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

[CTPhipps]

The thread has gotten hostile despite repeated warnings. Sorry guys.

[LunaLupa]

One thing, I am particularly curious about the recent shifts in the game priorities is how this new design philosophy will affect other aspects of the game lore, like the Fera or the Triat.
Especially since I always personally considered the Fera to be an element that needed to be better integrated into the game and the Triat is particularly complex and can be used in many different ways.

[Heavy Arms]

Don't know what that means....

It means you're trotting out an old argument that this community has had dozens of times over decades of interactions, and long since moved past.

I always address people with respect.

What, exactly, is respectful about, what you're saying? There's not respect towards everyone that has struggled because of how the metaplot was implemented. You're blundering around with your eyes closed and saying that you can't see the problems being pointed out to you. That's not respect.

If you want respect, don't dismiss everyone that's different from you. Addressing people respectfully involves things like actually taking in what they're saying, thinking about it, and responding to it. Not just faking niceness and then telling everyone that doesn't like something they're wrong because you think it's fine.

Also, what's inanely predictable? The worst arguments to defend the metaplot always come from the people that claim they never use it. Nobody that actually likes using the metaplot tries to defend it by saying how "easy" it is to ignore, because it's a silly argument. If you like something about a game, you shouldn't be talking about how much it's irrelevant to being able to play the game. "I ditch the metaplot as fast and as hard as possible," isn't a defense of it, it's an acknowledgement that the metaplot was badly done because you didn't want to use it. Droning on about how simple you find it to do so is just disrespectful to everyone else.

You just met one

Ah yes the, "it's over the Internet so you have to believe that I didn't do that thing without any evidence or argumentation to explain that," retort. Boring and trite as usual.

What did you replace the Avatar Storm with to justify all the setting changes that it caused? If you say the Avatar Storm just didn't happen, either you went back to the 2e status quo (but you're saying you didn't) or you have to have come up with something to take its place to explain all the setting changes in Revised.... or you did exactly what I said.

Are you a minor?

How would a minor have been arguing about the value of the metaplot on the Internet over twenty years ago?

Or should I just point out that your BS attempt to imply I'm childish was pointless and flies in the face of the "I"m always respctful!" claim?

I'm not assuming anything I just don't get why people are so beholden to metaplot

Why has been explained. Either you're willfully not listening, or you're making massive assumptions in order to dismiss those explanations. Which will it be?

I didn't change the premise, just some things about the setting. Yes, it was kinda simple, and it didn't take hundreds of hours.

More of the same old predictable nonsense. "Oh, I didn't just change this, I also change that,and this other thing, and this other stuff, but it only took me five minutes because I'm just like that."

Do you really not see how utterly disingenuous it is to talk about how you overhauled things like the Tribes and the entire Garou nation, and then just blow it off as if you house ruled something like the silly way the game determines the difficulty to rolls to learn new rites?

Did you time yourself? Did you catalog all the nights in bed thinking about it? Keep a dev diary to see how much time you really put into it? Or are you just saying it didn't take that long because it's simpler to paint it as easy then think back at how much work you did but probably didn't realize how much work it was because it was also fun?

[HeavyWhiskey]

Dear lord it's 2022 and we're back to the "idek just do it!" argument?

??? Don't know what that means but just in case, I always address people with respect. Do the same.

but I've never a met a person that said they just "ignored" the Avatar Storm and played Revised, that wasn't just playing 2e with some house rules they took from Revised. They like to sound like it's easy, but they're neglecting to acknowledge how it's only easy because they had a pre-Avatar Storm edition to fall back on.

You just met one

If it's not abundantly clear, I've been trying to explain how the metaplot is a detriment to a lot of people's gaming experience with the WoD for a long time. You're "oh I just thought of explaining it this way!" is something I've dissected and posted a giant screed about dozens of times before 2003 happened already.

Again, respect. the whole "oh I just thought of explaining it this way!" was just me trying to get my point across. If I failed at it the snark on your part is not necessary. Are you a minor? I like to be aware and careful about who I talk with on the internet.

position you're taking is, ultimately, self-centered. It's about assuming what works for you must work for everyone, and thus if it's not a problem for you, it can't be a real problem for anyone.

I'm not assuming anything I just don't get why people are so beholden to metaplot

And here's a great example. You "just" changed the Tribes, and how the Garou Nation works. That's so simple... it's just rewriting the whole basic premise of the game. Who doesn't have the free time to do a few hundreds of hours of alterations to the game?

I didn't change the premise, just some things about the setting. Yes, it was kinda simple, and it didn't take hundreds of hours.

[Heavy Arms]

Dear lord it's 2022 and we're back to the "idek just do it!" argument?

Just to be clear, in the pat 30 odd years, there has never been a "just do it" argument for why the metaplot isn't a problem that hasn't come down to sounding like a rich person that doesn't understand how poor people exist when getting to be rich is so easy, you "just do it (when your parents spend huge amounts of money on your upbringing, and just give you huge amounts of money to get your life and business started, obviously everyone has rich parents that's just a given) with some good old fashioned work."

And yes, these sorts of arguments have lead to lots and lots and lots of threads where the "just do it" side of things ends up disparaging everyone else because "they can't see it,"quickly turns into, "I don't have this problem thus it doesn't exist thus it is clearly a flaw in other people." It's practically inevitable because it's inherent to the position in the first place. Either you start to see the problem, or - whether you'll post it or not - you start blaming people that don't like the metaplot for being the "real" problem. There's no middle ground once you start from the "just do it" place.

It occurred to me to explain it this way: metaplot/setting and what we do at our table are two different timelines.

The problem is that this isn't a binary. There's a spectrum of how close or far individual games are from the official material. If you're playing in a group where what you do at your table is close to the books, the impact of the metaplot increases, if you're on the other side of things where your games never really give a shit about the book's presentation of things, it's easier to just ignore stuff (because you're already ignoring lots of stuff).

If you want to claim to be the first, that's great, but I've never a met a person that said they just "ignored" the Avatar Storm and played Revised, that wasn't just playing 2e with some house rules they took from Revised. They like to sound like it's easy, but they're neglecting to acknowledge how it's only easy because they had a pre-Avatar Storm edition to fall back on.

If it's not abundantly clear, I've been trying to explain how the metaplot is a detriment to a lot of people's gaming experience with the WoD for a long time. You're "oh I just thought of explaining it this way!" is something I've dissected and posted a giant screed about dozens of times before 2003 happened already.

The position you're taking is, ultimately, self-centered. It's about assuming what works for you must work for everyone, and thus if it's not a problem for you, it can't be a real problem for anyone.

About The Howling, it's cool that Forsaken could be used that easily for that, apparently (can't say, I never played it) but I went beyond just char-gen. It is also how the tribes and Garou nation work, among other things.

And here's a great example. You "just" changed the Tribes, and how the Garou Nation works. That's so simple... it's just rewriting the whole basic premise of the game. Who doesn't have the free time to do a few hundreds of hours of alterations to the game?

[HeavyWhiskey]

Can you ignore the Avatar Storm? Sure. But then about half of the Revised Mage books have huge chunks you need to adapt because they use the Storm as part of what's going on.A large amount of the writing for Mage Revised was centered around how the upper echelons of mage society were suddenly trapped in the Umbra, and everyone used to getting their orders (or was being kept in check) by those powerhouses had a whole new world to adapt to

I'm sorry, maybe I'm incapable of expressing what I'm saying clearly, but I just don't see it. Avatar Storm? Didn't use it. Yeah, you end up reading references to it in the books, but I just didn't use it. Penalties/difficulties for crossing the gauntlet? Didn't use them. The upper echelon of mage society being trapped in the Umbra? I didn't use the Avatar Storm, so it didn't affect our game.

So yes, I ignore the writing (and rules) if I have or want to.

It occurred to me to explain it this way: metaplot/setting and what we do at our table are two different timelines.

About The Howling, it's cool that Forsaken could be used that easily for that, apparently (can't say, I never played it) but I went beyond just char-gen. It is also how the tribes and Garou nation work, among other things.

[Heavy Arms]

It really depends on how many of the books you use, and especially if you played over multiple editions.

If all you do is one edition, and just use the core book? The metaplot basically doesn't exist for you anyway.

If you're playing from 2e into Rev., big setting changes directly linked to mechanical changes happen. There's stuff in the core book, that gets changed eight supplements later, so nine books act like X is true, and then ten act like Y is true instead, and you need to be tracking this stuff or it doesn't really make sense.

That said, WtA was probably the least metaplot affected games that made it from 1e to 20th. The WtA metaplot was the least used to explain mechanical changes (and WtA had very few major ones of those after 1e-to-2e). The WtA authors (and general WoD authors) avoided destroying major Septs that were highly detailed in the books when they needed one to fall for the metaplot; and many of them were invent on the spot just to die off anyway (as opposed to some of the metaplot events in VtM and Mage where places that had multiple books detail them suddenly have all those books rendered irrelevant). So, basically, unless you were really invested in the Sept of the Green and Jonas and friends (so running a NYC area game that cared about the official setting there) the metaplot almost never intruded in your WtA game.

Vampire had things like over half of a major Clan just die because of the metaplot. Clan Disciplines and weaknesses were changed because of major events happening in some supplement. Allegiances and political status of major global players shifted. Mage had the trump card of metaplot intrusion with the Avatar Storm they completely upended mage society.

Can you ignore the Avatar Storm? Sure. But then about half of the Revised Mage books have huge chunks you need to adapt because they use the Storm as part of what's going on. A large amount of the writing for Mage Revised was centered around how the upper echelons of mage society were suddenly trapped in the Umbra, and everyone used to getting their orders (or was being kept in check) by those powerhouses had a whole new world to adapt to.

This stuff wasn't just some novels and short story collections that had no effect on the actual gaming books. It was the gaming books moving pieces of the setting around and then expecting you to keep up if you wanted the future books to keep making sense.

----------------

As for the WoD setting itself? What most people have against it can be summed up as: It was written in the early 90s by a group of predominately white men before the Internet made it way easier to connect to authentic sources of inspiration, writing about a lot of stuff they didn't know anything about, and it getting really cringe really fast as the audience grew and more people of more diverse backgrounds started reading the books and seeing how little a clue the original authors had. Pretty much everyone involved in the early days of the WoD has acknowledged that the setting has rotten foundations that needed to be replaced to escape the really boneheaded shit that seeped in.

------------------

Also, while sure, anyone can in theory pick up a WtA core book and tweak things to their tastes, that doesn't mean WtA is actually designed well for that. When people talk about the CofD being a "toolbox" or it being lighter on setting to be beefier on customization, what they mean is that the CofD games take less work to dial in to be what you want them to be than the WoD games. I don't even need to change anything to run a Forsaken game with a Howling vibe... The Howling is basically just a Bale Hound using a resort to lure in Ghost Wolves and tempt them into darkness before the Forsaken or Pure can get to them first. "Everyone start as a Ghost Wolf, and the premise is you've all gotten in trouble with mortal authorities, and have been given a chance to avoid serious trouble if you agree to go to a week long anger management workshop in an isolated repurposed resort." Boom, The Howling. It's just picking the right char-gen option, with the right antagonist,all of which are already in the books.

Damnation City, a VtR 1e book, is widely recommend for anyone running an urban fantasy game for it's advice on how to build up a city both narratively and mechanically to really take on a life in your game... because it's not example 10 of what a vampire city looks like, but a detailed breakdown of how to go about world building for yourself. Does everyone need it? Not at all. But it's a great book for those that do.

[HeavyWhiskey]

I understand preferring an established setting with everything you need right there but for a lot of people it's the ideas that matter more for many people.

There's currently a game called Fabula Ultima that's hitting gold in drivethrurpg six days ago and it has no setting in it as it's up to the characters and gm to create the setting.

Anybody could use Werewolf books and create their own setting; I know I do. Mine has a little less save the planet and a little more The Howling vibes to it, I've never understood what people have against White Wolf meta-plot (or settings) I always thought of it as a bonus. You can use it if you want. And there were novels you could read just for entertainment.

[reaperfrost8]

That's basically what I mean by 'Meta-Fiction.' I'm not going to talk about the point of what system is "better" because that is reductive to the big point that I'm trying to make of "why do people like WoD and return to it?" We can say 'nostalgia' but, I think that is just wiping the point without actually examining the property.

The second edition of CofD was released in 2013 and before that the first edition of nWoD was 2004 but, still within that close to two decades I have never hear someone be 'nostalgic' for CofD. The only thing I've heard is that it's mechanically better and that it doesn't have the baggage of meta-plot. So then let me ask you this, what characters do you like within CofD? Who do you think is the coolest Werewolf? The most powerful Mage? The Most connected Vampire? I'm not asking because I don't think there isn't any answers it's just that I don't know. The narrative around CofD VS WoD always comes down to "WoD is nostalgic and CofD is a better put together system."

cofd is a toolbox.

Cofd avoided meta fiction it was a tool box whoever was the powerful mage at the time was up to the storyteller and potentially at the end of the game player characters for whatever they wanted.

It's why a lot of people say that wod is nostalgic and cofd had a better system because unlike wod it didn't need to concentrate on the story of the garou, or the awakened or the kindred it needed to be a book about the setting and the tools needed to play in that setting.

And I'd have to agree but not for the same reason (or maybe I don't know the context). CofD was a mistake for not having more life to it. You have these massive great mechanics that are solid storytelling elements are given to you to make your own everything with. How many city/setting books are there? If I don't want to build a city from the ground up, if I don't want to make a chronicle from the ground up, what is there for me to do? You can fault me for not being willing, but I don't want to make everything myself. I like running games but build a chronicle isn't my strongest suit and I use a lot of preprinted material.

It wasn't until this post where I decided to look to see how many city books there was, where I found that there is mention of tons of cities in all across the books. Like check out this description of Detroit.



That sounds like it would be a cool chronicle but, it within the WtF Corebook. Will it have enough things to actually run from the book itself? I doubt it but, again I don't know. I don't know because CofD didn't publish its own Detroit book instead it's a part of the Corebook. The reason they didn't make a Detroit book is because that would be against their stated goals. Is not making printed Setting Books for your property a mistake? I would say so.

That's fair in that there wasn't already an city you could run in but that building aspect was something a lot of people liked, there wasn't enough in the back of core books to provide an entire setting but it provided plot hooks, locations, rumors and what the general groups were like in the area something that people eighter used or ignored.

Combined that with stuff like dark eras which talked about what the various splats we're like during a certain time or region which the whole point was to get people to have creative ideas and use it to there advantage.

I understand preferring an established setting with everything you need right there but for a lot of people it's the ideas that matter more for many people.

There's currently a game called Fabula Ultima that's hitting gold in drivethrurpg six days ago and it has no setting in it as it's up to the characters and gm to create the setting.

As for the last part in regards to wod 20th that's fair. People come into a game all the time finding it cool and interesting.

But when I asked would you prefer a reimagining instead of it continuing from what was said preferred a change or at the very least some change.

I asked that question because the reaction from most forums was because most of these talks haven't really said what they wanted out werewolf thus the question asked.

[ArcaneArts]

This is going to again come off as "I don't like things so I'm going to armchair." But I really want to know just what the mandate is from Paradox when it comes to this. It might be too much to ask for but, why couldn't we just get a 'new' Urban Dark Fantasy Game?

I don't have data so this is all antidotal however, I think one of the reasons people tend to like WoD over CofD is because there is more 'fiction meat' there. I know tons of people that just enjoy reading about WoD and the story of characters. So, I wonder if you took the CofD system (basically make a 3e) but with Paradox have this fund to make more fiction and modules to have this meta-fiction around the property. Would it be more positively received this fictional 'Story of Shadows' or however you want to call it.

I know that I have especially come off as pessimistic but, I do really want to see more stuff and for WoD to succeed as a game line. I just also don't want to be constantly disappointed for daring to hope.

The real heart of the issue is that Chronicles was kind of always set to start off on the wrong foot. World was already seeing declining sales with the turn of the millenium, and for as popular as the extensive fiction of World is nowadays, creatively it was constraining what creators could do with the gamelines at the time, and even fans were feeling more choked by it at the time. Then you have the hammer hit with the post 9/11 economic crash wrecking a lot of the tabletop industry, killing a lot of various companies White Wolf had to do something, and it looked pretty clear to them that keeping the course wasn't the thing to do.

So the environment just wasn't good for games getting press to begin with, finances were thinning, White Wolf had to make a decision in order to survive, and everything was indicating a new product versus continuing an old one was the better way to do that, even at the risk of turning off their fanbase. It honestly didn't matter if Chronicles had committed to being as lore dense as World was or not, it just wasn't going to garner significant aplomb. The entire precedent was set against Chronicles, it was just kind of the wrong time to have to make that decision.

Where this gets frustrating is, for both lines, is that the Tabletop Rennaissance of the 2010's was set to really turn that around-as interest in these sort of games started to swell, Chronicles was really starting to gain traction in the popular consciousness of the hobbysphere with the advent of it's Second Edition, World was taking advantage of nostalgia with their 20th Editions and was turning that into inertia for 5th Edition, and if both had been allowed to continue it's steady grind to growth, both'd probably be fairly big talking points in the community. Paradox's choices tried to jump the gun and ended up choking both franchises out.

The second edition of CofD was released in 2013 and before that the first edition of nWoD was 2004 but, still within that close to two decades I have never hear someone be 'nostalgic' for CofD.

As we're learning with certain franchises, it's hard to be nostalgic for something when it never goes away. People got nostalgic for World because it ended in 2004 and seemed like it was never coming back. People can't get nostalgic for Chronicles because it's been here since then-maybe having lean times, but still generally going.

How many city/setting books are there? If I don't want to build a city from the ground up, if I don't want to make a chronicle from the ground up, what is there for me to do?

Several before Second Edition, and with Second Edition, each core comes with a lot of different ready-to-go settings. Maybe pick one up for yourself and see if those setting feels playable before shitting on them.

[Heavy Arms]

what would people want for W5 game?

So, a somewhat basic opener that probably needs some unpacking:

WtA that feels like it should be using the Storypath system instead of the Storyteller/ing system (I know this is never going to happen practically).

One of the big divides in the older WoD fanbase was the 2e/Rev. split where 2e starting getting much bigger in scale, and then Rev. tried to smoosh everything back to the "good old 1e" days (if this sounds familiar to what WoD5 is doing... think about the fact that Justin was the lead developer of VtM Rev and VtR 1e...).

WtA esp. needs to be a scalable game. It needs to be able to handle personal drama of having a bad fight with your girlfriend while your Rage is trying to boil out, and it needs to handle the war that's the central conflict of the game. It needs to be able to show off the raw power of the Garou in combat, but still have a system that can handle the big serious battle action set pieces in a fun way. It should be a game where tearing through a bunch of fomori lets you feel the visceral violent death machine your character is, but then force you to work (in a fun way) to take down something serious like a small Thunderwyrm.

There's so much stuff in WtA that it needs to be a game with lots of dials to turn up or down so people can play the parts they love how they want to play it with a system that can support that variety.

Would anyone want to continue the history of Werewolf and all it brought or would a re-imagining of it instead?

I'm a believer in the idea that you can find a happy medium here. I've written a bit on it in the past. Essentially, I think the lore/history needs a serious redo and a few things definitely need to be cut out. But I also think you can do that and still have a setting where modern nights still basically feel the same as they do with the old books.

Part of the problem is that WtA's setting and lore and etc. was written to fill in all the gaps the original premise didn't really address, to a convoluted result. The lore is a contradictory mess, unhelped by how much is related in-character by unreliable narrators with a presentation that repeatedly blurs the line between characters talking and authors talking.

WtA needs an edition where the design starts at going back to the foundations, and tells the story of how the Garou to where they are now in a fashion that proactively drives the narrative forward, instead of passively tries to justify why things are the way they are.

Foraken is way stronger about this. I don't want to copy Forsaken's story, but Forsaken's mythology explains a lot of important details to why things are the way they are, and what the PCs are going to be dealing with.

For example, something I've proposed in the past for how to keep the Crinos-born (change the name though) but vastly improve how they come off, and how to play them despite the social stigma: originally they weren't like they are now. Instead of some curse from Gaia for not having sex the right way, have their state be caused by the Garou themselves, with homids and lupus jealous of the Crinos-born's natural status as the most in tune with the spirits, the best bridges between worlds, and thus the natural leaders of the Nation. The hatred directed at them now is not because they're the product of their parents' sins, but because they're constantly reminds of the Nation's sin in bringing them low.

Beside the change in tone? The Perfect [Crinos-Born] storyline can take on an entirely different path: restoring the Crinos-born to their original state and empowering the Garou forces as the final battle looms. The Garou's past sins (however much they're a bit overdone and meme happy now) are mistakes the PCs can try to fix. A divine curse on certain births isn't. People being oppressed can fight back, they can find freedom (those playing them doesn't have to be submitting yourself to a constant barrage of negativity to keep to the setting), and have allies among the oppressor class.

WtA doesn't have to be just about this, but the lore should stop being about beating players down with how much the Garou suck with mistakes that nobody can ever fix. Take these things and make them plots that can meet the grand scope of the game by giving the PCs something to engage with, fight for, and possibly even win a battle that's more than killing some Wyrm minions. This is also still the WoD. We can make sure not to shy away from how fragile such victories are. Freeing the Crinos-born from their thousands of years of spiritual bondage as lesser Garou is not going to magically undo everything overnight. All of those generation of bigotry built up to justify what happened to each generation will linger. Is there time to fix that? Or are all the other horrors of the war against the Wyrm going to push that into the background to fester?

But these sorts of relatively small tweaks can vastly change the tone of the game, and how people engage with the game.

[MrNatas]

Honestly from what I've seen the reason wod has more fans than cofd is brand recognition and nostalgia I at least know a couple people who don't play cofd, admit the system is better but just want something like a Taftani or a Celestial Chorus. I at least know one person who doesn't like requiem gangrel and prefers masquerade and admit they don't know why beyond nostalgia.

That's basically what I mean by 'Meta-Fiction.' I'm not going to talk about the point of what system is "better" because that is reductive to the big point that I'm trying to make of "why do people like WoD and return to it?" We can say 'nostalgia' but, I think that is just wiping the point without actually examining the property.

The second edition of CofD was released in 2013 and before that the first edition of nWoD was 2004 but, still within that close to two decades I have never hear someone be 'nostalgic' for CofD. The only thing I've heard is that it's mechanically better and that it doesn't have the baggage of meta-plot. So then let me ask you this, what characters do you like within CofD? Who do you think is the coolest Werewolf? The most powerful Mage? The Most connected Vampire? I'm not asking because I don't think there isn't any answers it's just that I don't know. The narrative around CofD VS WoD always comes down to "WoD is nostalgic and CofD is a better put together system."

When white wolf was first bought out by paradox the first thing the head said in regards to cofd was that it was a mistake.

And I'd have to agree but not for the same reason (or maybe I don't know the context). CofD was a mistake for not having more life to it. You have these massive great mechanics that are solid storytelling elements are given to you to make your own everything with. How many city/setting books are there? If I don't want to build a city from the ground up, if I don't want to make a chronicle from the ground up, what is there for me to do? You can fault me for not being willing, but I don't want to make everything myself. I like running games but build a chronicle isn't my strongest suit and I use a lot of preprinted material.

It wasn't until this post where I decided to look to see how many city books there was, where I found that there is mention of tons of cities in all across the books. Like check out this description of Detroit.

The Decaying Strength of Industry: A scorched city stalked by Predator Kings, where the surviving Forsaken ally with mortal hunters to push Pure territory back.

That sounds like it would be a cool chronicle but, it within the WtF Corebook. Will it have enough things to actually run from the book itself? I doubt it but, again I don't know. I don't know because CofD didn't publish its own Detroit book instead it's a part of the Corebook. The reason they didn't make a Detroit book is because that would be against their stated goals. Is not making printed Setting Books for your property a mistake? I would say so.

W20 works because it's a nostalgia product something that W5 isn't.

This isn't true, at least not any more true than saying 'they only reason 5e DND works is because it's a nostalgia product while 4e wasn't.' I know this because I started playing WoD with 20th edition, I had no preconceived anything and really enjoyed it. It wasn't nostalgia, it was the game and the world. It was the drama that came with it, not because of some mechanic but just drama because everyone wants to solve a problem but have all kind of ties to all kind of people places and ideas.

In the false dichotomy of "Would anyone want to continue the history of Werewolf and all it brought or would a re-imagining of it instead?" (Which is a very terrible leading question) I would want a continuation because its a setting worth fixing and exploring. But more so than that over everything else I want a game that feels like it's made by people that actually care. 20th felt like it was made by people that actually care, CofD felt like it was made by people that actually care. WoD5 doesn't.

[Gryffon15]

I wanna say that this isn’t meant to thread crap and hopefully it won’t, I’m trying to genuinely reply to Reaperfrost8’s question.

I doubt I’ll pick up W5 and play it instead of W20, since I didn’t pick up V5 and I still use V20. That said I wish all the best on people excited for a fifth edition and hope they get what they want out of it. I’ll still probably do what I do with V5 and scavenge ideas I like from W5 and adjust it for use it in my games.

If I had my way? Honestly I don’t think it would really be reasonable to expect there to be a “perfect 5th edition” for me, because I admit that there are contradictory aspects of the game which I simultaneously like. And, frankly, many of the things I wish were different I feel like would be difficult to adequately pull off this far from 1st and 2nd editions release.

I suppose what I’d ultimately want is something which generally resembles a continuation of W20 style content but with certain crimpings from Chronicles and Scion as well as revision packages and more material in general.

Something I’ve thought would be wonderful for every gamelines is something which Scion 2e did (with the Companion iirc) and some fan products on the STVault do, which is a Companion book full of ‘dials and modules’ for groups and STs to decide how they want to run their games.

Dials would be for certain themes, play styles, and setting levels like how Scion includes dials for things like Masquerade, Power-levels, tone, etc. Modules would basically be something which resembles every metaplot idea ever released outside a core book as optional tags and plot-tracks as well as optional metaplot progressions/developments. It would be useful to have it all listed somewhere and to have some organization to make it easier for an ST to put together a package like “Okay we’re playing with the Week of Nightmares plot track but without the Albrecht-as-King plot line and the Stargazers are still part of the Nation” or what have you.

There are also some things I’d like to see included which I’d call ‘hindsight revisions’. If you don’t want to bother certain stripes of old head too much you can always include something like ‘classic mode’ alternatives in such a companion book.

By revisions I generally mean the sort of things that I personally do in my own headcanons. Things like ‘pack totems are now called spirit patrons, personal totems are now called guides, etc.’, ‘the pure tribes have new names and tribal totems as necessary (ie for Younger Brother)’, etc. I’ve heard too many head canons I like over the years to recall them all now and honestly it gets confused after a while over what ideas are RAW and what are headcanon.

Anyway that was some of my thoughts, hope it helps in some way.

[reaperfrost8]

I asked a question in another forum and I might as well ask it here

what would people want for W5 game?

Would anyone want to continue the history of Werewolf and all it brought or would a re-imagining of it instead?

I personally don't know what I would want but reimagining is something I would like, trying to keep things as is with all the foibles and trying and change them in lore or re-explain them in some context probably wouldn't work. The only reason the game is as, because people acknowledge that it was a product of its time, and trying to update it with all its foibles wouldn't really end well in my opinion.

The second answer I got in regards to reimagining was to literally use forsaken as apocalypse was a product of the 90s the thought of porting to current era doesn't work. W20 works because it's a nostalgia product something that W5 isn't.

[Helur]

Honestly from what I've seen the reason wod has more fans than cofd is brand recognition and nostalgia I at least know a couple people who don't play cofd, admit the system is better but just want something like a Taftani or a Celestial Chorus. I at least know one person who doesn't like requiem gangrel and prefers masquerade and admit they don't know why beyond nostalgia.

There's also another thing to take into account as well and that's the fact the company does not completely acknowledge cofd exists and when it does it's usually out to downplay it. When white wolf was first bought out by paradox the first thing the head said in regards to cofd was that it was a mistake.

Followed up any mention of cofd was met with that same feeling, it really doesn't help that the official servers for wod even after paradox absorbed white wolf still had the rep manager bash the hell out of cofd and had a member muted for 24 hours for even talking about cofd.

And if you were a fan of cofd and you heard and saw this sort of stuff, knowing the fact that actual employees of the product your buying is bashing that product as slowly stopping the product from producing more would you wanna give money to them?

I know several former fans of the line just stop touching white wolf stuff in general after seeing that stuff.

Highly agree.


Also, at the table, I met many new players during the lasto 5 years.
I did a little experiment. I made them play CofD first, than WoD after. To some of them, the opposite.
80% of them preferred, hands down, the CofD. The reason was simple: they were all about being fucking werewolves/vampires/mage 24/7, focused on Kuruth/Beast/Paradox/Hunt/Requiem dramas, feeling the ''big meta'' from WoD too oppressive, like they were supposed to be good enough even as Red Talons or Get (WTA) or fighting a sect war (VTM) at the end of the day, like it was something mandatory.

Example: in the last 1 month and a half, I storytelled 10 sessions of Apocalypse (but truly forsakenized in gameplay and themes, with very bad factions still alive and so on), and I Just finished the third one of Forsaken, storytelled as a urban/western/spiritual horror setted in Dodge City.
My girlfriend in 3 forsaken games (first chronicle for her), already admit to love it as much as apocalypse (but she's a 5 years-experienced wta player, with 2 big main pc), for different reasons.
The other player is new to both game and rpg in general, for now he prefers Apocalypse because of personal feeling, but he feels Forsaken much more ''werewolf'' than apocalypse, but still, he really dislikes apocalypse as it is by the book (more fantasy , as I said, I'm playing it but darker).

Also, when me and my veteran wod/cofd friends talks about the good 'ol ''what will you be in the wod /cofd?'', at the end of the day, we always end up talking only about the CofD. It has less stereotypes, shady morales, terrific realism and more focused concept about the creatures of the night. This says a lot.
In some ways, this intimacy, can't work as big product.
Don't want to be the gatekeeper really, but maybe it's a good thing.


WoD is rebuilt on nostalgia and a commercial need for a metaplot that can transmit modern day messages, in my personal experience here.