I had to tap out of #CityCouncilOfDarkness a while back on #Dimension20. I don't need things to be super serious or to be "teh grimdark" but I do need things to have some sort of internal logic, and the show just struggled to keep its own players in check.

This was especially evident in Ally, who if a bit didn't work would just… keep trying the bit or a variation until it succeeded, and made their character "all bits, all the time."

Like sure it can be fun to frak with the police or whatever, but why are you doing it? What's your motive? Why did you do it in _that way_ and not just use your abilities with dominate or presence or whatever.

And, if you fail at it or frak up the way that they did, why were there no narrative consequences at all for their actions?

In a game ostensibly titled after the Masquerade and which started off with a dire warning about enforcement of the masquerade, they all seemed to just forget about it for the rest of the season, even with Brennan's periodic reminders on the topic.

Then there were no actual consequences or real tone correction. At least as far as I had seen.

I know that this is a crew perfectly suited to a more serious tone when they need it, and who knows that sometimes things don't have to be a bit to be funny or endearing (Crown of Candy, Neverafter, and Burrow's End all coming to mind). It just felt like a completely missed opportunity.

It doesn't even really work as a parody of its own source material. What-we-do-in-the-shadows style. Because in order to parody material you have to actually be… based on that material, and this just wasn't. It borrowed the aesthetics, but that was where it ended. Never engaging with its source material in a meaningful way.

1/2