Tag: Vampire

Vampire 5th Edition Preview

Today, 6/28/2018, White Wolf Released their first preview of actual pages from Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition. Which you can find on www.worldofdarkness.com This release is exciting, both for the content and what it means for the final product being close to completion. You’ll notice this is the first post from this blog in a considerable amount of time. I’ve been quite busy with freelance writing work, and planning for www.hlgcon.com which you should check out.

Highlights

Morality

We’ve discussed the Humanity system before on Keep on the Heathlands, but it has never been a system that I thought actually helped sell the genre. Vampire is known as a game that helps you focus on your struggle between humanity and the hunger(Beast) of being a bloodsucking leech, but it’s fallen short in previous editions for various reasons. We were excited for the introduction of Touchstones (a concept pulled from Vampire: The Requiem) and the other layers from the preview are also interesting and engaging.

Beliefs, Convictions, and Tenets and more

Vampire: The Masquerade has always had a relatively strict expectation of how it could be played, but not every troupe chooses to play the game in the same manner. There are various themes, moods, and concepts that players might find uncomfortable of disinteresting. In earlier editions, altering this had no real impact on the mechanics of the game, which sometimes dropped their importance session to session.

Chronicle Tenets

V5 gives us a new concept that helps to adjust the game to meet the needs of the troupe. This is the Chronicle Tenets system that creates a set of Morality elements for the game you’re running. These can be adjusted every chronicle, or they can be set as a house standard. This allows for customization and focus on story elements that allows you to run the game you want to run at your table.

Convictions

Convictions are human values that you choose prior to game start. They are the rules you play by to retain your sense of morality. These can change if you want to portray an inhuman monster, they play by their own rules. The Tzimisce following the Path of Metamorphosis has rules they follow, and that system is no longer complicated by the sense that Judeo-Christian thought is the default human morality. Creating a Buddhist, Humanist, or atheist is easier to do with the new system of Convictions than previous editions.

Touchstones

Humans are important to the Kindred, both as a source of blood and a reminder of who they were when mortal. By focusing on building and keeping bonds with particular humans, Kindred retain a sense of connection to the world around them. This is probably the only area where I’m not thrilled that each Touchstone MUST be a living person, but I think there are ways to adjust this at the table that would be easy to facilitate for Elder characters and I think it’s a good starting point for individual table customization.

Ambition and Desire

You want things, as a Vampire. Desire is a way to set goals for yourself game to game, things you want, things you want from people, or other Kindred, it’s part of the reason that Vampires steal from one another. They have a sense of ownership of the things they see and want, and they try and take them. Of course, your Desire doesn’t have to be owned by someone else and you can customize this to fit your chronicle design. I like this, because its provides incentive to create and seek goals. There are mechanical benefits referred to as Willpower damage being healed. I’m not sure what these systems will look like in the end, but they are intriguing.

Ambition is the macro level things that keep you moving night to night, and these two concepts act as short term and long-term goal creation.

Stains

The preview only touches on this concept, but it appears as if Stains will be something equivalent to sins against one’s road or path in earlier editions. We’ll have to wait and see what comes of this, but it appears to allow for additional customization that supports a diverse religious and moral compass that previous versions of the game were incompatible with, or required a strange road adherence to mimic.

Buy The Book

Clans

There are two clans presented in the preview. The Toreador and the Brujah. So far, these amazing clans are the same nuanced and interesting concepts they were in previous editions. The Banes, or new weaknesses are a little more nuanced than they once were, and the systems for them sound active and in-tune with the mechanical adjustments we’ve seen from the Alpha and the rest of the preview. They’ll always be pertinent and in most scenes they’ll come into effect or could come into effect easily. Keeping concepts like these central to the story helps cement the clan identity as you’re playing.

Disciplines

Every power level of Celerity does something different, and it appears that you have either multiple options or multiple powers in several of the levels. That should allow for interesting customization and personalization. Again, this is a theme I’m seeing in this edition. Playing how you want to play is important to the creators and it shows in the design of the product. Check out the powers for yourself, and see what you like the most.

Lore-Sheets

These are deeper history connections to the meta-plot of VtM. The Lore-Sheet appears to be something akin to a Background that you purchase, that provides you benefits that fit your clan or character concept. Theo Bell and Helena are referenced and if you’re a long-time fan you’ll know who they are. Also, the Week of Nightmares makes an appearance, meaning that concerns about the late stage lore from previous editions is basically moot. This seems like a great way to again, customize your character and chronicle, and tie it into the awesome meta-narratives that have existed in VtM for the last 30 years. That, honestly, is fantastic and is something I’m happy to see. This isn’t a reboot of the World of Darkness, it’s a celebration of new ways to engage with the world and build games that are interesting, engaging, and emotionally powerful.

You can pre-order Vampire 5th Edition here. So far, I’ve seen nothing that makes me regret my decision to back it on the day it was released for pre-order.

Josh is the administrator of the Inclusive Gaming Network, and the owner of this site. 

*Note, all opinions are the opinions of their respective Authors and may not represent the opinion of the Editor or any other Author of Keep On the Heathlands. Opinions may also turn out to be wrong in the future, and we are more than willing to discuss based on future information.

The Night In Question Interview – Matthew Webb

No one familiar with Keep should be shocked that this Blockbuster LARP caught our attention. In fact, if I wasn’t involved in running a Convention in Atlantic City the month prior, I’d be all over the event. The Night In Question is a Sabbat focused Vampire LARP experience in the Nordic Style. That’s a lot of jargon words slapped together in a sentence. So, we wanted to ask the creators of the event, especially Matthew Webb, to describe the game and describe how they are creating an immersive horror experience while ensuring player safety and consent are central to the experience. Mr. Webb and Jackalope Live Action Studios were involved with the amazing War of Our Own Charity LARP Event that happened in February 2018. These folks know how to work with heavy material.

 

1 – Can you tell us a little bit about the premise of the game?

 

The Night In Question is set at an illegal rave outside of Austin, Texas during the late 1990s. Most of the characters will begin the night as mortals attending the party, but as the night goes on, it is revealed that the rave was a lure created by the Sabbat, for a mass embrace and blood feast as a prelude to an assault on the Camarilla in Austin. We’re calling the general style “Texas splatterpunk”, where we are emphasizing a visceral high-quality horror experience full of great props, buckets of fake blood and great physicality that really emphasizes the monstrous nature of the sect. It’s something that we don’t get to see typically in Vampire LARP – even those games which feature the Sabbat don’t usually have the location or the resources to do a huge bloody experience.

 

It will run the night of November 17th, 2018 at a concert site outside of Austin, TX.

 

 

 

2) Why the Sabbat? Why Vampire?

 

I love the setting and the sect. I’ve loved Vampire: the Masquerade since my introduction to it in 1999, and I have been playing in Sabbat games since 2001. It is actually my favorite form of Vampire LARP, though I love playing Camarilla and Anarch games as well. The ritualism, the playing with shadows, the anti-hero aspects of the sect have always appealed to me. And how they served as a counter-weight to the Camarilla’s hypocrisy by embracing their dark natures, and how they showed the problems that come from that.

 

It remains one of the most evocative and powerful role-playing settings, and it has influenced so many LARPers that it is really exciting to be working on something truly unique and new for a company whose products I grew up with.

 

3) How did getting an official license from White Wolf Entertainment to do this come about?

 

After playing and advising on End of the Line in New Orleans, the first bespoke-style Vampire LARP licensed by White Wolf, I became more involved with White Wolf’s efforts to support these new blockbuster-style big games that took lessons from the Nordic and immersive style. I ended up developing the online tool Larpweaver for the amazing Enlightenment in Blood LARP at World of Darkness Berlin, and became good friends with several of the White Wolf staff. And that began the conversation that eventually led to The Night In Question.

 

 

 

White Wolf gave us the license because they loved the idea and the energy we brought to the table. They saw us as a group of American creators who loved their setting and had learned the lessons of the Nordic-style games, but also liked how we were bringing our own energy, and dare I say, swagger to the ideas. And when we said, we wanted to do Sabbat, they really leaned forward and wanted to know what we had to say.

 

I have to say, White Wolf has been incredibly supportive, and they took a chance with us as a young studio. It’s going to be an amazing event.

 

4) Considering the source material, ensuring player safety and consent seems difficult. The Sabbat are a visceral horrific sect of vampires. Tell us about how you are creating an environment that allows you to tackle that material while ensuring all of your players are taken care of out-of-character? You’ve got a great list of dos and don’ts on the site, but how do you ensure players internalize these rules?

 

Safety is our number one priority. If players do not feel safe at our event, we cannot achieve what we want to achieve. We want a visceral physical event where people are immersed in the monstrosity of these creatures; not where they are worried that anyone is in real danger. This goes for being safe from physical harm, and being safe from harassment and violation of consent.

 

The event starts at noon, though the actual game does not start until sundown, because we will being doing player preparation and workshopping. We have a large conference space reserved near the game site, and attendance is required at our safety and consent workshopping. We’re partnering with Participation Design Agency, who created both Enlightenment in Blood and End of the Line, to workshop and structure consent training.

 

 

 

5) You’ve focused on the early edition version of the Sect, where the horror of what they are is more present. Are you tying in the religiosity elements of the sect from Revised at all?

 

Where we are planting ourselves with the Sabbat has been a very lengthy discussion. We actually ended up publishing two blog posts, the first outlining all the changes that the Sabbat have gone through and the second outlining our vision for them in our particular game. That was just to give our players a baseline, so we could all understand why so many people have so many different visions for the Sabbat. I have even called the sect the single most revised and constantly altered part of the World of Darkness.

 

The Sabbat always had a religious aspect, and the Revised Guide to the Sabbat struck an excellent balance. But as I spoke about in the blog, the trend became they were more and more religious fanatics and less reckless rebels and anti-heroes pursuing their own form of freedom. But the Sabbat always revered Caine as the founder of their sect, the Dark Father; but our Sabbat will see him as a role model, a hero, not as a god. But there will be dark rites and praises being said to him.

 

The phrase we are encouraging among our Sabbat will not be “Praise Caine”, but “May Caine guide you.” It’s a subtle change, but an important one. Caine will be treated as a figure that guides a vampire to their pinnacle, like a guiding but harsh parent or a role model; not as a figure who wishes to be worshipped in the same manner as the Abrahamic God.

 

 

The Sabbat are ultimately ancestor worshippers. It’s important to note that.

 

 

6) Talk to us more about calibration mechanics, physicality in LARP, and how your team is building out methods to do this well?

 

We have our official Jackalope signal guide up on our site (http://jackalope-larp.com/how-to-larp-hard-and-safe/), outlining the calibration methods we are using, but we will be going over them extensively before the game. In addition, we also have physical safety workshopping, including how to safely stage-fight and the like. Our special effects and environment teams are all veterans of haunted houses or similar events, so they know how to produce safe but terrifying experiences.

 

During the actual game, we have a team of safety monitors who will not be participating who will be patrolling the site constantly, who will be trained to spot situations, enforce the consent and safety rules, and are empowered to end situations at any time. I would not want to be on their bad side – they include two professional bouncers and an off-duty police officer – and they have zero tolerance for anyone messing with anyone else. In addition, we have a safety team with a dedicated email and contacts that can be contacted before or after the game with concerns at safety@jackalope-larp.com.

 

We want a physical experience. Once the night throws into high gear, I want to hear screaming, I want mortals falling to the ground being fed on in a frenzy. But I also want to know this is all safe play-acting by people who have been empowered with the tools to do it right.

 

7) I’ve seen you describe this as an “American World of Darkness Immersive-Style LARP”. What do you mean by that? What separates this from games like Convention of Thorns or End of the Line?

 

The joke among our staff is that the relationship between this game and the European Vampire Nordic LARPs is like someone with a revving chainsaw kicking down the door of a nice cocktail party and screaming, “Let’s do this!” And there’s some truth in that.

 

We are foregoing the term Nordic, if only because it means too many things to too many people. and has a lot of baggage attached to it. Instead, we’re using the terms bespoke and immersive, because it says clearly what we are going for. We owe a lot to the Nordic tradition, but the term has a jumbled history that makes us want to go for something more exact and less loaded.

 

 

 

Saying we’re American, we’re the first completely American studio to do a World of Darkness bespoke LARP. And there’s the setting, an illegal rave set among oil pumps in the backwoods , which is such a great image in American horror. There’s this idea of rural America, especially Texas, being so large that you can be in the backwoods under the big Texas night sky where no one is around to hear you scream.

 

But beyond even that, The Night In Question is written with an outlaw cowboy in-your-face attitude. It is going to be loud, it’s going to be unashamed and a little over the top. We’re determined to have a lot of fun and make a mess while doing so. We’re going to paint the walls red. And we’re taking a bunch of different traditions and putting them together to make something unique and great that is truly our own. There’s something quintessentially American about that approach to art and creativity, and it’s a great part of our artistic tradition.

 

8) What is the goal of The Night In Question? Who are you trying to reach? What experience do you want your players to tell stories about for the next twenty years?

 

I want new players who’ve never seen the World of Darkness before to walk out having the most fun and blood-soaked night of their lives. I want veterans of the World of Darkness to walk away saying and thinking they’ve never understood the Sabbat truly until now. I want anyone to come – experienced or not knowing anything – and have a complete blast. I want there to be stories about blood-filled rituals, fire-ringed duels, savage double-crosses, sinister betrayals and hideous indoctrination.

 

I want everyone who was there, when they play Vampire from now on, to know exactly what makes these vampires scary and also, what makes them awesome.

 

9) How do you make an event like this inclusive? Who do you have on your design staff that brings diverse world experience to this game?

 

You make it inclusive by rolling up your sleeves and doing it! It’s not hard! You recognize talent comes from everywhere; you treat people like adults and don’t patronize them; and you recognize everyone’s input has value. You focus on being fair, circumspect and unwavering on the idea that no one should feel like a target at your games or in your community. And when you see anyone making anyone else into a target, a punchline or a punching bag – you put an end to it, right there and right then.

 

I don’t need any toxic people dumping their sewage into my water supply. No amount of money is worth that. Any one person’s well-being is more important than my LARP.

 

All three of our primary teams – safety, writing and art – are led by women or gender-fluid people. We recognized talent and we put them in charge. Each are one of the most talented, driven and incredible people I have ever met. Our contributors have backgrounds including LGBT, African American, Hispanic, Asian, Native American and more. Our team ranges in age from 20 to 62 years old. We’re very fortunate to have amazing people working with us, and it’s all the better by the variety of voices and backgrounds that have become involved.

 

We’ve also removed themes that would do little to enhance our experience that would result in people of color or women feeling unsafe or uncomfortable. Sexual assault, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, racism, etc. are not allowed themes in the game. We’re not making a game about those, and they add nothing, so they are out. We are already asking people to deal with a lot with the visceral and physical nature of this game. I’m not going to act like it doesn’t add an additional burden to already underrepresented people in our hobby to allow those topics to be used as a cheap shock.

 

And I can’t emphasize how much stock we put in our safety team and methods to make sure those who do not have the privilege of feeling safe by default – e.g. women, trans individuals and people of color – feel safe at our events.

 

10) What’s next for Jackalope?

 

Bigger and better. We’re already planning our games for 2019, and there are going to be some cool announcements on the horizon. This is certainly not going to be the last World of Darkness project for us. I want to do Werewolf, I want to do Mage, and I want to do other cool things with Vampire. But I can’t tell you any distinct plans yet.

 

But our interest goes beyond that. We’re fans of horror games, of science fiction, of historical drama and even just parlor art games. We have a dream team doing The Night In Question, and we want to keep doing more and pushing the envelope. We want Texas to be one of the hot spots for LARP in America and the world.

 

Please check out the Vampire products created by Joshua Heath on the ST Vault, he was the interviewer for this article.

The Gentleman Speaks- Beckett’s Jyhad Diary Interview

Recently we published a review of the book, Beckett’s Jyhad Diary. This book takes the Vampire: The Masquerade meta-plot and updates it and looks at it through a V20 lens. From a design perspective though, it is something drastically different than most books on the market for most RPGs. This book focuses on plot and provides very little in the way of crunch or mechanics to play around with. We’ve seen some comments around the internet about the whys of this book. Why was it designed the way it was? Why does it present the hooks that it does? Why don’t we have some character stats? (Ok, that last one is purely on me)

To help us answer those questions we spoke with Matthew Dawkins, the developer of the book, to get an idea of what drove some of the decisions behind Beckett’s Jyhad Diary.

Mr. Dawkins, thank you for doing this interview. Do you mind telling our readers a little bit about your background and what brings you to your current place in the RPG industry?

Always a pleasure, Josh.

Until the start of this year I was working in the RPG industry in my spare time. My full-time role was as a trainer on a variety of subjects, and previous to that a team manager in an office. While those roles were tangential to writing and developing RPGs, what they did do was provide me with the skills to manage projects, handle people, and maintain a professional persona in whatever industry I moved to next.

It so happens that around the middle of last year I started working for Paradox Interactive on an unannounced (and sadly cancelled as of January 2018) video game while I continued working as a trainer and writer / developer of tabletop RPGs. That was relevant for me as it showed that I could organize various tasks around having a family, still get out to play, and earn a living doing what I love: working on games.

I’ve freelanced for Onyx Path Publishing since 2013 (and worked with other RPG and board / party games companies since that time as well, such as Chaosium, Green Ronin, Cubicle 7, Helmgast, Lark & Clam, White Wolf, etc.) but last year I was offered a full-time in-house developer role with them to start in January 2018, which I accepted.

My role is now to develop books, manage game lines, help our freelance staff, train up new developers, and troubleshoot any books caught in a development jam. I’m relatively new to this industry, but I’ve been roleplaying for well over a decade. It’s a real joy to work in this industry as my primary form of income.

What was the main design goal of Beckett’s Diary? How did you determine which elements of the vast Vampire meta-plot you were going to update? If you had one thing that you’d direct every reader to in this book what would it be?

The main design goal was to make a book that revisited, explored, and expanded the metaplot for Vampire: The Masquerade. It wasn’t initially conceived as a bridge to V5 or even necessarily the capstone to V20 (bear in mind that it was planned before the new White Wolf came to be), but it nicely fit that role later in development.

We threw a lot of ideas around about the book’s content, how much of it would be artifact-based, which parts of the metaplot to step over, and so on. In the end, the developers with the greatest Masquerade knowledge proposed the chapters they would like to see, and honestly, I can’t think of one (until stretch goal chapters) that wasn’t implemented.

If I was to direct every reader to a single chapter in this book, it would egotistically be Shadows Coalesce (driven by ego because I wrote it). It’s not my favorite chapter in the book (though I love all of them, naturally), but it is one of the best for a mixture of mortal level horror (a cop investigates Kindred activity and has their life ruined), humor (Beckett browsing the book selection in a brothel), political brinkmanship (Vitel’s plan of making a Libertarian-esque Kindred city), and Jyhad (Camarilla vs. Sabbat, hidden puppet masters, and so on).

Can you tell us a little more about The Drowned Legacies? These are a group of Vampires(maybe) from S. America who offer compelling potential for deeper exploration. What drove you (or others in the process) to create them and will we see more of them in the future?

I’m a big fan of the Caine mythos being just one of many origin stories for vampires. It just so happens that with the rise of Abrahamic faiths, the Caine legend took hold and never let go, rising to the prominence it now has. I’m also a big fan of Kindred of the Ebony Kingdom, the Ashirra, and the idea put forth that there may be more creatures out there that don’t want to be found. This is a World of Darkness, after all. If a South and Central American strain of vampires exists and are in small enough numbers, why would anyone know, or be believed when they tell their coterie or pack?

In World of Darkness 2nd Edition, I believe there’s a throwaway line about unidentified lineages in South America. There are also several Methuselahs and elders introduced in other books, lacking a clear bloodline or being placed into a clan due to Discipline use, when the likelihood of a Gangrel (for instance) crossing the Atlantic or Pacific prior to the second millennium C.E. was incredibly slim.

So I spoke with some of my friends and former colleagues of Central and South American heritage, many of whom live there to this day, about their own myths, ghost stories, legends, and campfire tales. What do they have that could resemble a vampire elsewhere in the world? South America is hardly cut off from the world, of course. I wanted to avoid exoticism, and instead go for the reality. Just as the major clans of Masquerade reflect our common vampire myths (the mind-controllers, the beasts, the seducers, the monsters, etc.) I wanted authenticity, but from a South and Central American perspective.

So that’s how we ended up with the Lostundo, Cipactli, Unhudo, Titlacauan, Kalku, and Karai Pyhare. The Cipactli and Titlacauan are the easiest to trace back to well-known Aztec religion and myth (along with that of their cultural predecessors), the Karai Pyhare are connected to the Guaraní myths surrounding the Pombéro, the Kalku originate in Mapuche culture and legend, while the Unhudo and Lostundo are more colloquial, but with a bit of research I’m sure you could find stories relating to them online or in history books.

Now, just because the Drowned Legacies exist, does not mean they suddenly overpower the clans we know and love and “take back America.” Their culture and personal motivations are by no means homogenous. Most of the Drowned Legacies willingly threw their mortal herds under the bus and clamped on to the settlers from Spain, Portugal, and elsewhere. These creatures are parasites, and parasites go for the greatest source of blood. As their forebears died out, they simply clung to the newcomers, adapting with the sudden spread of Catholicism, hiding from the main clans or masquerading as them, until they found it appropriate to make themselves known. Their Cultura is not one of pride but survival. They don’t need to take thrones to feel powerful. Now, with the Beckoning calling Cainites east, South America may become theirs simply due to absence of powerful Kindred elders.

So what is in store for the Drowned Legacies? We will have to see how they’re received by the fans, and whether they make even a fleeting appearance in V5. I hope they do, because I could see some excellent tales being told involving these creatures.

Throughout this book you’ve done a good job of collecting characters from the entire breadth and width of Vampire: The Masquerade media. I don’t remember seeing any references to Kindred: The Embraced though. Did I miss that? Or were you not allowed to touch on that property?

That’s a funny thing, because we scoured everywhere for little hooks, nods, and obscure references, but I don’t remember us once mentioning Kindred: The Embraced. We all know of it of course, but honestly, if someone put a reference in it wasn’t under my direction and it passed me by. I quite like that though. I’ve re-read the book and found references I missed the first time. I’m sure I’ll find that again when I read it in another couple of months.

Eddie is disappointed

This concept of the cyclical Gehenna is one of the core plots that ties this book together. On the surface, quickly, this is the idea that vampire power rises and falls, and that the view the Kindred have about Generation is one of many cycles which vampires (as a whole) have experienced. This appears to do two things; it allows the main conceit of Vampire to continue past ‘the inevitable end’ which was a concern in the original run of the game and it allows for more depth in extending the VtM mythos outside of the Judeo-Christian model on which the game was initially based. Of course, all of that is my pontification on the concept. What was your design philosophy behind cyclical Gehenna?

You’ve pretty much hit the nail on the head. Gehenna should still have bite though, which is why we allude to great sacrifice being required in order to stave it off. It’s still an end of the world scenario that brings changes whenever it occurs, but if Cainites play (or resist) the Jyhad and make whatever sacrifice is required (and it gets bigger every time Gehenna rolls around), they may give themselves another couple of centuries. It’s a little like global warming or the coming ice age. We know it’ll kill us all one day, but if we work together as a species, we may be able to stop it.

Funnily enough, I imagine there’s more chance of the Kindred working together to stop Gehenna than humans putting aside differences to heal the world, make it a better a place, for you and for…(etc.)

Michael Jackson is not a vampire.

Or is he?

Can you comment on how BJD might impact V5, are there certain things we might see more of in the future?

Without spoiling too much (and because I’m under NDA) I was asked as part of my writing job on V5 to propose plot threads from Beckett’s Jyhad Diary that could have an impact on V5. There are definitely some elements introduced in this book that will be furthered in V5. There are also some elements that will be left as they are.

I think one of the best things about BJD is that at the end of each chapter, you have a bunch of “what if?” plot hooks that could take a chronicle in any number of directions. We’re picking up some of those and running with them. The ones we’re leaving untouched won’t ruin anyone’s chronicle if you decide to pursue them with your group. There should still be room for whatever metaplot threads you decide to follow.

I enjoyed the book immensely, but I have one frustration I’ve voiced- I hope politely. Why don’t we have character statistic or at least references to where we might be able to find such things for the characters presented in these books?

A boring answer, sadly, but the main reason is page count, and having to weigh up whether we write more setting content or spend words on stat blocks. I would certainly like to see a Children of the Night book for V20 (maybe someone could make it for the Storytellers Vault) that stats up characters from Beckett’s Jyhad Diary. Of course, another way to maybe get something like this made is rally your fans and get them to email Onyx Path and / or White Wolf to express a desire for such a book. We do listen to what people want, and if there’s a market for it, we will consider pursuing it.

White Wolf has talked about expanding the World of Darkness to a truly global perspective, and having people ‘write what they know.’ This blog and our projects focus on inclusivity. How do you try and create a more inclusive gaming society in your work and actions?

To use the Drowned Legacies as an example, I consult experts on the respective subject matter, whether by dint of their profession or cultural heritage. I hire a diverse mix of writers for my books, across a range of spectrums. Frankly, RPGs read better (to me) when they have a diverse cast of authors. If I want someone to write for the experience of being pregnant, I will try to hire someone who’s had a child. If I want someone to write about suffering racial prejudice, I’ll aim to get someone on board who has lived that life.

I think it’s fair to say I do not tolerate intolerance. I’m by no means the loudest activist, but at my home and club level, if I even gain an inkling that someone is being abused for their ethnicity, their gender, or whatever, the abuser is educated. If they will not listen, they no longer play with us. Once upon a time, some segments of our hobby had this idea that “it’s better to have these people in the hobby and tolerate their bigotry than kick them out and have fewer people playing.” I disagree with that view, and our industry seems to feel the same way. No gaming is better than bad gaming, and no bigots is better than some bigots.

In terms of playing my games, my city thankfully has a number of roleplaying venues. I’ve always encouraged people from all walks of life to join in and play games. In a sense, games are one of those great levelers of society. Everyone abides by the rules to get the best game, every player at the table is equal (even when the characters are not), and everyone is there to have a good time. When you pitch it like that, it cuts away a lot of apprehension surrounding white males dominating our hobby. Every year, I see more and more diverse crowds at our conventions, and that’s just fantastic.

Please join us in thanking Mr. Dawkins for his time and for answering these questions for us. He is currently developing They Came From Beneath The Sea for Onyx Path Publishing. He is also a lead writer for Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition, and has dozens for products he’s developed or wrote for OPP. If you are interested in reading more of his work you can find it here.

Blood and Betrayal Chronicle – Interview with Jason Carl

Recent news from By Night Studios has raised a lot of eyebrows, and caught a lot of attention. By Night Studios is the company that creates officially licensed Mind’s Eye Theater products for the classic World of Darkness. They are a licensee of White Wolf Entertainment AB, based in Sweden. By Night Studios released some details on their new business venture, Blood & Betrayal Chronicle, a global LARP story for troupes and individuals. People paid attention, because this is a new method of connecting individual troupes to a larger story. Jason Carl was graciously willing to answer some questions we had about this new endeavor.

Jason, can you start by introducing yourself?

Hello! I’m Jason Carl, CEO of By Night Studios. I’ve been working in and with games most of my adult life, at Wizards of the Coast (Magic The Gathering organized play, Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition), Xbox Game Studios, and Wunderman Seattle (Xbox marketing), and also as a freelance RPG writer (White Wolf). Today I’m also the Producer for Vampire The Masquerade 5th Edition for White Wolf.

How does this differ from the B&B and R&R games you’ve been running?

By Night Studios has run large-scale Mind’s Eye Theatre LARPs annually at World of Darkness fan conventions including The Grand Masquerade in New Orleans, Las Vegas by Night, and Los Angeles by Night. We called these LARPs ‘Blood & Betrayal’ for Vampire the Masquerade and ‘Rage & Retribution’ for Werewolf the Apocalypse. Hundreds of players enjoyed these games—there were over 400 players from many different countries at last year’s Blood & Betrayal—and each was a one-night event with a connected story that players could affect. So, what player characters decided and did at Blood & Betrayal Las Vegas affected the events of Blood & Betrayal New Orleans, for example.

Characters at Rage and Retribution

Now we are offering the chance to participate in a global LARP chronicle that builds on the story from our convention games and continues forward.

You are planning to use the new www.worldofdarkness.com functionality to help facilitate this Chronicle, can you tell us a little about why and what that site will do?

We’re very excited about this! The website launched at GenCon 2017 and included basic Mind’s Eye Theatre character and troupe management tools. We’re adding new features continually, and soon Storytellers will have access to powerful online tools that will help them focus more on telling great collaborative stories and less on bookkeeping.

In this way, Blood & Betrayal troupes that use different rules for their LARPs can still, if they want to, interact globally by standardizing the way they handle downtime procedures.

A great example of this is the Vampiri No?ne Kronike in Zagreb, Croatia—they’re using a very Nordic-style rules system for resolving the challenges in their Vampire the Masquerade live games, but their Storytellers use the Mind’s Eye Theatre rules in the background to manage Experience Points, character downtimes, influences, and other actions that are difficult to simulate physically at a live game. Mind’s Eye Theatre is the almost-invisible engine that the game runs on. We’re seeing more chronicles do this, and we want to support this option for global play.

This seems like it might overlap with some of what the fan community already does, through organizations like Mind’s Eye Society, Underground Theater, etc. How does it differ?

We can understand how it might seem that way, but that’s not our intention, and we don’t foresee much overlap. Fan clubs like Mind’s Eye Society provide not only a LARP story that links dozens or hundreds of local games that all play by the same LARP rules, but also a complete administrative structure for club officers to help them run smoothly. Many players really enjoy and prefer this kind of consistency: it allows them to travel more easily between games that participate in the same fan club, knowing that everything is standardized no matter where you go.

What we discovered is that many games also want the fun and benefits of a linked global chronicle, but prefer to maintain their local LARP rules and independent administrative structures. The Blood & Betrayal chronicle is intended to address this need.

Most networked fan clubs seem happy with how they are doing things currently and we anticipate that they won’t be very interested in what we are offering. But…

Is it possible for a fan club to join and have all of their games sync with the larger chronicle?

…any fan club or individual game or chapter within a fan club that is interested is more than welcome to join the chronicle.

Talk to us a little about the philosophy behind being rules agnostic for local games. Are games allowed to interact with one another outside of convention games?

They’re allowed, and even encouraged to interact outside of convention games. Players will be able to travel between local games—but they must respect the local rules and policies when they visit other games. We foresee that some Blood & Betrayal games will interact frequently by virtue of their close proximity, where others may interact only online or at conventions, but they’re all free to share the story to the limit of their preferences.

Would you describe what you are doing as global meta-plot integration? If so, how do you hope to tie this into the trans-media experience that White Wolf has talked about previously?

First let me say a bit about transmedia. The simplest explanation is: a story told through multiple mediums. Consider Star Wars, Star Trek, the Marvel Universe, Game of Thrones…these connected stories are told in books, television, films, video games, graphic novels, board games, and more. Some transmedia stories are more connected than others (consider how Marvel links its cinematic universe to its television shows and video games). Others are more loosely connected.

Now let me say that it’s important to note that this is a By Night Studios project. We’re a White Wolf licensee. If White Wolf decides to incorporate the Blood & Betrayal chronicle into a transmedia effort, that would be awesome, but it’s not something that is planned currently. White Wolf is very focused on developing the 5th edition of the World of Darkness games at this time.

Fees: Tell us a little bit about what you envision the membership fee providing a player or troupe?

We would like share everything! But we are still working on the fee structure with our licensee and the website developer, so unfortunately we can’t offer any additional details until we get closer to launch.

Where do you see the Blood and Betrayal Chronicle going in the future?

How does this help create a more inclusive atmosphere in LARP moving forward?

I’m going to combine my answers to these last two questions because I see them as interrelated, exactly like our World of Darkness LARP community. We hope to grow Blood & Betrayal into a fun LARP experience shared around the world by players living in many different countries and who bring many different traditions of play with them. We envision players who come from Nordic, freestyle, JEEP-form, Mind’s Eye Theatre, minimalist, competitive, blockbuster, and even boffer traditions all being able to share in a Vampire: The Masquerade story that spans the globe, and communicating as they do—sharing ideas and experiences in ways that help break down barriers to inclusiveness. We know that this is a very ambitious goal, but we feel it is very important to try.

Looking for a Jumpstart for your Vampire: The Masquerade Game? Check Out Dark New England: Five Chronicle Jumpstarts on the Storytellers Vault!

 

The Banality of Evil: Vampire: The Masquerade

A casual reader of this blog will note the large majority of the content is focused on the World of Darkness or other White Wolf derived games. This is because I, your humble editor-in-chief, am a long-term fan of the IP and the various games that were created under the auspices of White Wolf, Onyx Path Publishing, and By Night Studios. It’s also because I have played these games with a growing sense of awareness of one of the core benefits of playing in this dark reflection of our own world. We can hold a mirror to ourselves, and see truth. By playing in Vampire: The Masquerade and other WoD games, we become the Malkavians holding the broken looking glass, we can see the cracks in the façade of our own lives. We can see how our prejudices become actionable, we can witness privilege and power dynamics, and we can create ways to fight against the systemic oppression we see throughout our world.

In theory.

Darker Days Radio had a recent interview with Tobias Sjögren and Martin Ericsson (White Wolf Entertainment), and Martin was discussing his vision for self-reflection and monstrosity in the new games they are creating. He described the visceral sort of evil that Vampires are supposed to represent, the exploitative leeching of humanity. This was supposed to be a core element of Vampire: The Masquerade when Mark Rein – Hagen first conceptualized the game. Yet, players and storytellers have often pulled away from these elements. Even the game creators themselves have spent more time creating cool powers, bloodlines, and detailing locations than they have with fostering realistic and difficult moral quandaries. We’ve talked about humanity before here.

The question is, why? If one of the core goals of Vampire was to encourage deep introspection and find ways to combat the status quo, what happened?

“I believe that there is such a thing as Evil, I do not believe it is anything so cut and dried. It certainly doesn’t exist in simple dichotomy with good. I believe Evil is natural to the world, is intrinsic to the human condition, and that the recognition of Evil is, in fact, crucial to the attainment of happiness.” – Mark Rein-Hagen, Vampire: The Masquerade First Edition

In 1963, Hannah Arendt published Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. In this work, she outlines the trial of Adolf Eichmann, and details his life through the philosopher’s lens. Arendt hoped to find a monster in Eichmann, but instead, she found a boring bureaucrat focused on following the law, performing his duty, and adhering to the orders given to him. This was a man that had little to no moral quandary about his actions. What moral outrage could exist in his mind? He was following his interpretation of the Kantian principle of duty. Eichmann grossly misinterpreted this principal, but how many other people in the world grossly misinterpret the difficult writings of theologians, philosophers, and anyone that puts finger to keyboard?

Eichmann was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people during the Holocaust.

Eichmann during his 1963 trial in Jerusalem

The humanity system in Vampire is flawed. It encourages players to uphold a uniquely Judeo-Christian version of morality. Even so, it is flawed in that it isn’t central to anything mechanical. Players and storytellers can ignore the humanity/path system in the game without any concern that it would be detrimental to their long-term play. How do I know? I’ve run hundreds of Vampire games and rarely have players wanted to explore the nuances of the system surrounding humanity, except as it pertains to them leaving the Path of Humanity and adhering to a Path of Enlightenment.

White Wolf is working on ensuring humanity, morality, and the impact of violence and harm are central to their new mechanics in Vampire 5th Edition. They need to be central. If they are not mechanically bonded to the rest of the systems in the game, then players will shuffle them to the side. Morality is challenging. Self-reflection is difficult, it often isn’t fun. Challenging one’s own actions requires a comfort with facing inward, and asking oneself to change, or at the very least, being willing to try and change. The Banality of Evil in the World of Darkness is the lack of desire to have this personal conversation. The story is cool, the clans are interesting, the non-player characters and the meta-plot are interesting enough that people still read the books as story books without ever having played the game. There is a darkness here that tempts people, that engages the senses, but there is also a fear of holding up the mirror to oneself.

This will be the source of the next Vampire edition war. Players and storytellers that have become comfortable with being monsters in previous editions will rail against any mechanic that encourages or requires self-reflection. They have accepted the monstrous. These are the orders they have been given. Feeding is ancillary to the story, blood is simply a circle on a piece of paper, humanity isn’t important. Kindred or Cainite politics are central to the night’s events, challenges, and stories. Monsters and monstrous acts have become Banal. They are paperwork, they are marks on a sheet. And of course, this supposes that monstrous acts are only the behaviors of the serial killer, the predator, the abuser, which are reflected in the behavior of vampires.

Evil is rarely monstrous in our real world. Evil is insidious, it lives within us, creeping slowly to the surface. It isn’t a raving beast seeking escape. It’s a slow acceptance of the status quo. It’s a meandering disconnection from the world around us. It’s a self-absorption, it’s a comfort with death, destruction, and pain. Evil doesn’t require activity, often it shows itself through inactivity, through a suffusion of ennui.

The Beast, in Vampire, IS HUMANITY, in my opinion. The Beast is the active self-obsessed element of our minds, our souls, our very essence. Humanity is the monster for the Vampire. The Beast isn’t evil. It is active, it is trying to destroy the body, it wants to seek oblivion. The Beast is the animal urges that humans hide under our skins, under our morality, under our religions, and our philosophies. What is evil in Vampire? It is the active actions of the Kindred to seek control over humans so that they may prey upon them. It is the banal acceptance of their plight. It is the theft of life from others without their consent. Evil to the Cainite is the internalization that they are a monster, and such monstrosity isn’t noteworthy any longer. Humans can be beacons of light, good, hope, and joy. We can also be spiteful, harmful, and vicious with no purpose. We are neither born evil or good, nor tabula rasa. We a mix of nurture, nature, and a balance of good and evil.

Vampires have forgone this balance. To seek goodness in Vampire is supposed to be difficult, to impossible. It requires seeking things we should strive for in our day to day lives at all turns. We must seek consent, support, and love. If a Vampire can ask for blood, and be given it willingly, they are less evil. If they can find a family to hold them close and feed them, and support them, and build them up and help them strive toward a life that helps others, they may find peace. But, immortality steals these supports from the Kindred. The vampire outlives all those who might sustain them. The ravages of time steal their hope, and acts like ghouling or the embrace only perpetuate the cycle of harm and abuse. The V5 developers are aware of this, which is why they’ve integrated Touchstones (elements that keep the Kindred grounded and connected to hope). The question will be, is this enough and is it interesting to players? Will they accept the necessity of introspection into their games?

If we are to portray evil, we must not allow it to become Banal. When it does, we are no longer challenging ourselves by staring into the darkness. Instead, we are accepting the darkness into our souls. We are allowing evil to become normalized, amusing, and destructive. We must be willing to ask one another, “Why are we playing this game? What does it teach us? What can we do tomorrow to shuffle off the evil that pervades us and our world? Can we fight against it? Do we have the power to face evil and condemn it when we discover its origin is us?”

I’m not sure, but we must be aware of the Banality of Evil, for without our awareness of it, A Beast We Will Become.

Full disclosure, I’m no angel here either. I’ve written several things about Vampire for the Storyteller’s vault, and I’m not sure I’ve been much better.

This article was written by Joshua Heath and represents his opinions and only his opinion and may not reflect the opinion of any other contributors of this blog. He prefers he, him, and his pronouns. You can also find his work over at www.highlevelgames.ca

Storytelling to the Back and the Front of the Room

Storytelling is hard.

The purpose of this article is to both communicate my personal storytelling style and refine it. I want to explore, with you, how I want to do things and why I should be doing them. I hope that you can find something in them that helps you too. I know that talking to, and roleplaying with, others over the years has helped to improve my storytelling and roleplaying. These will be written from the perspective of a World of Darkness larper, but many of these ideas should apply to other tabletop and larp games.

I want to talk about the difficulty in storytelling to the back and the front of the room. In theater it is important that the play read not just to the close seats, but to all the way in the back row. The actors must not only be able to be heard, but must emote in a way that everyone can understand. There are many ways that theater accomplishes this. Everything from the shape of the stage, to the costumes and props are meant to tell a story to the whole theater. We have to do the same things when running game. We have to reach the back of the room.
DriveThruRPG.com

For my purposes I divide players into four different categories. Many players will fall into more than one and will change over times. These are not meant to be groundbreaking or all inclusive, but I find them convenient. These categories are indicative of how players find their fun in a game.

Storytellers can address all of these player types by running an inclusive game. Inclusive games are founded with the idea that every player deserves a moment to shine and to have a chance to be part of the story. When writing plots the staff should create situations that have a theme and purpose that fits within the genre of your game and engages character driven by different things. These plots should require a variety of skills to complete or understand them and encourage players to recruit outside of their cliques for help.

Internally Driven

Sir Laurence, as Hamlet, Tragedy Embodied

These players self generate personal plots through history and roleplay. They tend to enter play with a goal that they wish to accomplish. That goal can drive inter-character conflict, like the quest to be Prince of a city or it can be driven by NPC interaction, like the drive to gain Pillar Status for your clan. These players enjoy working toward the goals they have set and like to feel as if they could accomplish them.

Seek to support their personal stories by integrating it into the plot of the game as much as you can. Let them climb their mountains, but do not give them easy success. If they succeed, it should be in spite of the trials and difficulties. Ensure that success and setback comes in turn. They want to feel a sense of accomplishment that is worthy of recognition. Give them both hope and the potential for failure.

Externally Driven

These players prefer Storyteller generated plot. They will create their characters with this in mind and will frequently seek to be very good in one or two areas of the game. Some of them will be focused on combat or investigation, but they could just as easily be experts in lore or influence. Players that are driven by plot like to complete missions and solve mysteries in game.

Support these players with interesting and engaging plot. It does not need to be complex to intrigue them, but it does need solid themes and story that fits within the genre of the game that is being run. Give them opportunities to use their skills to move plot along, but write plot that is not simple to bulldoze through. A solid foundation will allow you to improvise along with player action and ideas.

Experience Driven

Convention of Thorns 1 – Experience LARP

These players are seeking to have a “Moment”. They want to experience real emotions and drama. Their characters will have great histories and cool costumes and they will use those to pursue scenes where these moments can happen. Experience driven players prefer to stay in character and encourage others to do so as well. They are at game for the roleplay itself.

Storytellers can support them by involving them in divisive and difficult situations. Even if, and sometimes especially if, they have great setbacks and failures these players embrace the roller coaster of feeling. Allow them to play out these situations, but do not allow it to go so far as to detract from the rest of the players. When you are planning games, look for opportunities to include moral and ethical choices. This not only gives them a place to roleplay, but also creates depth for everyone.

Undriven

These players frequently struggling with either the rules, setting, or roleplay in general. They enjoy being involved and spending time with their friends. Sometimes, they are just uninterested in the game, but want to hang out. Everyone falls into this category at times. There are nights when you are too tired or burnt out to really engage plot. It is not always a bad thing. Taking a step back and allowing everyone else to shine can be refreshing for yourself and healthy for the game.

Engaging Undriven characters can be difficult, but the first step is education. When a player looks excluded, pay attention to them. If it is because they do not understand what is going on or how the rules work, then either you, or a designated helper, sit down with them and teach them the basics. Knowing the setting and rules will get them to the point where they know how they can interact, however learning to effectively roleplay helps even more. I like to attach them to an a divisive character or NPC in game. It gives them a goal and something to do. By throwing them in the deep end, they get to become immediately involved. If they still seek to stay on the periphery, give them space. Some players are satisfied with just being at game.

Conclusion

Players are more important than game, characters are more important than plot. Drive everything around creating an experience for your players. This does not mean that you hold back from negative consequences or even character death, just that you ensure they are meaningful. Meaning is the greatest thing you can give to a player’s actions. If you give their failure or death a cool story, they will remember it forever. Do not be afraid of a little boredom or breathing space. This gives players time to relax and characters time to reflect and plot their next move.

Player action and character agency is difficult to deal with at times, but your plot is not as important as player enjoyment and engagement. If the plot is not working or if the players have a better plan, let it go. Allow their solution to work if it makes sense and fits into the game setting. Be willing to script or storyboard scenes that have gotten bogged down or are uninteresting. If a mass combat has reached the point where it is just a series of bland challenges and it is no longer challenging or entertaining, then script the rest of it. Players are willing to negotiate appropriate consequences for a victory, if they feel that is fits with what is happening.

Ultimately, the way to reach every player in your game is to be interested in them. Give everyone, individually, a moment in the spotlight. Take the time to get to know them and to learn why they come to game. Watch yourself when you are writing stories and running NPCs that you do not get too caught up playing to the front. Those players deserve attention, they drive your plots and are usually the social leadership of your game. However, do not forget the back. Those players are at game to enjoy themselves too. Be interested in all the characters in your game and seek to integrate everyone into the larger story.

 

Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition Alpha Release Review

Vampire V5 Alpha Playtest Overview

 

I attended GenCon 2017. This was the first time I’ve ever had the chance to attend and the convention was amazing on so many levels. I was invited to attend by The Wrecking Crew, a gaming demonstration group. They usually demo and playtest White Wolf and Onyx Path Publishing products. At their invitation, I got to run 5 play tests of Vampire 5th Edition’s Alpha release. Over these sessions I got very familiar with my particular take on the adventure, Rusted Veins, and very familiar with certain elements of the rules which I leaned on heavily. Upfront, this set of the rules and the adventure was a significant improvement to the pre-alpha slice which came out at World of Darkness Berlin.

Huge Discounts on your Favorite RPGs @ DriveThruRPG.com“

This Alpha product included a significant slice of rules, particularly focused around Hunger, Compulsions, combat, and some disciplines: particularly Potence, Presence, Fortitude, Celerity, and Obfuscate. These rules will be outlined more fully below. Mechanically, the game has some departures from previous Editions of Vampire. Particularly, as in the pre-alpha, the inclusion of Hunger dice is different. That said, this mechanic is a boon for adhering to the theme of Vampire: The Masquerade and ensured that the concept of The Beast and the need to Feed were incredibly present.

The module adventure, Rusted Veins, was written by Matthew Dawkins, with contributions and assistance from Kenneth Hite, Jason Andrew, Karim Muammar, Martin Ericsson, and Jason Carl with special thanks given to consultant Monica Valintinelli. The Alpha ruleset was written by Kenneth Hite, Jason Andrew, Matthew Dawkins, with guidance, editing, and contributions from Karim Muammar, Martin Ericsson, and Jason Carl.

Rusted Veins is a continuation of the Forged in Steel chronicle from the original Vampire: The Masquerade 1st Edition core book. It also continues the stories in Ashes to Ashes (1st Ed) and Dust to Dust (V20). Thematically, the story in Rusted Veins has the feel of Vampire 1st Edition. It’s gritty, street level, and the night to night need to survive felt incredibly present. Vampire at its finest offers a chance to explore dark themes, recognize them, and then work to find ways to conquer the darkness while staring deeply into the abyss. This story succeeds at that, there were a few elements I chose not to include while I was running, but Matthew (and other writers) did such a wonderful job creating multiple hooks that this wasn’t a problem.

Honestly, if this quality of work continues than I anticipate that Vampire 5th Edition will win awards. It’s gritty, honest, and it opens a door into the classic World of Darkness that needs to be opened and enjoyed. A shout-out to my players at GenCon 50! You were all awesome. I sincerely enjoyed running this game for you. To the players of Baggie, in particular, thank you for engaging with some of the adversarial aspects of this character, it was really awesome.

Below I’ll be diving more deeply into certain mechanics, and elements of the story, but above are my core thoughts in my post GenCon fugue.

Rusted Veins (sections in quotes are descriptions I used in my game)

“Gary, Indiana is a shit pit. It’s broken, run down, and industry has fled. This has left Gary a veritable ghost town, filled with crack houses and dilapidated buildings of all forms. It starts to rain; the rain is falling in heavy droplets that soak you to the bone. The rain in Gary is acidic, and you can hear it making slight burning hissing sounds every few drops, it hurts to stand in the rain for long. A whistling wind blows through the streets, and thunder shakes the windows of your haven”

Rusted Veins is a continuation of Forged in Steel, Ashes to Ashes, and Dust to Dust. This pedigree makes the adventure feel deep, nearly by default. There are layers upon layers present that wouldn’t otherwise be obvious to those who haven’t played those adventures. That said, you don’t need to have read them or know their content to enjoy this adventure. I’ve never previously run any of those chronicles, but I did read through them prior to running Rusted Veins. Having done so, I didn’t add any of their elements into the game at all, and that wasn’t a problem. That said, there are hooks that would allow you to do so if you were interested in trying it out.

We were provided character sheets, and detailed two-page backgrounds on each character. I gave my players a chance to read these backgrounds and most groups spent between 10-20 minutes reading through them. Dawkin’s stated goal of ‘a plot-hook in every paragraph’ is clearly present. Each character is really well detailed, and there is a story-hook and role-playing guidance in every paragraph. This creates a lot of depth, and I noticed that players focused on different elements for each run through. There were some key things that stood out for each, but I was surprised in my Sunday game when a player focused on an element of their character no-one had mentioned in any of the other playtests. That’s cool, that shows a lot of depth and a lot of options to explore. Honestly, these characters are deep enough to run a continuing chronicle, and Rusted Veins could easily be run over several gaming sessions if you wanted to run it with your home crew.

The core plot returns you to Gary, Indiana, the home of Modius and Juggler (two elders, one Camarilla, and one Anarch). Modius is the official Prince of Gary, but he’s nearly powerless at this point, flexing his muscles in small ways to try and impact events in the city and further. That said, he is personally capable in a fight (as written) and is heavily involved in the plot of Rusted Veins. Juggler is now the Baron of Gary, having been granted the title in the aftermath of Dust to Dust. Further, the feared vampire hunter, Sulivan Dane is present in this story and his character was the most fun for me to introduce to the players. In each run, I used a variation of this description.

“Lightning flashes, thunder rolls, and for a moment you can see clearly through the rain. Standing a distance away is an ancient Catholic priest. He’s still got strong, broad shoulders, and his face is hard. He’s holding an umbrella, and is wearing a long black trench coat. At his side is a sword, handle barely visible. As the light fades, a palpable feeling of dread crawls through your belly.”

Dane isn’t described as having a sword in the official materials, but I wanted to call back to the tropes of trenchcoat and katanas, and Dane offered a fantastic way to do so. Most of the players found his character particularly intimidating with how I described him. Goal achieved.

Running this 5 times gave me a few chances to approach the introduction of each of the core NPCs in various ways. I used different accents, voice inflection, and presentation for each of them every time. This helped me to differentiate the games in my mind. It also helped me to see various ways an adventure like this can be adjusted to create more tension, or allow the tension to fade, as thematically appropriate.

We started each session with feeding. The new You Are What You Eat mechanics were fun to play around with, and I often used my own judgement on what bonuses to provide the players. These sessions set the tone for the game. They also gave us a chance to investigate the Composure mechanic and use the new Hunger rules. Since you cannot get rid of Hunger without killing your victim, this created some serious tension at the start of the game. Every time, at least one character would fail to control themselves, and their feeding victim would die. Some players tried to hold off on Rousing the Blood as long as they could after making it to Hunger 0, some didn’t care and they were more than willing to try and use their Disciplines or increase their statistics whenever they got the chance.

We then moved into the main plot, which was a fetch-quest with lots of interesting complications and plot developments that adjusted the story as we went through it. Most of these complications were player driven too, and several sessions saw the players handing me and each other various slips of paper to represent text messages they were sending to the main NPCs and to one another. Hopping away from the table and talking in private was also incredibly common, and this created obvious and interesting tension as the players left at the table often speculated on what the others were planning.

In the end, Rusted Veins allows for an interesting exploration into what it means to feel an ever present vampiric Hunger. It offers choices, and the most frequent comment on my survey sheets was, “I felt like I had tons of choices, and this was awesome.” The choices that characters had gave them a sense of ownership over their characters, and to my knowledge not a single player felt uncomfortable investing themselves in roleplay. That said, if any of you folks read this, I’m happy to hear some negative feedback. Or even more positive feedback, I’m always interested in having that.

There is an epilogue in Rusted Veins. I chose not to use the Epilogue, since it took away from the cool sensations and ideas present in most of the core adventure. In the Epilogue the players would play other characters for a very short period of time. To be honest, this is an awesome mini-adventure, and I would encourage those that eventually see it to use it as a separate session at some point. It also has relevance for long-time vampire fans. For GenCon, it really didn’t work well, but the core concept is cool.

Mechanics

In most cases I’m a mechanics light kind of storyteller. I use them when I think they make the most sense and I generally find a way to use them that makes sense to me. This isn’t a great thing for a playtest though, and I tried to retain the new rules as much as possible. That said, there were a few times I went off the rails while I was running. I’m not upset with how I kept most of my games rolling along, but if there was a weakness of mine during the playtest it was my lack of a full grasp of all of the new mechanical elements of the game. Below is a description of the rules from the playtest, and how I ran them during my game.

Dice Pool and Successes

Vampire 5th Edition is going to be a dice pool game using D10s. You create your dice pool in the same way that you have always done for the World of Darkness, Attribute + Skill, in most cases. However, the largest difference is that the target number is now always 6. Then, you count the successes you get to determine if you complete a task. For example, to hit a person, you might need to roll 4 dice. If you roll a 6, 3, 6, and 7, you get three successes. This might be enough for a moderate success, or it might be one short. If you are one short, you may ask to Succeed at a Cost. In this case, the storyteller alters the success to add some elements that cost the player character something. For example, hitting a person, but then falling over after losing their balance at the same time.

It is possible to spend Willpower to reroll a partial dice pool, or the entire dice pool. To be honest, I didn’t catch that mechanic for the first four of my playtests. When it was used, it made a lot of sense. That said, I found that it tended to slow the story down, rather than keep it going. Hunger Dice are also a thing, but I’ll explain those under Hunger below.

Criticals can be achieved in two forms, two 10s on regular dice is considered a critical success. This allows for an increased success or narrative benefit. You can also get a messy critical, if you roll a 10 on a Hunger die (again explained below under Hunger). A messy critical allows for success, but in a way that is over the top, and potentially harmful to the player character’s intentions. This is indicative of the Beast rearing its head, and pushing the character farther than they would do so normally.

Criticals were incredibly fun to use, and messy criticals were awesome to help narrate interesting alterations. The rules include some other elements surrounding Composure, particularly that if a player could not think of a messy result, that they would lose composure. I think my groups and I found a good middle ground between my narrative control of these messes, and their overall control of their characters in most situations.

Virtue and Vice

Instead of a Nature and Demeanor, V5 Alpha playtest used Virtue and Vice. These are mechanics that allow you to regain Willpower when you act in accordance with your Vice. Since acting in accordance with your Virtue is harder, doing so refills all of your Willpower. Most players in my game used these as basic roleplaying hints and we did dip into the Willpower refill mechanic in a few of the games. In most, we didn’t spend a lot of Willpower. That was partly my fault, because I didn’t often suggest it as an option to the players and players unfamiliar with the WoD wouldn’t have thought to do so.

Initiative

Initiative is now determined by Wits+Combat Skill. This is the skill the Vampire uses in their first combat and determines the initiative order. Now, I did not catch this and continued to use the Wits + Dexterity rule from the old version of the rules.

Initiative now flows from lowest to highest, with the person with the highest initiative going last with the ability to react to other characters. Honestly, this is present in several versions of the rules, but I’ve rarely seen people use it, and it’s a shame. This allows for sensible dice pool management if you want to split dice pools, otherwise knowing when to plan to split a pool is nearly impossible to determine. I really enjoyed using this rule and I recommend it to every person playing any version of WoD rules.

Combat

Combat in the V5 Alpha is a contested action. Yes, this can mean a combatant gets hurt when they attack someone. This is why splitting pools can be so effective if used right. You can dodge an attack, and attack in the same round if you are willing to reduce your pools. Damage equals the amount over the contested result a player gets on the dice. Which is much easier than worrying about a mechanic for soaking damage etc. This made combat speed by, in most cases.

There are two types of Health damage, superficial and aggravated. You have Stamina +5 health levels, and superficial damage accumulates and becomes aggravated if enough is taken. Superficial damage is halved for Vampires. We ran these mostly correctly in my playtests, though there are some more in-depth rules that I didn’t use, particularly relating to the Critical Injury table.

Hunger and Hunger Dice

Hunger has a rating of 0-5 and represents a similar in-game concept to what blood points used to represent in earlier editions of Vampire. That said, Hunger feels different. Blood points often didn’t feel like they were important, because they were often fairly numerous (at least in my experience). A vampire with 0 hunger is sated, but the only way to have 0 Hunger is to have killed a feeding victim that night. Waking raises the Hunger of every Vampire to 1.

Hunger is an ever present effect, and every dot of Hunger a character has replaces one of their regular dice. These dice should be a different color to differentiate them, and I recommend red dice… cause, well, blood right? When you replace your die with this Hunger die, you need to look out for two things, if you roll a 1, and if you roll a 10.

A 10 create a messy critical situation, and (in the Alpha) two 1s would cause a Compulsion. This mechanic did not come up often, and there were quite a few discussions around how to adjust it so it would occur more frequently. A good goal for this is probably having it occur around 15-20% of the time, if you ask my completely un-mechanically minded brain.

When you use a Discipline, or do various things that only Vampires do, you have to roll 1 Hunger die. If you roll a 1-3, you raise your Hunger, if you roll a 4-10, you don’t. This encourages players to use their disciplines, but also creates a lot of tension when they do so. This is awesome. This makes using a discipline a dangerous activity, but one that most players feel comfortable using in moderation. In a regular chronicle this is going to decrease Discipline use, and I think this is fantastic.

If a player gets all the way up to Hunger 5, they need to make a Frenzy check. This never happened in my games at GenCon, though it was a constant fear that a character might get to that level.

Feeding

Feeding can reduce Hunger, 1, 2, even 3 points. However, Hunger can only be reduced to 0 if a player accidentally or willingly kills their victim. Most of my players ended up having at least one moment where they seriously considered draining someone. I made my players roll Composure every time they fed. If they failed, they would drain their victim. This doesn’t appear to be in the rules, so this wasn’t really required. That said, it did add tension, and it did make players cautious about feeding and using their disciplines. Every death from feeding resulted in a Humanity point loss.

Compulsions

These were present in the pre-Alpha playtest, but they have been adjusted to remove the elements that made this rule’s element controversial. Now the player can choose, or ask the storyteller to choose a compulsion. This is an interesting back and forth discussion, and usually is pretty quick. Tables for the Brujah no longer included the term ‘Triggered’ and that is refreshing, to say the least. These didn’t come up as much as I would have liked, but they did in a few of my games. When they did occur, it was interesting, and it added a layer of roleplaying and story to the game. So, I think they do exactly what they are intended to do, but they don’t currently happen enough to really be that impactful. I understand that White Wolf is going to be adjusting this mechanic in particular, as they want to get this right.

All in all, Vampire 5th Edition Pre-Alpha rules are really engaging and interesting. I didn’t get the chance to read them as much as I should have and I didn’t always run them exactly the way they were intended. Rusted Veins is an awesome module, and I really enjoyed running it. If this is indicative of what Mark Rein-Hagen, Kenneth Hite, Karim Muammar, and the rest of the team at White Wolf are creating, then I think Vampire 5th Edition will be a really exciting product.

DAV20 Dark Ages Companion Review

I’ve been struggling to do this review. Not because of the reason you might think either. Dark Ages Companion is probably one of the best books I’ve read from Onyx Path Publishing. I’ve had to stop every paragraph or two to sketch out notes while reading this book. In the 2 weeks that I’ve been actively trying to get through it, I’ve had, at minimum, 10 chronicle concepts come to mind based on elements presented in this book. This book was developed by Matthew Dawkins, and I can tell you he and his writing staff did nearly everything right.

Lords, Lieges, and Lackeys

Dark Ages Companion: for Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Dark Ages is broken into eight chapters. The first six are various domains, most which have never been given a full treatment. The final two chapters are rules for building Domains and Dark Ages warfare. The final two chapters are an excellent resource for a storyteller that wants to dive deeply into these elements in their game. The Domain rules remind me of a more streamlined version of the AD&D supplement Birthright, and are effective if you’d like to include some elements of city/domain management in your games. These rules use Pooled Backgrounds as a baseline, and then go deeper. This is an excellent way of utilizing downtime and maturation rules in a way that doesn’t cause large breaks in the story.

Chapter Eight gives some deeper rules on warfare. If you want to be more accurate in your portrayal of various weapons and armor these are the rules for you. If you’d like to keep things cinematic, the core rules for the game still work fine, and you can pepper these details in as you see fit. I’m getting this stuff out of the way first. Great two chapters, but the first six are more exciting.

Plot Hooks Abound

Rome, Bath, Bjarkarey, Constantinople, Mogadishu, and Mangaluru: these are the domains presented in Dark Ages Companion. There are enough plot hooks to construct at least 100 chronicles here. Each chapter provides details on key Cainites, key elements of the domain, and key plots, disagreements, and ways to get your player characters involved. The domains are also connected in subtle ways, with plot hooks linking them to one another sprinkled throughout. This is masterfully done, very little of these connections seem forced, they are nuanced, smart, and really intriguing.

By Pat McEvoy

 

Each domain offers something different in the way of scope. Bjarkarey is small, intimate, and highly aggressive. As is Rome, which offers an interesting counterpoint to Bjarkarey. Constantinople and Bath, both drastically different in size, offer more expansive exploratory plotlines. I haven’t read enough of Mogadishu and Mangaluru yet to say what their full details will be like, but I can say from a quick look that they present a mix of large and small scale plot to throw your players into. Seriously, you’ll have to work hard not to come up with some great story concepts after reading these chapters, they are excellent.

Problems In the Text

There are very few things not to like in this book. One thing I’m not sure of though are the creatures at presented at the end of three chapters. The Black Dog, the Kallikantzaros, and the Pishacha are presented as supernatural opponents which you can utilize in your game. These are local legends related to Bath, Constantinople, and Mangaluru, respectively, but I’m not sure that makes me want to utilize them. For a Vampire game, I’ve always tried to focus on the internal darkness which plagues the Kindred, and I often shy away from ‘monsters’ which to have the PCs encounter and challenge. That isn’t how these are explicitly presented, but they do have a subtle hint of D&D encounters to them. They are there if you think they make sense for your chronicle, use them if you think it will add to your story.

I know a couple of things about Old Norse culture.

The second thing I was frustrated with is a relative historical quibble, and I’m going to explain what bothers me about it. In the chapter on Bjarkarey, there are a few mentions of blood purity and rugged individualism. Neither of these concepts is historically true to Norse culture, at all, and I find their presence here frustrating. The Norse were intensely communitarian, as you would have to be if you lived in some of the most hostile climates in Europe. The concepts of blood purity were developed by the Spanish during the Reconquista (1400’s) and would have been bizarrely strange to the Norse during the 1200’s. As a student of Norse history and a follower of Germanic religious traditions, these elements bother me. They speak to a narrative that far-right elements in society attempt to latch onto, and though they are fleeting in this text, their presence is annoying.

All in all, this is a good chapter on a culture that was still having some inter-cultural conflicts between Pagan cultural holdovers and Christian religious dominance, and it is not badly written. In fact, it’s really well developed and I immediately find myself excusing the things that bother me.

Final Takeaway on Dark Ages Companion

Buy this book. One of my favorite White Wolf books of all time is House of Tremere. I’d give that a 10/10 rating in a heartbeat. Dark Ages Companion is easily a 9/10 book. If you ever plan to play a Dark Ages game of any edition, you should own this book. The art is amazing, the writing is fantastic, and you’ll have a ton of great ideas come to mind while reading it.

Interview with Nathan and Bob 25 Years of Vampire

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Nathan and Bob of the podcast, 25 Years of Vampire:The Masquerade A Retrospective were willing to do an interview with us about their show. If you are doing a WoD podcast and would like to do a similar interview, please let me know. I think it is interesting to get into the heads of those of us who are podcasting and writing about these games and why. Please click the link below to listen to the interview. You can find their podcast on their website and on iTunes.

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*Note, all opinions are the opinions of their respective Authors and may not represent the opinion of the Editor or any other Author of Keep On the Heathlands

 

An Interview with Chill and Changeling the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Developer Matthew McFarland

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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 these projects to talk a little bit about these projects and he graciously agreed.

Victor: Thank you for taking the time to chat with us.  For anyone who isn’t familiar, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your history developing games?

Sure! I started writing games professionally in 1997. White Wolf Game Studio had an all-call for writers, and I sent in the first bit of a novella I was working on. That novella is thankfully lost to time, but it did get me a job writing on Giovanni Chronicles IV, and then I slowly infiltrated the rest of the World of Darkness lines and eventually got a full-time job as Dark Ages developer.

I left White Wolf in 2004, and went to grad school to become a speech-language pathologist, because while you can have steady work in the RPG industry, it was a little too unstable for me as a new dad. In 2012, my wife Michelle Lyons-McFarland and I started our own small press games company, Growling Door Games, Inc. We published two single-book story games (curse the darkness and A Tragedy in Five Acts), and then 2014 we obtained the license to publish a new edition of the classic horror RPG Chill.

Simon: What was it that attracted you to the projects you’re working on now?

Right now, I’m working on a couple of freelance projects for Onyx Path Publishing (which licenses the World of Darkness from the new owners at Paradox)[Editor’s Note, The World of Darkness is a property of White Wolf, AB a subsidiary of Paradox Entertainment Inc.], including the Beast Player’s Guide for Beast: The Primordial and the second edition of Hunter: The Vigil. Can’t talk much about Hunter; that’s Monica Valentinelli’s show, and I’m just a writer. Beast is very much my show; the game was mine pretty much from the ground up (though of course I had a really awesome team of people helping to put it all together), and I’m excited about the Player’s Guide. It’s a chance to flesh out the areas of Beast that I don’t think came through as well as we wanted in the core book, and also follow the time-honored tradition of adding new cool powers, new “splats”, and new toys for players to use.

Outside of Onyx Path, I just finished up writing a sourcebook for Chil called Monsters. It’s a bestiary book, in a way, but it’s also a look into the world of Chill and how the organization dedicated to fighting the Unknown, SAVE, approaches creatures that don’t fall into easily understandable categories (vampires, ghosts, werewolves, etc.). Monsters is the first book in a good long while that I’ve written entirely myself, and it was fun flexing those muscles again. (Monsters should be available for sale in August, by the way.)

Victor: The Changeling the Dreaming 20th Anniversary is the first new edition of the game since 1997.  Can you talk about what your approach was to updating Changeling to the world of the 20teens?

The 20th Anniversary Edition games were meant to keep the feel of the old games, but to update the world around them and (in the case of Changeling) become the revised edition they never got. As such, our approach was to look at what made Changeling awesome. We tried to keep the whimsy, but also the tragedy. One of the greatest explanations of Changeling I ever heard (from a friend and player in Atlanta many years ago) was that it’s like someone pointing a gun at your head and saying “be happy.” We tried to keep that notion, that dreams are hard to maintain in the face of the crushing pressure of the “real world,” but they’re all the more important because of that.

The other thing we wanted to do give changelings a little more magical “oomph.” I’m not a believer in “game balance” as it’s usually defined (that is, given a featureless white room, could two characters stand an equal chance of killing each other), but I do think that changelings in previous editions were a bit too fragile. We changed magical mechanics a bit, and brought in the notion of Unleashing (originally from Dark Ages: Fae) so that changelings have the chance to court disaster with the power of Glamour.  

Victor: One of the major focuses of Keep is inclusivity in gaming, so we have a few questions about the Gallain.  In a blog post about your early playtests for Changeling, you said the theme for the edition is  “powerful nobles hiding in freeholds and staying young while the changelings outside freeze”.  In previous editions the various groups of Gallain were presented with either less oppressive nobles or no specifically noble kith.  Since C20 includes all the Fae how are you including the non European kiths in the theme of this edition?

That’s one theme of the edition, and it definitely resonates more with the European Kithain than the Gallain. The Gallain are in the book, but they’re not the focus of the game (they’re in the Appendix and while there’s enough to play them, it’s severely truncated due to space constraints). I know that’s a roundabout way to answer the question, but the answer is that Gallain don’t get included in the same way, except perhaps insofar as to note that even the “commoner” Kithain, who are the bottom class of that particular system, still get to participate in that system. Gallain don’t, necessarily (which might not matter, depending on where they are).

Simon: Part of any good story is compelling antagonists. Changeling’s ultimate enemies, the autumn people, the people who disbelieve the fae out of existence, are a powerful metaphor for the destruction of culture. With that in mind, how do you go about creating autumn people that speak to that kind of horror while at the same time being sensitive to real world colonization experienced by the cultures reflected by the Gallain?

What’s scary about the autumn people, to me, is that they don’t have to confront the fae to destroy them. They’re not aggressive (necessarily), they’re confirmation bias made manifest. They’re a form of privilege, if you will, because they don’t see what they don’t need to see. I think that’s pretty relevant for the Gallain and their cultures, too (though of course, not all Gallain use dreams and Glamour the same way as Kithain).

Simon: Given that the Inanimae can reflect how different cultures perceive their environments how do you see the Inanimae fitting into the 20th Anniversary of Changeling?

One of the notions that the book brings up is that during the Mythic Age, everything dreamed, including the world. Bearing in mind that, like the other Gallain, the Inanimae don’t get a lot of space in Changeling 20th, I think the takeaway is that part of ignoring dreams and Glamour is ignoring the natural world. That’s something that people (both in the World of Darkness and in the real world) do at their peril, but it’s hard, and again, what makes autumn people scary and frustrating isn’t that they go out of their way to ruin the world (a la Pentex) but that they can blithely ignore the problems.

It’s easy to imagine an Inanimae looking at a changeling and saying, “well, sure, whine all you want, but people still write books, using paper that they make from the mulched-up bodies of my family.”

Womb of the Earth by Lydia Burris


Victor: When I first started playing the World of Darkness I was in a community of gamers where Changeling was incredibly popular, but in more recent years I’ve discovered that a lot of White Wolf fans feel Changeling doesn’t fit into the broader World of Darkness.  Where do you think this sentiment comes from, and did you make any changes in C20 you can tell us about that help the fae interact literally and thematically with the broader World of Darkness?

So, personally, I never had any trouble making Changeling fit into the greater World of Darkness. I used to do a lot of crossover (still do, for my Chronicles of Darkness games, where it’s much easier), and what it boils down to is that themes unique to one game might not work for all the others, but there are themes that are intrinsic to the World of Darkness as a whole. The death of creativity and passion is strongest for Changeling, of course, but tell me you couldn’t make that work for Vampire, too. Hell, “our way of life is dying” is perfect for Werewolf as well as Changeling. “Discovery and passion are intoxicating but dangerous:” Changeling and Mage.

Mechanically, of course there are some things you have to work around (not everyone has the same Traits, for instance), and if you’re doing crossover, you can’t just throw any old characters together and think they’ll work. I happen to think that’s true no matter what game you’re playing, though.

Simon: Throughout the CtD line the three major Gallain groups, the Nunnehi, the Menehune and the Hsien, are either excluded from or not a part of the Dreaming. Has this dynamic changed at all in C20?

We don’t get into the cosmology of it very much, due to space. Nunnehi and Menehune still deal more with spiritual expressions of Glamour than Dreaming-based expressions, though.

Victor: I’d like to talk briefly about another one of your upcoming projects, the Monsters sourcebook for the Chill Role Playing game published by your company Growling Door Games.  Can you tell us a little bit about Chill, and the Monster book specifically for anyone who isn’t familiar with the game?

Chill is an investigate horror RPG in which players take on the roles of members of SAVE (the Eternal Society of the Silver Way). SAVE is an organization dedicated to protecting people from the Unknown (the supernatural in general), which feeds on humanity’s fear, misery, pain, and sometimes just flesh and blood. Our first sourcebook, called SAVE: The Eternal Society, delved into the history and current state of the organization.

Monsters, like I mentioned earlier, is a bestiary book, but it’s also mostly written in-character, from the perspective of a SAVE researcher working on a classification system for monsters. It was a lot of fun to delve into how SAVE saw these creatures when she was writing it (in the 1980s) and then add commentary from a more contemporary agent. There are a lot of fun “Easter eggs” in the book that refer back to the Chill core book and to SAVE, and I think it will be fun for readers to see these characters’ stories as they read about these monsters.

The second edition of Chill presented adversary books in this format (Lycanthropes, Vampires, Apparitions), and I was always impressed with how skillfully the in-character information evoked the horror of the setting. I’m trying for something like that: Fun to read, evocative for players and Chill Masters.


Victor: I saw you comment online a few months ago about tweaks you were making to the Monsters in the book to remove some of the invisible bias that was present in previous editions of the game.  Can you talk a little bit about how you approached this and in general how you approach making those kinds of revisions to RPGs with established fan bases who may be resistant to any changes in their favorite games?

As far as making changes to games with loyal fanbases, I’ve always found that if you try to please everyone, you please no one. I love the 2nd Edition of Chill, and our edition draws very heavily on that one. I’ve always been very clear about that, and while I do get fans of the first edition sometimes who complain that our version isn’t enough like that one (the first edition drew more inspiration from pulp-horror and Hammer films), for the most part folks grasp what we’re doing and are with us.


I think the comment you’re referring to was in noting that there were quite a few creatures in previous editions that presented as female, and were said to “tempt” or “deceive” men. If you look at how female-presenting creatures appear in horror generally, you see a lot of that, so it’s by no means unique to Chill or to RPGs, but since one of the big themes of Chill is that fear becomes manifest in the Unknown, I wanted to address that. I play a lot with the notion of unreliable narrators in Monsters, talking about SAVE making assumptions that it really has no business making, and members letting their own biases creep in. The kind of meta effect of that is that we wind up hanging a lantern on some of the sexist implications of previous work; Dr. Garrett, the narrator of Monsters, notes that female-presenting creatures are consistently described in certain ways that male-presenting or genderless creatures are not.

*Note, all opinions are the opinions of their respective Authors and may not represent the opinion of the Editor or any other Author of Keep On the Heathlands