Vampire: The Masquerade 5E

It was the infamous (on RPGnet) Chechnya fiction.

Essentially, one writer (which will remain anonymous here-we of RPGnet have our theories, but it's circumstantial) tried to make it so that the genocide of homosexuals there is a cover for vampiric feeding.

This was understandably called out, which led to an infuriating non-apology about how the writing was in-character from a biased source (which is not at all made blatant) and they are so sorry about how we all missed that...

There was actually a minor international incident (albeit from Chechnya's government angry the genocide was portrayed as existing at all) over it, but that was actually after Paradox finally intervened and fired most of the development team. We assume they got fed up as well.

Edited by Leliel on Dec 2nd 2018 at 7:40:35 AM

I thought it was bad editing that caused the Chechnya text to become that way?

Yeah, but we honestly think someone had to write it first, and an editor not catching it just compounded the problem.

Really, it's the non-apology that is why I'm being a bit harsh. Either way, the team needed a shakeup.

The Chechnya thing is one I was deeply involved in, in a Greek chorus sort of way, but I think it's a matter which ended pretty well as the extreme overreaction of the Chechnyan government meant that a tasteless book for RPG nerds became national news. The national news bringing attention to the treatment of homosexuals in the region.

http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/2018/11/white-wolf-chechnya-book-review-and-me.html

But yes, both the Anarch and Camarilla book really caused everyone's buttons to be pushed. Part of the issue being that the books were marketed in a Black Dog Adults Only sort of way despite the fact the previous books were mostly PG-13, including V20.

In a very real way, it was They Changed It, So It Sucks combined with suspicion of any media pandering to the Right (despite being really really Left).

Honestly, I think the Chicago by Night 5E and subsequent works will do a lot to settle matters just because it'll be back to PG-13 Vampire with little political controversy (the Right is attacking it for "too many" Native American and queer characters already, though—which is good news as far as I'm concerned).

http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/2018/12/chicago-by-night-manuscript-review.html

I will say the Chechnya chapter effected things less than people expected since while they folded White Wolf Entertainment into Paradox Interactive, they were always going to do that and the same for stopping production of books after The Camarilla and Anarch Guide (and maybe the Sabbat). So, the only difference is one chapter being removed and a delay in publication. Which is good because the book was full of horrific errors and the 1st person Chechnya chapter was turned into 3rd person omniscient.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Dec 2nd 2018 at 11:33:32 AM

So, we're getting SOME of the reasons the Lasombra defected (well, half of them) to the Camarilla. Please share your thoughts on this. Personally, I think people offended the Lasombra would BETRAY someone are missing the Clan's hat. That's like wondering why the Tremere would do magic or the Malkavians would screw things up.

http://theonyxpath.com/lasombra-chicago-by-night/

Hey, us Malks don't screw things up - we fix things in bizarre and undesired ways.

In fact, thw Malks already now everything is screw so they cant broken anything.

So any information about the bloodlines?.

Honestly, I always figured that the Lasombra would eventually cotton onto the fact that the Antediluvians were just as much in charge of the Sabbat as they were of the Camarilla. And once that happened, things would start to change in regards to Lasombra in the Cam. I never thought a full half of the clan would go Cam (I always thought the roughly 1/3 that similarly went Cam from the Children of Haqim made more sense), but the general contours of the reasoning fit with what I had assumed would be the case.

Also, to some extent, it always struck me as weird that the Cam clans had such a healthy number of antitribu in the Sabbat while the two core Sabbat clans had almost no antitribu in the Camarilla. I like that this is finally being corrected.

Modiphus is now the house developer of V:TM.

The next books will be the V5 Players Guide and the Fall of London module/chronicle.

Then a book about the Second Inquisition.

People are like, "But Mah Sabbat!"

Also the Anarch and Camarilla guides will be taken out of print once everyone who bought a copy gets theirs.

On that last note that does not seem to be the case. The exact wording is that White Wolf won't be selling them, but they have returned for sale on the Mophidius website.

Also they aren't the in-house developer. They are overseeing all licensing and publishing of Vampire 5th Edition products, working with all existing partners with the IP. Interestingly enough from the press release while the White Wolf brand team within Paradox has to approve things they also have to be approved by Mophidius own team as well.

Edited by Shaoken on Dec 21st 2018 at 4:22:31 AM

In fact, Modiphus intends to take them down and rewrite them...again.

https://mobile.twitter.com/ShamsJorjani/status/1076232320074608647

" while the two core Sabbat clans had almost no antitribu in the Camarilla. I like that this is finally being corrected."

For what I get is that lasombra really, really, REALLY hate the ventrue, in fact have ventrue form the sabbat they would have formed the camarilla just to spite them(in fact, the lasombra sound more camarilla than ventrue but that is just me) and the Tzimice make VERY clear they are anti camarilla.

Eh, the Lasombra hate the Camarilla not the Ventrue specifically.

They also hate anyone who they don't control.

And the Tzimisce are....well, they're not into the whole "Humanity" thing.

At all.

For what I see they do hate the ventrue, no like Assamite who hate the Tremere but as arch rival kind of things.

And the Tzmice may very clear the camarilla hiding of humanity for is kinda like someone hidning for a cockroach because there is more fo them, granted the second inquisition is going to change that.

Also I was reading the Tg resume of vampire Im I found this:

"Obtenebration: Sinister shadow-based magic that lets you sneak around, create shadowy tentacles, become a shadow version of yourself and manipulate the shadow-stuff of the Abyss. No, not the one from Demon: The Fallen. Or the one from Werewolf: The Apocalypse. Or the Tempest from Wraith: The Oblivion. There's a LOT of Abysses in the World of Darkness and they're all different, okay? "

I dont know you but that sound funny.

Edited by unknowing on Dec 23rd 2018 at 9:52:35 AM

I get that Lasombra and Ventrue are like oil and water in the general sense. That said, if the Lasombra were so anti-Ventrue that they would never join a group where Ventrue had heavy representation, why would they ever allow Ventrue to join a group that they had heavy control in? Simply put, if Lasombra were that anti-Ventrue, Ventrue antitribu would be almost entirely autarkis, and even the Salubri would have greater presence in the Sabbat.

Not only that, but a clan whose hat is "betrayal and sneakiness" seems a bit odd to have a unified front on, well, just about anything unless said unified front disguised heavy back-biting (which, in this case would manifest as a bunch of Keepers going Cam). I'll grant that one should trust any Lasombra in proportion to how good of a photograph of themselves they can present, but honestly, this is Vampire: the Masquerade. Is there anyone you should trust, period?

As for the Tzimisce, I'll grant that I really wouldn't expect them to support much of the political agenda of the Camarilla (though it might appeal to the more traditional, voivode-style Tzimmies - though it's worth noting that they weren't as a whole the most committed to the Sabbat's policies, either). That said, there is a very ruthless utilitarianism strain running through the clan. There are, admittedly, certain things that a Tzimisce just isn't going to be allowed to do in a Cam city, and a huge host of actions where the Tzimisce in question better be really damned discreet. That said, putting questions of Body Horror aside, what they get up to really isn't that much more drastic of a Masquerade violation than what quite a few elders get into anyway (I have no illusions that those Humanity 3-5 elders running most cities are even remotely genteel). It comes down to a Tzimisce deciding whether the benefits of a Camarilla city outweigh the drawbacks. I'll grant that fewer Tzimmies than Lasombra are going to say "yes" to the Camarilla, but previous canon always suggested that the number who do can be counted on a default number of fingers, and that struck me as radically low.

The only times when I can buy into the "nope, never" line for a clan/bloodline's membership into either the Sabbat or the Camarilla are one of three cases:

1. There's so few that I can buy that the individuals involved wouldn't want to involve themselves with one of the Cam main clans (e.g. Salubri antitribu, The Harbingers of Skulls).
2. Either the Sabbat or the Camarilla have enough direct control where they can just keep them all out (e.g. Blood Brothers for the former, Giovanni for the latter - and as I recall, there's even exactly one canon exception to that who's spying on the Cam for the Giovanni anyway, giving a good argument as to why the Cam says no to the clan outright).
3. There is some supernatural interference that prevents such things from happening (e.g. making all the Tremere antitribu go poof... and given that wasn't a repeat issue, it makes sense that was only a temporary state of affairs).

The people who try and separate all the cosmologies piss me off.

Because Demon: The Fallen made it clear the Abyss in their game was the center of the Labyrinth in Wraith.

They've also made the Lasombra Abyss tied to the underworld in 5e.

Eh, I can respect wanting to divide the cosmologies for three reasons.

One, it's pretty common to see insular groups end up using the same or similar terms for different concepts, some of which may in fact be related. It makes plenty of sense linguistically.

Two, I know plenty of GMs who prefer to separate out different aspects of the WoD to reduce the mingling of different splats, and having the various concepts tied too close together can produce headaches for those people.

Three, it gives plenty of room for a GM to decide on the little details (like, which Abyss is real, which should probably go by a name used for something else, which are deliberate fakes, and so on).

Oh, I'm doing a review of Chicago by Night 5E article by article.

http://forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/main-category/main-forum/the-classic-world-of-darkness/vampire-the-masquerade/1281406-wir-chicago-by-night-5th-edition

^^another nasty side effect of having every world be the same world instead of seperating them by ST fiat to only use ones he wants to use, is the whole "every groups mythology insists their mythology is true and everyone elses is deluded idiots" which lead back in the day to my remembrance, to some rather epic fights between fans of different games of which cosmology was correct

Another problem in the old world is that united diferent games come later, you can see werewolf of vampires were the same as apocalypse and so on.

In general with Mythos I will take apocalypse and asencion with a little bit of fallen throw in it.

Vampire and Demon on my end.

:)

I find weird vampire in how their mythos are so earthbound(no, no that kind of earthbound) that they dont even know about the cosmology of the rest of world.

Also, I kind thinking kupala is a earthbound, and baali serve earthbound as well.

I think, ironically, Werewolf actually answered the "conflicting cosmologies" question about as well as it's possible when you scale up the answer of "which tribe is right about the earliest days?" question with All Myths Are True - they're all correct, because things were just that chaotic back then (this might also be a meta joke about how White Wolf was run in the early days, of course). I feel like there's a joke about Arete 10, Chimestry 10, Arcadia, Oblivion, and a couple other things in there. But in a way, accepting that conflicting information must somehow be true despite the illogic of it all is the only way to not drive yourself batty in how to handle crossover games (even in cases where the players are all one splat, and the other gamelines are just occasional crossovers - which, honestly, typically described my WoD games).

Wow, I remember reading these books in the 90s when I used to play religiously. The Clan Novels and Grail Covenant are now available on ebook. There's plans, it seems, to bring back the old novels for modern audiences.

https://crossroadpress.com/product-category/white-wolf/?fbclid=IwAR1mCkRP3HTKEaUknVM2GVEzzCKblbLZ4CJLmO738RW35TAUco5Oo3GlIts

Most of them had that, like the nature of reality in mage or changeling also had the possibility that every story was true.

But I still prefer the idea that if an ST wants to explore different coosmologies, fine, but they shouldnt be beholden to having to work how the fuck demon cosmology works into their changeling game