World of Darkness (New & Old) - General Discussion Thread

Because punk culture was a dire mistake.

Also, the metaplot is a disaster at this point. It's locked out and alienated a lot of potential newcomers and has only harmed the World of Darkness setting in the long run. The 20th Anniversary Editions did the smart thing going metaplot-neutral, and before you mention Beckett's Diary, that was a V5 book in V20 trade dress (and was explicitly marketed as such)

It doesn't help that the more toxic elements of the World of Darkness fanbase are often metaplot zealots.

@fredhot: It turns out that multiple companies in the industry have hired irredeemable shitheels to fill various roles!

So it wasn't just him for this company.

Goth and Punk culture is what the Wo D is built on. It's about fighting the man, the corrupt evil corporates and politicians who destroyed the world while keeping the populace down.

It seems more relevant than ever.

As for metaplot, I'm pretty sure that's been partially cleared by V5 via the SI. It's also something a lot of people love.

They're different companies: Beast is Onyx Path, V5 is White Wolf. They're separate entities.

Unless McFarland got hired by WW after OP kicked him to the kerb, I guess, but I would probably have heard about that. Did I miss it?

They (nu White Wolf) hired Zac Smith/Sabbath to work on that game they released last year, then when people pointed out that he as a long history of harassing people (including the time he sicced his fans on the developer for Changling: The Lost to the point that he had to move his whole family to Japan) they went and said that they had done an investigation, found the accusations weren't credible and then went and vouched for his character. After that went as well as you imagined they walked it back, made an apology and promised not to work with him anymore (he's since been dropped from the industry after his ex-wife accused him of abuse, and he is now suing her for defamation because there is really no bottom with abusers).

The metaplot was very much a "Love it or Hate it" sort of deal, especially as it got more intrusive.

As for the Goth and Punk stuff, as a highly disillusioned ex-Goth (now turned Metalhead) I think the whole "Gothic-Punk" thing worked well as a marketing gimmick for Vampire...back in 1991. Things are different now, the Goth subculture is a dead meme and Punk culture was never good (Goth was decent despite its roots as an offshoot of Punk)

I used to be a Goth at one point, but times have changed (and mostly for the worse, at that) and I've since renounced Goth culture because it has a lot of the same problems as Punk culture, the main problem being forced conformity through a veneer of "non-conformity".

Of course, this is just from my personal experience. YMMV as always.

Edited by NinjaGoth on Dec 9th 2019 at 9:33:15 AM

For me, I feel that V:TM is important in its atmosphere and mood being a dark and moody Gothic atmosphere translated to the modern day. This is just my opinion but I think if you really want to get into V:TM you have to have the world be one that supports brooding, angst, and deep moral morase while being in a dedicated "darker than black" urban environment ala Gotham City. If you just set V:TM in the "real" world then it won't work nearly as well for invoking the overthetop melodrama that I think the game thrives on.

True, but you can do that without adhering to the metaplot

What is it exactly you don't like? Let's pretend I don't know what you mean when you keep referring to 'the metaplot' with little defining detail.

Edited by Zeromaeus on Dec 9th 2019 at 10:16:34 AM

Mostly the sweeping changes to the original setting that really amped up in Revised Edition and came to a head with the new 5th Editions, to the point that V5 doesn't even feel like the same game as the other four editions were.

Killing off entire clans, making other clans shift alignments entirely, and as of V5, completely sidelining out the Sabbat altogether. I prefer the setting of the older editions, and I think the 20th Anniversary Editions did it best by being neutral on the metaplot and including options for both those who don't like the metaplot changes and those who do.

That's why I'm not supporting any of the new editions and I'm sticking with the older editions and running the games I want to run.

Edited by NinjaGoth on Dec 9th 2019 at 10:42:59 AM

You cant change the gothic punk aesthetic, is baking into the whole thing, is like saying "why not make star wars dark and gritty" or making warhammer not baroque dystopian that it is, you can probably tone down some of he edginess(after all, you can cut yourselve)

About the metaplot....yeah you cant get rid of it, is one of THE selling points over other tabletop games who have the thempark going around(nothing changes, do what you want!).

And some changes are weird like making the gangrel go back the camarilla, other I get it like follower of set making a brand changes, yeah.

Wait, people like the metaplot?

I didn't buy V20 for years because there's no purpose in upgrading without the metaplot. I know all of the Clans, Disciplines, and material. I buy the books because they continue the story and update the universe in new and exciting ways. Part of what makes V:TM so great is the diverse and fascinating cast of characters that getting updates on is tremendous. I squealed like a little Dolphin when they did the Chicago by Night 5E because the metaplot of Chicago in the WOD was my all time favorite.

Some of the metaplot was shit but it is easily my favorite part of the game. I think V5 cleaned up a lot of the crazier elements of revised and narrowed the focus so it's just, "Beckoning", "Second Inquisition", and "Gehenna War" which was designed to make the game world make more sense while opening new opportunities for Neonate P Cs.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Dec 9th 2019 at 8:18:13 AM

Yeah, people btich about it, but people like it.

That's the metaplot zealotry that I was talking about. Relax, it's just a game.

Rule Zero. If you don't like something, then fucking change it.

You can play World of Darkness without the metaplot, and it's not "baked into the core of the game" unless you're explicitly playing V5 or certain adventure modules from Revised Edition like Lair of the Hidden or the Gehenna scenarios.

If you like the metaplot, fine. It's your game.

I know, right? The metaplot was never any fun for me, and isn't the entire point of a role-playing game to have fun and enjoyment? If you find the metaplot to be fun, more power to you. But the attitude of "metaplot above all else" just comes off as fun-hating.

The metaplot is the worst part, especially what it became in its later years. It's the one flaw in an otherwise brilliant setting, and I think V20 is the best because it doesn't force the metaplot on you and gives you all the options in one book.

Keep in mind that not everyone has been collecting or following World of Darkness from day one and a lot of books are out of print, which is why V20 was created in the first place. Before V20, all of the Classic World of Darkness was out of print and not easily available aside from buying old books off of Amazon and eBay or illegally pirating them.

Relying on the metaplot for your stories is a sign of a lazy ST/GM. I'm not saying you are a lazy ST, but I do find this near-religious devotion to White Wolf's metaplot to be concerning. I prefer to make my own story and not bow down to someone telling me I'm playing the game wrong because my games keep the Gangrel and Brujah in the Camarilla instead of that Independent Gangrel bullshit, have the Ravnos as a full clan, or use Followers of Set instead of Ministry of Set.

Correction: Some people like the metaplot, some people don't. Everyone's allowed to have an opinion. It's just a game.

There's a reason why I left the Goth subculture, and it was because of all the purity contests and intolerance towards differing opinions over the most trivial of things.

Edited by NinjaGoth on Dec 9th 2019 at 11:47:59 AM

Do what you like but fandom is about sharing what you love about a game. I'm not asking to be pure, just saying that I feel the game benefits from a kooky angsty Tim Burton-esque world.

I like the Tim Burton-esque world, but you can achieve that without an intrusive metaplot.

The setting of First Edition captured that vibe the best and did not feature all the radical changes that were brought on by the later metaplot. Vampire 1E was pretty awesome in my opinion, but personally, I think V5 was a disaster despite its efforts to imitate 1E.

But to each their own, of course.

Edited by NinjaGoth on Dec 9th 2019 at 10:06:30 AM

I mean, some stuff were add eventually to correct some mistake here and there, one of that is ravnos who are just fish malk with awfull romani stereotypes back into them since....forever, or the souleater stuff which was bad.

and that is only vampire, werewolf with their steriotype were bad or mage with the technocracy.

Dude, I like the Ravnos. They're one of my favorite clans. Personally, I think killing them off was a mistake, especially since Dark Ages fixed the issue of Romani stereotypes and focused more on their roots as Indian nobility (and V20 continued that trend)

Trying to win me over on the metaplot by invoking the Week of Nightmares isn't going to help you out here.

Hate on "Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand" all you want but I unironically enjoyed that book despite it being over the top, and personally I think the Soul Eaters are still better than anything found in the Gehenna book or in V5.

Edited by NinjaGoth on Dec 11th 2019 at 12:30:16 PM

COTERIES OF NEW YORK is coming out on Steam today.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1096410/Vampire_The_Masquerade__Coteries_of_New_York/

The problem is that linking them to indian nobility was an already to little to late situation, especially after roma, and sourcebook full of racist shit that was bad, like.....reaaaaaaaally bad.

I will said the metaplot have other good element like the tremere or the assamitas who was a intersting storyline, another good think was pretty much the evolution of the technocracy from super evil bad dude to....well, the other protagonist.

Maybe, but it's still a fictional work set in a fictional world and I'm not bothered by the stereotypes all that much, especially since White Wolf wasn't really trying to be intentionally insensitive, especially since anti-Roma sentiment is mostly a European thing and White Wolf is an American company. I'll chalk that up to making an honest mistake that Dark Ages and V20 had mostly corrected.

The Week of Nightmares was an overcorrection and the Ravnos weren't killed off because of the past stereotypes, but because Justin Achilli personally hated the Ravnos and he was the head writer of Vampire at the time and had unlimited creative control over the line.

The original plan for the Week of Nightmares was to kill off the Followers of Set since they were the least popular clan among players at the time and the original plan to kill off the Setites was that Set would awaken and summon his whole clan to Egypt and then kill off the clan after a grand judgment.

A modified version of that original scene appears in one of the Gehenna scenarios.

Edited by NinjaGoth on Dec 12th 2019 at 10:42:46 AM

I feel like destroying the Ravnos gave the survivors an interesting new angle despite how improved they were by being linked with the Rakshasa myth.

FYI - Here's my review of Coteries of New York after 3 playthroughs http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/2019/12/vampire-masquerade-coteries-of-new-york.html

I hated destroying the Ravnos both because I like the Ravnos clan and because they were destroyed because Justin Achilli was throwing a temper tantrum and the past stereotypes from older editions were invoked as an impromptu post-hoc justification for it.

But again, I've always detested the metaplot and found it to be pretentious and terrible. YMMV as always.

Edited by NinjaGoth on Dec 12th 2019 at 4:15:11 AM