Acquired Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition Corebook (worldofdarkness.com)

It has been years since I’ve played a game of Vampire, and even then, it was Vampire: The Requiem. I’m not sure if I’m prepared to go down this rabbit hole again.

@vishae my biggest problems with RPGs is that I don’t have a group of friends with whom to share this

@tibz oh I know the feeling. I had to play Vampire: The Requiem on IRC (IRC!), back in the day.
Have you tried roll20.net Although I can see the line between tabletop and video games start to blur when doing that.

@tibz oh, I should probably add: I didn’t get this with plans to play it. Although I do have a regular tabletop RPG group, they’re more into Pathfinder. No, I got this book because WoD always make amazing looking rule books that actually aren’t boring to read. Even reading this makes me feel like I’m a character in the world, stumbling across the secret of there being Vampires in the world.

@vishae I’m so glad I’m not the only one who feels this way. When I said I wanted to buy the rule book to read it. My BF looked at me like I had sprouted horns. They do such a great job of making their rule books engaging.

@vishae I haven’t tried Roll20 no... it might be my best chance tbh although IRL play would be great obviously

@vishae and yeah I totally understand that: I bought a (french) RPG book that I’ve sadly never played but the lore is awesome! A story/universe of being Judge Dredd-type cops in 2030 Los Angeles

@tibz @vishae @12ozbeehouse I spend an embarrassing amount of time reading RPG books and guides...and almost no time playing anymore for the same reason -- no group! I've considered Roll20, but haven't taken the plunge, yet.

I've been fiddling with a hack of The Quiet Year, Follow and maaaaaybe Blades in the Dark to come up with a narrative-heavy game that could be played over blog post, or email.

@eli I enjoy reading the guidebooks too even though I've basically never played a tabletop RPG. The Schlock Mercenary source book was great for art and background for the epic (and hilarious) comic.

@eli @vishae @12ozbeehouse Micro.Blog RPG league! Let’s do it!

@eli @tibz @vishae @12ozbeehouse Similar state, my tabletop group broke up and I moved, and I've done some online stuff but nothing steady. But I still buy, read, and write games. I tried Roll20 a bit but it's more stuff than I need, fucking-skype is usually enough.

@vishae Been using Roll20 for years. Don’t use most of the features many sessions (video chat is enough) but it does come in handy at times. Only way I can play with my old group (almost 30 years!) since we are scattered all over the country.

@12ozbeehouse exactly, and the art work has always been pretty nice. Although I’m not as big of a fan of all the studio photos in this version.

@vishae Ahhh, what a great thread here! Nice to see how many people buy RPG sourcebooks to enjoy it in every way except RPing. Adding to the chorus, I recently got the revised Numenera corebooks through its Kickstarter campaign, solely for the art and the world building. A splurge for books that will likely never be used for their original purpose. XD But now I have them, who knows, a RPG may emerge one day... (By the way, hello! 👋 A note to say I'm following you because you have similar interests as I do, and it's about time I had some anime/spec fic/fandom people in my timeline.)

@vishae I was deeply invested in 2nd and 3rd edition White Wolf stuff, and have super positive memories of Storytelling numerous campaigns. Would love to hear your thoughts on the new core books!

@tibz @eli @12ozbeehouse @mdhughes @tgray @vega @christopher @bruce

Micro.Blog RPG league! Let’s do it!

That should definitely be a thing, though timezone issues... Unless we play one of @eli's games that can be played via blog post or email.

I'm imagining there'd be less direct, immediate, interactions - so each person would mostly be writing "diary entries" of what they are doing or planning on doing.
Then, if there is a need to do quick actions where people are acting against another person, they can have a session hosted on Slack where more real-time, interactive play can happen. After which, the transcript can be posted on the blog.

Sorry, my mind was just churning with ideas...

@tibz @eli @12ozbeehouse @mdhughes @tgray @vega @christopher @bruce

oh oh, and, to stop spamming other people's timeline, we can create a micro.blog account where all participants include their RPG-specific json feeds, so there is one account where you can read one continuous storyline.

@vishae sounds fun!

@matpacker of course anyone can join! And I would think that joining doesn't have to mean playing either, you could join and just be interested in reading along.

Hmm, now I'm thinking along the lines of an Inoreader feed bundle that people can subscribe to and read via their RSS reader.

But perhaps the biggest hurdle would be, which game?
//@tibz @eli @12ozbeehouse @mdhughes @tgray @vega @christopher @bruce @paperclypse

@vishae @eli @12ozbeehouse @mdhughes @tgray @vega @christopher @bruce @paperclypse

ALL OF THIS! I'm really excited about the possibilities!

@tibz I’m in!

@vishae @12ozbeehouse @mdhughes @tgray @vega @christopher @bruce @paperclypse I am really digging this, and I love the idea of a single consolidated feed, as to not spam the timeline of others!

My basic thinking re: game mechanics are two-fold. I was thinking it'd be neat to play 2 games, where the first game helps to define characters and create the setting (a la The Quiet Year) and the second game takes place in the setting and between the characters that arise from the first game. I've also been assuming that this game is GM-less, so as to better facilitate async. play...BUT, I haven't sorted it all out, yet.

I may, though, be overcomplicating things a bit.

@vishae My RPG group has started using a Discord server for between-session game stuff. Works pretty well. But I think there's no wrong way to do this stuff.

@eli I just read a fascinating book by John Darnielle called Wolf in White Van. The protagonist runs an RPG-by-mail company. It's post-apocalyptic. The Quiet Year made me think of it.

@DrOct @eli @vishae @12ozbeehouse @mdhughes @tgray @vega @christopher @bruce @paperclypse @toddgrotenhuis @matpacker
- this thread is amazing, but I think the user tags are becoming a little unwieldy. I propose that we move this discussion on Slack or Discourse. I only suggest Slack because there's already and Micro.Blog Slack so I assume everyone has the app already, but I also have Discourse, so I don't mind either.
If there's a preference, let me know and I'll create a Slack/Discourse instance and post the sign up link.

@vishae agreed! I'm good with either slack or discourse! This may convince me to actually install the app :P

@DrOct @eli @12ozbeehouse @mdhughes @tgray @vega @christopher @bruce @paperclypse @toddgrotenhuis @matpacker

Yeah, let's try Discord - I'm more familiar with Slack, so doing this on Discord would get me more comfortable with this app.

If you're interested in discussing about the micro.blog RPG League, please sign up here: discord.gg/c2be4PJ

@vishae Ok, this'll be a nice way to try out Discord.