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Cake day: July 3rd, 2023

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  • Well, technically there’s Vampire: The Requiem. It’s very similar, but not in the exact same universe. Some of the names are reused, but there’s no canon metaplot, and many details are changed. I personally liked it a lot, but I think it’s less popular than Masquerade.

    If you want to roll your own setting, I bet there are generic systems that would work. Fate is my go-to, and I can see how it would work. (Probably a stress track for hunger, some consequence boxes for becoming a monster)


  • try to talk them out of the idea of “Leveling” they get scared and run back to the system they’re familiar with.

    I still think about the time in college I tried to get a D&D friend to consider Mage. I was telling him about how you can just do magic, and the real limitation is paradox and hubris. Like, it’s often not about ‘can you?’ but rather “should you?”

    He couldn’t get over “you can just cast whatever you want? Fireballs every turn?”

    “Yes, but that’s probably going to make a lot of paradox, and probably isn’t the best way to solve your problem”

    “Sounds broken,” he said, and lost interest.










  • I’m partial to Fate.

    It’s very open. You don’t have to worry about looking up the right class or feats. You just describe what you want to play, and if the group thinks it’s cool and a good fit for the story, you’re basically done.

    Now, the downside is this requires a lot more creativity up front. A blank page can be intimidating.

    I like that players have more control over the outcome. You can usually get what you want, even if you roll poorly, but it’s more of a question of what you’re willing to pay for it.

    Every roll will be one of

    • succeed with style
    • succeed
    • a lesser version of what you want
    • succeed at a minor cost
    • succeed at a major cost
    • (if you roll badly and don’t want to pay any costs) fail, don’t get what you want

    It’s a lot more narrative power than some games give you. I don’t like being completely submissive to the DM, so I enjoy even as a player being able to pitch “ok I’m trying to hack open this terminal… how about as a minor cost I set off an alarm?” or “I’m trying to steal his keys and flubbed the roll… How about as a major cost I create a distraction, get the keys, but drop my backpack by accident. Now I’m disarmed, have no tools, and they can probably trace me with that stuff later. But I got the keys!”.

    It’s more collaborative, like a writer’s room, so if someone proposes a dud solution the group can work on it.

    The math probability also feels nice. You tend to roll your average, so there’s less swinginess like you’ll get in systems rolling one die.


  • Plus, I don’t know any other system that lets me pull my intestines out of my abdomen and use them like a lasso to climb a cliff when I forgot my rope at home.

    Nitpick: more narrative systems like Fate let you do this, but then you typically don’t get a lot of crunch. Plus it can vary if your group isn’t on the same wavelength about what’s cool and appropriate for the story.



  • You don’t understand small talk if you think it has no functional purpose. Small talk has several purposes.

    One, it sends a bunch of signals. I see you. You see me. Neither of us are threats. We have a shared language.

    Two, it’s how you find deeper topics to talk about. “What did you get up to this weekend?” “Oh, hung out with my friend. We saw a band I like - All Dogs - do a surprise anniversary show. You do anything big?”

    Three, it lets people choose their level of engagement. “Cool, sounds fun. I stayed in, watched some TV” signals minimal interest vs “All dogs? Never heard of them but I love live music. What’s their genre?” signals interest, and now you can a little deeper on music.

    If you just plunge directly into deep stuff that’s like skipping foreplay and lube. It’s probably going to make people uncomfortable.