GRcade

Tragic Magic wrote:Anyone gonna buy Vampire The Masquerade 5th Edition? We watched the World of Darkness documentary tonight and now my wife is Googling "Vampire LARPs in England". Not something I've ever done but I wouldn't say no to giving it a go.

So is it safe to say that the 5th Edition of Vampire is going to be another reboot like Vampire the Requiem was?

Nope.

Do you believe Paradox Interactive will do a good job with the new series?

Nope.

For some reason #Paradox wants to continue with the original setting, yet doesn't seem to understand what made it so successful. And instead of leveraging the assets they paid for they've decided to reinvent the wheel. Finally there's how they handled criticism over pedophile vampires, use of the word '#Triggered', #HungerDice compelling characters to 'sexual assault', and the hiring of #ZakSmith, which does not bode well for how they'll handle any of the other controversial material they want to include.

So to say I have my doubts is an understatement.

Tafdolphin wrote:Sorry my dude

Tragic Magic wrote:I'm pretty far into Vampire 5e's rule book now and I do not understand the complaints one iota.

Paradox Interactive have announced that they’re fully integrating tabletop RPG developers White Wolf after they used the suffering of Chechnya’s LGBTQ+ population as set-dressing “in a crude and disrespectful way” in Vampire: The Masquerade. White Wolf will receive new leadership and continue to “develop the guiding principles for its vision of the World of Darkness,” but will “no longer develop and publish these products internally.”

The rest of this post contains discussion of violent homophobia and transphobia, both real and fictional.

Paradox Interactive’s statement comes from its VP of business development, Shams Jorjani, who’s currently also acting as the interim manager at White Wolf. He states that the changes are part of “a process that has been ongoing since September,” and have “always been the intended goal for White Wolf as a company,” but the immediacy of their effect is clearly down to paragraphs included in the upcoming V5 Camarilla handbook that reference the persecution of LGBTQ+ people in the Russian republic of Chechnya.

Reports, including graphic testimonies, say that Chechnya has arrested and tortured hundreds of LGBTQ+ people, and killed at least three. Chechen officials, on the other hand, claim that these international media reports are false, because “you cannot arrest or repress people who just don’t exist in the republic.”

The Camarilla handbook, which has now been delayed by approximately three weeks so that these sections can be edited out, explained that Chechnya is run by vampires, and described the atrocities as “a clever media manipulation.” It reads: “While homosexuals are indeed held in detention facilities for days, and humiliated, starved, tortured, and eventually fed upon and killed, this is not the point. The point is to distract from the truth of what Chechnya has become.”

In other words, the real-world imprisonment, torture, and murder of LGBTQ+ people is presented as secondary to the political goals of fictional monsters, simultaneously downplaying the human tragedy and erasing much of its context.

Peter Crisp wrote:I may be wrong but I don't think 5th edition has noneweapon proficiency's which seems like an awful shame as I felt they added flavour to a character.
It seems like an odd omission to me but it has been decades since I played the game so I could be wrong.

Outrunner wrote:I'm looking at GMing for the first time in almost 20 years. It'll be mostly to give my brother a break from running his D&D campaign. Any suggestions for games to run? I'd rather not do D&D. I had been looking at GURPS (my game of choice back in the day) but I'm aware the rules can seem daunting for new/casual players. I'm thinking maybe a sci-fi space opera game or a pseudo Japanese fantasy game.