produce incredible things.

Basic Chunnel posted:

You can't convince me that's anything but a New Yorker caption contest

Mors Rattus posted:

So do they have a leatherman, a construction worker and a sailor?

I Am Just a Box posted:

Holy poo poo, that ratkin photomanipulation really doesn't work. Just in general, the idea of using pictures of actual LARPers really doesn't seem suited to the game about everybody being a violent shapeshifter. Is there a Corax splash?


In the background of this one, though, I kind of like the weird industrial cathedral look to the factory. If you're gonna be a stylistically exaggerated setting, go all out.

MC Smoke Sensei posted:

Had Peter Woodworth show up on my extended FB feed, smugging about defending Beast . I recall him being smug about how he totally rekt all those neckbears, who didn't even read the book, of course. He compared the criticism to the same line levied against GMC. This was some time ago. Those who know more than me about all of this, have they just been insulated from the criticisms here?

Vitamin P posted:

Volcano Style posted:

The latter.

Kurieg posted:

If you have high enough ranks in the chaos and life purviews you can make human/machine hybrids capable of breeding naturally.