Big Changes At White Wolf Following Controversy

Following an online backlash regarding the content of their recent publications, White Wolf Publishing has just announced some big changes, including the suspension of the Vampire 5th Edition Camarilla and Anarch books, and a restructuring of management.

White Wolf's Shams Jorjani made the following announcement about an hour ago:

"Hello everyone,

My name is Shams Jorjani, VP of Business Development at Paradox Interactive and interim manager at White Wolf Publishing. I wanted to inform you of some changes that will be implemented at White Wolf, starting immediately.

Sales and printing of the V5 Camarilla and Anarch books will be temporarily suspended. The section on Chechnya will be removed in both the print and PDF versions of the Camarilla book. We anticipate that this will require about three weeks. This means shipping will be delayed; if you have pre-ordered a copy of Camarilla or Anarchs, further information will follow via e-mail.

In practical terms, White Wolf will no longer function as a separate entity. The White Wolf team will be restructured and integrated directly into Paradox Interactive, and I will be temporarily managing things during this process. We are recruiting new leadership to guide White Wolf both creatively and commercially into the future, a process that has been ongoing since September.

Going forward, White Wolf will focus on brand management. This means White Wolf will develop the guiding principles for its vision of the World of Darkness, and give licensees the tools they need to create new, excellent products in this story world. White Wolf will no longer develop and publish these products internally. This has always been the intended goal for White Wolf as a company, and it is now time to enact it.

The World of Darkness has always been about horror, and horror is about exploring the darkest parts of our society, our culture, and ourselves. Horror should not be afraid to explore difficult or sensitive topics, but it should never do so without understanding who those topics are about and what it means to them. Real evil does exist in the world, and we can’t ever excuse its real perpetrators or cheapen the suffering of its real victims.

In the Chechnya chapter of the V5 Camarilla book, we lost sight of this. The result was a chapter that dealt with a real-world, ongoing tragedy in a crude and disrespectful way. We should have identified this either during the creative process or in editing. This did not happen, and for this we apologize.

We ask for your patience while we implement these changes. In the meantime, let’s keep talking. I’m available for any and all thoughts, comments and feedback, on shams.jorjani@paradoxinteractive.com."

White Wolf is currently own by Paradox Interactive, who acquired the World of Darkness rights in 2015 from previous owner CCP (who you might know from Eve Online) whose plans for a WoD MMO failed to bear fruit.

The recent Camarilla and Anarch books have met widespread criticism. The former, Camarilla, includes a section which appears to trivialise current real-life events in Chechnya, where the LGBTQ community is being persecuted, tortured, and murdered and uses that current tragedy as a backdrop for the setting. This comes after the company was forced to deny links to neo-Nazi ideology. White Wolf recently announced that "White Wolf is currently undergoing some significant transitions up to and including a change in leadership. The team needs a short time to understand what this means, so we ask for your patience as we figure out our next steps" and this appears to be the result of that decision.

 

[Shasarak]

Really? Worked in this case didn't it?

So what they boycotted the product for a couple of days? Yeah, no thats not boycotting.

And that's really, really not how monopolies work. There's a reason we have laws against them. Granted those laws are socialist in nature, but, hey, there's still pretty darn good reasons why monopolies are illegal in our countries.

Turns out that it is pretty easy to set up a monopoly in a socialist country but not really so much in a free market. Which is why socialist countries need to have laws against them I guess.

 

[Panda-s1]

"Freedom from offense" is a problem, in my opinion. There are lots of ideas that we should be discussing, but those who want to are silenced by those who are afraid of having those things discussed.

And the fact that it's a problem gets used as a defense by people who should not be given a platform from which to spout their truly offensive opinions.

Both things can be true simultaneously.

What? No one is saying we shouldn't talk about the LGBT genocide in Chechnya, they're saying it shouldn't be portrayed as a plot to distract people from vampires. Presented the way it is makes the writers look like they think the issue seems trivial, and being presented with a fictional premise will make those who are less knowledgeable believe it's something that was made up for the game. No one wants it removed from the book because they're "offended".

 

[Sadras]

I have not read the entire thread and neither have I looked at the link @Jester David kindly posted on the first page but I intend to.

From my own personal experience with Vampire - which was a casual player, and it has been a while, I loved how the designers incorporated RL history into the Vampire mythos with some being human machinations and others being vampire plots and dark designs. I thought that was creative and never for one second imagined any maliciousness from their side.
I bought the 13 dark ages novel books and enjoyed how they weaved human and vampire politics of the time with the Fall of Constantinople and the Dream sought by the vampire Michael (I think it was) and his followers/friends.

Vampire mythos has very much always accepted the LGBT, the entire process of creating progeny and falling in love with them (same sex or not) is a common troupe for the Masquerade. Furthermore you have these powerful supernatural beings that are ages old with their own moral compass, that could easily be out-dated and viewed as prejudiced today but that is the setting and its amazing to be able to play these anachronistic morally flawed creatures as they struggle with the Beast and the every changing world around them, nevermind the continuous fractured vampire politics.

Many can become offended - Christians can take an issue with the Lasombra involved within the Catholic church or the fact that the old testament is used as the basis for the creation of Cain or that the Assamites essentially use the movement of Islam as a weapon. As I said for me, the beauty of the setting lies in the inter-connected story created, either as humans used as pawns or vampires swept up in the movement of humankind's history.

EDIT: To add, since i have now read the link regarding the persecutions, which I did not know about till now, human history is filled with violence and the disappointment of human actions. Any which way you skin this cat, by introducing vampire mythos into the mix you are essentially using our shockingly bloody history as entertainment. To call on this incident alone as just an entertainment plot is disingenuous. I realise this might not be a popular opinion for most of you here but I feel it had to be said, otherwise I'd be a hypocrite.

 

[Sadras]

For me, Vampire was the best single RPG release of 2018.

How is the artwork? My friend purchased a copy but I have not had a chance to see it but he has expressed his dislike with the artwork, but says the system is very much streamlined, no complaints on that side.

 

[TrippyHippy]

How is the artwork? My friend purchased a copy but I have not had a chance to see it but he has expressed his dislike with the artwork, but says the system is very much streamlined, no complaints on that side.

It has drawn a fair amount of criticism. I like a lot of it, including the live action models used. The cover is a good indication of the type of art found within, but for me, I prefer the simpler iconic design of the classic cover. If you are used to the standardised layout of the last 20 years or so, it can all be a bit jarring - but for the uninitiated it has a stylish look.

For me, the major appeal of the game lay in the system design and general gameplay. It really is excellent to play the game - moreso than any previous iteration of the game (I've been playing Vampire since 1992). The actual work on the setting, and general tone, is reminiscent of 1st edition - albeit reimagined for the 21st century.

Generally, I concur with your friend.

 

[Sadras]

Or, the best one, what would the reaction be if White Wolf had put out a book that said Sandy Hook Elementary massacre was really the result of a rogue vampire pack, and the shooter was a cover? Because like the Chechnya one, that also accidentally overlaps with claims that the story presented by the western media is not the truth and is really propaganda.

This is a good and interesting issue you raise.
I suppose this is a major dilemma when playing a game of Vampire, i.e. how real or close to home will the individual table allow itself to get. Except in this issue it is the publishers and not each one's individual table that makes this decision.

For instance, horrified as I am about the continuous slaughter of children in schools, I would not be surprised if a Storyteller unaffected by that nightmare brought it into game and said it was an Anarchist agenda or secretly a powerful rogue Malkavian with the purpose of the table to hunt or expose the perpetrator.
Now if the publisher includes that concept into the book, yes I can see that upsetting folks.

That is why I suppose playing a Dark Ages version of the game is much easier given that history does not directly affect our lives now.

 

[Aguirre Melchiors]

this is boring.
WOD should not use any real world politics since the 80s
professional activists and the outrage industry are always looking for witches to burn at the stake of their religion.

the solution is to not use any real world politics and focus on vampiric politics

 

[TrippyHippy]

this is boring.
WOD should not use any real world politics since the 80s
professional activists and the outrage industry are always looking for witches to burn at the stake of their religion.

the solution is to not use any real world politics and focus on vampiric politics

They tried this with the New World of Darkness/Chronicles of Darkness line.

The trouble is, by removing all real world politics and cultural references to religion and so on, the critics found it boring and it was never as successful as the original games.

In the case of the classic World of Darkness games, it was always the case that they were infused with social commentary drawn from real world politics, and there were always people who were offended by them in some way or another.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

EDIT: To add, since i have now read the link regarding the persecutions, which I did not know about till now, human history is filled with violence and the disappointment of human actions. Any which way you skin this cat, by introducing vampire mythos into the mix you are essentially using our shockingly bloody history as entertainment. To call on this incident alone as just an entertainment plot is disingenuous. I realise this might not be a popular opinion for most of you here but I feel it had to be said, otherwise I'd be a hypocrite.

There's some truth to that. We use our bloody history as entertainment all the time. But skilled, empathetic writers can generally pull it off. Those first few minutes of the first X-Men movie present a comic book supervillain with magic magnet powers manifesting for the first time in a Nazi concentration camp, and it basically works, because the very real suffering of the victims remains the emotional heart of the scene and indeed of Magneto's entire character.

But rather than say "We accept Magneto, so we'd have to be hypocrites to dislike what White Wolf is doing here", it may be worthwhile to take a second look at the reaction White Wolf's words provoked. Is it just an irrational knee-jerk? Or is there some reason why this passage feels so much worse to so many people? Maybe there's some key difference between it and X-Men? Maybe it has something to do with the detachment and utter lack of empathy in the way it was written that trivializes the brutality rather than putting it center stage?

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Turns out that it is pretty easy to set up a monopoly in a socialist country but not really so much in a free market.

From one free-marketer to another: please stick to facts and leave the fairy tales to the left. If your economic theory predicts that monopolistic behavior rarely or never occurs in a free market, a brief examination of the historical record suffices to indicate that something is very wrong with the theory.