News Digest: White Wolf Dissolved, MORE New D&D Releases Announced, RPG Now Closing (kinda), and mor

Hello everyone, Darryl here with this week’s gaming news! New Wizards of the Coast releases (and not just Mad Mage and Ravnica), RPG Now closing in 2019, White Wolf Publishing dissolved, and more!

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Paradox Interactive announced on Friday that they were dissolving White Wolf Publishing as an independent entity and taking over direct management of the World of Darkness line. This decision follows a string of controversial events surrounding the company, which was created by Paradox in 2016 (the original White Wolf Publishing was similarly dissolved in 2012 by then-owner, CCP Games). The most recent controversy involves their two new sourcebooks for Vampire: The Masquerade released by White Wolf, named Camarilla and Anarch. The latter contained sections which called those who committed suicide “weak” and a included posts from a “Mommy Vampire” social media group with controversial posts, including one that talked about feeding vampire blood to babies.

The Camarilla book, however, received most of the focus as an entire chapter was devoted to the Chechen Republic. This chapter, which all credited authors on the book have publicly denied writing, described real-world events going on in the country as a camouflage for the activities of vampires, who have openly taken over the country. This included stating that the real-world torture, imprisonment, and execution of gay men first reported in 2017 was part of this cover-up of vampire activities and providing in-game information for the real-world head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, was a low-generation vampire used as a pawn by the Kindred in charge. This sparked not only outrage from the LGBT community for the use of an ongoing real-world tragedy and human rights atrocity as fodder for a game, but also from the Chechen Republic and Russian government who stated the “developers tried to blacken Russia and Chechnya” in an official press release. Additionally, a fifty minute press conference was held by Jambulat Umarov, the Minister of National Policy for the Chechen Republic, and three members of Studio 101, the company localizing Vampire: The Masquerade 20^th Anniversary Edition (the previous edition of the game) for the Russian language and a statement from Dzhambulat Umarov, the Press Minister for the Chechen Republic, stating he is “studying the option of litigation the game developers” (the source is in Russian, automatically translated by Google Translate)

The newly-created company has been dogged by controversy since it was formed. As recently as this past July, Jason Carl held a Q&A live stream on Twitch responding to allegations of marketing the new edition to Neo-Nazis and the Alt-Right. Before that, the “Pre-Alpha Playtest” released in June of 2017 (later removed from the website) received criticism for controversial content including hunger rules that could force player-characters to commit acts of sexual assault in-game, use of the psychological term “triggered” both in its clinical meaning (“to cause an intense and usually negative emotional reaction”) under Malkavian and its pejorative meaning (“offended by something…and react to it with extrovert anger” from the playtest text) for Brujah, and including one of four pre-gen player characters as a young adult fiction writer whose feeding restriction was “children and very young teenagers”.

Following the backlash over the Chechenya chapter of Camarilla, Paradox Interactive Vice President Shams Jorjani announced that both Camarilla and Anarch would be withdrawn from sale on digital markets and edited before re-releasing them and fulfilling print pre-orders. Additionally, Paradox Interactive will no longer directly create material for the World of Darkness setting for tabletop roleplaying games and return to a “focus on brand management” to “…develop the guiding principles for its vision of the World of Darkness”. No statement has been made about the status of the Onyx Path Publishing crowdfunding effort for a Chicago By Night sourcebook for Vampire: The Masquerade 5^th Edition which started before this current controversy with no comments made on the Kickstarter page, nor whether this will affect the video game for Werewolf: The Apocalypse in development by Cyanide Studios (makers of the Call of Cthulhu video game recently released and licensed from the Chaosium tabletop roleplaying game).

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Well, that was heavy. Let’s talk about helping charity by playing games! Wizards of the Coast released the digital adventure Lost Laboratory of Kwalish on DM’s Guild with profits going to Extra Life. The adventure is for characters of fifth to tenth levels and is inspired by the classic module Expedition to Barrier Peaks, including a return to the actual locations. The adventure also features a tribute to fan Laurence Withey who passed away from a rare form of cancer earlier this month by immortalizing his character, the wizard Galder, in the adventure by turning him into an NPC with custom spells and magic items available to players. The adventure is available in PDF for $9.99 with proceeds going to Extra Life.

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Additionally, Wizards of the Coast updated their Dungeons & Dragons product page with a new entry, Tactical Maps Reincarnated. The collection includes twenty full-color tactical-sized poster maps ready for use on the table right away. The maps are reprinted from several modules from 3^rd, 3.5, and 4^th Edition adventures including Tomb of Horrors, Vor Rukoth, Demon Queen’s Enclave, Death’s Reach, The Book of Vile Darkness, Kingdom of the Ghouls, Dungeon Master’s Kit, Orcs of Stonefang Pass, Fields of Ruin, Gargantuan Blue Dragon and Colossal Red Dragon miniature sets (which included maps for the D&D Miniatures skirmish game), Vaults of the Underdark, Legend of Drizzt, and Red Hand of Doom. The map set is due February 19, 2019, with a retail price of $24.95.

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A new errata has been released for the core Dungeons & Dragons 5^th Edition rules covering all three core rulebooks. The majority of the changes for the Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Monster Manual are minor changes, but there are a few important changes to class spell lists and all spellcasting classes have had their descriptions updated to specify which spells various feats and class abilities apply to (so if an ability only affects class spells, it will now say so). The DMG also made changes to the Rod of Lordly Might and Instrument of the Bards magic items, and the Monster Manual includes multiple math fixes for attacks, skills, and saving throws for several monsters. These changes are including in the just-released Dungeons & Dragons Core Rulebook Gift Set and the 10^th printing of the core rulebooks which should be on their way to stores now (the printing will be listed in the credits page of the book).

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One Bookshelf announced that the RPG Now site will be closing in February of 2019. All links will automatically redirect to Drive Thru RPG including bookmarks and links to individual products (so podcasters, bloggers, and video makers don’t need to rush to update links from old posts). Both RPG Now and Drive Thru RPG have been the same company just with different branding and storefronts since they merged in 2006. As of now, the other storefronts for One Bookshelf (Drive Thru Comics, Drive Thru Cards, Drive Thru Fiction, Wargame Vault, Storytellers Vault, and DM’s Guild) will still remain in place, though they generally function similarly where the only difference between them is the branding on the storefront site (you can test this yourself by clicking on a product from Drive Thru RPG and changing “drivethrurpg.com” in your address bar to any of the other sites and leaving of the URL alone). All purchases, accounts, published materials, affiliate accounts, balances for gift cards/sales/affiliate links, and everything else will be unaffected by this change.

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As the year starts to close out, eyes are on what’s due out in the future. And as you may have seen on multiple designer social media accounts, EN World’s annual Most Anticipated RPG of 2019 poll is currently live. The poll runs until Tuesday, December 4, and you can vote for as many titles as you like of the list scheduled for release in 2019. I may or may not have given away one of my votes in the image above.

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The RPG Game Dev Bundle from Humble Bundle is still going strong with all the assets you need to create your own 2D video game RPG using your favorite game engine. Or, if you’re like me, you can use the art for creating your own home game maps as well as take advantage of the thousands of licensed music and sound effects files for your podcast, live stream, or videos. And if you need inspiration, there’s the Dystopian Worlds Book Bundle with twenty-two novels from bestselling and award-winning authors including James Gunn, Dave Dunca, Steve Erickson, Eli K. P. William, and more. And if you don’t believe that you can be inspired to create a game from these books, the base level includes A Boy and His Dog by Harlan Ellison, which was the direct inspiration for the Fallout video game series.

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There’s a lot to talk about with Never Going Home, the World War I inspired occult horror game. The artwork is evocative, the setting is interesting…but I want to focus on the genius of the game mechanic and how it pushes the theme of the game to the forefront in a meaningful way. Each player has a deck of cards that power their spells and abilities and can also be spent to learn new skills, get additional dice for a check, and learn new dark powers…but each card also represents a memory of your former life. This is such an elegant design to really push the theme of how war changes you that I am simply blown away. The PDF is available for a $10 pledge, the softcover for $20, a deluxe edition with custom playing cards and dice for $45, and a limited hardcover deluxe edition (with dice and cards) for $65. This project is fully funded and runs until Monday, December 3.

Eternalverse maps are listed as “Dungeons & Dragons maps” but are useful for any fantasy roleplaying game. These mini-poster sized maps (about the same as two letter-sized pages side-by-side) are laminated so they’re marker-friendly and waterproof. The maps themselves are fairly generic, which makes them perfect for homebrew campaigns, and they come with reusable acetate labels that you can stick and rearrange on the maps to denote unique landmarks, items, and destinations. You can get the maps as PDFs for €5 (about US$6) or the waterproof maps for €25 (about US$28), but you can also get your own maps custom-made for €50 (about US$57). This Kickstarter from the first-time Spanish company (so be careful with shipping costs) is fully-funded and runs until Thursday, November 29.

That’s all from me for this week! Don’t forget to support our Patreon to bring you more gaming news content. If you have any news to submit, email us at news@enworldnews.com, and you can get more discussion of the week’s news on Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk every week. You can follow me on Twitter @Abstruse where I’ve been lamenting the lack of easy-to-read textbooks on media studies, follow me on Twitch as I take a break from Dragon Age: Origins to play something a little different chummer, subscribe to Gamer’s Tavern on YouTube featuring videos on gaming history and gaming Let’s Plays, 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, Humble Store, Humble Bundle, and/or DriveThru may contain affiliate links with the proceeds going to the author of this column.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Having a leader being portrayed as a vampire in a fictional piece of writing, is not as concerning to me as that individual carrying out real world policies of persecution, torture and murder. If such an individual finds his portrayal in a fictional piece of writing to be objectionable, in the light of his real world actions, then I think the writing is doing a good job.

They didn't do anything like this, in this writing however. They drew attention to a murderous regime, and made an analogy of them being vampires in the fictional world.

There's a false dichotomy buried in here, and I think it really needs illuminating.

You keep talking as if the following cannot both be true:

1) The product pissed off the Chechen govt by talking about the thing, and also calling the guy a vampire.

2) The product trivialized the thing it talked about.

1 and 2 coexist in this situation. They are both true.

 

[TrippyHippy]

There's a false dichotomy buried in here, and I think it really needs illuminating.

You keep talking as if the following cannot both be true:

1) The product pissed off the Chechen govt by talking about the thing, and also calling the guy a vampire.

2) The product trivialized the thing it talked about.

1 and 2 coexist in this situation. They are both true.

I've presented arguments about both, and the latter is not true. The point about the former is that the Chechyn government clearly didn't think it was trivial.

Galileo made a caricature of the Pope in his dialogues, to highlight his anti-scientific views. That wasn't trivialising the issue. Neither was this.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I've presented arguments about both, and the latter is not true. The point about the former is that the Chechyn government clearly didn't think it was trivial.

It doesn't matter what they think. The latter is absolutely true.

 

[TrippyHippy]

It doesn't matter what they think. The latter is absolutely true.

I disagree with you on both counts then - and your moral absolutism, without an argument, is noted. In fact, to say it doesn't matter what the Chechnyan government thinks, when they are the people carrying out the persecution, is fairly precisely the thing I object to. It matters more than anything else in this whole affair, that what they think is fundamentally wrong and should be changed, so they would stop what they are doing.

The very idea that people are more offended by the manner in which people write about persecution, than the actual persecution itself is extraordinary to me. These are the times we seem to live in.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I disagree with you on both counts then - and your moral absolutism, without an argument, is noted. In fact, to say it doesn't matter what the Chechnyan government thinks, when they are the people carrying out the persecution, is fairly precisely the thing I object to. It matters more than anything else in this whole affair, that what they think is fundamentally wrong and should be changed, so they would stop what they are doing.

The very idea that people are more offended by the manner in which people write about persecution, than the actual persecution itself is extraordinary to me. These are the times we seem to live in.

This is an enormously dishonest post, and you should be ashamed of it.

I've presented no moral absolutism, you've completely misrepresented what I was referring to when I said that it doesn't matter what they think about the product, and the idea that anyone is more offended by "how people write about persecution than the actual persecution" is disgustingly dishonest nonsense that you've made up in order to appear morally superior to it. Shadowboxing with strawmen, and then decrying others as if the strawmen were real, and not your own invention. A rhetorical Syndrome, from the Incredibles.

You make an absolute statement, with no argument, ("the latter is not true") and then act disgusted when someone disagrees in the same manner! Why should anyone respond to such a blandly unsupported assertion with anything more than the simplest statement of disagreement? Do you think I owe you something that you don't owe me in return?

You know damn well that when I say that it doesn't matter what they think, I am referring to the fact that it is irrelevant to the issue of whether or not WW handled their treatment of the Chechen pogroms in an ethical manner, not some absurd statement to the effect of it not mattering to the state of those pogroms.

Or maybe I should give you the benefit of the doubt, and explain, again, that whether or not the govt objects to the product is entirely irrelevant to the question of whether or not WW was wrong to present the Chechen crisis in the way that they did? But, honestly, I just can't bring myself to believe that you honestly don't understand this.

Everyone in this debate, here or in the other thread, or anywhere else I've seen this debate, agrees that the Chechen government is commiting an act of terrible human evil. There isn't a debate about that. No one is anywhere suggesting that writing about the subject in an insensitive and unethical manner is worse than killing people, so keep the melodrama in the theater, and stick to arguments people are actually making.

 

[TrippyHippy]

I've presented no moral absolutism

When you present your stance as being 'absolutely true' without an argument, that is pretty much what you are doing. It's making a statement as if it's the Word of God. I made an argument about why it isn't 'absolutely true' that the manner of the writing was 'trivial'. Two arguments, actually - go and read it again.

And, if you are going to start off any post with a claim that I am being 'dishonest' or that I should be 'ashamed' of anything, then don't expect me to engage beyond that point. The last thing this particular topic needs is more uncivil discourse.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

When you present your stance as being 'absolutely true' without an argument, that is pretty much what you are doing. It's making a statement as if it's a Word of God. And, if you are going to start off any post with a claim that I am being 'dishonest' or that I should be 'ashamed' of anything, then don't expect me to engage beyond that point. The last thing this particular topic needs is more uncivil discourse.

Absurdity.

Responding to a claim of falsehood with, "X is absolutely true" does not, in pretty much any english language colloquial interaction, mean "X is basically the word of god".

You nitpick words instead of dealing with arguments, again arguing in bad faith, or you're genuinely unaware of how people use phrases in english. Which is it?

 

[TrippyHippy]

Absurdity.

Responding to a claim of falsehood with, "X is absolutely true" does not, in pretty much any english language colloquial interaction, mean "X is basically the word of god".

You nitpick words instead of dealing with arguments, again arguing in bad faith, or you're genuinely unaware of how people use phrases in english. Which is it?

Pretty much everything that you are doing here, rather than actually arguing anything with the issue at hand, is pure ad hominem.

That is why I'm not going to engage with you.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Pretty much everything that you are doing here, rather than actually arguing anything with the issue at hand, is pure ad hominem.

That is why I'm not going to engage with you.

I haven't attacked you at all. I've attacked your rhetorical strategy as dishonest, because unless you can clarify some different intent in the wild miss-characterizations you've made, it is.

And you've done it again, here. And projected your own behavior onto me.

Just stop, and move on, if you refuse to engage honestly.

 

[TrippyHippy]

I haven't attacked you at all. I've attacked your rhetorical strategy as dishonest, because unless you can clarify some different intent in the wild miss-characterizations you've made, it is.

And you've done it again, here. And projected your own behavior onto me.

Just stop, and move on, if you refuse to engage honestly.

Yes, you have and you continue to do so. The comments you are making are designed to try and attack the man, not the argument. When you claim somebody is not being honest in their arguments, that is precisely what you are doing - it's an ad hominem. Telling me to "Just stop and move on" - therein lies your objective.

I'll stop when I feel it's time to move on, unless a moderator wants to say otherwise. I suggest you either engage with the argument at hand, rather than try to turn it into an argument about me, if you want to actually want to resolve this in a civilised way.