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

 

[MGibster]

Can they please abandon the cheap and badly 'shopped fashion magazine look full of what look like actual cosplayers (?), and get back to a more appropriate, traditional and readable and usable design aesthetic? Yeah, that would be great. (The look of v5 played a rather significant part in me skipping the 5th edition of the game entirely.)

I like V5 a lot, but that's in spite of the art not because of it. I much prefer the artwork they were using in 1st end 2nd edition.

 

[WisdomOfWombats]

Why not make them modern warrior-philosophers? I don't know how warrior-philosophers look like, but definitely not like a mexican gang.

You'll find that in the Camarilla book where they are portrayed as "Hellenes". The Chicago book also shows Critias and his circle in that light.

 

[stadi]

You'll find that in the Camarilla book where they are portrayed as "Hellenes". The Chicago book also shows Critias and his circle in that light.

Thanks, will have a look

 

[Dire Bare]

I'm surprised Modiphius lost the license . . . or, I'm assuming they have, not that the situation isn't already complicated. Modiphius is a stellar game company, but perhaps they simply had too much on their plate to do justice to the World of Darkness?

Anyway, wake me up when Paradox, or one of their partners, does a new edition of Mage: The Ascension. I'll start paying more attention then!

 

[steeldrac]

Maybe Modiphius was always meant to be something “until we solve this mess”... aren’t Conan and John Carter also owned by Paradox?

 

[TrippyHippy]

My feeling was that when White Wolf, as it was, was dissolved in 2018, their publishing partner, Modiphius, just felt that V5 was too much of a sales success to let it be dropped as a product. There is strong evidence that V5 was their strongest selling product for at least three quarters (based on retail figures from ICv2).

So, they decided to take on the license themselves, and made up a list of products to supplement it. However, after a couple of years, they only really delivered on re-releases of the Camarilla and Anarchs books and the Fall of London chronicle. The starter set went straight to PDF-only, and it looks like the Player’s Handbook is going to end up as the PDF-only Vampire Companion now.

I think the writing was on the wall when they let the Werewolf: The Apocalypse license pass (on to Hunters Entertainment). As a cash cow, the WoD works by having multiple games in one shared setting - where fans can collect a load of supplementary gamebooks, and the base remains interested with strategic, periodic releases. On it’s own, V5 without many supplements to support it, will only have a limited lifespan like any other game.

While Modiphius possibly lost interest because of this, and they do have lots of other games they manage, Paradox Entertainment still have lots invested in the WoD brand. One suspects, the value of the brand lies mainly in the video games, however they do need to maintain development with their tabletop games for the IP to remain recognisable to its roots. So, by licensing out the IP to smaller publishers, who can enjoy increased exposure themselves, they can keep their IP development alive and focus on the video game profits themselves.

 

[Stacie GmrGrl]

Modiphius took over the line in December 2018; there's no mention of whether that is continuing.

It is implied that they aren’t, considering that the content of the Vampire Companion book was mooted to be in Modiphius’ Vampire's Player’s Handbook which never materialized. It doesn’t appear that Modiphius is writing new material for Vampire.

Maybe Modiphius will continue to distribute?

Justin Achilli’s experience of directing Vampire development will be valuable, although it does seem a bit disjointed to have multiple companies running different sub-lines for the WoD. Seems odd that the supplements seem to add up the Clans to 14 rather than 13 (with Banu Haqim, The Ministry, Lasombra, Hecata already added in supplements, along with Ravnos, Tzimisce and Salubri Clans in Companion along with the seven in the core).

I see the Hecata as a new clan all its own, based on the lore of what I know of it so far, which isn't a whole lot I confess. They sound cool as hell and lots of fun to try out.

 

[Stacie GmrGrl]

Is Renegade Games taking over the entire WoD game line now or just V5?

 

[BRayne]

My feeling was that when White Wolf, as it was, was dissolved in 2018, their publishing partner, Modiphius, just felt that V5 was too much of a sales success to let it be dropped as a product. There is strong evidence that V5 was their strongest selling product for at least three quarters (based on retail figures from ICv2).

So, they decided to take on the license themselves, and made up a list of products to supplement it. However, after a couple of years, they only really delivered on re-releases of the Camarilla and Anarchs books and the Fall of London chronicle. The starter set went straight to PDF-only, and it looks like the Player’s Handbook is going to end up as the PDF-only Vampire Companion now.

I think the writing was on the wall when they let the Werewolf: The Apocalypse license pass (on to Hunters Entertainment). As a cash cow, the WoD works by having multiple games in one shared setting - where fans can collect a load of supplementary gamebooks, and the base remains interested with strategic, periodic releases. On it’s own, V5 without many supplements to support it, will only have a limited lifespan like any other game.

While Modiphius possibly lost interest because of this, and they do have lots of other games they manage, Paradox Entertainment still have lots invested in the WoD brand. One suspects, the value of the brand lies mainly in the video games, however they do need to maintain development with their tabletop games for the IP to remain recognisable to its roots. So, by licensing out the IP to smaller publishers, who can enjoy increased exposure themselves, they can keep their IP development alive and focus on the video game profits themselves.

Cam and Anarch books were in house at White Wolf before they got shut down and arguably were the reason for it what with the whole Chechnya thing. Modiphius only ever did the erratas and Fall of London, both of which were pretty criticized, large amounts of the corebook errata having been taken without credit from community playtesters and Fall of London being a disaster. Plus the apparent mishandling of the Ravnos and Tzimisce in the Player's Guide

 

[TrippyHippy]

Cam and Anarch books were in house at White Wolf before they got shut down and arguably were the reason for it what with the whole Chechnya thing. Modiphius only ever did the erratas and Fall of London, both of which were pretty criticized, large amounts of the corebook errata having been taken without credit from community playtesters and Fall of London being a disaster. Plus the apparent mishandling of the Ravnos and Tzimisce in the Player's Guide

Nobody is arguing that the Camarilla and Anarch books were not written by White Wolf before they were dissolved. Modiphius did essentially just republish them after editing them. Errata is errata - it isn’t something that gets credited, unless it is done by a professional editor. Lots of games have forum threads where fans can cite issues. Fall of London wasn’t a disaster - not sure what you are citing here. Whatever mishandling of Ravnos/Tzimisce could have been remains entirely speculative because the Player’s Guide was never released.