White Wolf viciously attacks everyone who roleplays for fun

[Nisarg]

And I guess you have admitted you were wrong about White Wolf almost destroying the industry when you stated "Vampire Revised outsold D&D for about a month." Why you didn't do so when I challenged you last time is beyond me.

I know that WW has sold well, and is currently number 2 in the market. I know that for a month or so Vampire outsold AD&D. None of that means they didn't almost destroy the industry.

Or more accurately, other companies fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of WW's success almost destroyed the industry. WW's success has nothing to do with it, I never said they didn't have sales. I did say that those sales were due to factors other than what they presented and others assumed them to be. It had to do with finding a new niche market, not their fundamental philosophy of game design, which the majority of non-WW gamers disliked.

Please show me where I ever said that WW didn't or does not now have good sales?

Nisarg

 

[Barastrondo]

Hey, Barastrondo, you're in Asheville, eh? You're not Tad, are you?

Nope, Tadd's a freelancer and I'm a salaried employee. He was one of the guys who was pretty ambivalent toward D&D before we started playing and pretty into it by the time the campaign folded, though. I'm Ethan. I do werewolves. The "Barastrondo" email comes from the fact that when I registered for the messageboards, I was still on kind of a gleeful apres-Hollowfaust kick, and figured a name from my first d20 book would be as apt a handle as any.

I have Asheville as my location because it's the nearest place that somebody might recognize. I actually live up in Madison County, where I cunningly managed to trick my wife into moving with me and my bosses into letting me work remotely from. It's a bit of a drive to Asheville, but the ability to let my dogs run around without leashes or fences up on the side of a mountain is well-nigh priceless.

 

[ayrwind]

I do not think this to be the thread to bash WW or such. Whether they are a good company or not is immaterial if based on the title of this thread.

There have been a lot of assumptions made regarding the interpretations of the message by WW. I like it how Nisarg glossed over the details, mentioning things like "How else can we interpret <.....> as <......>". Those are just your assumptions buddy. Others have stood up to post doubts regarding your interpretations, and these posts were tossed aside. I sure hope that this does not mean that you only listen to what you can argue against, and thigs you cannot argue against you ignore.

Now, almost every single person on these forums have disagreed with you. This can only be due to two reasons. Either you are correct and we are all wrong, and hence I recommend that you do not waste your time trying to convert this sorry bunch of stubborn losers (us). Or, we are all correct and you are wrong and hence you should spend more time trying to listen to our point of view.

In any case, I think we all have sufficient entertainment derived from this already, and I forward my request to have this thread closed as it seems nothing good can come from this besides drawing the whole forums into a WW against <insert game system> bashing fare here that we all want to avoid.

 

[Jim Hague]

...it's possible to be banned from RPG.net?

One learns something new every day.

Brad

And apparently not everyone on ENWorld is as decent as Morrus or Piratecat or Henry. Huh, imagine that. News at 11, sky is blue during day, dark at night.

Me, I'm still staggering from being in agreement with eyebeams.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

I've Been Dying To Use This...

White Wolf? Pretentious?

I love WW games. I'm off to play V:TM in T-minus 46 minutes.

 

[Jim Hague]

I know that WW has sold well, and is currently number 2 in the market. I know that for a month or so Vampire outsold AD&D. None of that means they didn't almost destroy the industry.

Or more accurately, other companies fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of WW's success almost destroyed the industry. WW's success has nothing to do with it, I never said they didn't have sales. I did say that those sales were due to factors other than what they presented and others assumed them to be. It had to do with finding a new niche market, not their fundamental philosophy of game design, which the majority of non-WW gamers disliked.

Nisarg

Proof, please? Not anecdote, not rumor. Give us some hard figures, a logical chain of events. Because AFAIK (and I've been playing since 1982) the gigantic slump of RPGs in the very late 1980s and early '90s was due to CCGs tipping the entire hobby market on its side, not due to White Wolf. So, I can for some proof. Hard facts. Let's see them, Nisarg.

 

[Nisarg]

Proof, please? Not anecdote, not rumor. Give us some hard figures, a logical chain of events. Because AFAIK (and I've been playing since 1982) the gigantic slump of RPGs in the very late 1980s and early '90s was due to CCGs tipping the entire hobby market on its side, not due to White Wolf. So, I can for some proof. Hard facts. Let's see them, Nisarg.

Sorry Jim but I already fought that fight on RPG.net... go find my postings on there if you want to see my full argument.

The short argument (which is all you'll get here) is that the decline in interest in RPGs was caused by a massive philosophical shift in gaming from RPGs being for fun, to RPGs being "story-based", with a strong emphasis on metaplot, railroading, story over rules/setting/characters/etc, and in-game fiction. This was fueled by the apparent success of White Wolf's Vampire, which was indeed successful but mostly because they tapped a new group of players who had no previous interest in RPGs and the vast majority of whm never would have an interest in other RPGs than the WoD. So the other major companies, including TSR, ran themselves into the ground trying to copy WW's story-based design theory in a vain hope of getting some of those people on board, while alienating their existing fanbase. It led countless people to leave the hobby forever, and was only halted with the advent of D20 and the good work of people like Jonathan Tweet and Ryan Dancey, designing the games and the market theory to bring RPGs back to being about having fun, and not about being pretentious and giving failed authors a chance to show off their b-grade fiction.

Nisarg
Apparently and admittedly the Master of the Obvious
(but only because so many others are trying to deny the obvious)

 

[ayrwind]

We refuse to delve into the dungeons of rpgnet. Do share your proof that WW killed the RPG industry and not CCGs that I and many others feel is the case. If your case is good, you should be able to summarise it into a compact and convincing argument here.

 

[molonel]

I'm a D&D/d20 player. I separate the two because I played D&D long before the terms d20 or OGL came into being. I've played Vampire and Exalted, and know plenty of White Wolf folks. I can respect the game and the style. It's just not my bag. Seems to me that paragraph was written for the more pretensious parts of the WW fanbase who need to learn to lighten up a smidgen. Good on them for writing it, then. I've encountered the folks who think that WW is the bee's knees. They're like Mac fanatics who don't know anything about computers. They generally shrivel up and die trying to cross the 60-mile diameter desert of indifference that surrounds me.

Gee, you don't like the way I game? I'm crushed. Really.

I'm not offended. I wouldn't have even known the quote existed if this thread hadn't started. Roleplaying is a fringe hobby, anyway, and watching people bicker about which type of fringe hobby is the greatest is kind of sad.

 

[DackBlackhawk]

It's all been said already

The statement is unusual in an RPG book, I think, but I didn't take it as an attack. It was in my opinion an informed statement on how players are and can be. As it is, my opinion on gamers is that we, as a group, tend to be more creative, more intelligent, more indiviualistic and very passionate about gaming. But like anything, it's not 100% - nothing is. WW's statement was guarded and a bit presumptuous, maybe elitist. But I don't think it threatened me in anyway (a hardcore d20er...). Maybe I am hardened by the SWRPG D6 vs. d20 debate and the L5R RPG d10 vs. d20 war...

I am a D&D player who did understand Mage, but that makes me strange at the least. When I worked for Game Towne, I saw about every RPG and supplement for a lot of games. I think that White Wolf's basic stuff was pretty good, though the story actually got a little silly in places. Later when Hunter came out, it just kind of became a bad story, since mortals and hunters became a lot more powerful in the Hunter game without really justifying it in the metaplot.

When Vampire drifted to 3rd edition, it became more of a splatter-punk game with emphasis on bright and shinies instead of the storytelling. Second edition was much better for the Masquerade and the metaplot. My belief with the White Wolf games was that they were trying to bleed (no humor intended) more supplements and material without making a whole new setting and game. It may have failed as Hunter came out and that bright orange cover that the look of cheese all over it.

Then what happened? They decided to have their little reckoning and end all of the metaplots in one big huge Gehenna. And now their rereleasing the games with a fresh metaplot. So, in a sense, White Wolf hit the reset button on their game. I like Vampire - always did. I never ran it, but was comfortable with the basic metaplot and background. If I ever ran WW games, I would probably use 2nd edition Vampire as a base and make my own story/setting. I also like the other games too (Mage, Werewolf, Changeling, and *gasp* even Wraith a little).

The storyteller system is a nice system for roleplayers; easy rules standing behind a decent storyline for a storytelling, character driven game. That doesn't mean you can't munchkinise it (like big axes earlier), but it may be harder to munchkinise. This kind of reminds me of a thread I started on Mortality (Check it out here!) about using a system for its intended use/audience or stretching its paradigm for other types of gamers/roleplaying. It's possible to use any mechanic for any style, I think, but the rules set which includes the mechanic plus specifics to the genre/roleplaying type reflects its intention. I've gamed D&D sessions with heavy roleplaying, character development and storytelling. I've also done wargaming with it. So I think it's possible with WW (or D6, or GURPS, or even Palladium)...

As a friend of mine used to say, "You do not have a right to be not offended..." I think this means that sometimes people look for things to offend them, so they can respond.

So ends my response to the trolling.