As predicted by somebody (lol) shit hit the fan again

www.white-wolf.com/newsblog/a-message-from-white-wolf

"In practical terms, White Wolf will no longer function as a separate entity. The White Wolf team will be restructured and integrated directly into Paradox Interactive, and I will be temporarily managing things during this process. We are recruiting new leadership to guide White Wolf both creatively and commercially into the future, a process that has been ongoing since September."

I don't understand of you are happy for this, and why....

I'm actually happy about this news. Good riddance to whoever thought the Chechnya debacle in V5 was a good idea (this is what that blog post is really about). Previous versions of the source material always made it clear that any real-world historical events, or at least recent ones, associated with crimes and atrocities were wholly human endeavors that only tangentially fit into the game world (or at least I ignored anything that was not treated this way). I can understand being "edgy" to garner buzz, but actively "re-writing" such historical events into the game world such as V5 did was a curious (and in my opinion, wrong) decision. It's like whoever was in charge of marketing V5 was like, "Hey, Twitter is a thing, let's include polarizing real-world issues so people will discuss our game about vampires that hasn't been relevant in 20 years!" How about you're fired, dummy.

I really hope VTES just ignores V5 for the time being until things get straightened out. I cannot stress how much I don't want a crypt card of vampire Joseph Goebbels, the leader of the Brujah skin-heads, which was direction V5 was heading in...

There is nothing wrong with being edgy AF. Even for sake of being edgy. To be fair, i didn't ready v5, but entire world is one class lower, so for example european countries like Poland are on the Ukraine level (war torn country, massive corruption, murders, looters), and Germany is on Poland level (corrupt politician, poor standard of living, 1/4 real world wages). Which means that rewritting history isn't that unlikely especially that Chechenia up to this day have rl insurgency problems and wahhabi-sponsored terrorism. What this debacle is about btw?

Wait;

The dedicated like 10+ pages to Politically Correct "Consider everyone's hippy feelings and butthurtness" in the core book and then let some asshat cut in some real uncouth material that's as insensitive as making jokes over a day old genocide?
We totally could've gotten like 3 more metaplot chapters instead of both the PC dribble and the chapter of bad idea.

Thank you Paradox for catching this and acting appropriately.

TwoRazorReign wrote:

I really hope VTES just ignores V5 for the time being until things get straightened out. I cannot stress how much I don't want a crypt card of vampire Joseph Goebbels, the leader of the Brujah skin-heads, which was direction V5 was heading in...

Given that we're a licensed partner, we're not in a position to simply ignore V5. That said, it's not like we're making Chechen Death Camp cards, nor are we being asked to (of course). I'm personally committed to inclusivity and diversity, as well as handling subject matter respectfully and professionally. My interactions with White Wolf have been consistent with that on both sides.

As for what the changes in V5 mean for V:TES, we're still sorting that out with White Wolf. Questions I have for White Wolf include:

- What is the proper way to represent the Banu Haqim and The Ministry in V:TES? This includes what to do about Quietus and Serpentis.

- Should the Brujah and Gangrel be considered officially out of the Camarilla and officially in the Anarchs with respect to V:TES? Should we simply drop the default sect rule?

- Relatedly, do we pull Brujah and Gangrel from the V5-Camarilla-themed boxed set we're developing? Do we add in the Banu Haqim? And if so, what's our roadmap for continued development of the Banu Haqim?

- If Obtenebration and Necromancy are merging with each other into a new discipline called Oblivion (in the upcoming Chicago By Night book), what does that mean for the Lasombra and Giovanni in V:TES? Should both have Potence, Dominate, and Oblivion as in-clan disciplines?

- Should we merge the Sabbat clans back in with their Camarilla counterparts? If so, why should we split the Banu Haqim off from the Assamites?

- Are we required/strongly encouraged to make cards for the signature characters in V5? If so, what structure do we need to put in place to accommodate this? (As in, what do we do about Theo Bell, Tegyrius, etc.)

We were working on having a meeting with White Wolf about it all this past week, but given the present situation, it's understandable that we'll have to push that meeting back. As it stands, projects we're currently working on are continuing as normal.