I haven't played any whitewolf games in about ten years, but I keep running across info about various lines of theirs ending. Could anyone who follows their line give me a capsule summary of what's happening in-game and why the company is dismantling them in the first place? Is this some sort of gimmick like what Marvel did in the 90's by ending the X-men, relaunching the titles, and then restarting the line, or are the world of darkness books just not cutting it business-wise?
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White Wolf - Ending of World of Darkness
- Thread starter Sigma
- Start date
frankthedm
First Post
Sigma said:
Why? The fluff of the setting has on the most part, assumed the world was doomed.
There was a topic on this a while back, maybe someone can link to it.
Sigma said:
Okay, first - what's happening in-game: They aren't telling you.
WW has chosen instead to release books that give you a number of options - each has somethign like four different scenarios for how to end your world. While there's a series of novels to go along with the gaming books, they are very clear that they are not giving a single "canon" end of the world. The world ends, and they are going to leave most of the open questions hanging. This is nice for the people who would prefer to continue with the same old system, so dont' gripe about it
As for why they are doing it- well, it's simple. The old WW books have pretty much saturated their market. In order to keep working as a business, they need new book sales. That means new content.
They could, presumably, continue issuing new editions that are only minor variations on the old games, and more and more splatbooks. But eventually that gets old. If you have four editions, all with their own splatbooks, folks start asking why they should buy a fifth that isn't all that much different than the fourth. In addition, They currently have so much backstory that writing newmaterial that's still consistent with the old is becoming darned difficult and creatively restraining.
They always claimed they'd end the world. Doing so now is economically advantageous and gives them a clean creative slate as well. There will be a new WoD, a new Storyteller system. But they won't be exactly like the old ones. You may call it a gimmick if you like, but it seems like a reasonable choice to me.
What I hear is that they are perhaps aiming for an overall game structure akin to the Dark Ages line. Instead of having five separate core rulebooks, they are likely to have one main core book and a number of "fatsplats" to handle separate games. So, there'll be the WoD core, and the big splatbook for vampires, another for shapechangers, and another for magi (oh my!). I hear that the mechanic they'll be using is related to the old Storyteller mechanic, but that it has some very large and important differences from it as well.
You'll probably still see vampires and werewolves and mages, and stats ranging from 1 to 5 or 10 dots, and 10-sided dice. You might still see health levels, and so on.
Things you probably won't see - You probably won't see the same structure of magi "spheres", garou rites, and vampire disciplines. You won't see the same political setups as before and the same in-game mythology/backstory. There may be vampires, but there will not be Tremere vampires descended from Caine who hate the Salubri, or the like.
Last edited:
Kesh
First Post
It's part gimmick, part serious.
Essentially, most of the game lines already had a built-in "end times" situation. Gehenna, the Apocalypse, etc. What White Wolf decided was to follow through on this promise and, at the same time, come out with something fresh.
Thus, they're releasing four books which give GMs story hooks to RP the end of the world: Gehenna for Vampire, Apocalypse for Werewolf, Ascension for Mage and Time of Judgement as a capsule book for the other games.
Once the ToJ book comes out, they will no longer be producing the old World Of Darkness books (with the exception of the Dark Ages line).
Instead, they will be bringing us a new setting in August, "World of Darkness 2.0". It's still going to be a grim, gritty take on our real world, but it won't have any of the backstory from WoD 1.
So far, we know of four products: World of Darkness Core Rules, Vampire: the Requiem, Werewolf: the Forsaken and Mage: the Awakening.
That's about all we know about the new setting, though. White Wolf is essentially hitting the big, red reset button on their game world, and starting from scratch. There's plenty of speculation, but no one really knows what these games will be like. They'll still use some form of the Storyteller rules, though likely it'll incorporate some changes fromExalted.
Feel free to ask more questions if this doesn't clear it up.
Essentially, most of the game lines already had a built-in "end times" situation. Gehenna, the Apocalypse, etc. What White Wolf decided was to follow through on this promise and, at the same time, come out with something fresh.
Thus, they're releasing four books which give GMs story hooks to RP the end of the world: Gehenna for Vampire, Apocalypse for Werewolf, Ascension for Mage and Time of Judgement as a capsule book for the other games.
Once the ToJ book comes out, they will no longer be producing the old World Of Darkness books (with the exception of the Dark Ages line).
Instead, they will be bringing us a new setting in August, "World of Darkness 2.0". It's still going to be a grim, gritty take on our real world, but it won't have any of the backstory from WoD 1.
So far, we know of four products: World of Darkness Core Rules, Vampire: the Requiem, Werewolf: the Forsaken and Mage: the Awakening.
That's about all we know about the new setting, though. White Wolf is essentially hitting the big, red reset button on their game world, and starting from scratch. There's plenty of speculation, but no one really knows what these games will be like. They'll still use some form of the Storyteller rules, though likely it'll incorporate some changes fromExalted.
Feel free to ask more questions if this doesn't clear it up.
Kesh said:
I was thinking about these choices. Some of them are.. acronymically awkward.
We used to have "Vampire: the Masquerade", now we'll have "Vampire: the Requiem". Okay, that's VtM and VtR, easy to distinguish.
We used to have "Mage: the Ascension", now we have "Mage: the Awakening". Both MtA. A bit confusing.
"Werewolf: the Forsaken" comes up as WtF. That's.. just unfortunate.
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