Big Changes At White Wolf Following Controversy

That is a part of Russia is it not? The leader of Russia is named Vladimir, what a coincidence, that was Dracula's first name as well!

Dannyalcatraz said:

Absolutely NOBODY made that assertion.

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People in this thread were saying that - claiming it was 'fake news', for example. I mean, it's not news, it's obviously a work of fiction and is written as an in character piece by a fictional character. It in no way mirrors the denials that the Chechnyan government have been making.

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.

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Again, it's a metaphor - just like vampires are a metaphor for all sorts of evil things in the game that are reflections of the real world. It's akin to all sorts of stories. People used to claim that Lady Bathory was a vampire, when she tortured and murdered girls to bathe in their blood. Dracula was based upon a real historical figure - Vlad the Impaler. In Silence of the Lambs, they reference serial killers in the sort of tropes associated with vampires and werewolves. It's the same idea here.

In this particular written piece, a vampire character is not denying the existance of LGBT persecution (he states it is happening), but is contextualising it as a tactic in a wider vampiric political struggle. That is not the same line purported by the Chechnyan government who are denying the existance of gay people in Chechnya and saying there is no persecution at all.

Moreover, whatever is written, the White Wolf writers are in no way comparable to the people who are actually carrying out real crimes against humanity. At worst, they are guilty of clumsy or crass writing. As we have seen, the Chechnyan government is as likely to use White Wolf's self-censorship of material for their own propaganda purposes too.

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?

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Yes I can, but it still wouldn't be something I would read as a literal interpretation of events, but as a metaphor. It wouldn't be offensive to me, in the same way that a work of fiction like Tarantino's Django Unchained isn't offensive to me - even though it is clearly referencing real world history in the context of a western fantasy.

5ekyu said:

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.

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Which feels a lot like defending it...


There a huge gulf between something like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and this, as the former does use metaphor and analogy to shield itself. There's a separation. It's another to imply that it's not humans committing a very real horror and instead attribute it to a supernatural monster.
Especially when it feeds into and effectively supports the local denial of said atrocity.

Chechnya has dismissed claims that it is quietly purging LGBTQ individuals, and—like Russia itself—maintains there simply are no homosexuals in the nation. And it has argued that claims that it has been disappearing such individuals are merely western propaganda.
And then this game comes and outright says that disappearances are really the result of the leader feeding his enemies to vampires. It's not a good take...


At the risk of getting political, I'll bring this closer to home.

Imagine if instead of Chechnya, this had instead referred to the ICE detention camps. Saying these were being used to harvest blood for vampire clans. That the separation parents from kids was a smokescreen for feeding and the creation of ghoul servants. And it referred to a "President Donald" who has a penchant for lavish living and lobbies vampires' interests in Moscow in exchange for immortality.
(Which is what the Camarilla book said about "Sultan Ramzan" aka Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of the Chechen Republic.)

It comes off as insensitive to the people affected. Especially those who have lost their life. And it makes a real life problem into fantasy escapism for a roleplaying game.
It's simply not a good move. And it feeds the state narrative that they're the target of propaganda.

TrippyHippy said:

Again, it's a metaphor - just like vampires are a metaphor for all sorts of evil things in the game that are reflections of the real world. It's akin to all sorts of stories. People used to claim that Lady Bathory was a vampire, when she tortured and murdered girls to bathe in their blood. Dracula was based upon a real historical figure - Vlad the Impaler. In Silence of the Lambs, they reference serial killers in the sort of tropes associated with vampires and werewolves. It's the same idea here.

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All of which are historical.
It has the value of time and no one still alive being affected.

As [MENTION=19675]Dannyalcatraz[/MENTION] says, what would the response be if they claimed the ICE camps were the result of vampires? The attacks and lynchings of Black Lives Matters activists?

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.

Jester David said:

All of which are historical.
It has the value of time and no one still alive being affected.

As [MENTION=19675]Dannyalcatraz[/MENTION] says, what would the response be if they claimed the ICE camps were the result of vampires? The attacks and lynchings of Black Lives Matters activists?

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.

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Silence of the Lambs wasn't particularly 'historical' when it was written - serial killers were still a thing. Survivors were still alive when they started making Vietnam movies. One could cite The Lord of the Rings as a big fantasy metaphor for World War 2, when it was written, and 'The Two Towers' movie was seen by quite a few people in the aftermath of 9/11 as having some allegorical reference. Casablanca sets up a romance set in the middle of World War 2, while the war was actually happening in the real world, while comedies like Duck Soup were also being banned by fascist governments just prior to this.

I think there may have been a Sandy Hook reference in a Delta Green scenario actually, although I'd have to double check. It's a curious case anyway, simply because of the vast number of real world conspiracy theories surrounding it. In the case of Vampire: The Masquerade you could refer to Berlin By Night as a contemporary setting which was set in post Berlin Wall times (ie contemporary) and did reference rising neo-nazi groups at the time.

If they claimed the ICE camps were the result of vampires or the attacks and lynchings of Black Lives Matters activists, I would say the same thing. Vampires are a literary trope - a storytelling metaphor - and if whatever medium is highlighting real world events and bringing an awareness thereof, then I have no problem with it at all. I don't want to tell escapist vanilla fantasy, I want to reference the real world and draw personal values from it.

And again, the piece in the Camarilla book does not, in any way, overlap with propaganda put out by the Chechnyan government about 'Western propaganda'. Not even by accident, because the basic premise that vampires are real is not something that can be misconstrued as literal. The Chechnyan government are denying the existance of gay people and saying the prosecution of them isn't hapenning. The White Wolf books says it is. That's not an overlap - it's the opposite.

And it makes a real life problem into fantasy escapism for a roleplaying game.

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No - it makes fantasy less escapist and more socially aware of real life issues.

Jester David said:

Which feels a lot like defending it...


There a huge gulf between something like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and this, as the former does use metaphor and analogy to shield itself. There's a separation. It's another to imply that it's not humans committing a very real horror and instead attribute it to a supernatural monster.
Especially when it feeds into and effectively supports the local denial of said atrocity.

Chechnya has dismissed claims that it is quietly purging LGBTQ individuals, and—like Russia itself—maintains there simply are no homosexuals in the nation. And it has argued that claims that it has been disappearing such individuals are merely western propaganda.
And then this game comes and outright says that disappearances are really the result of the leader feeding his enemies to vampires. It's not a good take...


At the risk of getting political, I'll bring this closer to home.

Imagine if instead of Chechnya, this had instead referred to the ICE detention camps. Saying these were being used to harvest blood for vampire clans. That the separation parents from kids was a smokescreen for feeding and the creation of ghoul servants. And it referred to a "President Donald" who has a penchant for lavish living and lobbies vampires' interests in Moscow in exchange for immortality.
(Which is what the Camarilla book said about "Sultan Ramzan" aka Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of the Chechen Republic.)

It comes off as insensitive to the people affected. Especially those who have lost their life. And it makes a real life problem into fantasy escapism for a roleplaying game.
It's simply not a good move. And it feeds the state narrative that they're the target of propaganda.

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"There a huge gulf between something like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and this, as the former does use metaphor and analogy to shield itself. There's a separation. It's another to imply that it's not humans committing a very real horror and instead attribute it to a supernatural monster. "

In Body Snatchers, it wasnt an oppressive regime of human leaders repressing emotion and free will and reducing people to drones (as the western propaganda of the time portrayed communism) it was alien seed pods.

I dont see that as different as a literary technique for horror than portraying a modern real world horrific program of heinous acts in a fictional world as being done by vampire overlords.

If you do, we have nothing more to discuss as that is my position and the crux of its foundation.

5ekyu said:

"There a huge gulf between something like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and this, as the former does use metaphor and analogy to shield itself. There's a separation. It's another to imply that it's not humans committing a very real horror and instead attribute it to a supernatural monster. "

In Body Snatchers, it wasnt an oppressive regime of human leaders repressing emotion and free will and reducing people to drones (as the western propaganda of the time portrayed communism) it was alien seed pods.

I dont see that as different as a literary technique for horror than portraying a modern real world horrific program of heinous acts in a fictional world as being done by vampire overlords.

If you do, we have nothing more to discuss as that is my position and the crux of its foundation.

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We’re talking about a RPG book.
Literary techniques for horror don’t apply to the same degree as a movie or novel.

The vampires in Chechnya don’t represent anything. They’re not an allegory for AIDS or homosexuality or communism or McCarthy.

As I said in another post, this would be like a VtM book attributing Sandy Hook to a vampire in blood frenzy.
This isn’t to say you couldn't do a horror story like that. Or a story where vampirism is being uses as a metaphor for guns and gun violence.
But a Vampire RPG book attributing a human horror to vampires is just minimizing a human horror.

TrippyHippy said:

One could cite The Lord of the Rings as a big fantasy metaphor for World War 2, when it was written, and 'The Two Towers' movie was seen by quite a few people in the aftermath of 9/11 as having some allegorical reference. Casablanca sets up a romance set in the middle of World War 2, while the war was actually happening in the real world, while comedies like Duck Soup were also being banned by fascist governments just prior to this.

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There’s no allegory here. There’s no metaphor. No layers. No subtext.
None of those excuses apply.

TrippyHippy said:

I think there may have been a Sandy Hook reference in a Delta Green scenario actually, although I'd have to double check. It's a curious case anyway, simply because of the vast number of real world conspiracy theories surrounding it.

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Please check then.

TrippyHippy said:

And again, the piece in the Camarilla book does not, in any way, overlap with propaganda put out by the Chechnyan government about 'Western propaganda'. Not even by accident, because the basic premise that vampires are real is not something that can be misconstrued as literal. The Chechnyan government are denying the existance of gay people and saying the prosecution of them isn't hapenning. The White Wolf books says it is. That's not an overlap - it's the opposite.

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The Chechnyan government has maintaining that the western media is committing propaganda against them and making false claims.
Having a Western RPG company slander their leader bolsters their claims that the West is lying about their country and leader.

Jester David said:

We’re talking about a RPG book.
Literary techniques for horror don’t apply to the same degree as a movie or novel.

The vampires in Chechnya don’t represent anything. They’re not an allegory for AIDS or homosexuality or communism or McCarthy.

As I said in another post, this would be like a VtM book attributing Sandy Hook to a vampire in blood frenzy.
This isn’t to say you couldn't do a horror story like that. Or a story where vampirism is being uses as a metaphor for guns and gun violence.
But a Vampire RPG book attributing a human horror to vampires is just minimizing a human horror.


There’s no allegory here. There’s no metaphor. No layers. No subtext.
None of those excuses apply.


Please check then.


The Chechnyan government has maintaining that the western media is committing propaganda against them and making false claims.
Having a Western RPG company slander their leader bolsters their claims that the West is lying about their country and leader.

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"Literary techniques for horror don’t apply to the same degree as a movie or novel. "

We will have to agree to disagree on this. I see a setting book for an rpg, especially a storytelling centered rpg, as just as much a work of fiction as the other media. RPGs to me are an interactive, collaborative fiction media.

We will not see eye to eye on this topic.

5ekyu said:

"Literary techniques for horror don’t apply to the same degree as a movie or novel. "

We will have to agree to disagree on this. I see a setting book for an rpg, especially a storytelling centered rpg, as just as much a work of fiction as the other media. RPGs to me are an interactive, collaborative fiction media.

We will not see eye to eye on this topic.

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What do vampires represent in the Vampire the Masquerade core rulebook?
What examples of symbolism are in the book?

Now, a campaign, sure. A chronicle or adventure or session can absolutely have depth and layers. But that’s not what we’re discussing.

Jester David said:

What do vampires represent in the Vampire the Masquerade core rulebook?
What examples of symbolism are in the book?

Now, a campaign, sure. A chronicle or adventure or session can absolutely have depth and layers. But that’s not what we’re discussing.

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Funny, I thought the Chechnya text was in a setting book, note the rule book? I thought I had just referenced a setting book, not a core rulebook.

I had always seen vampires as presented in the core books in 1e znd again in 5e as the manifestation of the duality of man - the internal war between good and evil in all of us made manifest eith quite obvious parallels between the various clans and human vices. That's not even thinly veiled in those books.

But you know what... we wont agree I have stated my position and I am done with this no-win bear trap of a discussion. You have the floor, enjoy.