Midnight Circus? How bad can it be?

[Mister_Dunpeal]

Partially. I think the biggest issue is the total lack of any sort of subtlety or nuance. The sort of in your face, over the top aspect of a lot of it fit OK with some of Werewolf's general tone at the time, but it was much less successful for things like Wraith (which requires a certain degree of atmosphere and mood) or Changeling (which works best with a certain sense of whimsy and wonder, even if its sometimes skewed a little dark).

Ultimately, a dark carnival or circus in the WoD is the sort of thing that would probably be best served by preserving a great deal of mystery and having entities that don't really fit in any sort of neat and clean box of Clan, fomori, or what have you. At least in my opinion.

That can still be 'lack of space' to develop the idea. Brevity is a natural consequence if you're expected to distill a vast, complicated concept like a 'five-system collaboration' into a single book that is by definition going to be smaller than a rulebook. It's probably more in line with something like how 'Gehenna' was handled ( where each book had its own supplement to handle one facet of the 'end times') - so really you'd have one unifying concept (the Circus) that was handled according to each system's own peculiarities of theme, etc. And maybe one additional book to tie them all together for crossover purposes if such was desired. Their approach to Haight is another example of that too, I think. (which was effectively another multi-system crossover even if he was considered a bit of a joke. Chaos Factor 'worked' as one supplement because it was building off everything else that came before it.) They could have managed that (Even if it would still be massively complicated) - but trying to cram something that sounds more on teh scale of Gehenna in one book sounds like it would be asking for trouble.

[Matt the Bruins fan]

Frankly, if I ever feel the urge to include a creepy supernatural circus in a WoD game, I'd prefer to use the earlier and much better source: Ray Bradbury. I realize that hewing closer to Something Wicked This Way Comes wasn't an option for publication given White Wolf's vulnerability to copyright lawsuit, but my gaming table suffers no such limitations.

[Project28]

A Guide to the Tal'Mahe'Ra cites it, mashed up with another infernalist nest, in page 46, check it out.

Which part specifically?

[Baaldam]

Which part specifically?

Uh, page 46 of Black Hand A Guide to the Tal'Mahe'Ra, as cited in my previous post?
There's a a section titled "Midnight Circus" in the page, about 3 paragraphs of update (that seems to conflate or merge it with Zarnovich's Circus from Montreal by Night). If it is "just" Zarnovich's pack under a new name or an actual fusion with the original crossover-heavy one - and to what degree - i'd say that's for each ST to decide according to its own preferences.