Vampire: The Masquerade — Parliament of Knives

With Parliament of Knives, I’m wrapping up all the available CoG VtM games so far (in 2026)! Whoohoo!

Turns out I picked the perfect game to end on. Dean’s work is the dark, marvelous Vampire: the Masquerade that I know and love. As someone who prefers to play ancilla in the tabletop setting, I was surprised and pleased to play an older neonate in Parliament. The strength of my relief surprised me. Yes, I know what the Camarilla is, thank you! Dean includes a handy, thorough codex if you are new to the World of Darkness, but overall I recommend Parliament after you’ve a few VtM notches in your belt.

Another reason to wait to play is Dean goes straight for the meaty jugular of the setting: politics. It’s what really kills ya. When Dean says your choices matter, they truly do matter in this game. Who you talk to in Chapter 4 affects Chapter 6, 8, and 9. Chapter 2 alliances will color entire endings. Ottawa is home to multiple conspiracies, and one playthrough’s choices will reveal a limited scope of them—one version of the truth. Every character and faction is Up To Something. As a game dev, I’m in awe of the amount of work Dean must have done to make all the plot weaving so friction-less. I didn’t realize until about Chapter 3 how much my choices locked and unlocked paths for my PC. I re-started the game with a walkthrough on hand and returned to where I was with little trouble. If you’re a very goal-oriented player like me, the main Steam community walkthrough has minimal spoilers.

I must write a paragraph about the characters. The characters!!! Among the seamless mixing of multiple plots, Dean gives characters a depth I more usually see with otome visual novels. Everyone’s got nuance to them, and backstory abounds (though sometimes backstory is shared rather abruptly). Ottawa feels peopled. I am eyeballing Jeffrey Dean’s prequel novel as we speak.

The base game has two romance options, and they’re both stellar. Sheriff Qui is a favorite in the fan space I hang out in. The long-haired, chronic pain-suffering girldad blood knight can cut a very attractive figure. He’s a cop with a dead wife sequence. He’s got way too much loyalty and not enough honesty and he cries over his car. He growls mid-sentence sometimes. Jordan was engineered in lab for me. My beautiful gender-flippable wife circles the drain of the hero’s journey. She protested the Vietnam War, fled to Canada to dodge the draft, and transitioned after (!!!) the Embrace. Crowds inflict her with catastrophic, nonsensically narrow visions. She owns one (1) sofa and offers free hugs. I love her.

Vampire: the Masquerade – Parliament of Knives is a fantastic Vampire game, and a brilliant Choice of Game. If you’re interested in either, I consider it a must-play.