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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SteveC" data-source="post: 2393220" data-attributes="member: 9053">Sigh. There is something that happens every once and a while with gaming companies that leaves me scratching my head in wonder at the sheer outlandishness of it all. This is one of those things. There are so many problems with this new policy that I don’t know where to begin. Let me tackle it this way: I thing that White Wolf has gotten some amazingly bad legal advice about this issue. They seem to feel that organizing play in this way will protect them legally, but I have to say that it will actually make things much worse for them. I am not a lawyer, but an organization like this puts a big bull’s-eye on White Wolf. Unless they are going to create a huge organization to monitor all of the registered LARPs on an ongoing basis, they’re going to have no idea what’s going on with them. Once there is a problem, there is a direct group with deep pockets to go after. After all, if there is an accident and an injury, lawyers go after the money. They most likely will not sue the LARP group or its organizers because they’re poor, and as Steve Dallas said over 20 years ago, never sue poor people. What they do have is a big target to sue now. While White Wolf could previously have said “hey, we make the product, we’re not responsible for what people do with it,” they now have licensed and approved groups who are supposedly following a charter that says they’re all good people and are acting responsibly. How exactly are they going to determine whether groups are following the charter? Odds are, they’re going to do nothing beyond listen to reports. Oh, and now there has to be a person or people whose job it is to read those reports and decide what to do with them! “What! You’re kicking me out of the group! I can't play in ANY LARPS with the WoD rules any more? That’s not fair, see my lawyer!”This does not even go into the fundamental notion of whether or not White Wolf has any legal ground to even make these demands in the first place, which they do not. Again, I’m not a lawyer, but I’m really wondering what is the gain that is expected to come out of all of this? What are they expecting to get from this? I’m really not one to talk about big game companies as being “the man,” I think the very notion is ludicrous, but this sounds like a decision from a lawyer who really doesn’t know anything about the industry or what a RPG or LARP is. Just my two cents… --Steve</blockquote>

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