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.

 

[Panda-s1]

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.

If that's the case then why the hell would they say "That said, even among the Kindred any kind of "homosexual behavior" is punished harshly." in the same paragraph as detailing what the Chechen government is doing? I don't think the people making v5 are very sympathetic toward the LGBT community, even in regards to fans if this is actually the case.

 

[Sadras]

If that's the case then why the hell would they say "That said, even among the Kindred any kind of "homosexual behavior" is punished harshly." in the same paragraph as detailing what the Chechen government is doing? I don't think the people making v5 are very sympathetic toward the LGBT community, even in regards to fans if this is actually the case.

Well that statement comes as a surprise to me. Is this vampire comment something that existed in the 90's and are they referring to all Kindred or just a clan or sect or those in Chechnya?

 

[Maxperson]

Sure it is. There's all sorts of ways to force your will on others through capitalism. Monopolies for example. As well as boycotting. Both of these are very effective ways of forcing your will on others.

I'll grant you monopolies, but these days companies live to be boycotted. As soon as a boycott is announced, every group that disagrees with you flocks to patronize that business, while the group calling for the boycott almost always does it halfheartedly as most people in the group don't feel as strongly about it as the few calling for the boycott. Business booms for the "boycotted" companies. So I guess if your will is to make a company money, boycotting forces your will through capitalism. Otherwise, not so much.

 

[Maxperson]

Really? Worked in this case didn't it?

No it didn't. The company caved before the effects could be seen. It was more politics than the boycott.

 

[Maxperson]

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".

I don't see it that way at all. I read the wording in the links provided, and the writers make sure to say that the horrors the LGBT community are going through in Chechnya are happening. It provides a vampire twist to it, but it doesn't attempt to minimize the horrors at all.

As you mention, the only ones who might believe that it was something made up for the game are those who don't know about what is really happening in Chechnya, and those people are already ignorant. However, since White Wolf is well known to use real world happenings in their products, a percentage of those who bought this book would have looked up the LGBT horrors in Chechnya and learned what is happening. Those people will know stay ignorant, and that's not a good thing.

If that's the case then why the hell would they say "That said, even among the Kindred any kind of "homosexual behavior" is punished harshly." in the same paragraph as detailing what the Chechen government is doing?

Because they are saying that even the LGBT vampires don't get a pass. All LGBT members in Chechnya are being targeted. It's an attempt NOT to minimize things or imply that it's only being done as a smokescreen. If it were only being done to humans and not vampires, it would become a smokescreen and not true hate for the LGBT community.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Fair enough.
Do you think this particular passage of this particular book for this particular game was an artistic expression?

(But for the sake of argument... if a roleplaying game is a work of art, would a game of football be art too? How about chess? Poker? Or is it just their rulebooks?)

Do I think it was an artistic expression? It's a fictitious version of the real world, which I think falls into that category, sure. As for football or chess, these games don't really involve fiction, so they differ from many RPG products in that sense, but still the design of each game is probably an artistic expression. And I'd argue that playing each can be considered performance art of some kind.

Agreed. Vampire the Masquerade is very firmly "adult". While D&D is much more PG.
But that doesn't mean anything goes in VtM.

That doesn't mean they can present anything and everything in the book and not have to worry about upsetting people.

Earlier I questioned what the reaction would be if White Wolf postulated that the Sandy Hook Massacre was the result of a fledgling vampire who lost control of the Beast and the shooting was a cover. Because that would work as a plot hook. Plus the murder of a couple dozen people and a cover-up is well within the scope of what you see in VtM.
And the idea of thematically equating vampirism with gun violence has some very interesting connotations. You could tell a very interesting and multi-layered narrative with that hook.
But that doesn't mean it wouldn't be upsetting or offensive or cross a line.

Upsetting or offensive, yes.....I agree. Content of this nature can be very upsetting and/or offensive. I don't know if I consider those two things the same as crossing a line, in the way you present it. From your comments, when you say crossing a line, it seems to mean that they should not present whatever it is that "crossed the line". I don't know if that's correct.

The line is always different for everyone. Who decides where it is in any given instance?

It's not a question of whether or not it should exist. It's a question of whether or not it should be in an official book. And whether or not the writing of that material should have been paid for and supported by White Wolf?

If the author in question really loved the idea of the Chechnya campaign seed, where you have to liberate or combat a country controlled by vampires... why couldn't that be a PDF product? That's literally what the Storyteller's Vault is for. Or they could do it on their blog and get funds through Patreon. No one is saying that idea should not exist in any form.

Or, alternatively... why does it need to be a real country and use the name of the real head of state while referring to the real murder of human beings? Comic books regularly have real-ish sounding countries. Sokovia. Markovia. Bialya.
Heck, they could even use a former country and say "Czechoslovakia".
That fills the same narrative role without potentially being seen as making light or taking advantage of the suffering of others.

Sure, comics do sometimes use fake locations as a stand in for real places. Sometimes they don't.

In this case, I have no problem with the writers painting the Chechen leadership as monstrous because they are in fact monstrous.

Do I think that such use is a bit crass or that the fact that the tragedy is ongoing meas perhaps it shouldn't be used as a source of fiction in a RPG? Sure. I wouldn't have done that if I was writing the book. I find it distasteful.

I just don't mistake my personal taste for more than that. All it means is that I wouldn't buy that book.

What's the alternative?
The writers publish whatever they want? The publisher has no say in the product they're funding?

I do think that there is value in artists producing anything that they want, and in the production of art that challenges the norms of society. No, I don't think that a company that is paying for the production of some creative work should have no say. In this case, the publisher is reacting to some level of public outcry in a way that they feel is appropriate. I don't blame them for that.

What I question is the need for people to try and eliminate things that they don't like, or that make them uncomfortable, rather than simply avoiding it themselves.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Does it matter? The reality is that if enough someones (and that number is never fixed) see something as offensive, then the work gets removed or altered. Democracy in action. That's how society works. Society judges that certain things are offensive (and that decision itself is not fixed - it changes over time) and exercises that judgement through economic means. Questions over whether or not someone should be able to do so are the wrong questions to ask since there is no real functioning alternative.

I think in this instance you've mistaken capitalism for democracy.

Don't you think that the approach you're describing has been shown as problematic at many points in history? Popular opinion being the prevailing factor on what's moral or acceptable.....seems questionable to me.

Public opinion shifts often, and sometimes significantly. Often with art as an influencing factor. Would you agree with that?

Now, I won't claim that this instance would ever be something that's going to rally the charge to actual change in Chechnya...that's simply not going to happen. But I don't think that we can start picking and choosing what's offensive but can remain, and what's offensive but must go.

Telling someone to just change the channel is no different really than them telling you not to spread an offensive idea. And since we have a history of letting offensive ideas fester in small groups until it spills over and someone decides to run over several innocent women and children on the streets of Toronto (just to give an example) then it's much better, IMO, to categorically denounce these things very publicly. No, this or that is not acceptable and it's society's responsibility to make that judgement known.

I'm not quite following your last sentence.

What you seem to be advocating for here is that minority opinions are always bad and need to be denounced?

Again, don't you see that as problematic?

 

[billd91]

I don't see it that way at all. I read the wording in the links provided, and the writers make sure to say that the horrors the LGBT community are going through in Chechnya are happening. It provides a vampire twist to it, but it doesn't attempt to minimize the horrors at all.

Except by subverting the real reason behind it and making it vampire plot, it very much does minimize it. Had they left the local regime's arguments in place and implied that LGBT people were being targeted by opportunistic vampires allied with Ramzan, then I think they could argue they're not minimizing the situation.

 

[Umbran]

I think we are using different ideas of peer review. Any one can critique art, no one should have the right to choose for another what should be allowed in art.

We aren't really talking about what should be allowed in art, though. We are talking about whether a particular publisher makes a particular work available as a part of their business.

Remember that classically, a painter or sculptor got to make *one single copy* of a work. Thus, distribution through a business arrangement is a separate consideration from the creation of the art itself.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Do help me to understand better this matter. Let's imagine these texts of example from hypothetical WoD fan-made sourcebooks.

Madrid by Night: "Spain was the best ally of the Inquisition to hunt vampires, and these created lodges to plot against the Vatican, sometimes with propaganda war creating a black legend, other times with a true genocide. In the second Spanish republic Camarilla and Sabath agreed to forget their differences to try the greater anti-Catholic genocide in the XX century, but plan failed because general Franco and others started a rebellion after of the murder of Calvo Sotelo, and with a hidden ally, the Technocrazy. For the Franco's dictatorship they lost the control most of puppets from the mason lodges until the arrival of the democracy. The Spanish constitution forbids the secret societies but this is practically wet paper".

Rage in the Nile: "Pentex has the control of many African politician who enslave their own people with public debut they can't pay, and promoting only who can be blackmailed when they participate in secret rituales where underage innocents are sacrificed, while they are recorded by videocamaras. Indepence is an illusion when the secret societies have got the true control. And they are helped by the ratkin, the wererats, with this contagious diseases they can sell more tainted medicines. There are born many dancers of the black spiral because they have total impunity to kidnap Copts girls for forced marriages and to breed more puppies".

Where is the limit of the bad taste and why? Where is the right to offend and when the duty of show respect?