"I was dreaming while I wrote this"

Currently I am reading Changeling The Dreaming, the 20th Anniversary edition. There are 20th anniversary editions for all the original games, in fact Vampire hits its 30th this year. Perhaps there'lll be a new anniversary for this one. God that makes me feel old. 

I've read all the core books, and some of the revised editions over the years. Vampire 1e is a bit of an anachronism. It really came into its own with 2e - and you can see from the production values and quality (at least back in the day) just how successful 1e was. 

I remember 1e Werewolf with the claw cutaway on the cover betraying a crepuscular scene of natural beauty underneath. The only problem was that it was a softback book. Don't rip it! All the reviews pointed out this flaw, and all the copies, raging across the world, eventually succumbed!

Mage 1e was fantastic. Ultimately it's a game about robots fighting wizards for control of reality. To be honest that's disturbing, because who decides what's real? is life under the Traditions any better than the ordered paradigm of the Technocracy? Or the Nephandi? At the time I loved how the authors quoted Power Windows by Rush as well as Carlos Castaneda. You can keep Castaneda, I'll stick with Rush! Curves and lines of grand designs!

Wraith? Well I did own the book. I'm sure I read it, but the only thing I can recall is being called 'tumorous excrescence' on the back cover. Off to a good start. That and the macabre art, as well as the glow in the dark logo. A very very different tone. I never got to play it, and, given the need for the Shadow mechanic (which is a cool idea, insulting your friends in character), it was probably best the people I played with never got to play it either. It has some good ideas, but it's not a happy fun time with curves and lines of grand designs. Just a Ghost Rider (not sure that works).

And there it stopped. I never picked up Changeling until a few days ago. I've been working my way through the book, the anniversary edition is huge. It's over 500 pages long so it cribs a bunch of stuff from previous editions and supplements. The problem is that I have no idea whether buying those supplements is now worthwhile; whether they took certain parts they liked and ignored other parts that I might also like. It doesn't matter; either these will make their way into subsequent supplements (support pending) or I'll do without. It's a bit of a fool's economy to buy all that stuff. I'm sure I have enough within 500+ pages and a players guide, at least for starters.

I probably still will though. So many books!    

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