Renegade Game Studios Takes Over World of Darkness

Renegade Game Studio is taking over the World of Darkness! They will be publishing books produced in-house by owner Paradox, starting in December with the free (digital) Vampire: The Masquerade Companion, which has rules for playing humans and ghouls, as well as the clans Tzimisce, Ravnos, and Salubri.

Modiphius took over the line in December 2018; there's no mention of whether that is continuing. Renegade Game Studios, which brought us Kids on Bikes, recently announced that it was producing D&D 5E-powered lines for various Hasbro properties, including Power Rangers, and possibly Transformers, G.I. Joe, and My Little Pony.

The new World of Darkness books are to be produced in-house at Paradox, under the leadership of Justin Achilli, from White Wolf. They won't only be making RPGs -- they're also creating video games, comics, and more.

The Vampire Companion is coming free in December.

The Vampire: The Masquerade Companion book brings three highly-anticipated Vampire clans into V5, and gives Storytellers more tools to enhance their chronicles, including:

• Three vampire clans: Tzimisce, Ravnos, Salubri
• Discipline powers representing each of the new clans
• Expanded rules and roleplaying information for ghouls and mortals
• Details on each clan’s view on vampire coteries
• New Merits for players characters
• Rules errata to Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition

 

[TrippyHippy]

You seem confused by what "historical fact" means. You also seem strangely confused about what "literally" and "parody" mean.

Achilli was extremely clear about his motivations, and you're actually agreeing with everything I said now, rather than contradicting any of it as you did previously. All you're adding is that you think he was right to do what he did, and giving a very specific and rather shallow justification. Which is exactly the problem with Revised.

Then you’d better start providing quotes, because you are talking absolute garbage as far as I can see. You don’t speak for the majority of gamers playing Vampire, for sure.

What you are doing is revising history to make your own narrative. It is not factual, and no I don’t agree with you, and I doubt Justin Achilli would either. The derogatory phrases, as you insist, of ‘superheroes with fangs’ or ‘trenchcoats and katanas’ were around way before Achilli - which you can find in White Wolf magazines as much as anywhere else.

If you played the game in this manner, you were seen as playing the game as a parody of its intent - and no, the majority of gamers did not try to play it that way. If you did, then I can see why any utterances from Achilli would have upset you - or indeed any developer worth his/her salt. It is simply not what any of the creators of any edition of Vampire intended - merely a hiccup in the looseness of the game’s mechanical design that anybody could interpret the game as ’superheroes with fangs’ if they chose to. Regardless, the Revised and V20 versions of the game still encouraged an open inclusivity for all types of games - and were more open than previous editions, explicitly and practically in terms of support.

However, if your accusation against his stewardship of the game was that he ‘purified’ it from playing the game from playing it like ‘superheroes with fangs’ or ‘trenchcoats and katanas’, then you’d be disappointed as I am that some people were shocked to find that V5 was not built around the idea either - and its mechanics are much more clear to the intent. Either way, I don’t think this game is aimed at you. As such, I doubt Achilli or anybody else should heed your advice about how it should move forward.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Then you’d better start providing quotes, because you are talking absolute garbage as far as I can see. You don’t speak for the majority of gamers playing Vampire, for sure.

What you are doing is revising history to make your own narrative. It is not factual, and no I don’t agree with you, and I doubt Justin Achilli would either. The derogatory phrases, as you insist, of ‘superheroes with fangs’ or ‘trenchcoats and katanas’ were around way before Achilli - which you can find in White Wolf magazines as much as anywhere else.

If you played the game in this manner, you were seen as playing the game as a parody of its intent - and no, the majority of gamers did not try to play it that way. If you did, then I can see why any utterances from Achilli would have upset you - or indeed any developer worth his/her salt. It is simply not what any of the creators of any edition of Vampire intended - merely a hiccup in the looseness of the game’s mechanical design that anybody could interpret the game as ’superheroes with fangs’ if they chose to. Regardless, the Revised and V20 versions of the game still encouraged an open inclusivity for all types of games - and were more open than previous editions, explicitly and practically in terms of support.

I too was around in the 90s but would not presume to speak for a majority; I only know what was going on in my circles and what the rules pointed towards.

And superheroes with fangs is what I remember the rules pointing towards. The Vampire: the Masquerade powers were (and are) straight up superpowers and blood isn't a scarce resource. The Path of Humanity's hierarchy of sins is something close to a superhero code (no killing, no theft, don't give in to anger). And the setting isn't short of supervillains. It's not a parody - it's playing the game as was actually written rather than the game that was intended and that could be forced towards.

 

[humble minion]

And superheroes with fangs is what I remember the rules pointing towards. The Vampire: the Masquerade powers were (and are) straight up superpowers and blood isn't a scarce resource. The Path of Humanity's hierarchy of sins is something close to a superhero code (no killing, no theft, don't give in to anger). And the setting isn't short of supervillains. It's not a parody - it's playing the game as was actually written rather than the game that was intended and that could be forced towards.

I'd argue it's what the mechanics pointed towards, while all the flavour text, background, Storyteller advice, etc etc etc painted a picture of something much slower, more subtle, and more character-focused. But 'the game' is the sum of background and ruleset.

The Superheroes With Fangs gamestyle was (I've always thought) the result of WW making the same mistake that WotC did with approximately a million prestige classes back in 3/3.5e, or kits back in 2e - balancing mechanical advantages with roleplaying disadvantages. Vampires have to hunt (ie, attack and violate people), vampires are lorded over by vile elders whose power they'll almost certainly never be able to rival, vampires have to scrupulously hide any trace of their existence for fear of getting crushed like bugs for Masquerade breaches, vampires are in near-constant danger of losing it and bloodily slaughtering anyone around them, vampires are subject to the most stranglingly tight addiction imaginable (and it only gets worse if you're blood bound, then you'd slavishly addicted and love your dealer with all your heart and soul even though your mind knows they're awful).

Yeah, being a vampire is the pits. But the great majority of all this stuff depends on Storyteller enforcement. With a Storyteller who just lets you offhandedly make Herd rolls to feed at the start of a session so you can all get to the interesting part, or plays elders dumb and/or weak, or doesn't come down on the coterie like a ton of bricks for stuff like Masquerade violations or diablerie, etc etc - you're going to end up with Superheroes With Fangs. And hey, if that's what floats your boat, have fun with it. But it's not how the game is written to be played, because the game is more than the mechanics, otherwise the book would be a lot thinner.

Edit: not to say that players didn't need to read the background/setting material and buy in as well. The best and most lore-y ST in the world is going to struggle when PCs are things like toreador with maxed celerity, melee, and generation, who 'find beauty in the art of combat' (that's the usual excuse for this character type, yeah?) who's an amnesiac orphan etc etc. Session 0 matters...

 

[TrippyHippy]

I too was around in the 90s but would not presume to speak for a majority; I only know what was going on in my circles and what the rules pointed towards.

And superheroes with fangs is what I remember the rules pointing towards. The Vampire: the Masquerade powers were (and are) straight up superpowers and blood isn't a scarce resource. The Path of Humanity's hierarchy of sins is something close to a superhero code (no killing, no theft, don't give in to anger). And the setting isn't short of supervillains. It's not a parody - it's playing the game as was actually written rather than the game that was intended and that could be forced towards.

Yep. It was the ongoing issue of the game through the earlier editions that the loose mechanics didn’t really enforce the gameplay described in the text - and different groups ended up interpreting it their own way.

The most recent edition - V5 - actually fixes this because the mechanics very much support the text, including the text and intent of the original game (we know this because the original creator, Mark Rein-Hagen was involved). This does, in part, explain some of the negative reaction to it and the negative reaction to Justin Achilli’s comments in previous editions, but like I say, the game wasn’t aimed at that audience. It was always written as a personal horror game about playing monsters. If you want to play 'superheroes with fangs', you’d be better off adapting Champions, Mutants & Masterminds or BESM.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Yep. It was the ongoing issue of the game through the earlier editions that the loose mechanics didn’t really enforce the gameplay described in the text - and different groups ended up interpreting it their own way.

The original White Wolf games also had their own "Rule 0", if I remember correctly, so there was no wrong way to play them. All the groups I was in who played the Storyteller games usually played as a mix of all the books and never an "everyone is a vampire" or "everyone is a werewolf" game. One group even used the fan-made rules based on the Highlander movies and TV show.

 

[TrippyHippy]

The original White Wolf games also had their own "Rule 0", if I remember correctly, so there was no wrong way to play them. All the groups I was in who played the Storyteller games usually played as a mix of all the books and never an "everyone is a vampire" or "everyone is a werewolf" game. One group even used the fan-made rules based on the Highlander movies and TV show.

The 'golden rule’ is more to do with mechanics than setting. That is, if you don’t like the rules they present, then it is ‘Rule 0’ that you can play it how you like instead. This is common in a lot of games, although it may have been novel when Vampire first came out in 1991.

Look, there is no right or wrong way to play any game however you like. It’s your game at your own table. There is a difference between saying that, however, and berating a developer for developing the game in the specific way that the text of the game presents itself as being about. The Vampire: The Masquerade game is not obliged to support a ‘superheroes with fangs’ type of play.

 

[macd21]

I'd argue it's what the mechanics pointed towards, while all the flavour text, background, Storyteller advice, etc etc etc painted a picture of something much slower, more subtle, and more character-focused. But 'the game' is the sum of background and ruleset.

Something I’ve always found odd about the ‘Superheroes with fangs’ or ‘trench coats and katanas’ cracks: IMO both the background and ruleset pointed towards such types of play, so I tended to wonder what game critics of such a style were playing, because it wasn’t VtM.

Sure, 1st Ed seemed to be going for that. But by 2ed (and definitely by Revised), the flavour text, background etc was all about superpowered Camarilla and Sabbat battling in the streets while evil elders pulled the strings - providing the perfect boss-nemeses for your party to slice up. And then a bunch of Kung fu vampires turned up to increase the katana saturation to maximum levels.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Something I’ve always found odd about the ‘Superheroes with fangs’ or ‘trench coats and katanas’ cracks: IMO both the background and ruleset pointed towards such types of play, so I tended to wonder what game critics of such a style were playing, because it wasn’t VtM.

Sure, 1st Ed seemed to be going for that. But by 2ed (and definitely by Revised), the flavour text, background etc was all about superpowered Camarilla and Sabbat battling in the streets while evil elders pulled the strings - providing the perfect boss-nemeses for your party to slice up. And then a bunch of Kung fu vampires turned up to increase the katana saturation to maximum levels.

Again, I’d be interested if you could quote the text where the game was illustrated as superpowered Camarilla and Sabbat battling in the streets with Kung Fu vampires. Again, I just think people are lost in interpretation.

Moreover, this argument seems to be going full circle - where the previous claim was that Justin Achilli was trying to dial this back, yet the claim now is that Vampire Revised (his first edition as developer) was taking this approach to the max?! Which one is it?

Because the ‘game critics’ as you put it were also the actual developers and writers of the game it seems.

 

[macd21]

Again, I’d be interested if you could quote the text where the game was illustrated as superpowered Camarilla and Sabbat battling in the streets with Kung Fu vampires. Again, I just think people are lost in interpretation.

Moreover, this argument seems to be going full circle - where the previous claim was that Justin Achilli was trying to dial this back, yet the claim is that Vampire Revised (his first edition as developer) was going this approach to the max? Which one is it?

Because the ‘game critics’ as you put it were also the actual developers and writers of the game it seems.

Sorry, but I’m not going to dig out my VtM supplements from 20 years ago to provide quotes. Though you could always just google image the covers of Nights of Prophecy or San Francisco By Night for particularly blatant examples of the phenomenon.

I have no idea what Justin Achilli said or tried to do, but if he tried to scale it back in Revised, I think he failed utterly.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Sorry, but I’m not going to dig out my VtM supplements from 20 years ago to provide quotes. Though you could always just google image the covers of Nights of Prophecy or San Francisco By Night for particularly blatant examples of the phenomenon.

I have no idea what Justin Achilli said or tried to do, but if he tried to scale it back in Revised, I think he failed utterly.

So, the short answer is you can’t.

San Francisco by Night was a sourcebook for Kindred of the East and both that and Nights of Prophecy were fairly late releases in any case (both in the 2000s). You’d have to cut it more that just a couple of covers to support what you claimed. I have my core books in front of me as I type, by the way, so just page references will do.