Quote from: Doc Sammy;1130994I get that it's a sales success overall when you factor in the foreign market. Nobody's debating that. I get that European gamers love V5, but even among geeks, there are some cultural differences when it comes to taste.

Generally, I think there's a misconception about who the World of Darkness' fandom was and that's not because of fans. No, it's one deliberately and repeatedly misconstrued by White Wolf's owners. They've done their best to try and make it seem like V:TM's fandom was primarily the Goth and Punk communities. Which is bullshit. Even in 1995 when it was in its supposed heyday, the primary fandom of V:TM was teenage boys and it was written for them with their trench coats and katanas.

Like Ax Bodyspray, really. It's marketed as a sexy and cool adult thing in order to appeal to its pimply faced true demographic. This is not to insult World of Darkness gamers, I was one of those pimply faced teenage boys, but it's to underscore that there was nothing especially new or different about them among geeks.

QuoteWhile Vampire and World of Darkness is beloved in Europe, nowadays it is largely reviled among American geeks outside of the core Nu-WW and Onyx Path fandoms, and a lot of it has to do with the pretentiousness and toxicity of the wider fandom from the Revised era onward.

Pretentiousness is a often repeated word here and I'd be interested if it could be defined here. Yes, I've heard a lot of gamers tout how V:TM was "deeper" and more "mature" but hyperbole is part and parcel with our hobby. Call of Cthulhu gamers often claim their game is more mature and intelligent than D&D. Also, yes, we have a lot of toxic gamers out there but I've always felt they've been the minority.

QuoteGranted, the older editions of Vampire and Werewolf and the first Bloodlines game do get a pass and are well-liked to this day among American geeks, mainly out of nostalgia. This is probably why V20 did so well. It was the best of all worlds, and was explicitly metaplot-neutral. You could include the old metaplot or throw it in the trash and play your own WoD chronicle. You weren't bound to it like in V5, and sneering WW writers didn't insult you and chide you for "playing the game wrong" like in Revised.

Bloodlines is something I'd like to comment on because it is the definition of a cult classic. It's sold over 500,000 copies on the platform as of 2015 and may have sold many-many more since that time. I don't see much of a difference between gamers who play in a video game versus tabletop if it's in the same world. So much success has been maintained by Bloodlines that it has also already created a pre-order record.

https://www.shacknews.com/article/110724/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2-is-steam-top-seller

Mind you, I pretty much avoided V20 until Beckett's Jyhad Diary because the metaplot was the big reason to buy new books. It's crass manipulation of the consumer, like a cliffhanger, but it works because you want to find out what happens next.

QuoteWhile you may have positive experiences with the Goth and Punk subcultures, a lot of people don't, and they find their sneering pretentiousness and overall snobbery to be very off-putting. I know not all Goths are like that, but the terrible attitude and purity spirals of both the Goth and Punk subcultures are infamous, and the punks in particular are the far worse of the two.

The Gothic Punk ideal is something that I think is a word that was created not for its similarity to Goth or Punk ideals (though I do love the class warfare of Anarch vs. Camarilla) but just to describe what a urban fantasy/action horror setting would be before urban fantasy entered the common parlace. The World of Darkness was essentially a trendsetter and now it has become incredibly mainstream as an idea.

* True Blood
* Underworld
* The Blade Trilogy (which the writers admitted was inspired in part by V:TM as much as the Marvel characters)
* The Dresden Files

Like video games, urban fantasy/horror universes are no longer a niche market but something "normal" people regularly indulge in.

QuoteThe "culture wars" of the past decade or so has intensified this polarizing view on goth and punk culture since the extremist Millennial Left often associates itself with punk culture and the 2010's American punk subculture is mired in communist and anarchist extremism. The neon dyed hair and piercings didn't come from nowhere, after all.

I say fuck that metaplot punk shit and let's reset the clock to the beginning. Start all over and act like V5 was nothing more than a very bad dream. Forge our own counter-canon and counter-themes.

Much like the hippie culture of the 1960s, the punks of the 1980s have since grown up and become content creators of their own. These people have reached much larger audiences and diluted the entire experience.

* Grant Morrison
* The Wachowski Sisters
* Warren Ellis

It's become incredibly mainstream and it's the point that the ultimate reflection of redneck America, professional wrestling, has Goth and Punk girls like Paige or AJ Lee getting their own movies. CM Punk and other characters with their own stories. There was a cute Goth girl on the most conservative television on CBS for a decade.



It's an aesthetic now.

QuoteControversial opinion here, but I sincerely believe that "Vampions" is not "playing the game wrong" and in my honest opinion, it's the superior way to play as opposed to pretentious personal horror. There is a difference between horror and personal horror.

"Personal horror" is more along the lines of pretentious pseudo-intellectual wangst. Crybaby goths and punks who mope around bitching and whining about their lost humanity and acting like snobs.

Speaking as an ST of decades, personal horror vs. regular horror is defined by me to my players as, "The horror of what your character does and feels versus the horror of what is done to other people or to you." Your character as a vampire can accidentally kill people or do horrible things that they later come to regret. Playing angst is depending on your taste but guilt and self-hatred are things that can sometimes make a character more interesting.

Michael Corleone for a mainstream non-vampire example.

Quote from: CTPhipps;1131001The Gothic Punk ideal is something that I think is a word that was created not for its similarity to Goth or Punk ideals (though I do love the class warfare of Anarch vs. Camarilla) but just to describe what a urban fantasy/action horror setting would be before urban fantasy entered the common parlace. The World of Darkness was essentially a trendsetter and now it has become incredibly mainstream as an idea.

* True Blood
* Underworld
* The Blade Trilogy (which the writers admitted was inspired in part by V:TM as much as the Marvel characters)
* The Dresden Files

Like video games, urban fantasy/horror universes are no longer a niche market but something "normal" people regularly indulge in.

Have to admit, I did enjoy Underworld, the rest however, ...mmmm no. Early Gothic Punk was considerably different from later Gothic punk, and Early Gothic Punk arrived in the wave of the late 70's with bands like Bauhaus, Joy Division, Love and Rockets,  Berlin, Human League, The Dead Kennedys, The Smiths, Kraftwerk, Adam Ant, and even U2, and in the early 80's Gary Numan, Gene loves Jezebel, Alien Sex Fiend, and Ausgang. The style was deliberately Dark Post-Industrial, and featured lots of Black, Blue and Deep Violet Colors and lighting at concerts. In the mid-80's (what I would call the Mid-Gothic Era) we saw the first adoption from the mainstream and bands like The Cure, and Depeche Mode, Echo and the Bunnymen, and New Order suddenly rose to the top of the pop charts and was being played at clubs all over the country. Late Gothic came in the 90's, and included the Cure, as well as The Cult, REM, The Black Crowes, and even later Florence and the Machine.

Gothic Punk has it roots in the Bauhaus Art Movement which began in Germany right after WWI and included Art Nouveau, Jugenstihl, which translates directly as "Young Style" as well as elements from the Vienna Succession. All of these movements sought to level the distinction between the fine and applied arts, and to reunite creativity and manufacturing; their legacy was reflected in the romantic medievalism of the Bauhaus ethos during its early years, when it fashioned itself as a kind of craftsmen's guild. But by the mid-1920s this vision had given way to a stress on uniting art and industrial design, and it was this which underpinned the Bauhaus's most original and important achievements. The movement actually split into two, and one element continued to focus on romantic medeivalism while the other focused on the darker implications and social discordance of unfettered industrial progress. There was also a lot of anger from youngsters and the Bauhaus followers toward the older generation mixed in, becuase the older generation had really messed up a better future that Germany could have had, if only society and law hadn't revolved around the choices of the elder nobles and statesmen, and the religious leaders, who lead with dogma instead of creativity prior to World War I.

When the Nazis came to power in 1933 they heavily suppressed the Bauhaus social movement, favoring instead the new National Socialist agenda, that agenda of everyone supports "the state",  over the Bauhaus agenda of favoring individual enlightened craftsmen, creators, inventors, and artists. Bauhaus was a cry out and protest against the old order which included religious movement of the The Holy Roman Empire which co-ruled with the Feudal Monarchy in Germany until the socialist unification of Germany in 1871.  The Bauhaus and the Nazi socialists were both against the old order, however diametrically opposed to each other, with Bauhaus focusing on the Individual and socialism, focusing on the Society over the individual. Fairly certain upon reflection that later, more than a fair share of Bauhaus proponents and supporters ended up in concentration camps, or as forced labor for the Nazi war machine, due to their personal preferences and natural tendency to oppose socialism.

Anyway, Gothic Punk came to the United States with the second wave of the Euro music invasion which occurred in the latter half of the 1970's and the music of the Goth Punks were more of the romantic medeivalism variety as opposed to the unique blend art and Industry. However Gothic Punk did immediately adopt Dark Industrialism, because of the Bauhaus roots as well as what you would could call today Urban Fantasy. Plus Gothic Punk mirrored Bauhaus in that the new artists were all giving the middle finger to the more traditional artists and elements of popular society, and Gothic Punks adopted the use of synthesizers and other unusual instruments, along with their social protest lyrics to create innovative and novel experiences and epiphanies of comprehension.

I should do a dissertation on this...anyway, always have enjoyed the music greatly, and found some elements of White Wolf's Vampire the Gathering, inspiring, because it was based on the romantic medieval Bauhaus which reflected a much better time in the past, where art and society were encouraged to progress in spite of the ills of various industrialism, technology, and political systems that supported that unfettered advance including socialism, capitalism, and anarchy, all of which are all very popular with the masses. Gothic Punk was never meant to be "mainstream" or something that "normal" people would regularly indulge in.

White Wolf sued the producers of Underworld claiming they copied from the Vampire game, but the real truth is, they both copied liberally from the much earlier Gothic Bauhaus social movement that history had almost forgotten. In my opinion, Len Wisemen did a much better job, than anyone at White Wolf ever could have done. The other vampire and urban underworld movies were crap, pale imitations from people who had zero understanding of the true history and background.

Here, enjoy some really good Gothic Punk music, and it also includes some very modern bands, I'm sure some of you here have never heard some of these before...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3S7WIgoD7I

You realize the Gothic Punk described in the books is very...uh...different than the music style, right?

https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Gothic-Punk

I thought we were all pretty clearly talking about the RPG theme. If you don't buy what I'm saying and think I'm being ignorant. Here's the definition of Gothic Punk given in the 1991 1st Edition of Vampire: The Masquerade (green book).

Quote from: CTPhipps;1131017You realize the Gothic Punk described in the books is very...uh...different than the music style, right?

https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Gothic-Punk

I thought we were all pretty clearly talking about the RPG theme. If you don't buy what I'm saying and think I'm being ignorant. Here's the definition of Gothic Punk given in the 1991 1st Edition of Vampire: The Masquerade (green book).

Not to be "that guy", but that's from the Revised Edition rulebook. Not the First Edition.

I'll go double-check the First Edition of the corebook, the grayish-green softcover.

Maybe they copy-and-pasted for Revised on that specific section, I dunno. I'll be sure to double-check since I own both on hard copy

Second Edition was largely the same as First Edition, but better organized with errata and new artwork added in, most notably the two-page Clan write-ups that began with 2E.

Revised was completely different from the ground up for the most part.

Pretentious - attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed.

Any role-playing game book that spends more time on trying to make its books look like coffee table conversation pieces complete with multi-page photo-spreads/side-bars coupled with too small fonts and way too much white space and a twenty page piece of purple prose fiction... instead of being functional manual for playing the game is, by definition, pretentious.

It insists on using d10s when all difficulties have been made 6 so it's literally just a coin toss.

It pretends to be the height of gaming despite its mechanics being even worse than those of classic World of Darkness. It presumes that if you do not play the game the way they wish it to be played you are doing it wrong. They presume that people give two juicy shits about their SJW agenda and X-card nonsense when most anyone actually playing it is doing so with friends who have similar beliefs to their own.

The entire thing drips with false elitism and self-importance. It's an RPG about vampires and they act as if it's the cultural equivalent of "Dracula" or "Interview with a Vampire" when it's not even fucking "Twilight."

They also act like V5 being popular with globalist Eurotrash is something to be proud of.

So yes, pretentious.

You're right, it's from Revised.

This is the 1st Edition version. My apologies.

QuoteAnd the Lord said unto him, "Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold." Andthe Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.
-Genesis ch. 4, vs. 15

The world of Vampires is not our world. IL is a GothicPunk™ vision of our world -monolithic, majestic and very twisted. The entire society is corrupt and the mortals are helpless to do anything about it. IL is a world where the forces ofevil and chaos are even stronger than they are in our world (though that may be hard to believe). In general, there is nothing all that different-CD's are in, vinyl is out, the ozone layer is being depleted, and the same soap operas are still playing. The same faces are on Mount Rushmore and the Lady still stands proudly in New York Harbor. It is a world where Vampires exist, and they direct and have influenced the course of history for some time. It is because of the existence of Vampires in this world that it is different.

The Gothic-Punk world is a metaphor for our own world, a warning of what we might become and a reflection of what we really might be. It is our world the way it might be if there actually were Vampires. This chapter describes the selling of Vampire. A Gothic-Punk reality. However, more than the world of mortals is discussed in this chapter. Vampires have a wide and varied culture and society of their own. Such is the focus here.

So, yes, they even trademarked the term.

QuoteThey also act like V5 being popular with globalist Eurotrash is something to be proud of.

Well this is just bullshit. Seriously.

Well, Vampire 5th edition probably sells well, because the orginal settings still have a lot of fans. The 2nd Bloodlines game looks good, but there is still only one gameplay movie available so I guess it's still really underdeveloped and it will be at least another year before it releases. Probably longer. I saw one funny thing about that game and that is has the Requiem setup of five clans and five covenants/factions. All five clans are original. Only the Gangrel and Nosferatu are missing and are probably saved for an expansion. The five factions are the original Camarilla and no Anarchs or Sabbat. There is the more old money oriented Pioneers (Invictus inspired?), the criminal syndicate of the Baron, the Newcomers who are the academia of the setting (mostly Tremere) and the Unseen who are the thieves/spies guild (mostly Nosferatu). I actually like these factions a lot better then religious/ideology focused covenants of Requiem.

As I understand it, Bloodlines was supposed to be released in March but they delayed it to not compete with Cyberpunk 2077.

Except Cyberpunk 2077 was delayed.

And then the coronavirus happened. The developer diaries have basically said they're using the time to fix bugs, add new sidequests, and improve the combat.

https://www.bloodlines2.com/?t=news&i=61&l=en

Edit:

Oh and "Baron" is what an Anarch leader is called in V:TM 5th Edition. He might or might not be an Anarch but probably is.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;1131023Well, Vampire 5th edition probably sells well, because the orginal settings still have a lot of fans. The 2nd Bloodlines game looks good, but there is still only one gameplay movie available so I guess it's still really underdeveloped and it will be at least another year before it releases. Probably longer. I saw one funny thing about that game and that is has the Requiem setup of five clans and five covenants/factions. All five clans are original. Only the Gangrel and Nosferatu are missing and are probably saved for an expansion. The five factions are the original Camarilla and no Anarchs or Sabbat. There is the more old money oriented Pioneers (Invictus inspired?), the criminal syndicate of the Baron, the Newcomers who are the academia of the setting (mostly Tremere) and the Unseen who are the thieves/spies guild (mostly Nosferatu). I actually like these factions a lot better then religious/ideology focused covenants of Requiem.

V5 in general seems to take setting cues from Requiem, since it focuses on street-level politics rather than whatever previous editions did.

The Nosferatu, at least the representative, also look like human beings (albeit disfigured). I know there was a merit for that in the tabletop at some point, but it's also how VTR Nosferatu worked (among other possibilities).

I wouldn't be surprised if Paradox introduces the Daeva and Mekhet as the 14th and 15th clans from the translation guide. Or other new clans.

Although in general the preview seemed less colorful compared to Bloodlines 1. Plenty of others on youtube made similar complaints.

They've said Nosferatu and Gangrel will be DLC. They've also stated that the Lasombra will also become an option [they're now Camarilla].

The Duskborn (Thin Bloods) are effectively the 14th Clan now with them getting special powers and an immunity to sunlight.

Given the way Mr. Damp has been portrayed (crazy serial killer guy), I wouldn't be surprised if this is EXACTLY as crazy as Bloodlines but they're mixing up characters. Elif is basically Jeanette except Tremere instead of Malkavian. Everything I've seen so far and the news broadcasts by Outstar suggests the game will basically function by you going to each section of Seattle, meeting the local bosses, doing adventures for them, and then choosing which faction to side with in the end.

Quote from: CTPhipps;1131000Alas, I don't know what that means. I admit to being a fantastic White Wolf fanboy, though.

Your not though.  You are backing up people that fuck over freelancers and customers alike.  

https://youtu.be/aBN0lFaFwIQ

Quote from: Snowman0147;1131029Your not though.  You are backing up people that fuck over freelancers and customers alike.  

https://youtu.be/aBN0lFaFwIQ

Sure, okay.

I think your fanboyism tricks you into confirmation bias, so that you think the WoD IP is more popular than it actually is and seek out information that confirms your bias.

VTM is significantly less popular now than it was even in the early 2000s, much less the 90s. I don't know if you knew this, but the 90s and 2000s were not a good time for tabletop games. There was the d20 bubble, the French tabletop market collapsed completely, etc.

Most of this is due to competition with video games. Console games, PC games, flash games, etc. That competition has only gotten worse with the rise of mobile games in the late 2000s.

Most people aware of World of Darkness only know of it through the VTM video games, and most of those people aren't invested in the IP as a whole. They aren't going to buy and play the tabletop. They aren't going to read the lore and learn about, for example, Saulot's secret war with [Tzimisce].

In fact, WoD isn't a good choice for lore junkies either. Namely, other media franchises have inescapable metaplot by virtue of telling stories as their main focus, whereas WoD has to struggle to avoid pissing off fans who dislike metaplot.

I'll probably play Bloodlines 2 if it's not a lifeless mannequin upon release like I fear it could be, but that's not going to get me invested in the lore. Except insofar as I'll write fanfiction that introduces new clans like Chocula, Mekhet and Dukhan, simply as a middle finger to tabletop fans who treat the bloody lore like an actual religion.

Quote from: CTPhipps;1131030Sure, okay.

That is why your a fucking filthy zeev.

You do not care for freelancers getting paid their fair dues.
You do not care about customers being treated well.
Hell I am pretty sure you don't give a rats ass about WoD?
As long you are a moderator you will suck the shit out of Rich Thomas ass and brag about WoD like a little thoughtless hoe.
People like you are bad for the hobby and need to get kicked out.

Quote from: Snowman0147;1131032That is why your a fucking filthy zeev.

You do not care for freelancers getting paid their fair dues.
You do not care about customers being treated well.
Hell I am pretty sure you don't give a rats ass about WoD?
As long you are a moderator you will suck the shit out of Rich Thomas ass and brag about WoD like a little thoughtless hoe.
People like you are bad for the hobby and need to get kicked out.

I feel dumb for agreeing with you. Apparently that's not enough. I won't make that mistake again.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1131031I think your fanboyism tricks you into confirmation bias, so that you think the WoD IP is more popular than it actually is and seek out information that confirms your bias.

VTM is significantly less popular now than it was even in the early 2000s, much less the 90s. I don't know if you knew this, but the 90s and 2000s were not a good time for tabletop games. There was the d20 bubble, the French tabletop market collapsed completely, etc.

Most of this is due to competition with video games. Console games, PC games, flash games, etc. That competition has only gotten worse with the rise of mobile games in the late 2000s.

Most people aware of World of Darkness only know of it through the VTM video games, and most of those people aren't invested in the IP as a whole. They aren't going to buy and play the tabletop. They aren't going to read the lore and learn about, for example, Saulot's secret war with [Tzimisce].

In fact, WoD isn't a good choice for lore junkies either. Namely, other media franchises have inescapable metaplot by virtue of telling stories as their main focus, whereas WoD has to struggle to avoid pissing off fans who dislike metaplot.

I'll probably play Bloodlines 2 if it's not a lifeless mannequin upon release like I fear it could be, but that's not going to get me invested in the lore. Except insofar as I'll write fanfiction that introduces new clans like Chocula, Mekhet and Dukhan, simply as a middle finger to tabletop fans who treat the bloody lore like an actual religion.

I don't think an IP's value is purely in its tabletop value. Indeed, one of the things that I think Paradox is making the correct choice on is spreading around the love:

* Card games: https://www.facebook.com/whitewolfpublishing/photos/ready-to-rule-the-city-princes-gambit-the-new-fast-paced-casual-vampire-the-masq/10155995695300465/
* Board games: https://www.white-wolf.com/post/chapters-a-new-vampire-the-masquerade-story-board-game
* Video Games: Bloodlines, Coteries, the upcoming interactive texts
* Novels: https://www.tor.com/2020/03/18/vampire-the-masquerade-is-getting-three-audio-novellas/
* Tabletop Games: Ditto

And the new comic book series by Tim Seeley, who did my all time favorite sexy supernatural series in HACK/SLASH.

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/vault-to-publish-vampire-the-masquerade-comic-with-tim-seeley-tini-howard-more/