Paradox Interactive (the Crusader Kings people, not the Conan/Mutant Chronicles ones) buy the White Wolf properties [Merged x10]

[Asmodai]

Re-reading the interview, I think we are indeed reading too much into it, and the interview might suffer from a bad translation.

You may be right on the first half of the statement, but considering how the Swedish speak English, I find the second quite doubtful.

[SuperSabbatST]

Maybe its a cultural thing, but I don't play World of Darkness games for Therapy or to get depressed. The way 9/11 was handled in New York by Night was perfect. Events like that or the Paris attacks in my table top rpgs. No, just no. Its a sign of respect to not use them to those people effected by them. The number one thing people who suffered 9/11 wanted was to stop hearing about it over and over again on the news. The people who actually suffered from those events should have their wishes respected. Just like I also believe things like World of Darkness Gyspies should have been more respectful to the Romani people. Or ,in you example, a lack of respect paid to greece at the time. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Short version, some things should just be left alone.

I play RPGs with my friends for fun and entertainment, not for therapy and to indulge in misery. Its about respect, Using these events in your fiction setting of your role-playing games...im sorry its disrespectful to those people who suffered through those awful events.

Its of course just my humble opinion.

[stylanski]

He was criticizing the past writers for not covering 9/11 in New York by Night, for being afraid to incorporate it into their product. I've been in multiple discussions about this offsite, including one Martin was directly involved in. That's not being artistically edgy or cool, it's being extremely disrespectful to the fans that live in the country it happened to (who happened to make up the majority of the fanbase), especially fans like me who lost family members and friends. It's real easy for him to pontificate now that 15 years have gone by and he wasn't impacted in any way by it, maybe his opinion would have been different if he had actually been working for the company when it happened and had some skin in the game back then.

To go back and criticize writers for treating a subject responsibly and with some sensitivity 15 years ago is unprofessional in the extreme and I don't care for it. He was wrong to do so. He may not have meant it to sound like a criticism, but it was, and as the Brand Architect he had best learn how to promote his product without alienating the people that are his core audience.

I get it and you have my deepest sympathies. Truly, you do. Might not be the same as a terrorist attack out of the blue, but I come from a certain part of Greece that has had an almost disproportionate number of suicides directly related to the financial crisis, and it's had long-lasting, deep psychological effects on all of us (and is still ongoing, with no end in sight).

But I think the guy is merely trying to bring back some of that old WW "charm". That charm came with, at times, involuntary racism, but also, more often, gave us reason to think about what we were reading. Requiem's Athens section did not do that, and as a person living in that city and deeply affected by the crisis, I think it did more harm than good. It did not cause readers to look up the crisis, to see that it's more than just "lazy people wanting free money from the EU", and in the end, it did not represent the city as real-world accurately as it could (let alone its CofD counterpart).

The tragic part of all this? Being Greek, sharing a personal story with a group of fellow students abroad, and being told by a Western European student that "We have no one to blame but ourselves." although I did not take it to a political level. I don't want to argue with such people, I don't want to enlighten such people, I want to sit around a table with them and have them roleplay a person with a life similar to some of my friends.

Hell, psychologists have been using roleplaying games for therapy for the past few years, exactly because you get a chance to confront demons in a setting you can always remove yourself from. It's therapeutic, in the same way that my therapist (a psychoanalyst) pushes me so that I can resolve past trauma.

Unless the guy meant that we should be insensitive about 9-11 and just turn it all into a big Assamite plot for the sake of making it sound edgy and cool. If that was the case, yeah, I'm with you.

Edit: Also, let's keep in mind that some of the material has treated the Middle East and a lot of the tragedies that take place there to this day. From pro-Israeli groups of supernaturals (obviously triggering for any Palestinian fans of the game), to Islamic revolutionary soldier character concepts (many Leftists and secularist Iranians suffered in Iran under the new regime).

Don't think any of it is right either way, and I really don't want to get on either side of the argument. Just playing devil's advocate. :-/

Edit #2: Re-reading the interview, I think we are indeed reading too much into it, and the interview might suffer from a bad translation. Can't argue with this:

Fear is the death of creativity. The game was always best in the hands of storytellers who dared to place the story close to reality, often in their own cities, featuring real places and people.

[Fat Larry]

He was criticizing the past writers for not covering 9/11 in New York by Night, for being afraid to incorporate it into their product.

I didn't take it that way at all. And since Justin Achilli was lead developer of New York by Night(my favorite By Night book), and was a guest of honor at the new White Wolf Publishing's gaming convention, I don't exactly see it the same way you do. Which is perfectly fine.

I didn't lose "family members" during the 9-11 attacks, but I definitely had some friends impacted by it. Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY.

I guess I'll just wait and see.

I do agree with you, however, that he may want to choose his words a bit carefully next time he speaks about future plans.

[Darksider]

He was criticizing the past writers for not covering 9/11 in New York by Night, for being afraid to incorporate it into their product. I've been in multiple discussions about this offsite, including one Martin was directly involved in. That's not being artistically edgy or cool, it's being extremely disrespectful to the fans that live in the country it happened to (who happened to make up the majority of the fanbase), especially fans like me who lost family members and friends. It's real easy for him to pontificate now that 15 years have gone by and he wasn't impacted in any way by it, maybe his opinion would have been different if he had actually been working for the company when it happened and had some skin in the game back then.

To go back and criticize writers for treating a subject responsibly and with some sensitivity 15 years ago is unprofessional in the extreme and I don't care for it. He was wrong to do so. He may not have meant it to sound like a criticism, but it was, and as the Brand Architect he had best learn how to promote his product without alienating the people that are his core audience.

[Heavy Arms]

I'm not sure I take away from the interview (which didn't exactly sit well with me) that Martin wants to use 9/11 as part of some plot event. The point seemed to be more than major real world events should be integrated into the games.

When Wraith covered the Shoah, it wasn't about playing out the Holocaust as much as what the impact of it meant to the supernatural world.

9/11 (and lots of other things) can be handled in the same way. They're major events, that would impact supernaturals living in the WOD as well. Large scale international terrorism is something that would change vampire society. How do vampires react to mortal conflicts threaten them in ways that are beyond their ability to stop? 9/11 and the rise of international Islamist terrorism radically changed the real world political landscape... it makes sense as something to address how that rippled through the supernatural world as well.

While I sympathize with the idea of real people's pain being something that can easily upset people... the WOD has always brought real world pain into a game; which is for people's entertainment. There are movies about 9/11 too. The damage of environmental disasters cause real world pain to millions of people, but are central to the WtA setting. Secular vs. religious conflicts cause real world pain, and are central to Mage. Etc.

In the end, it's going to be a matter of execution, not content, that really decides where WWP's plans fall.

[Kristviljan]

That's kind of what I would want, that they acknowledge that these events have taken place but not that they really delve into the how or why of it, perhaps given that it's a fictional setting not too many people would be upset if they eluded to supernatural workings behind the scenes leading to these kinds of acts. Not that they outright say that the Paris attacks were caused by this and that.

[Darksider]

I hope you never have the experience I did so you can maintain that opinion. NY By Night handled 9/11 the way they should have. I'll paraphrase Justin here; "It happened, we aren't getting into why it happened, and we aren't going to make money off of, or trivialize people's suffering, by delving into it". The moment you incorporate the event as a plot element you've crossed the line and I don't give a fuck about your artistic license or sense of creativity. Keep that shit at your own table, it isn't appropriate or wanted in a mass market product. My (and others') pain isn't fodder for your fucking entertainment.

[Kristviljan]

I can understand that incorporating horrendous acts like 9/11 and the Paris attacks into the narrative of WoD might seem like an insensitive thing to do.I don't really see it like that though, if they're going to add an event like that to the narrative they perhaps shouldn't adress it directly, like maybe point towards the unrest in Europe or what not as an effect of some supernatural entity or other.
I don't really like the idea of ignoring the events until some arbitrary amount of time has passed and it's become acceptable to incorporate the event in a fictional setting.

[Darksider]

Regarding the werewolves, I guess he missed the point that the Impergium is what drove humanity right into the waiting arms of the Wyrm, and is practically the direct reason for their being in the position of fighting a losing battle in the first place. Every fucking time they resorted to killing their non Wyrm opponents they fed their enemy and made it stronger.

[Darksider]

I on the other hand do not like the views on Werewolf, nor did I care for the comments about 9/11. There's a marked lack of sensitivity there. Something that may be appropriate to address now was not appropriate subject matter for a game when it first happened. It trivializes it. I wouldn't expect to see the Paris attacks put into the first supplement for a game that came out immediately following it, and I wouldn't expect it to be featured prominently for some time after. And that's keeping in mind that Paris, both the Charlie Hebdo incident and the later attack were both far smaller in scale and scope than 9/11.

[Fat Larry]

Guys... I'm scared.

Interview had the opposite effect on me. Every single time this guy speaks, I feel like he "gets it."

CoD fans will still get their games, while the videogames and anything else(card games, board games, etc.) will focus on the World of Darkness, which makes sense to me--business and otherwise.

I like his views on Werewolf, and I REALLY liked his comments on creativity.

[Prometheus878]

So there's a new interview up with one Martin Elricsson, Lead Storyteller and Brand Architect over at Paradox White Wolf. Link below:

http://imagonem.org/2016/02/15/white...lease-in-2016/

Oh... oh dear...

"Could you explain a little about the deal you’ve made with Onyx Path? What will be the main difference between “The Chronicles of Darkness” and “The World of Darkness”?"

...I love CoD and find that is a much more playable game with a more vague and unsettling aesthetic than WoD ever had. Too bad it never sold for shit and that old players hated it. It lacked the epic scope and the punk passion of the classic WoD. Had it done even remotely as well as the classic WoD things would be very different....

"Will the Werewolves remain crypto fascist eco-terrorist?"

More than they have ever been. Global Warming has released the Wyrm-tide. The end of the Impergium (ancient Werewolves hunting humans to keep their numbers manageable) seems like a terrible mistake in retrospect.

"Where did White Wolf “get it wrong” last time around? What are your least favorite parts of the IP?"

Anything that smells of Fantasy. The attempt to create a deep mythology by linking the setting to Exalted was the worst choice ever. That was the last step in WoD’d death-march from being an artistic horror-IP to full on immature, escapist Urban Fantasy. The inability to deal with and integrate real-world events in the setting. If you can write about the Holocaust, you can write about 9/11. Fear is the death of creativity. The game was always best in the hands of storytellers who dared to place the story close to reality, often in their own cities, featuring real places and people.

Guys... I'm scared.

[AzraelFirestorm]

Hey, if I could get paid for that, I would be thrilled!

(Counts out Susan B. Anthony coins while also eyeing a stack of coupons and thinking outside the bun.)

It's either this or a Kickstarter.

Kickstarter, anyone?

[Charlaquin]

Product idea: ASMR videos of Charlaquin explaining and speculating about WW/OPP product updates and current community topics in a gentle whisper.

Hey, if I could get paid for that, I would be thrilled!