Ok....apparently we are going full Forsaken.

[Damian May]

Because that has nothing to do with making an inflammatory post...?

Shhh! Let Lashet argue with the Mod..

...judging by their posts I'm 90% sure they just came to the WtA forum to troll anyway.

[CTPhipps]

But...the title of the thread has the word Forsaken in it?

And insulting one line produced by the host company of the forum you're posting on is not allowed. Just a heads up.

Don't do it again.

[Metalbird]

I don't know much about economics but from what I have read on various forums (which is most likely not a realiable source of information but still), V5 is kinda on the backburner for a lot of people, aside from those who are rabidly hateful towards it, most people seems to just straight not care about it while hunter 5 seems to be actively disliked by a lot of people due to being a flavourless copy of vigil with an outrageous price, on the other hand I see v20 games frequently pop out online and even some W20 stuff, maybe the new books coming out for the 20th line will spark new interest.

I agree a lot with your statement. Indeed I want to show you some interesting information about the possible situation about WoD/CoD on the internet that prove your statements:

https://www.reddit.com/r/WhiteWolfRPG/comments/wblyjv/what_game_line_do_you_prefer_and_why/

This is a poll that it was made a month ago in reddit. 1.1k people took part in it. We aren't talking about the opinions of a very niche forum like this or rpg.net with a very specialized public. We are talking about Reddit the second most important and popular forum in all internet. We can see that, indeed, X5th wasn't the most popular line like Justin Achilly said one time , instead, this place is for X20th and previous editions, which results almost double the points of X5th. CoD has the third position meanwhile they are very good and interesting games but have a very niche position for we can see from the poll.

Of course this isn't the bible. Some people argued about that they voted for 20th because they saw it like the direct predecessor of 2nd or Revised and other said that they have mixed preferences between WoD and CoD. Also we can argue about the differences of CoD ,20th or 5th , which the latest has less content than the other two (but with the minor volume of content of 5th we can see it beats the CoD which has more splat lines). But the conclussion is obvious: 20th edition has an incredible strenght even today and 5th cannot substitute large parts of WoD20th and previous editions fandom.

[Newb95]

I agree a lot with your statement. Indeed I want to show you some interesting information about the possible situation about WoD/CoD on the internet that prove your statements:

https://www.reddit.com/r/WhiteWolfRPG/comments/wblyjv/what_game_line_do_you_prefer_and_why/

This is a poll that it was made a month ago in reddit. 1.1k people took part in it. We aren't talking about the opinions of a very niche forum like this or rpg.net with a very specialized public. We are talking about Reddit the second most important and popular forum in all internet. We can see that, indeed, X5th wasn't the most popular line like Justin Achilly said one time , instead, this place is for X20th and previous editions, which results almost double the points of X5th. CoD has the third position meanwhile they are very good and interesting games but have a very niche position for we can see from the poll.

Of course this isn't the bible. Some people argued about that they voted for 20th because they saw it like the direct predecessor of 2nd or Revised and other said that they have mixed preferences between WoD and CoD. Also we can argue about the differences of CoD ,20th or 5th , which the latest has less content than the other two (but with the minor volume of content of 5th we can see it beats the CoD which has more splat lines). But the conclussion is obvious: 20th edition has an incredible strenght even today and 5th cannot substitute large parts of WoD20th and previous editions fandom.

Yeah I saw that one, there are similar polls going around in other forums too, looks like V20 is still king for what concerns vampire at least, like I said, I think it has to do with the supplements, V20 stuff is objectively better than V5, hopefully V6 will turn out better.

[TyrannicalRabbit]

Shhh! Let Lashet argue with the Mod..

...judging by their posts I'm 90% sure they just came to the WtA forum to troll anyway.

Shhhhh. I knew how that was going to end from the moment I saw their first post. Once you've seen that sort of stuff enough times, it's not like it's difficult to see.

N E Way. However W5 ends up I always go into examinations of these lines with something in mind and it's helped. Which is, I knew going in regardless of if I was or wasn't going to like 5e that so much time had passed from the Revised era to the 5e era that just by dint of that alone that the changes were going to be more drastic by nature than passing for 1e to 2e to Revised and that state of affairs was always going to cause polarizing opinion.

[MrNatas]

But the conclussion is obvious: 20th edition has an incredible strenght even today and 5th cannot substitute large parts of WoD20th and previous editions fandom.

I'll preference that WoD20th is the edition I prefer to use. I think that has a lot to due with how WoD5 presented itself both in mechanics and story. Other threads have said this more eloquently but majority of the mechanical changes while ok on paper are not great in practice or there are not enough options to make up the lack that 20th has over 5th. For my own 2 sents on top of this, I find that V5 to homebrew for isn't as easy at least for me. The systems overlap each other enough that makes even small changes have ripples throughout the system.

However W5 ends up I always go into examinations of these lines with something in mind and it's helped. Which is, I knew going in regardless of if I was or wasn't going to like 5e that so much time had passed from the Revised era to the 5e era that just by dint of that alone that the changes were going to be more drastic by nature than passing for 1e to 2e to Revised and that state of affairs was always going to cause polarizing opinion.

I also think that has merit. Not in the 'change is bad' sort if way that some people like to say but. more in the case that change is so dramatic and different that is shocking. It's like jumping into a cold river on a hot day. It is very much a shock but, it's not bad per-say.

[Banu_Saulot]

Yeah, I remember the days of 3rd edition and it was a pain in the ass with all the rolls and overruling of mechanics.
I remember when we had to keep differentiating Nº of successes and Difficulty.
I remember combats taking 2/3 of the entire game.
And by god I am happy we are done with it.

Good thing that 4th edition is going strong, and there is always STV producing good material too. But either way, no one is saying 5th edition (be it Vamp or Wolfie) will substitute the former editions. That is what I like about different RPG editions, they always keep being usable, and the new ones offer things to knick and knack at. But they are new Editions, not reeditions, or remakes. God, imagine if RPGs did that like videogames.

There is very good written material and text I read for ours, especially on content that hasn't been spoken about in newer editions. And I remember there was some crazy possibilities in 1st and 2nd edition of Vamp, when things weren't as defined, and yet we haven't got a good Being a Prince book or system, not even Council of Primogen does a great job at it. Prince's Primer doesn't get close. And with the Umbra, Spiritual Triad and the rich Tribes, there is lot of stuff we haven't got yet. There are some stuff that I always wonder, no matter the edition, why they don't make about. Well, that was tangential.

Somehow, I'm more interested in the lore movements and evolutions than the mechanics, which I think we got a pretty good idea how'll be from V5 and Hunter, in the new edition of Werewolf. Maybe there will be more mystery, I'm getting this vibe from 5th edition WoD. For good or bad. Like the world is bigger and scarier, a nothing gets more bigger and scarier than Werewolf.
Did the Apocalypse occur? What were the losses? I think we got only bits of info

[Knightingale]

Recently Justin Achilli tweeted something relevant regarding WOD5 and canon/setting:

Seeing all this nastiness around pop-culture IP and fidelity to fictional lore. This sort of community friction is exactly what we’re designing to avoid with WoD5. Interactivity-based world development with “what you can do” over “what happened in a now-untouchable past.”

From the sound of it, what Justin Achilli wants to go for is less an "updated setting" but a sandbox with some minimalist core-pillars that frame the game's world. More something like H5 did than what V5 did.

In light of that who knows what remains of all the previous previews about W5 (from the previous team) regarding the Apocalypse, fallen Tribes, the small number of Caerns etc.

[MrNatas]

Not to sound too cynical but, to me that sounds like once again trying to frame taking things from WtF and apply them without context to WtA. I don't think anyone would be upset about changes in the lore or setting if those changes where a net positive to the lore or setting. Have a tribe fall, having Tribes redefine themselves, change views about different breeds, none of these in a bubble are bad but, all these things could be done to make the setting less rich. Making a system into a sandbox is all well and good but, if I want to change something in the lore or setting I'll just do it. I don't need a book/creator's blessing.

[Knightingale]

He also had an interesting exchange with another Twitter-user that illuminates Justin Achilli's thinking:

Heart Everlasting:
I feel like the friction isn’t really about the old lore being gone, it’s what said lore represented as a way to connect characters to the world & allow for the community to have points of reference that create collective experience hasn’t been replaced with even remotely enough.

Justin Achilli replies:
V5 assumes you're a fledgling and an Anarch, with emphasis more on "you need blood tonight — now what?" over the things that clanmates may have done in nights past to shape the state of your clan tonight. So the not knowing "remotely enough" is part of the fledgling experience.

Now I'm really just curious what W5 will be like if Justin Achilli has such a negative attitude towards lore/metaplot.

[Heavy Arms]

If Justin thinks they're doing a good job at designing to reduce community friction, I have no idea what world he's living in. It's fine and dandy that he thinks they have good intentions, but just because the wider WoD fandom isn't bickering about whether it's OK to increase the cast diversity in adaptations of existing works of fiction, doesn't mean WoD5e's designs aren't full of their own community division hot button topics.

And really that response sorta cements the problem: it doesn't matter that V5 assumes you start "lower" than older editions did on the power scale of vampires. Your character isn't going to stay there, so what happens when they "grow up" not really being supported continues to be a problem.

[Knightingale]

And really that response sorta cements the problem: it doesn't matter that V5 assumes you start "lower" than older editions did on the power scale of vampires. Your character isn't going to stay there, so what happens when they "grow up" not really being supported continues to be a problem.

Wouldn't Justin Achilli just say that it would stop being V5 if the player-characters "grew up" and stopped being low-status and knowing next-to-nothing about the setting/world?

Case in point: H5. Your characters start as street-level Hunters and the big hunter-organizations are potential antagonists/dubious allies (at best). There's nothing for the street-level Hunters to evolve beyond. In fact, all the hunters that organize themselves and operate on a larger scale are painted as bad/untrustworthy.

I'm really curious about how Justin Achilli plans to apply this to WtA where community and tradition are so important.

[Heavy Arms]

Justin can say whatever he wants about it. The situation is still one where the current design philosophy of the games is not reducing the tensions between different sub-groups within the wider fandom.

And really, that answer would ring hollow because however much WoD5e's XP system is sloooooow it's still there. You can buy all sorts of things - like the newly added Loresheet mechanic - to take your PC beyond a fledgling Anarch, and at some point in the narrative you're going to have chances to acquire less mechanical forms of power. Even people that like the most gritty street level VtM game don't actually just play out doing basic household chores for your sire for years of real like time with zero chances to go beyond that.

[Mizu]

This is honestly reminding me of Abyssals in 2nd edition exalted where the writer in charge of them insisted there were only two 'proper' ways to play them (hardcore nihilist out to destroy the world or seeking redemption by turning into a solar, yes one of the only two proper ways to play one was to stop being one). They set up the mechanics so as to actively punish people who tried to play a 'good' abyssal by constantly blasting those abyssals with NPC killing by fiat world blighting resonance blasts indicating 'the Neverborn's displeasure' if they tried to do anything besides destroy the world. Meaning that if you tried to do good the game smacked you with the 'your doing it wrong bat' and by fiat wrecked things to balance out the good you did (so the only way to really do good is to seek out the means of turning into a solar).

And really that response sorta cements the problem: it doesn't matter that V5 assumes you start "lower" than older editions did on the power scale of vampires. Your character isn't going to stay there, so what happens when they "grow up" not really being supported continues to be a problem.

They seem to want you to never rise up beyond what they are calling the 'appropriate' experience of being an absolute bottom of the totem pole scrub and are therefore writing the mechanics in a way that mechanically blocks people off from getting too awesome and enforce their view on what the 'proper' way to play the game is. So presumably they expect you to either get killed by your elders for daring to try and improve your lot or they expect you to just eventually start a new game once your characters gets to a point where they no longer fit into the 'correct' way of playing them.

[Knightingale]

Yeah, Loresheets are one of those things where I wonder if Justin Achilli will keep those around in W5. In H5 there's a whole sidebar explaining why there are no Loresheets despite those being a thing in V5. And it says that since Hunters don't know anything about the World of Darkness there's no need for Loresheets to exist. Comparing that to his comments on playing "Anarch fledglings" in V5, I assume he personally wouldn't allow Loresheets into a V5-game.

Justin Achilli is talking about wanting more interactive worldbuilding but H5 is a good demonstration of how on one hand it wants to be this weightless, accessible sandbox but on the other hand, it's a game with strong statements on what hunter-organizations are and what their place in the setting is. He strives to present an open sandbox with the freedom that allows groups to make of it what they will but there's also a part of him that wants the game to be one thing and only this one thing. At least, that's what it seems like to me.