“The horror movie is innately conservative, even reactionary.” – Steven King A World of Darkness dev introduced me to this quote on Facebook. He went on to explain the theory that the vast majority of horror is designed to make us afraid of the other, the thing that goes bump in the night, or stalks […]
Author Archive: Victor
Spring Again At Last: The Return of Changeling: The Dreaming
Now out for public consumption! When most people describe the World of Darkness the first thing that tends to come up is gritty street wars fought between the undead and other horrors of the night. Sometimes that includes hyper violent Garou burning with deep bloody passions trying desperately to stop creeping death from consuming mother […]
Actually, It’s About Ethics in Media Consumption
“ Anyone who has ever been part of a subculture knows the bright red sting of controversy. Sometimes the controversy is low stakes like the general fan rejection of Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition. Sometimes controversies go to the core of a community’s values like the ongoing controversy about whitewashing in Hollywood, and more specifically, […]
An Interview with Chill and Changeling the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Developer Matthew McFarland
“ According to the Onyx Path development Blog the Changeling the Dreaming 20th Anniversary edition is nearing completion, and rumors about that the Monsters Sourcebook for Chill 3rd edition is nearing completion. Given these exciting developments it only made sense for Victor Kinzer and Simon Eichhörnchen to ask Matthew McFarland who is leading development on both of […]
Mage: Refuge a Prequel
Keep on the Heathlands recently published a review of the new Vampire the Masquerade mobile game from White Wolf Publishing, Vampire: We Eat Blood All Our Friends Are Dead. After reading his review I was anxious to see what White Wolf did with Mage in Mage: Refuge. For anyone familiar with choose your own adventure […]
Narrative Dissonance and Humanity in the World of Darkness
Who is the true underlying villain in the original “big five” games of the World of Darkness? I can’t really think of a more loaded question related to White Wolf’s flagship IP. At first glance, it seems as though every game has its own villain: Werewolf has the Wyrm; Mage has the Nephandi, and in some […]
Beast the Primordial: Subverting the Monomyth
One of the most persistent tropes in modern speculative fiction is the Hero’s Journey, or the Monomyth. The monomyth varies from telling to telling, and it can be found in a wide swath of modern media. The basic manifestation of the Hero’s Journey takes a protagonist from “normal life” into a fantastic setting where they […]
Bluebeard’s Bride: An Interview with the Developers
I started role playing back in the mid 90’s when AD&D was struggling a little bit, but the World of Darkness was just hitting it’s boldest strides. It was an era where my local game store, in my relatively small hometown had 2 incredibly tall book displays just for role playing books. Shortly after I […]
Let’s Talk about This Con Game Thing Part 3: The Challenges of Running Public Games
Part 1, Part 2 In my last article I discussed the difficulties of planning a con game that tackles difficult subject matter in a responsible way while creating a welcoming environment where everyone is comfortable voicing any concerns or boundaries they have related to the game. Ironically, of the two games I ran at Valor […]
LET’S TALK ABOUT THIS CON GAME THING PART 2 THE CHALLENGES OF PLANNING PUBLIC GAMES
Part 3, Part 1 In my last article on con games I talked about my experiences playing at Gen Con, and designing two con game modules with a focus on making them approachable to new players at Valor Con. I’ve talked a lot about the fun, exciting aspects of the con game format, but con […]