News Digest: Controversy Abounds! New Vampire Edition Details, Green Ronin's Talent Search, 7th Sea

Hello everyone! Darryl here with this week’s gaming news! And this week is all about controversy. Vampire: The Masquerade 5^th Edition release information (with a controversial hiring), Green Ronin is looking for female writers for Lost Citadel, International Tabletop Day may not be able to meet demand for promotional items, and more! Even this week’s Kickstarters are loaded with controversy!

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Okay, this is a very simple story with a very complicated background. I’m going to tell the story first this time and, if you’re not sure what’s going on, I’ll explain more in the next paragraph. White Wolf Publishing announced details about the new edition of Vampire: The Masquerade. This new fifth edition of the game will come out in early 2018 and, according to ICv2, “continue the metagame that was shaped in 2004”. This would be the sourcebook Gehenna which presented several options for the “end of the world” of the World of Darkness and the tie-in novel Gehenna: The Final Night be Ari Marmell. If these events will be rolled into the new edition in an “After the End” manner, it’s not yet known. This project began in controversy after White Wolf announced hiring Zak Smith (aka Zak Sabbath or Zak S) back in February, a man who has been accused of harassing behavior, to work on a video game. WW's response can be found here.

So some of you may be wondering where Onyx Path is in all this. They’re still around, but they’re not involved with this new edition of the game. They are, however, still creating new material for World of Darkness. But not for the new edition. Onyx Path still holds the license for the Chronicles of Darkness (which is the official name of what was called the New World of Darkness titles: Vampire: The Requiem, Werewolf: The Forsaken, etc.) and they hold the license for the 20^th Anniversary editions of all the World of Darkness (the official name for Old World of Darkness titles: Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, etc.). So Onyx Path is still publishing new material for both of these lines, but are NOT publishing material for the new 5^th Edition of Vampire: The Masquerade.

So White Wolf was purchased by CCP Games (makers of the Eve Online franchise) who only wanted the IP rights to make a World of Darkness MMO. After many years of development, the title was finally canceled in 2014 and White Wolf plus all its assets were sold to Paradox Interactive in 2015. Late last year, Paradox Interactive spun White Wolf Publishing into its own (but fully owned) company in anticipation of publishing a new edition. At this time, the licensing deals were restructured and, when the dust settled, the licenses for Chronicles of Darkness and the 20^th Anniversary versions of the original World of Darkness games were with Onyx Path and the live-action Mind’s Eye Theater remained with By Night Studios. So this is how White Wolf is coming out with a new edition at a time when Onyx Path is running a Kickstarter for a World of Darkness themed card game.

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Green Ronin launched a talent search for contributors to The Lost Citadel roleplaying game, based on the fiction anthology and world developed by Jaym Gates, C.A. Suleiman, and Ari Marmell about a fantasy world in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. There is a catch, as they’re specifically accepting proposals from women. From the announcement:

In the lead-up to June’s Kickstarter for the LCRPG, we are going to be running a talent search for women who are interested in coming to work on the project. If you identify as female and dark fantasy is your jam, we want to see what you can bring to the table! Not to worry, fellas, we have some other opportunities for you coming up later in the year, as well, but this talent search is just for the ladies.

A statement was issued to further clarify that the talent search was also open to those who identify as non-binary gender. The announcement from Green Ronin General Manager Nicole Lindroos comes following a post from Green Ronin President Chris Pramas [EDIT: This post was from Green Ronin General Manager Nicole Lindroos, not Chris Pramas as original posted] speaking about his [EDIT: her] experience on a panel at the DICE Summit in Las Vegas, noting the gender discrepancy of those in the industry and those looking to break in, noting both how far the industry has come and how far it still has to go.

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7^th Sea promised a platform for user-created content during their wildly successful Kickstarter last year, and now they’ve delivered as Explorer’s Society is live. The online store allows users to create and sell content for the 7^th Sea 2^nd Edition game, including adventures, NPCs, homebrew rules, or more. There is a content guideline that acts as a license for use of the Intellectual Property, laying out exactly what you can and cannot use from published materials and in what way you’re allowed to use them (this is similar to the license for the DM’s Guild). In the week since launch, there’s already two dozen products available for purchase ranging in cost from free to Pay-What-You-Want to a set price of $3.99 for some of the adventures.

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International Tabletop Day has run into a minor issue: The event is so big that they can’t keep up with demand! This is the first year that all promotional items have been released a la carte rather than as a single one-size-fits-all pack. Personally, I preferred the old way, but that’s because I live in a rural area so my local event always had more promotional items than attendees. However, retailers in more populated areas could customize their orders in order to make sure they could meet demand based on previous events. And this year, the demand was higher than ever – so much so that not everyone will be getting their products. Quoted in ICv2, Producer Ivan Van Norman said “We opened up the print sizes significantly as well with publishers, but didn’t know what to expect with the new system. After collecting all the pre-orders we can tell you that you meet and beat the expectations out of the park. Despite opening up numbers significantly, we are at 85-95% fill rate to pre-orders for almost all items for International Tabletop Day.” The only odd one out was the promotional card from Cryptozoic’s Master of Orion, which only had enough product to fill 16% of the orders and cannot be reprinted in time for the event. International Tabletop Day is on Saturday, April 29 and the official website has a locator to find the event closest to you.

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Even the Kickstarters this week haven’t managed to evade controversy this week! Alternity is now on Kickstarter bringing a world of science fiction adventure. Technically speaking, however, this is not a new edition of the original Alternity game. Instead, this game takes the abandoned trademarks from the original Alternity and creates an entire new rules system inspired by the original. Some on social media criticized Sasquatch games for using the abandoned trademarks rather than creating an original property. My response: Yeah, how dare this Richard Baker and Bill Slavicsek rip off the hard work of the original Alternity creators, Richard Baker and Bill Slavicsek! And can you believe they’re letting George RR Martin write the next Song of Ice and Fire novel? But more seriously, this new game captures everything from the original Alternity with the original creators involved as they update and streamline the game system bringing in the knowledge of twenty years of advancement in the industry since the original. You can get the core rulebook in PDF for $25, a print version for $40, or a bundle of all content including stretch goals in PDF for $45 or adding on a print copy of the core rulebook for $65. This project is about halfway to its funding goal, but has until Thursday, May 4 to reach its $35,000 goal.

Now for some controversial nepotism! EN Publishing, the game design and publishing arm of EN World, is creating a book of brand new classes for the 5^th Edition of “the world’s most popular roleplaying game”. Alchemist, Cardcaster, Diabolist, Feywalker, Morph, Noble, and Occultist are each detailed with multiple subclass builds (see the links for previews). In addition, the book includes new subclasses and build options for the core classes and much more. You can get the PDF version immediately at the end of the Kickstarter for a £10 (about US$13) pledge, or a print copy for £17 (about US$21) for a print copy as soon as it’s printed. This Kickstarter is fully funded and runs until Friday, May 5.

Underworld Races & Classes gives you even more options for your 5^th Edition or Pathfinder games from Adventure a Week Games. What’s the controversy with promoting this one? While I’m not directly involved with this project, I am currently working with AAW Games on another project they haven’t announced yet. That said, this book is a collection of new races, classes, spells, and items all themed around the things that dwell beneath the surface of the world, thriving in the darkness. The PDF is available for $25 for your choice of edition or $45 for both with hardcover versions available for $55 or $105 for both. This Kickstarter is fully funded and runs until Friday, April 28.

That’s all from me for this week! Find more gaming news at the EN World News Network website, and don’t forget to support our Patreon to bring you even more gaming news content. If you have any news to submit, email us at news@enworldnews.com. You can follow me on Twitter @Abstruse where I’ve been ranting about the Pepsi controversy (there’s no reason not to bring back Crystal Pepsi permanently!), or you can listen to the archives of the Gamer’s Tavern podcast. Until next time, may all your hits be crits! Note: Links to Amazon and/or DriveThru may contain affiliate links with the proceeds going to the author of this column.

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[Hussar]

Trust me, it's not just marketing. I've known Chris, Ari, and Jaym for a while and I've interacted with pretty much everyone involved with Lost Citadel at some point. Making gaming and publishing more inclusive is a big goal of everyone involved in general, not just for this specific project.

Oh, totally agree. I probably made my point too strongly, as usual.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

Laura Hickman /snip

Umm, it's TRACY Hickman, and he's a dude. But, you knew that right.

 

[Dualazi]

"I don't see why a screen wouldn't remove hurdles, therefore no hurdles must exist."

Try again. I’m saying the blind audition would remove any logical hurdles without necessitating the removal of certain categories of applicants.

Which implies that you believe this talent search will result in a subpar writer.

I have no way of conclusively knowing this any more than you do. That said, I do believe it increases the chances of receiving a sub-par piece of work because of arbitrary and unnecessary restrictions on the applicant pool.

That’s why I find this initiative stupid. It’s a poor moral choice (sexism against men is still sexism) and it’s a bad choice pragmatically, since they are simply walling off talent from coming forward.

Cool story, bro. The fiction publishing industry, even romance novels, is still dominated by men.

It is a cool story. Almost as cool as the fact that author demographics had nothing to do with me shooting down your tiresome argument that sex doesn’t sell to women and that all muscle-bound men are a male power fantasy.

 

[schnee]

Cool story, bro. The fiction publishing industry, even romance novels, is still dominated by men.

...who make more money finding out what women want, giving it to them, and have it down to a science. You think men decide these covers because it's what they want?!? Learn publishing.

Really though, patriarchy is a thing, and it is bad, but your absurd thinking that every single thing can be explained by a single reductionist thought doesn't persuade anyone. I bet it feels good to you though.

 

[mythago]

It’s a poor moral choice (sexism against men is still sexism)

I missed the part where GR said that they're limiting this to female authors because they think men are worse at writing or that men are jerks? Because that sure would be sexism against men. But I'm not following how wanting to give an opportunity to an underrepresented and often marginalized group of people is automagically bigotry.

 

[Dualazi]

I missed the part where GR said that they're limiting this to female authors because they think men are worse at writing or that men are jerks? Because that sure would be sexism against men. But I'm not following how wanting to give an opportunity to an underrepresented and often marginalized group of people is automagically bigotry.

It's not so much that they think men are worse that they aren't interested in finding out. In my discussions with Jester I pointed out a blind audition format could be completely fair to any applicant and would likewise ensure the company and consumers get the best product possible. GR has instead essentially said that they're not interested in merely offering an opportunity for women to be involved in the project, but are instead saying that they will force female involvement whether or not it would be the optimal decision. The only way said involvement wouldn't be forced is if zero women apply and they have to open it back up to the general public. Furthermore, Mouseferatu's post linking to one of the co-creator's facebook pages confirms that GR will not be doing a male-only casting call as well, which pretty much decisively proves that they care more about the gender of the worker than the quality of the work. If you have two competing options and you pick based on the gender of the creator as opposed to any merits of the options in question then yeah, that's a sexist call no matter who is on the receiving end.

 

[mythago]

It's not so much that they think men are worse that they aren't interested in finding out. In my discussions with Jester I pointed out a blind audition format could be completely fair to any applicant and would likewise ensure the company and consumers get the best product possible. GR has instead essentially said that they're not interested in merely offering an opportunity for women to be involved in the project, but are instead saying that they will force female involvement whether or not it would be the optimal decision. The only way said involvement wouldn't be forced is if zero women apply and they have to open it back up to the general public. Furthermore, Mouseferatu's post linking to one of the co-creator's facebook pages confirms that GR will not be doing a male-only casting call as well, which pretty much decisively proves that they care more about the gender of the worker than the quality of the work. If you have two competing options and you pick based on the gender of the creator as opposed to any merits of the options in question then yeah, that's a sexist call no matter who is on the receiving end.

"Forced female involvement" is a very odd way to phrase it. I don't think they're going out press-ganging female game designers.

Blind audition format is not how any game company does business. Game companies work with writers they've worked with before; they work with big-name writers whose byline will attract attention and money; they work with people whose style they like better or who they know to be reliable. Is any of that unfair? Are they risking inferior product because they're not opening a blind casting call to all and sundry?

 

[Dualazi]

"Forced female involvement" is a very odd way to phrase it. I don't think they're going out press-ganging female game designers.

Blind audition format is not how any game company does business. Game companies work with writers they've worked with before; they work with big-name writers whose byline will attract attention and money; they work with people whose style they like better or who they know to be reliable. Is any of that unfair? Are they risking inferior product because they're not opening a blind casting call to all and sundry?

Yeah, my phrasing could use work, but they're still ultimately boiling it down to "female or bust". It's forced in the sense that I think there are very few industries that see 100% of either gender reliably in people entering the workforce, and GR is forcing that scenario to occur here.

Those issues you outlined aren't unfair because in many cases they're value adds that elevate their product. A big name writer is more valuable to the company specifically because he/she brings in more sales, and to avoid that when it's reasonable to pursue wouldn't be smart. Same thing for people you know are reliable, which is definitely a sadly rare quality in a lot of places. All I ultimately care about is that merit takes center stage.

None of those scenarios really apply here though, because this is explicitly looking for new talent. They've already either decided they don't want to pursue the things you listed or don't have the means to do so, and then have arbitrarily excluded a segment of equally unknown creators based on their gender. Fighting sexism with more sexism doesn't really sit well with me, and that's exactly what I see occurring here. If they had gone with the blind audition option, would we be seeing this same furor? If they had been more explicit in what the subject matter would entail, would that not have given us more insight into the validity of necessitating a specifically female viewpoint?

From the press releases they've issued and the facebook post linked up thread, it seems to me that GR considers it a moral imperative to get more women into the hobby, regardless of the means or the effect on the product.

"...Nicole and I observed that if there was ever a situation in which it was clearly the right thing to do to reach out to women specifically, to let them know that there’s a place where their efforts and ideas aren’t just welcome but desired, that situation could involve the Lost Citadel."

- Follow up press release by Green Ronin, found here https://greenronin.com/lostcitadel/2017/04/04/the-lost-citadel-talent-search/

The fact that they consider this the "right thing to do" is telling on that note, and I fundamentally disagree with that assertion. If there are biases in place that have hindered women getting into those positions either industry wide or on a per-company basis, those can be addressed by things like the blind audition drum I keep banging, especially when specifically scouting new talent. Adding women in and of itself is not a morally correct decision on its own, though.

 

[Mouseferatu]

(Again, I must state in advance that I am speaking for myself, not for Green Ronin or any other developer of Lost Citadel in any capacity.)

It's not a question of whether a woman can write a female character better than a man, or whether a trans writer can write a trans character better than a cis writer can. I mean, odds are that, all else being equal, they could, but that's not universally true--and it's not the point.

The point is that women bring a different perspective to their writing in general than men. Trans writers bring a different perspective than cis writers. And so forth. Not better. Not worse. Different. And a given anthology, or game--and certainly the industry--are better for having that variety of perspective. It produces richer results.

Further, the industry and the market still have a strong undercurrent of prejudice. Women aren't treated as fairly, trans writers aren't treated as fairly, etc. This isn't true all the time, or for every individual, but it's common enough for it to be an issue. This is partly about making a commitment and a stated effort toward erasing those problems, those boundaries. A promise that they are being offered as safe a space as we can provide them for them to tell their stories, make their voices heard. And that requires open and overt encouragement of marginalized voices, not just blind auditions.

We believe that these goals will ultimately lead to better products, a better industry, and a better world. And even if it were true that this meant a given project (such as Lost Citadel) might be a tiny percentage less good than it otherwise would be? It would be worth it. I would rather have a B-grade book that includes women and trans authors than an A book that doesn't, for that reason.

(Not that I agree talent contests like this result in inferior writing. They don't. There are plenty of skilled female writers and trans writers out there. I'm just saying even if they did, it would still be worth it.)

And yes, I believe that does make it the morally correct decision, and I will support these efforts and these authors over anyone's objections.

 

[Mecheon]

From the press releases they've issued and the facebook post linked up thread, it seems to me that GR considers it a moral imperative to get more women into the hobby, regardless of the means or the effect on the product.

I mean, given the history of the hobby and things like FATAL almost existing?

Yes. It is a moral imperative to get as far, far, far away from the ridiculous past of this hobby