Big Changes At White Wolf Following Controversy

hawkeyefan · Nov 17, 2018

TrippyHippy said:
That is precisely what is going on, but the impact of which is that Vampire is now a dead duck as far as what happens next. The two supplements, Camarilla and Anarchs, will be adjusted, and reprinted, but a number of fans who preordered are already asking for refunds because they've simply been waiting too long. There will be no more books made by Paradox or White Wolf.

There are three supplements scheduled by The Onyx Path, based on a current Kickstarter than is currently raised just over $80,000 - which is not a big total at all. The situation is not good. The game is essentially dead.

It’s possible. This may blow over and te game will plug along. Or you could be right, and this could mark an end for this iteration of the game. Likely it’ll be something between those two points.

If it does end or at least result in a reduced product line for the game, that’s a shame for people who are into the game. I personally am indifferent in that I have never really been into Vampire since its debut in the 90s. But I hate to see games fail, or fans of games be denied what they’d like.

But that being said....this was a pretty naive decision on their part. In today’s climate, and having already faced some controversy, they should have been more aware.

I say that without any personal judgment on te value of the content they created. Art and outrage over art is an old topic at this point, and most folks have long ago decided which side they are on, and no discussion on a message board will change their mind.

That being said, although there is always value in art and in challenging societal norms through art, there are plenty of cases where an artist has considered the impact of their work, and has decided that impact is more negative than positive. For instance, Stephen King will not allow reprinting of his work “Rage” (written as Richard Bachman); for him, the idea that his dtory could have possobly contributed to even the slightest harm to someone invalidates whatever enjoyment it may have brought to however many people possible.

So I think the question here is whether publishing these books as is would somehow bring more positivity to the world than negativity. Does this work have the chance to change the ills it calls attention to? Will it help bring about lasting change in the real world as art often can? Balance that chance against the potential harm it could bring.

I imagine the answer could vary from person to person...but to me it seems pretty obvious.

LuisCarlos17f · Nov 17, 2018

Speculative fictions should can be used as a softer way to talk about serious matters, but a lot of creators want to use their work like propaganda and the public start to be sick of this. Many people wonder about when Kamala Khan, alias Miss Marvel, the comic superheroine with Pakistani origin will dare to talk about Asia Bibi and the anti-blasphemy law of Pakistan.

Do you remember the controversy about that episode of "A Family Guy", Back to the Pilot, with the 9/11 terrorist attack against the Twin Towers? Do imagine how would feel the victims' families.

What if a fan-art module of V5 tells the mason lodges are controlled by vampires (or skrulls), and Lasombra clan has tried for centuries to ruin Catholic countries because Vatican is their archenemy?

Monsters from RPG franchises do a lot of horrible things, but we can't forget the human dignity of the people from the real life. If we don't respect human dignity denounce fanaticism and intolerance will be useless because who overthrows a tyrant may be worse than the previous, as in the 2006 movie "the land of the blind". We can use speculative fiction, and the RPGs, to talk about conflicts of coexistence and tolerance, but we can't forget the respect of the human dignity or then we could condemn terrorists to be eaten by dogs, like Ramsay Bolton, character from "Game of Thrones". Would do Sansa Stark that if she had been a pious Christian?

I love the rich mythology by World of Darkness, but also I hate its ideological messages.

murquhart72 · Nov 17, 2018

I may be old and stodgy, but back in my day, folks understood the difference between fantasy and reality and didn't mistake either for the other. When you do, "controversy" tends to be the result and these mentally ill people will insist that their "reality" be reflected in other's fantasy and vice versa.
I know nothing of Chechnya or these products, but anytime a few people successfully demand that entertainment or a game or toy conform to reality, especially to the extent of censoring printed products and halting others, they show how dangerous such thoughts can be.
Skimming through the thread I see buzz words involving "The Gays" (yeah I don't do PC, sorry not sorry). Folks just need to realize some people aren't going to be like them. That doesn't mean they should be treated differently and they certainly shouldn't feel the need for parades. For Dog's sake people can't we all just get along and stop insisting on categorizing each other into unnecessary separation?
Whew, quite a lil' rant there. Time to go get a beer and wait for the Haters...

Morrus · Nov 17, 2018

murquhart72 said:
Whew, quite a lil' rant there. Time to go get a beer and wait for the Haters...

If you're literally going to admit in-thread that you're trolling, there's only one possible outcome, isn't there? Don't post in this thread again, please. It's Saturday night, guys. Give it a friggin' break.

Dannyalcatraz · Nov 17, 2018

I know nothing of Chechnya or these products, but anytime a few people successfully demand that entertainment or a game or toy conform to reality, especially to the extent of censoring printed products and halting others, they show how dangerous such thoughts can be.

My reading of the discussed controversy is that at least one portion of it is actually the flip side: the product contains plot threads too closely mirroring some RW propaganda targeting marginalized people, just shifting the origins thereof from humans to vampires.

(Please, correct me if I’m wrong.)

Regardless of some people’s ability or inability to distinguish fact from fiction, that can come off a tad insensitive, if this is the case. Especially when it involves a current crisis. And even if not intended.

When that happens, corporations usually react to minimize negative associations.

3 albums were affected by the 9/11 attacks: Slayer’s God Hates Us All had its release date moved from that day. The Coup’s Party Music was to be released that day, too, and had cover art of the rap duo exploding the WTC towers- it got delayed and released with new cover art. Dream Theater’s Live Scenes from New York originally had cover art depicting the NYC skyline (with the Statue and the WTC) in flames- it was pulled from shelves and rereleased with different cover art.

epithet · Nov 17, 2018

Dannyalcatraz said:
...
3 albums were affected by the 9/11 attacks: Slayer’s God Hates Us All had its release date moved from that day. The Coup’s Party Music was to be released that day, too, and had cover art of the rap duo exploding the WTC towers- it got delayed and released with new cover art. Dream Theater’s Live Scenes from New York originally had cover art depicting the NYC skyline (with the Statue and the WTC) in flames- it was pulled from shelves and rereleased with different cover art.

Remember the first Spider Man trailer, where he webs a helicopter between the twin towers?

Dannyalcatraz · Nov 17, 2018

epithet said:
Remember the first Spider Man trailer, where he webs a helicopter between the twin towers?

No, despite my historical love of comics, I don’t pay much attention to any of the movies.

...but that sequence wouldn’t surprise me.

TrippyHippy · Nov 17, 2018

Dannyalcatraz said:
My reading of the discussed controversy is that at least one portion of it is actually the flip side: the product contains plot threads too closely mirroring some RW propaganda targeting marginalized people, just shifting the origins thereof from humans to vampires. (Please, correct me if I’m wrong.)

Well, no. I mean that is my point.

It's been argued that the product contains material that mirrors real world propaganda from Chechnya, but it's just not true. Nobody in the Chechnyan government has been spinning a line suggesting that their persecution of the LGBT community is due to vampires over-running the country. It would be a crazy piece of propaganda if that was the case. The fact is that persecuters themselves want to censor it too because they find it uncomfortable that this book is, or at least was, highlighting a real world situation that they deny is happening at all. They claim that the vampire book is a work of western propaganda because it discusses the persecution as a real world event - and the vampire metaphor is entirely a secondary issue.

What White Wolf were trying to do was use their fiction to satirise the situation and highlight the issue - but it was always a patent work of fiction…because vampires aren't real. You could argue that it is insensitive and they shouldn't be doing something that is occuring right now, but the 'World of Darkness' is meant to be a contemporary setting, that encourages a 'mature audience' to reflect on dark aspects of the real world, by way of a supernatural metaphor. I mean, that is the remit of the game - which some may find distasteful, for sure, but they weren't going outside of the remit in writing this material.

5ekyu · Nov 17, 2018

Jester David said:
Jesus wept! What the heck is going on at White Wolf?!

Okay, I read (and reviewed) the core rulebook and found some of the online controversy had been overblown. But their reaction to concerns online had still been extremely lacklustre. One would assume that they'd spend a little extra time looking at future products and really thinking about what they were adding to their books to avoid causing more drama and concerns. That something this big slipped through shows a staggering lack of oversight.

Plus, one of the big moves in 2nd Edition Revised was purposely not attributing any human tragedies to vampires and other supernatural beings. So that the Holocaust and second world war were not the result of vampire schemes. A big deal was made in New York by Night that White Wolf was NOT going to make 9/11 a vampire's plot. But making the ongoing purges and tensions currently occurring in a real world location the result of vampiric machinations is very much the same thing. It's not okay just because the people being hurt or killed aren't the audience of the game book!

Read the article please.
This is about a different controversy than the alt-right/ pro-fascist complaint.

Have you READ the offending passages?

It's taking the actual arrest and torture of human beings whose sole crime is being gay and turning that into a vampire created smokescreen (literally "fake new") to hide the feeding of vampires in the region and the control the nation by vampire clans.
Read up on the issue. Here's a helpful starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-gay_purges_in_Chechnya

It's extremely tone deaf and insensitive to turning real life evil and an ongoing atrocity currently affecting dozens of individuals and their families into a plot point for roleplaying game. To make their suffering part of someone else's entertainment.

All I will say on the subject is that horror fiction and the medium has used real world atrocities and villainy as a foundation to be represented as more morally "monstrous" since before it became a genre.

For many of its earliest days in myth, folklore and boogeymen tales, it was quite typical for a real crime or threat to be portrayed not as the work of men vs men but of monsters.

Even as it moved into the printed and later audio and video medium, the use of monsters as a wrapper over or around real world horrors has been common and in many cases the monster is a metaphor that allows the topic to be dealt with.

Body Snatchers and The Thing play out as the metaphor for an "evil empire" (as some believed), vampires were metaphors for war (Nosferatu), disease or sexual repression, countless other examples and if one wants more modern example Stephen King is full of plenty.

I will not defend or condemn the specific case here but the day when horror is prohibited from wrapping demons up in concentration camps and other such things will be a truly horrific day IMO.

Dannyalcatraz · Nov 17, 2018

Nobody in the Chechnyan government has been spinning a line suggesting that their persecution of the LGBT community is due to vampires over-running the country.

Absolutely NOBODY made that assertion.

The assertion was that the Chechnyan govt (and others) are claiming the stories regarding actual persecution of the LGBT community are largely either false or overblown, and that the WW products are claiming a similar line of in-game propaganda has been created by some factions the vampire community. This “the vampires are to blame” take on this utterly minimizes the culpability of the RW malfeasors, mostly still at large and free to act.

Can you imagine how some might feel if a product set in the USA similarly claimed all the lynchings and murders of the KKK were attributable to a small cadre of vampires?