I have been watching various Vampire: The Masquerade live plays. I am currently watching Private Nightmares, which is Alexander Ward’s chronicle of Thin Blood vampires. As far as podcasts, I have been loving The All Night Society. It was a go-to podcast to listen to while driving to and from South Dakota last weekend. On top of all that, I have been listening to the World of Darkness live-plays featuring Jason Carl as the storyteller. I finished NY By Night, and it was so good, I have to talk about it.

NY By Night is a two-season web series featuring voice actors playing Vampire: The Masquerade. The first season features an Anarch coterie, while the second season is a coterie devoted to the Camarilla. As a quick definition, Anarchs are a type of faction within Vampire where these vampires don’t want to play into the political system run by the Camarilla. The Camarilla coterie is more loyal to the vampire political system in New York. Each season focuses on the players interacting with each other’s story points Ny By Night is unlike any Vampire chronicle I have watched.

Both seasons are solid within their own right, but I think I preferred the Anarch coterie in season #1. The characters all seemed to get along and respect each other. Rey (played by Joey Rassool) was fascinating to watch. Rey was an Anarch, but wanted to get back with the Camarilla, much to the other player’s chagrin. This led to some back-and-forth conversations between Rey and the other characters. Margo (played by Aabria Iyengar) was a classic Ventrue. Both Alexander Ward and Mayanna Beren did a great job of bringing their characters to life, especially Mayanna. Before Ny By Night, she had never played Vampire before, and I wouldn’t have thought that when watching her portions on the series.

The second season was diabolical and chaotic. While the first coterie got along, the second coterie was ruthless to each other. While Margo was charming, Khalida was manipulative in a way that Margo wasn’t. Noura Abrahim (who played Khalida) was riveting. Cynthia Marie played Coco, and this was the first live play I watched where someone played a Lasombra. I want to play one now. Oh Brawn. Brawn was such a sweetie and was taken advantage of by the other members of the coterie. It’s funny because the Camarilla is seen as the “right” choice in Vampire, but this coterie proved how evil the Camarilla can be.

Another cool thing about this series is how it connects to the Vampire video games, such as Vampire: The Masquerade – Coteries of New York and Vampire: The Masquerade – Shadows of New York. Characters from the video games appeared, played by other players. I played the video games first before watching this series. I want to go back and play them now, knowing the lore that I know now. I’d love to see more of this in World of Darkness and now White Wolf. With the upcoming release of Bloodlines 2, it would be awesome to see Jason Carl storytell a series that plays into that game.

I’m watching out of order because now I’m watching LA By Night for the first time. In theory, I should have watched LA before NY, but too late for that now. If anyone has any Vampire: The Masquerade podcasts or live stream recommendations, let me know in the comments! I always need new things to watch or listen to.