Interesting interview with new White Wolf's brand architect

[hyzmarca]

Short answer is that the economic centre of the company will be computer games. Unless something weird happens and people start buying roleplaying books, WoD novels and comics like they were Harry Potter. As things are now tabletop publishing hardly breaks even.

Note, he specified World of Darkness comics, which are likely not going to be 52 titles, 10 of when are Batman or Superman derivatives. It's not fair to compare the entirety of the second biggest comic book publisher in the world to one niche line that's likely going to be published by Darkhorse, Image, Top Cow, or IDW.



What Martin is noting is that the sales of World of Darkness paper products aren't very good of late. But he's pretty much looking at Onyx Path and late era White Wolf numbers to draw that conclusion. And as he notes:

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.

So basically he's looking at the sales of a product line that had failed worse than New Coke and somehow draws the conclusion that there isn't a market for soda. Once you acknowledge that public reception and sales of the NWoD era were worse than even doomsayers like me were saying at the time, you don't really get to point to those sales as evidence that tabletop products barely break even these days. 4th edition D&D and NWoD were really poorly received, but that does not mean that those poor sales numbers are the new normal. It means only that those sales numbers are normal for an edition that nobody likes.

True. But that quote was about how they'll be ignoring their nWoD IP because it has shit popularity and isn't worth developing.

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.

I... have no idea what he thinks this means. While he is correct that Exalted was the beginning of the end of the company and that all of the "Exalted Tie-In" books like Mummy: the Resurrection were shit that nobody liked, that's not what "Urban Fantasy" means. I feel like there might even be a language barrier issue here, because Urban Fantasy is the name of a genre that Vampire: the Masquerade has always been solidly inside of. Contemporary settings with real-world locations and supernatural elements are Urban Fantasy by definition. The only way to make World of Darkness stop being Urban Fantasy is to set it on Tatooine or Athas.

Well, generally, you don't classify Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th as Urban Fantasy, even though they are. There's an emotional difference, there. Urban Fantasy is about wonder and empowerment. Horror is supposed to terrify you. In other words, he's pretty much railing against Vampions there. Which is wrong, but it's a different kind of wrong.

[Username17]

One interesting thing I noticed is that Martin Ericsson claims to be a fan of Wraith, Hunter, and NWoD. That's fascinating because those are the things that were noted for having awful sales numbers and having their lines cut down. So either they put a guy in charge of the intellectual property who really likes the shit that fucking nobody likes, or the new company has decided that for messaging purposes they should claim to be fans of really poor selling stuff so that people couldn't claim to be truer, more hipsterish fans.

-Username17

[Longes]

It's worth noting that an awful lot of people claim to be fans of Wraith, even if they'll refuse to actually play Wraith under any circumstances.

[Whipstitch]

It is kinda funny how many times I've read reviewers use terms of reverence for how creative and edgy the Shadow mechanic is even though they almost invariably admit that apparently nobody is up to that shit.

[Judging__Eagle]

It is kinda funny how many times I've read reviewers use terms of reverence for how creative and edgy the Shadow mechanic is even though they almost invariably admit that apparently nobody is up to that shit.

It's mechanic "Harrowing" is player admittedly an accurate description. Roleplaying through the "harrowing" is harrowing for the players themselves. Which means that the mechanic ostensibly works, but also that going through with it is not most people's idea of "fun times". Admittedly; this is something that the Scandinavian RPG and Larp scene would probably lap right up.

[FatR]

It's worth noting that an awful lot of people claim to be fans of Wraith, even if they'll refuse to actually play Wraith under any circumstances.

Wraith is a game that people like to read but do not play.

I have a love-hate relationship with oWoD's Hunter. I played some of both my best and worst games ever in it. I'd say that it is primarily suitable for one-shots about random people suddenly thrust into the unfamiliar world of supernatural monsters, while most people have expectations of vampire hunters being hardened professionals beating unnaturally tougher beings thanks to their enciclopedic knowledge of supernatural and a lot of big guns/explosives.

nWoD's Hunter is perhaps the only saving grace of nWoD.

[Starmaker]

Well, generally, you don't classify Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th as Urban Fantasy, even though they are. There's an emotional difference, there. Urban Fantasy is about wonder and empowerment. Horror is supposed to terrify you. In other words, he's pretty much railing against Vampions there. Which is wrong, but it's a different kind of wrong.

Urban Fantasy implies a monster society. Like so:

Horror	Urban Fantasy
Solitary monsters	Monster societies
Steves	Monster classes
Normal protagonists	Supernatural protagonists
Artifacts	Magic items
Serendipity	Preparation
Mysteries	Facts

Collaborative cooperative (party-based) storytelling games naturally lean toward urban fantasy.

[Username17]

Whether people played it or not, the real problem is that people did not buy Wraith books. It was a very niche product and few people wanted to actually own the books. But the company didn't realize that, and printed a lot of books like they had another Werewolf on their hands. Back in the 90s, White Wolf made oblique references to having stacks of unsold Wraith books. Wraith the Oblivion was such a disaster for them that they officially ended the line years before they went about blowing up the World of Darkness. They even went all weird and tried to reboot it as a scifi-horror setting with Orpheus because there just weren't any Wraith fans to alienate by shitting all over the lore.

It's kindof like if someone asked what your favorite Star Wars movie was and you said "Caravan of Courage." Either Mr. Ericsson is a crazed hipster whose tastes are totally outside the mainstream, or he's deliberately positioning himself as being a fan of the most obscure White Wolf products to deflect accusations that he isn't a legit fan.

-Username17

[Dogbert]

These are official but set in the same nebulous ”eternal nineties”, using the old-school buckets-of-dice-system featured in the original lines.

The fact they're no longer using buckets of dice fills me with hope already. Also, since they design videogames, that tells me their math skills don't suck at least. I just hope they're not they're not the kind of engineers that produce functional and efficient but poorly documented and incomprehensible systems.

[Prak]

I'll miss dice pools, but as long as their minor tabletop stuff is playable, I'll manage, I think.

[Mechalich]

I just hope they're not they're not the kind of engineers that produce functional and efficient but poorly documented and incomprehensible systems.

Paradox Interactive produces the Europa Universalis series of computer games, which is probably the definition of 'functional and efficient but poorly documented and incomprehensible.' I bought EUIII off Steam when it was on sale for like $5.99 and it took about fifteen hours of effort and a fair amount of googling to figure how to effectively play the game. So that's a cause for worry.

[hyzmarca]

I just hope they're not they're not the kind of engineers that produce functional and efficient but poorly documented and incomprehensible systems.

Paradox Interactive produces the Europa Universalis series of computer games, which is probably the definition of 'functional and efficient but poorly documented and incomprehensible.' I bought EUIII off Steam when it was on sale for like $5.99 and it took about fifteen hours of effort and a fair amount of googling to figure how to effectively play the game. So that's a cause for worry.

Just try getting the Aztecs to conquer all of Europe in EUIV. That shit is hard.

Anyway, Paradox has mastered the art of the DLC.

Crusader Kings II retails for $40. Crusader Kings II with all of the current expansions retails for $160. And they're still making more.

That being said, I suspect they're not going to put their game designers on RPG duty. They'll probably focus their efforts on video games.

[Mord]

Paradox Development Studio made its bones re-releasing the same game over and over again with different coats of paint. Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron, Victoria, Crusader Kings, Sengoku, March of the Eagles - these are all the same thing running on the same engines. If Paradox Development Studio were going to be making the new Vampire game, it would have a learning curve approaching verticality and would end up being effectively a vampire skin for Crusader Kings II.

That said, Paradox Interactive is more than just its in-house studio. It also publishes a whole lot of other crap, some of which is well-regarded, and at the very least completely distinct from the "Grand Strategy" that they do in-house (Mount & Blade, Pillars of Eternity, Cities in Motion, Magicka, Majesty).

Paradox Interactive being the financier for the new White Wolf isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as they don't transplant the Paradox Development Studio ethos to NWW. Best-case scenario, they hire all new guys, including an experienced game director who's worked in other genres. Brendan McNamara, the guy who wrote and directed L.A. Noire, might be a good candidate to helm a new VTM game project.

[magnuskn]

I'll be honest, the idea that they are continueing the metaplot of the OWoD after the different end times scenarios have come to pass is kinda interesting.

[Schleiermacher]

More grist for the mill.

Including lots of talk about VtR -the dismissive comments in the previous interview apparently provoked some backlash.

[Mord]

More grist for the mill.

Including lots of talk about VtR -the dismissive comments in the previous interview apparently provoked some backlash.

I bet all 3000 VtR fans were positively up in arms.

[Username17]

Martin Ericsson continues to not know what words mean.

It would require a pretty massive design-effort to make WoD an escapist game. One of it’s strengths is how the mythology is made believable and compelling by constant linking to real-world events, places, mythology and themes. Supernatural involvement in the real world, paired with a punk desire to cry out against injustice, is what makes WoD different from the deluge of urban fantasy we’ve seen the last decade. It’s also what set’s it apart from it’s Anne-Rice / Lost Boys inspirations. Anyone that wants to play WoD as a pure modern fantasy-setting is welcome to do so, and there will be plenty of dark epic in the products to come, but we respectfully disagree that escapism is a core feature of the setting.

All language is a personal construct patterned on social experience. When I say a word I produce something which means something to me based on my experience and when I hear a word I gain understanding based on my experiences. Communication is only possible between another person and myself because our experiences are similar enough that the understanding I have built of a word is similar enough to theirs that we can both call our necessarily distinct private languages "English." And yet, when Martin Ericsson says words about genre and literary theory I am forced to conclude that no communication is taking place. His declarations are so a priori wrong that his statements fail the Turing Test. This paragraph cannot be parsed into meaning using the personal language called English that I, or any living human I have ever met, uses.

The only possibilities are that Martin Ericsson is speaking a private language that has grown in a context utterly isolated from the modern English speakers of Earth, or that he is a malfunctioning robot like Marco Rubio. There really isn't a way for that word salad to have been created by a sapient human that had been exposed to communicative language as I understand it.

-Username17

[hyzmarca]

Martin Ericsson continues to not know what words mean.

It would require a pretty massive design-effort to make WoD an escapist game. One of it’s strengths is how the mythology is made believable and compelling by constant linking to real-world events, places, mythology and themes. Supernatural involvement in the real world, paired with a punk desire to cry out against injustice, is what makes WoD different from the deluge of urban fantasy we’ve seen the last decade. It’s also what set’s it apart from it’s Anne-Rice / Lost Boys inspirations. Anyone that wants to play WoD as a pure modern fantasy-setting is welcome to do so, and there will be plenty of dark epic in the products to come, but we respectfully disagree that escapism is a core feature of the setting.

All language is a personal construct patterned on social experience. When I say a word I produce something which means something to me based on my experience and when I hear a word I gain understanding based on my experiences. Communication is only possible between another person and myself because our experiences are similar enough that the understanding I have built of a word is similar enough to theirs that we can both call our necessarily distinct private languages "English." And yet, when Martin Ericsson says words about genre and literary theory I am forced to conclude that no communication is taking place. His declarations are so a priori wrong that his statements fail the Turing Test. This paragraph cannot be parsed into meaning using the personal language called English that I, or any living human I have ever met, uses.

The only possibilities are that Martin Ericsson is speaking a private language that has grown in a context utterly isolated from the modern English speakers of Earth, or that he is a malfunctioning robot like Marco Rubio. There really isn't a way for that word salad to have been created by a sapient human that had been exposed to communicative language as I understand it.

-Username17

I think I can parse what he's saying. I parse it as "vampires vs ISIS" but I parse it. He's talking about downplaying conflicts that are completely divorced from the real world. I mean, in Queen of the Damned Akasha is a decent threat, but she is in no way connected to the real world. She's just an ancient vampire queen who set a bunch of vampires on fire and no one freaking noticed because Anne Rice's vampires are pretty much divorced from human civilization. A lot of urban fantasy tends to avoid delving into politics, even when the politics of the author are extremely obvious. Which is what he means by escapism in this context.

So we can expect to see fewer scenarios with wholly alien antagonists and more scenarios based on current news and politics, such as the Sabbat sponsoring ISIS.

And yes, Ted Cruz might actually be the zodiac killer. And your coterie/pack/whatever might have to kill him.

[Mechalich]

I think, based mostly on the question he was responding to, is that the intent of that word-salad was that you will not be allowed to change the world. Particularly, that the metaplot will be reactive to real-world events and not produce some kind of alternate history through the actions of supernaturals.

EDIT: Ninja'd

[MGuy]

So... I don't get it. What does he think the words "Escapist" or "Supernatural" or "Urban Fantasy" mean? How the fuck is he going to make something with WoD that's not Anne-Rice-esque right after describing it that way? I don't understand...

[Mask_De_H]

Martin Ericsson continues to not know what words mean.

It would require a pretty massive design-effort to make WoD an escapist game. One of it’s strengths is how the mythology is made believable and compelling by constant linking to real-world events, places, mythology and themes. Supernatural involvement in the real world, paired with a punk desire to cry out against injustice, is what makes WoD different from the deluge of urban fantasy we’ve seen the last decade. It’s also what set’s it apart from it’s Anne-Rice / Lost Boys inspirations. Anyone that wants to play WoD as a pure modern fantasy-setting is welcome to do so, and there will be plenty of dark epic in the products to come, but we respectfully disagree that escapism is a core feature of the setting.

All language is a personal construct patterned on social experience. When I say a word I produce something which means something to me based on my experience and when I hear a word I gain understanding based on my experiences. Communication is only possible between another person and myself because our experiences are similar enough that the understanding I have built of a word is similar enough to theirs that we can both call our necessarily distinct private languages "English." And yet, when Martin Ericsson says words about genre and literary theory I am forced to conclude that no communication is taking place. His declarations are so a priori wrong that his statements fail the Turing Test. This paragraph cannot be parsed into meaning using the personal language called English that I, or any living human I have ever met, uses.

The only possibilities are that Martin Ericsson is speaking a private language that has grown in a context utterly isolated from the modern English speakers of Earth, or that he is a malfunctioning robot like Marco Rubio. There really isn't a way for that word salad to have been created by a sapient human that had been exposed to communicative language as I understand it.

-Username17

It's the first definitely: he's using marketing speak which resembles English, but has its own subtextual jargon. That subtext is basically meant to mean whatever the fuck the reader wants it to mean while expressing certain gut concepts: here they seem to be "WoD is serious goffic horror and we're going to be Tru goths who totally aren't ripping off disposable vampire fiction old enough to star in porn. Also, fuck Vampions." This doesn't mean he isn't a robot though.

MGuy: through fast talking bullshit and playing to the innate pretentiousness of WW fans. All of those are weasel words for badwrongfun, basically.

[hyzmarca]

here they seem to be "WoD is serious goffic horror and we're going to be Tru goths who totally aren't ripping off disposable vampire fiction old enough to star in porn. Also, fuck Vampions."

Actually, I read the opposite. They seem to be not outright dismissing the Goth subculture, but saying that Vampire has never actually had much to do with it, and isn't going to. That is to say, Goths latched onto vampire, but the people who actually wrote Vampire probably didn't even know that Goths existed and Paradox isn't planning on reworking the entire line just to revolve around one subculture. They put in a great deal of effort to say that they're not excluding goths, but... they don't want to just make the goth RPG. They want to make something with broad appeal.

To that end, getting away from the "trench coat and katana" asetetic was mentioned as a way that Revised tried to appeal to Goths. And is presumably something that they're not going to do. They're embracing the "punk desire to cry out against injustice" and are describing the style as "gothic noir." You know, noir being the genre that's full of detectives in trench coats. Then he says that "Theo Bell will not save the day this time. Your character will. "

In other words. Vampions is actually probably what they're going for.

[Mask_De_H]

Those subcultures are bastard children of Goth, which is a bastard child of Punk. All the market speak was saying the old stuff isn't cool anymore, thus it isn't real anymore, unless it's an "acceptable" throwback. And "trench coats and katanas" is old goth as fuck, which means it's 90s as fuck, which means it's old and busted.

It's marketingspeak filtered through subculture speak. But this is the point: he's saying nothing and prejudices fill in the gaps so it seems like he's saying something you may or may not agree with.

[Dogbert]

Here in México, we have a name for that last thing Martin did... cantinflear (using a lot of words to say absolutely nothing). Still...

What I am really excited about is how we could possibly do more than forums and without promising anything I can say we defiantly are exploring more cool aspects of online community functionality.

What does this even mean? A social app? A new social network? Fangstagram?

[Username17]

Those subcultures are bastard children of Goth, which is a bastard child of Punk. All the market speak was saying the old stuff isn't cool anymore, thus it isn't real anymore, unless it's an "acceptable" throwback. And "trench coats and katanas" is old goth as fuck, which means it's 90s as fuck, which means it's old and busted.

It's marketingspeak filtered through subculture speak. But this is the point: he's saying nothing and prejudices fill in the gaps so it seems like he's saying something you may or may not agree with.

He very much isn't condemning trenchcoats and katanas. I chose the piece I did because of its high WTF quotient. I mean, he's saying that it would be hard to make WoD into escapism despite the fact that it's a role playing game and escapist by definition if it contains at least one exotic, supernatural, or empowering conceit. He's saying that World of Darkness is distinct from Urban Fantasy because it contains real world elements and supernatural elements, despite that being literally the definition of Urban Fantasy. Really what he's saying is that he has no idea what the words that people use to describe the genre mean and that he nonetheless feels entitled to string them together in an essentially random order and smugly act as if he had just delivered meaning-containing sentences.

But as for trenchcoats and katanas, he actually addresses that specifically:

Two conclusions: 1) Gothic vampire stories rely on verisimilitude to work. Dracula, Varney and Carmilla are full of believable mundane details and are framed as true narratives for a reason. 2) Kindred in VTM very seldom belong to the Goth subculture and the ”Goth-Punk” aesthetics rarely enter the text in a meaningful manner. It’s more ”modern noir” if you look at it as written. Revised waged a minor war against ”trenchcoats and katanas”. The Goth in vampire is very much something the players bring in from other sources. Can we imagine vampires hunting the remnants of the goth-scene? Absolutely. Is goth the only and global vampire fashion trend in WoD? No. Never has been. But fear not, lovers of black fishnet, right now 90’s fashion is big and there are a lot of really cool dark subcultures out there for the kindred to attach themselves to, control and suck dry. Is WoD an alternate universe? Yes. Monsters are not real and the world is all in all a pretty nice place. That is not the angle we look at it when we write WoD though. Then we seek out the most fascinating, terrifying and darkly beautiful places and phenomenon and make them part of the setting. That’s our take on Gothic Punk. Just like any fictional work the WoD games take place in a fictional version of reality. And a world of sweat pants and reversed baseball caps is nothing to aim for neither in actual or fictional reality.

Which is pretty much just gibberish. But to the extent that he says anything at all it is that they want to avoid alienating fans who come from or want to associate with different cultural subgroups. And he specifically calls out the trenchcoats and katanas people as something that was fought against in the past. He's deliberately vague on that point, but it certainly sounds like he's distancing himself from the idea that the vampions people are badwrongfun.

But of course he is quite explicit that some things are badwrongfun, it's just that as previously mentioned he has no idea what words mean. So his description of what is, in his opinion, the wrong way to play Vampire, is "A and not A."

-Username17