Big Changes At White Wolf Following Controversy

LuisCarlos17f · Nov 18, 2018

We have to respect each other for a better coexistence, but politically correctness is a new tyranny and hypocrite double standard. The true respect to fight intolerance has to be linked with the true moral values.

Nietzsche said: "Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do no become a monster". This happens when victimhood asks all rights but assume no duty. Do you remember the mamluks, the slave warriors who become rules later? Or the githyankis from D&D, slaves who rebelled against mindslayers.

The mistake by White Wolf and other speculative fiction publishers is only appointing an enemy as the evil lord, but this doesn't help to create a better world if there isn't ethical principles like the Natural Law. Many characters from World of Darkness are monsters or fanatical antagonists because they have forgotten the respect for human dignity. Other mistake from most part of the speculative fiction, and current main media, is showing atheism like a vaccine against the fanaticism, and this is totally false.

Shasarak · Nov 18, 2018

LuisCarlos17f said:
Atheism is a vaccine against Religious fanaticism

Good old Blue jeans, McDonalds and Playboy are working as fast as they can.

Panda-s1 · Nov 18, 2018

TrippyHippy said:
You have accused me of trolling already on this thread, but looking at your contributions here, I think it's you who seems to be guilty of this. As pointed out before, it's a straight up ad hominem.

People werenot talking about the situation in Chechnya in any great numbers before this controversy, and I think quite a lot of people would acknowledge this if they are being honest. Good for you, if you knew about it - but I still think that anger against a game company is misplaced, if what they were trying to do was highlight a real world issue.

Man, you can highlight a real world issue without trivializing it. You can also do better than "the Chechen leaders are actually bad vampires! O:" But also, even if this did increase social awareness to the problem I find it hard to believe people are going think it stopped because WW took it out of one of their books.

Rygar said:
I don't think you understand what is meant by calling others "NPC".

It's a reference to video games where an NPC has a script they cannot deviate from that is very limited in scope and repetative. Like an NPC who praises a captain of the guard with "He's the most honorable warrior in the land!", you expose him as a traitor against the king, and return to the NPC who still declares "He's the most honorable warrior in the land!". Bethesda games are great examples, because their NPC scripting is such that they almost never acknowledge anything you do, anything that changes, or if they do it's one line and then they completely forget and act like it never happened.

The NPC term being used today in politics is derived from that. It isn't a "Theory", no one thinks they're bots. It means that other(s) regard the person in question of being so dogma driven that they're basically scripted and cannot think outside of that script. It's a statement that there's no value to engaging in further discourse because one party appears to be unable to engage in an exchange of ideas and will just repeat the same rhetoric.

Okay, I'll remember this everytime I see someone say "Spotted the NPC!" or any other of the garden variety anti-sjw insults.

gyor · Nov 18, 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.

I think I will avoid the politics for once, and just point out that the real white wolf is The Onyx Path, who have been doing all the Chronicles of Darkness, World of Darkness, Scion, Trinity, and Exalted since the original white wolf died, except for the new V5 V:TM stuff. They are now functionally taking over V5 with their Chicago book which is being kick started right now.

Honestly the new white wolf caused nothing, but problems for Onyx Path, starting with the huge rift it caused between Onyx Path and Developer Hill.

I don't why the new White Wolf felt the need for a new edition so soon after v20, and why they felt the need to do it themselves, Onyx Path has largely done really well, with a few mistakes that have been learned from, and the lines and worlds they have been doing keeps growing. It's lead by someone who was apart of the original white wolf, making Onyx Path more of a spiritual successor to the original white wolf then the new white white wolf ever was.

So now it's likely to stay in Onyx Path's hands, which are experienced and popular, and much better at avoiding political land mines then the new white wolf.

I do feel bad for the people who have lost their jobs, that always sucks. And my full hearted compassion to all gay people who are being abused and murdered.

TrippyHippy · Nov 18, 2018

Panda-s1 said:
Man, you can highlight a real world issue without trivializing it. You can also do better than "the Chechen leaders are actually bad vampires! O:" But also, even if this did increase social awareness to the problem I find it hard to believe people are going think it stopped because WW took it out of one of their books.

That piece didnt trivialise anything - it presented the full brutality of what was going on - and you have just created a strawman by making up non existant quotes.

If you find it hard to believe, let me inform you that the Chechnyan government have now used the withdrawal of text from White Wolf as a piece of propaganda to claim that they have won a victory against 'Western Propaganda'. The LGBT people in Chechnya are now less empowered than they were to speak out, as a consequence.

ruemere · Nov 18, 2018

Having read the extensive thread at rpg.net on V5 Anarch and Camarilla guides (https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/vampire-5th-ed-camarilla-anarch-guides.836416/) the offending passage on Chechnya is quoted there) I find the treatment of Chechnya issues distasteful, and the official follow-up with its promise of making amends quite recommendable (statement link: https://www.white-wolf.com/newsblog/a-message-from-white-wolf).

Man-made atrocities should stay man-made, especially if they are recent, or worse, ongoing. Fictionalizing them should not involve shifting blame to supernatural third parties, period.

Lastly, if a writer feels a strong urge to capitalize on recent headlines in their fiction, they should do a serious peer review of their piece first. And this particular case (well, several cases in recent memory of V5, like that sex-changing ritual - search rpg.net forums if you want to find examples) imply that peer review was lacking on several occasions.

Regards,
Ruemere

PS. More direct links in a post below: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?654998-Big-Changes-At-White-Wolf-Following-Controversy&p=7524497#post7524497

TrippyHippy · Nov 18, 2018

gyor said:
I don't why the new White Wolf felt the need for a new edition so soon after v20, and why they felt the need to do it themselves, Onyx Path has largely done really well, with a few mistakes that have been learned from, and the lines and worlds they have been doing keeps growing. It's lead by someone who was apart of the original white wolf, making Onyx Path more of a spiritual successor to the original white wolf then the new white white wolf ever was.

So now it's likely to stay in Onyx Path's hands, which are experienced and popular, and much better at avoiding political land mines then the new white wolf.

It's probably worth noting that The Onyx Path were already planning, and had announced their own upcoming version of V5 before the new White Wolf took up ownership. They did so because V20 was released in 2011 and had probably sold as much as it was ever going to do, while their own feedback was that the book was so big it was seen as a turnoff to casual fans. I'm reporting what Richard Thomas said in his newsletters and in discussions thereof, by the way, so you could go back and trace the history yourself through their website.

The Onyx Path have a policy, to reduce overheads, of only conducting business through Kickstarters and Drivethrurpg PDF/POD. I think they have added the Indiepressrevolution site in the last year or so too. With all best intentions, these are not big markets at all compared to the retail sales that are highlighted in ICv2, for example. The ambitions of the new Vampire game was to reach out much further than this, by reigniting the brand, and this is what is being pulled back on when they are now just interested in 3rd party based 'Brand Management'.

The Onyx Path plans for V5 are only really as much as the money they can raise on Kickstarter. The current Chicago by Night campaign is raising just over $80,000. It's not much.

I do feel bad for the people who have lost their jobs, that always sucks. And my full hearted compassion to all gay people who are being abused and murdered.

Good words, and in total agreement.

Hussar · Nov 18, 2018

ruemere said:
Having read the extensive thread at rpg.net on V5 Anarch and Camarilla guides (https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/vampire-5th-ed-camarilla-anarch-guides.836416; the offending passage on Chechnya is quoted there) I find the treatment of Chechnya issues distasteful, and the official follow-up with its promise of making amends quite recommendable (statement link: https://www.white-wolf.com/newsblog/a-message-from-white-wolf).

Man-made atrocities should stay man-made, especially if they are recent, or worse, ongoing. Fictionalizing them should not involve shifting blame to supernatural third parties, period.

Lastly, if a writer feels a strong urge to capitalize on recent headlines in their fiction, they should do a serious peer review of their piece first. And this particular case (well, several cases in recent memory of V5, like that sex-changing ritual - search rpg.net forums if you want to find examples) imply that peer review was lacking on several occasions.

Regards,
Ruemere

[MENTION=5515]ruemere[/MENTION], your Anarch Guides link is broken. I would very much like to see the conversation you are talking about. Can you fix the link?

hawkeyefan · Nov 18, 2018

If we look at the issue in a more general sense, I think it becomes clearer. It really boils down to this:

Are we or should we as customers/readers/viewers/gamers guaranteed some level of freedom from offense by the art we consume?

Sure, there are commercial considerations at playy here, and they have been a factor. But separate of that....separate of the business folk sitting in a conference room looking at spreadsheets...should art be banned/removed/restricted/altered based on its content?

If a work of art offends one person, is that enough for it to be removed? If not, then how many people must be offended?

And is there not some level of personal ownership that should be considered? If I find naughty language offensive, does that mean that films with naughty language should be banned? Or edited for content? Orshould it be on me to avoid films that I find offensive?

Should I be deciding this for myself or should others decide for me?

Maxperson · Nov 18, 2018

Panda-s1 said:
Man, you can highlight a real world issue without trivializing it. You can also do better than "the Chechen leaders are actually bad vampires! O:" But also, even if this did increase social awareness to the problem I find it hard to believe people are going think it stopped because WW took it out of one of their books.

Sure, but on the other hand, it's really not possible for a game to trivialize something, because people aren't going to take a game seriously. It's a game. Now, if a government dismissed what was going on, that would be trivializing the issue.

Big Changes At White Wolf Following Controversy

LuisCarlos17f

Legend

Shasarak

Banned

Panda-s1

Scruffy and Determined

gyor

Legend

TrippyHippy

Hero

ruemere

Adventurer

TrippyHippy

Hero

Hussar

Legend

hawkeyefan

Legend

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus

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