Vampire: The Masquerade getting a new edition, more games coming too

White Wolf announced plans to publish a new edition of Vampire: The Masquerade, with more games "under consideration" for a future revamp. At Gen Con, current White Wolf creative director Jess Lanzillo announced that a new 6th edition of Vampire: The Masquerade is under development, albeit at least a year or more away. The new edition comes with sweeping changes to the game, including the combination of Vitae and Willpower/Health into a single track and a revamped Humanity tracker with customized poles based on clans and player choices. Character creation has also been overhauled and there are new mechanics to support player-driven failure states, assumably to inject more drama into games.

Lanzillo also announced several additional games under consideration for future development, including Vampire: The Dark Ages, Mage: The Ascension, and Changeling: The Dreaming. No further timeline were given for any of these projects, but they will assumably use the new 6th edition engine.

White Wolf announced last year that they were building up their in-house development team, after several years of relying on Renegade as their primary licensed publisher. The fate of Renegade's Vampire partnership is unknown, but they recently announced plans to develop a TTRPG based on the Anne Rice TV shows, which further brought the partnership into question.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Yes it did. It sold well enough that Onyx Path got a license to make new editions and continued producing books until Paradox pulled the plug in 2024. Where are you getting your information from?

So what? It’s a non sequitur. It doesn’t matter that somebody licensed it for a bit or a third party published it for a while. Different companies have different overheads. It still doesn’t address the point that it didn’t sell as well as the main brand, which was WoD and V:TM.

Citing the ICv2 is deluding myself? What counter evidence do you have besides rumors and hearsay? It consistently sold books for two decades straight. If anyone is deluding themselves as to the facts here, then it is not me.

It is when you misread the information and fail to appreciate that what you’ve cited doesn’t actually address the point being made. ICv2 tells you nothing about internal unit sales, so it doesn’t counter any point about how much is actually being sold or whether they are diminishing or not. I’ve already pointed out that representatives of Onyx Path, Paradox and other third parties have all stated that NWoD/CoD didn’t sell as well as classic WoD brands and this is not even controversial. The fact that you keep trying to turn this basic fact into a point of indignation is why it is a delusion.

 

[VelvetViolet]

I’ve already pointed out that representatives of Onyx Path, Paradox and other third parties have all stated that NWoD/CoD didn’t sell as well as classic WoD brands and this is not even controversial. The fact that you keep trying to turn this basic fact into a point of indignation is why it is a delusion.

My point is that you’re leaving out a ton of market context to justify a false conclusion that nWoD is inherently financially unviable.

Over the course of its original 13 year run, WoD allegedly sold 5.5 million books. nWoD only lasted about half that time before CCP axed White Wolf, so it wasn’t given a fair chance to meet that number. Not only that, but the 2000s were a particularly bad time: the d20 boom and bust, the 2008 recession, the decline of game stores, the rise of MMOs, etc. Indeed, oWoD was already suffering sales declines in the late 90s/early 2000s and that’s why nWoD was even made in the first place.

There’s no evidence that, pound for pound, nWoD was any less successful than oWoD would’ve been if it had kept going. Back when I was around in the 2000s, it seemed pretty popular to me. It was widely discussed on rpg forums, it was in bookstores, it had advertisement flyers, etc.

When they revived oWoD with V20 and subsequent editions, it didn’t magically revive sales to their 90s peak. In fact, they failed to outperform nWoD past sales on ICv2. Even if nWoD had never been made, continuing oWoD would probably have just speedrun the financial crash.

If representatives are claiming it did worse and that justifies cancelling nWoD in favor of oWoD, then they’re selectively interpreting the stats to justify a false narrative that it’s absolutely financially unviable in comparison. It was never given a fair chance in the first place.

Paradox keeps mutilating oWoD and upsetting its fans because it’s not future proof. They wouldn’t need to make all those mutilations in the first place if they used nWoD instead. They should have. The financial argument against nWoD is nonsense that ignores the wider market trends at the time.

 

[TrippyHippy]

My point is that you’re leaving out a ton of market context to justify a false conclusion that nWoD is inherently financially unviable.

Over the course of its original 13 year run, WoD allegedly sold 5.5 million books. nWoD only lasted about half that time before CCP axed White Wolf, so it wasn’t given a fair chance to meet that number. Not only that, but the 2000s were a particularly bad time: the d20 boom and bust, the 2008 recession, the decline of game stores, the rise of MMOs, etc. Indeed, oWoD was already suffering sales declines in the late 90s/early 2000s and that’s why nWoD was even made in the first place.

There’s no evidence that, pound for pound, nWoD was any less successful than oWoD would’ve been if it had kept going. Back when I was around in the 2000s, it seemed pretty popular to me. It was widely discussed on rpg forums, it was in bookstores, it had advertisement flyers, etc.

When they revived oWoD with V20 and subsequent editions, it didn’t magically revive sales to their 90s peak. In fact, they failed to outperform nWoD past sales on ICv2. Even if nWoD had never been made, continuing oWoD would probably have just speedrun the financial crash.

If representatives are claiming it did worse and that justifies cancelling nWoD in favor of oWoD, then they’re selectively interpreting the stats to justify a false narrative that it’s absolutely financially unviable in comparison. It was never given a fair chance in the first place.

Paradox keeps mutilating oWoD and upsetting its fans because it’s not future proof. They wouldn’t need to make all those mutilations in the first place if they used nWoD instead. They should have. The financial argument against nWoD is nonsense that ignores the wider market trends at the time.

Presenting personal experience and anecdotes isn’t objective evidence. The fact that businesses themselves invest in certain brands and not others is indicative enough of where the money is being made and it shouldn’t be taken as a personal slight to fans of any line.

 

[VelvetViolet]

The fact that businesses themselves invest in certain brands and not others is indicative enough of where the money is being made and it shouldn’t be taken as a personal slight to fans of any line.

Paradox wrote off $37 million on their oWoD-related ventures. Despite it being an embarrassing loss, they still paid NuNuWhite Wolf to make a 6th edition. They’re investing money in something that has consistently lost them money. If what you say was true, then they wouldn’t do that. WoD is clearly dying, not profiting.

Absolutely nothing you’ve said proves your arbitrary assertion that nWoD is inherently worse at making money and that continuing oWoD always improves finances in comparison. I’m confident that nWoD could totally be a profitable video game franchise if it was given a fair shake, and as an added bonus would not need any of the mutilations for modern sensibilities that have destroyed oWoD.

I’m following multiple developing indie video games in the genre right now. They’re all pulling liberally from the structures of nWoD, particularly the covenant structure, even if they claim inspiration from VTMB. If oWoD was inherently better and more profitable, then I would think they would copy it more closely instead. Instead, making something like nWoD’s factions seems more intuitive for these devs than oWoD’s sects.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Paradox wrote off $37 million on their oWoD-related ventures. Despite it being an embarrassing loss, they still paid NuNuWhite Wolf to make a 6th edition. They’re investing money in something that has consistently lost them money. If what you say was true, then they wouldn’t do that. WoD is clearly dying, not profiting.

Absolutely nothing you’ve said proves your arbitrary assertion that nWoD is inherently worse at making money and that continuing oWoD always improves finances in comparison. I’m confident that nWoD could totally be a profitable video game franchise if it was given a fair shake, and as an added bonus would not need any of the mutilations for modern sensibilities that have destroyed oWoD.

I’m following multiple developing indie video games in the genre right now. They’re all pulling liberally from the structures of nWoD, particularly the covenant structure, even if they claim inspiration from VTMB. If oWoD was inherently better and more profitable, then I would think they would copy it more closely instead. Instead, making something like nWoD’s factions seems more intuitive for these devs than oWoD’s sects.

The burden of proof lies with you, not I. The owners of both IPs have clearly shown which brand is their priority. That is a fact.

Moreover, the ‘evidence’ you have presented is not conclusive or even reasonable. I think you are conflating feelings with fact and this is not going to be a productive conversation because of that reason. It is utterly inconsequential, regardless - neither of us, apparently, have any interest in a 6th edition Vampire, so maybe time to move on?

 

[VelvetViolet]

WotC could do it.

Indeed there was a nifty version for D20 Modern called Urban Arcana. I never got to play it but a guy I knew back in the day ran a game. One of the adversaries was a mobster named Luigi Calamari... he was, of course, a mind flayer in disguise! I think the tone was a lot lighter than VtM but given some choices it could work nicely.

WotC owns a bunch of non-D&D IPs that they refuse to cultivate. There’s a few dozen settings between Amazing Engine, Alternity, d20 Modern and Polyhedron Magazine. There’s Star Frontiers, Kromosome, Bug Hunters, Dark•Matter, Star*Drive, DeathNet, Iron Lords of Jupiter, Hijinx, etc. At the very least they could put these all up on Drivethrurpg and open them up to their fanbook program. Let the fans maintain them with new 5e compatible editions.