General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

L.A. by Night

L.A. by Night is an American actual play web series in which a cast of performers plays vampires using the fifth edition of the tabletop roleplaying game Vampire: The Masquerade, with the original story developed and led by Jason Carl as the chronicle's Storyteller.¹ Produced as the official show of the World of Darkness brand, it ran from 2018 to 2021 across five seasons.²

Key fact	Detail
Format	Actual play web series using the Vampire: The Masquerade fifth edition ruleset³
Storyteller	Jason Carl, World of Darkness brand marketing manager, who developed and led the original story¹^•⁴
Run	Premiered September 14, 2018; final episode October 29, 2021; five seasons⁵^•²
Main cast	Erika Ishii, B. Dave Walters, Alex Ward, and Cynthia Marie; Xander Jeanneret and Josephine McAdam join as main characters from Season 4¹
Where it streamed	Seasons 1–3 live on Geek & Sundry's Twitch channel; seasons 4–5 on the World of Darkness Twitch channel; episodes archived on YouTube⁶
Episode length	Average runtime of 131 minutes⁵
Reach	Over a million impressions per season across streaming and video on demand⁷

Spoilers

Setting and story

The chronicle is set in Los Angeles, described in the game's lore as the center of the Anarch Movement. Fifty years before the story begins, the nighttime streets ran red with elder blood, and the anarchs claimed the city for themselves; it is now carved into communities controlled by "Barons" rather than ruled by a Camarilla Prince.⁶^•¹⁰ The chronicle follows after the events of the Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines video game, in which the Camarilla failed to install a new Prince of Los Angeles, and it incorporates the fifth edition storyline of the Second Inquisition, in which world governments and intelligence agencies learn of vampires and begin hunting them.¹⁰^•⁹

The story follows a coterie of four vampires of varying ages and experience navigating the macabre affairs and terrifying realities of surviving the L.A. night, with many additional characters and villains played by guest actors each episode.⁵^•⁹ Brennan Lee Mulligan became a player in season five, portraying Adrian Clairmont, a hunter who headed the Coalition strike force that wrecked Los Angeles's Kindred in 2021; devout yet merciless, this Society of Leopold member was one of the few mortals capable of wielding True Faith.³

Format and production

The show belongs to the actual play genre, in which people play a tabletop roleplaying game for an audience, often through a podcast or an online streaming show.⁸ In L.A. by Night the cast plays Vampire: The Masquerade fifth edition, the newest iteration of the game at the time of the show's launch, set in the gothic-punk World of Darkness where vampires spend their nights in byzantine politics carving up cities like fiefdoms.³^•⁹

Broadcast history. Seasons 1 through 3 aired live on Friday nights at 8:00pm Los Angeles time on Geek & Sundry's Twitch channel, with episodes archived on YouTube. Seasons 4 and 5 streamed live weekly on the World of Darkness Twitch channel, on Friday nights at 8pm PST, with the videos also available on YouTube.⁶ TheTVDB lists the season runs as Season 1 from September to December 2018 (12 episodes), Season 2 from January to April 2019 (13), Season 3 from June to September 2019 (15), Season 4 from January to April 2020 (13), and Season 5 from September to October 2021 (9).⁵

Cast. The core cast comprised Erika Ishii, B. Dave Walters, Alex Ward, and Cynthia Marie, with recurring player-actors Xander Jeanneret and Josephine McAdam joining the coterie (a small close-knit group; here, the vampire protagonists' circle) as main characters from Season 4 onward.¹ Other performers who appeared over the run include Marisha Ray, Taliesin Jaffe, Noura Ibrahim, Mica Burton, and Matthew Mercer.³ The series also used a very large cast of supporting characters played by guest stars.²

Reception and influence

World of Darkness created the show to give Vampire: The Masquerade and its community more visibility among a wider roleplaying audience, through a partnership with Geek & Sundry. The publisher stated it was not using the show to drive sales; the goal was brand awareness, building a global audience across experience levels, and fostering positive communities.⁷ Jason Carl, who was brand marketing manager for World of Darkness as well as the show's Storyteller, described the show as one of the first and longest-running actual-play shows on Twitch.¹¹

Audience and style. The show drew hundreds of thousands of viewers who tuned in live, typed comments as episodes aired, and messaged each other to share the experience, and the fifth edition Players Guide notes that for many players L.A. by Night was the first time they had heard terms like "Camarilla" or "Malkavian."¹² Commentators describe a heavily theatrical style: cast members dress up and stay in character throughout, in a manner one forum writer compared to live-action roleplay.¹³ A World Anvil resource library entry calls the show an excellent aid for understanding how the narrative-focused game works, noting that its sessions run nearly half the length of the more popular Critical Role.¹⁴ The series also drew attention for how it wove romantic subplots into its supernatural campaign, including the story of the characters Jasper and Eva.¹⁵

End and successors. Season five, which premiered on Friday, September 3, 2021, was announced as the show's last.¹¹^•¹⁶ A sequel series, NY by Night, set in New York City, started in July 2022.¹⁷ Paradox's World of Darkness entertainment lineup later added Seattle by Night, a chronicle following a coterie that relocates to Tacoma for another Camarilla job, and Dimension 20: City Council of Darkness, in which Brennan Lee Mulligan returned to the World of Darkness to lead the Intrepid Heroes in a Dimension 20 collaboration.¹⁸

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026