Quote from: pawsplay on November 26, 2023, 12:07:07 AM
I honestly don't know how Vampire: The Masquerade keeps digging itself out of the dirt, when Vampire: The Requiem is twice the game it is. Better balance, smoother mechanics, better vampires, more customizable lore, and without a lot of the cringey stereotypes. Just a better game.

Because the fans are overgrown children and deranged cultists who refuse to move on and make their own games when it's increasingly obvious that this rotting IP has moved on without them?

They throw childish tantrums almost every single time there's a new edition. When V3 came out, they threw tantrums. VtR? Tantrums. V5? Tantrums, again.

But rather than being mature about this and making their own damn games, they continuously throw tantrums with the expectation that the devs will cave in. Which never happens. V20 was a fluke that only happened because CCP bought the company so they could mine it for their MMO and didn't really care about the PnP (as shown when they finally dissolved the original White Wolf company), then got axed by Paradox when they bought the IP and wanted to make a Bloodlines franchise because it got good Steam sales.

Over on itch.io there's a "demake" of Bloodlines called Bloodlust: Santa Monica. The creator had to change the names for legal reasons, but continues working on it. He could easily make an original game and sell it, but prefers to make fanfiction. Same for the remake of Redemption in Skyrim. I don't understand how someone could be so dedicated to their work and yet so selectively uncreative and lacking in ambition. Why do you need so badly to write this fanfiction when you could make your own game and profit from it? I can understand making rule34 of the characters, but a video game requires vastly more effort than a handful of art pieces.

I really hope that the recent Bloodlines 2 disaster finally shocks these people out of their cultish obsession, because I really want to see new urban fantasy games that don't suck.

Quote from: pawsplay on November 26, 2023, 12:07:07 AM
I honestly don't know how Vampire: The Masquerade keeps digging itself out of the dirt, when Vampire: The Requiem is twice the game it is. Better balance, smoother mechanics, better vampires, more customizable lore, and without a lot of the cringey stereotypes. Just a better game.

Bollocks! The Requiem is a s twee as fuck.

Quote from: mudbanks on January 14, 2023, 10:06:48 AM
Looking for a good alternative to VTM. In particular, I want something that isn't very rules-heavy, and it must be vampire-themed (so no generic systems). Any recommendations?

<jumps on to soap box>

You do know that because it's a generic system doesn't mean that you don't take the time to make it fit your vision for the setting, right?

</jumps off the soap box>

I don't have an alternative without wondering what it is about the setting that you're after. Without that, I guess I'm treading the grounds of others with this suggestion.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on November 26, 2023, 11:47:39 AM
Because the fans are overgrown children and deranged cultists who refuse to move on and make their own games when it's increasingly obvious that this rotting IP has moved on without them?

   Are we talking about WoD or D&D here?

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on November 26, 2023, 07:04:40 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on November 26, 2023, 11:47:39 AM
Because the fans are overgrown children and deranged cultists who refuse to move on and make their own games when it's increasingly obvious that this rotting IP has moved on without them?

   Are we talking about WoD or D&D here?

Many?

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on November 26, 2023, 06:28:26 PM

Quote from: pawsplay on November 26, 2023, 12:07:07 AM
I honestly don't know how Vampire: The Masquerade keeps digging itself out of the dirt, when Vampire: The Requiem is twice the game it is. Better balance, smoother mechanics, better vampires, more customizable lore, and without a lot of the cringey stereotypes. Just a better game.

Bollocks! The Requiem is a s twee as fuck.

Oh totally. The fans are extremely OCD and anal-retentive about the miniscule differences between the two, but these are fundamentally the same game. It's still written pretentious af.

Quote from: Kage2020 on November 26, 2023, 06:41:49 PM

Quote from: mudbanks on January 14, 2023, 10:06:48 AM
Looking for a good alternative to VTM. In particular, I want something that isn't very rules-heavy, and it must be vampire-themed (so no generic systems). Any recommendations?

<jumps on to soap box>

You do know that because it's a generic system doesn't mean that you don't take the time to make it fit your vision for the setting, right?

</jumps off the soap box>

I don't have an alternative without wondering what it is about the setting that you're after. Without that, I guess I'm treading the grounds of others with this suggestion.

To be far, specialized systems are always more efficient than generic systems. For example, if you want a game about vampires but don't want it to be married to an existing lore or want to emulate a specific work that doesn't have an rpg, both Feed and Vampire City present specialized tools for inventing your own takes on vampirism.

Quote from: Kage2020 on November 26, 2023, 07:07:53 PM

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on November 26, 2023, 07:04:40 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on November 26, 2023, 11:47:39 AM
Because the fans are overgrown children and deranged cultists who refuse to move on and make their own games when it's increasingly obvious that this rotting IP has moved on without them?

   Are we talking about WoD or D&D here?

Many?

This seems to be the case for lots of ttrpgs lately. I find it very frustrating. There's tons of cool out of print ttrpgs but people are afraid to get invested because they're not actively supported and copyright law prevents fans from reviving them. I haven't found many retroclones or spiritual successors, and those I have found don't feel even a fraction as passionate. Current ttrpgs just feel like a pale shadow of the glory days in the 80s, 90s and even 2000s.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on November 27, 2023, 09:36:15 AM
This seems to be the case for lots of ttrpgs lately. I find it very frustrating. There's tons of cool out of print ttrpgs but people are afraid to get invested because they're not actively supported and copyright law prevents fans from reviving them. I haven't found many retroclones or spiritual successors, and those I have found don't feel even a fraction as passionate. Current ttrpgs just feel like a pale shadow of the glory days in the 80s, 90s and even 2000s.

    It's puzzling because so many of the older games are more readily available than they've ever been. Some have fallen through the cracks in part or whole, due to rights issues of one sort or another, but those seem to be the exception rather than the rule.

   I think it's largely because:

    a) The fanbase for many of those older games is aging out without fostering a new generation of players;
    b) Unlike the more heterogenous hobby of the past, where D&D was big but people were aware of alternatives, and even TSR/WotC was looking to cover other areas of the hobby, 5E seems to have achieved a suffocating dominance over the new audience, to the point that people are licensing or converting to it at a rate that even exceeds the d20 Boom.

I don't think D&D is suffocating other games, I think D&D has simply gotten so very, very big. Vampire: The Masquerade may be a smaller class, but it has a similarly robust fan base; what other game could pump out a new edition, a competing alternative game, an anniversary edition, and an entirely new edition all within such a short period of time, and sell a fraction of it? There's a huge fan base out there, the challenge is to persuade them to unite around one version of the game.

Quote from: pawsplay on November 29, 2023, 12:24:06 AM
I don't think D&D is suffocating other games, I think D&D has simply gotten so very, very big. Vampire: The Masquerade may be a smaller class, but it has a similarly robust fan base; what other game could pump out a new edition, a competing alternative game, an anniversary edition, and an entirely new edition all within such a short period of time, and sell a fraction of it? There's a huge fan base out there, the challenge is to persuade them to unite around one version of the game.

Such a short time? The new edition (Revised) was c. 1998, the competing alternative was c. 2003, the anniversary edition was 2011, and V5 was 2015 (and has only managed to scrape a W5 together this year... vs. coming just a year after the new editions of Vampire in all previous instances... and M5 isn't even a glimmer in someone's eye but at the rate they're going might be out in time for V5's 20th anniversary edition).

That's nearly three decades overall with an ever slower and more anemic release schedule because, even among its generally lefty audience everyone thinks the new woke direction is trash (seriously, they made W5 into a game where you're punished for going Crinos and any effort to confront or stop the establishment is wrong... you're just supposed to angst about the inability to confront the evils of the world).

That's "a short time" and an arc of success to you?

QuoteThat's nearly three decades overall with an ever slower and more anemic release schedule because, even among its generally lefty audience everyone thinks the new woke direction is trash (seriously, they made W5 into a game where you're punished for going Crinos and any effort to confront or stop the establishment is wrong... you're just supposed to angst about the inability to confront the evils of the world).

That's interesting twist I have to admit, even with modern age of woke I did not expected them gelding werewolves that much.
Getting rid of Get of Fenris or Red Talons, sure I can take it - but - no fight with industrialists... wow that's somehow worse than woke.

Quote from: Chris24601 on November 29, 2023, 10:45:46 AM

Quote from: pawsplay on November 29, 2023, 12:24:06 AM
I don't think D&D is suffocating other games, I think D&D has simply gotten so very, very big. Vampire: The Masquerade may be a smaller class, but it has a similarly robust fan base; what other game could pump out a new edition, a competing alternative game, an anniversary edition, and an entirely new edition all within such a short period of time, and sell a fraction of it? There's a huge fan base out there, the challenge is to persuade them to unite around one version of the game.

Such a short time? The new edition (Revised) was c. 1998, the competing alternative was c. 2003, the anniversary edition was 2011, and V5 was 2015 (and has only managed to scrape a W5 together this year... vs. coming just a year after the new editions of Vampire in all previous instances... and M5 isn't even a glimmer in someone's eye but at the rate they're going might be out in time for V5's 20th anniversary edition).

That's nearly three decades overall with an ever slower and more anemic release schedule because, even among its generally lefty audience everyone thinks the new woke direction is trash (seriously, they made W5 into a game where you're punished for going Crinos and any effort to confront or stop the establishment is wrong... you're just supposed to angst about the inability to confront the evils of the world).

That's "a short time" and an arc of success to you?

Not to mention that WoD was put on hiatus when CoD was released in 2004 until 2011, so they didn't directly compete then.

Quote from: pawsplay on November 29, 2023, 12:24:06 AM
I don't think D&D is suffocating other games, I think D&D has simply gotten so very, very big. Vampire: The Masquerade may be a smaller class, but it has a similarly robust fan base; what other game could pump out a new edition, a competing alternative game, an anniversary edition, and an entirely new edition all within such a short period of time, and sell a fraction of it? There's a huge fan base out there,

What? There isn't a robust fan base. The height of their popularity was in about 1995 and now they're just a pale shadow of themselves. If it wasn't for CCP and later Paradox buying the IP to turn it into mediocre video games, then there probably wouldn't be new products now.

I was in the fandom back in the mid 2000s and it was very easy to find fansites and fan-made material for WoD and CoD. Dozens of new bloodlines, legacies, whatever. Now? I can't find much of anything besides partial archives on wayback machine.

The majority of the current fans are fans of Troika's Bloodlines game and only know the IP through badly written and unsourced wiki pages that present an extremely biased and rose-tinted version of the IP that ignores its many idiotic aspects that are obvious to anyone who reads the actual books.

Quote from: pawsplay on November 29, 2023, 12:24:06 AMthe challenge is to persuade them to unite around one version of the game.

Why would you even want that? Wouldn't it make more sense to do what D&D does and provide universal basic rules with a variety of different campaign settings in a multiverse? The IP is old as fuck and is definitely showing its age now. What worked among mall goths in 1992 definitely doesn't work now.

Also, these companies are woke now so they can't write worth shit anyway regardless of whatever game they're currently peddling. My advice is to make your own games, like what I'm trying to do. Paradox has killed their IPs with the latest announcement of Bloodlines 2 so you have no reason not to prepare to fill the market vacuum they're going to leave when they cancel the IP and let it rot in a box.

Quote from: Wrath of God on November 29, 2023, 11:03:36 AM

QuoteThat's nearly three decades overall with an ever slower and more anemic release schedule because, even among its generally lefty audience everyone thinks the new woke direction is trash (seriously, they made W5 into a game where you're punished for going Crinos and any effort to confront or stop the establishment is wrong... you're just supposed to angst about the inability to confront the evils of the world).

That's interesting twist I have to admit, even with modern age of woke I did not expected them gelding werewolves that much.
Getting rid of Get of Fenris or Red Talons, sure I can take it - but - no fight with industrialists... wow that's somehow worse than woke.

I'm actually surprised they ditched the environmentalist angle. Paradox is very woke so you'd think they'd be all over that ecoterrorism. They probably realized that it didn't make sense anymore to preach zealously about the evils of civilization when their current audience is addicted to phones.

I never really cared since I find the ecoterrorism obnoxious and hypocritical. I think Forsaken vastly improved that, but I never found it very interesting because the secret werewolf society was so completely isolated from human culture. There weren't any touchstones to connect with them. WtA was racist af (towards everyone, not just Native Americans), but I find werewolves inherently more interesting if they're based in real human cultures rather than made up fantasy.

I don't care about the transformation rules. I've never found it very evocative. The entire appeal of werewolves is that their wolf side isn't human, but players just seem to want to play superheroes. Why make them werewolves at all if you just want superheroes? I think the werewolf transformation should be spiritually meaningful, not a power rangers transformation. But ttrpgs seem to be inherently bad at representing things requiring emotional and spiritual connection.

The wolf should have a different personality from the human. Not necessarily Cujo because that's overdone, but at least something like the pre-woke She-Hulk where she became more confident and assertive while transformed.

But I digress.

I don't want more White Wolf crap. I've long since outgrown their stupid writing. I don't want their racist high school cliques, their insane fans obsessed with cannibal snuff porn and gay furry sex, etc. I want new IPs that aren't beholden to that crap, written by sane people with life experience and no inclination to insert their disgusting sexual fetishes into their writing.

Like, if you could make your own werewolf-centric ttrpg right now, would you really include a detail like all couplings between werewolves results in deformed werewolf incest babies, werewolves who fuck wild wolves to continue the purity of their bloodline, and werewolves who have gay fury sex to maintain their spiritual purity? No you wouldn't, because those ideas are fucking stupid. It was fucking stupid back in the 90s and it's fucking stupid now.

It's time to retire these rotting zombie IPs and make new ones. "But wah! I want my globe-spanning ninja clans!" someone might cry. To that I say: Make your own games that cater to your tastes then.

Quote from: pawsplay on November 26, 2023, 12:07:07 AM
I honestly don't know how Vampire: The Masquerade keeps digging itself out of the dirt, when Vampire: The Requiem is twice the game it is. Better balance, smoother mechanics, better vampires, more customizable lore, and without a lot of the cringey stereotypes. Just a better game.

No.

Quote from: King Tyranno on November 29, 2023, 12:04:09 PM

Quote from: pawsplay on November 26, 2023, 12:07:07 AM
I honestly don't know how Vampire: The Masquerade keeps digging itself out of the dirt, when Vampire: The Requiem is twice the game it is. Better balance, smoother mechanics, better vampires, more customizable lore, and without a lot of the cringey stereotypes. Just a better game.

No.

Everyone knows that forgotten indies like Feed and Vampire City are the superior games.

Quote from: pawsplay on November 29, 2023, 12:24:06 AM
I don't think D&D is suffocating other games, I think D&D has simply gotten so very, very big. Vampire: The Masquerade may be a smaller class, but it has a similarly robust fan base; what other game could pump out a new edition, a competing alternative game, an anniversary edition, and an entirely new edition all within such a short period of time, and sell a fraction of it? There's a huge fan base out there, the challenge is to persuade them to unite around one version of the game.

The question is will be D&D being this big last.  The past few years are the third time I've watched D&D be a mass market fad, the first of which hit a couple of years after I started playing when it was a wargaming fad that eventually took over the hobby (why hex and chit wargaming didn't have a mass market fad in the Reagan era still puzzles me) and the second around 2000 with 3.x and my generation coming back (for those who left).

This is the strongest of the three for a few reasons: general enthusiasm for "geek culture" and COVID being the two biggest. Now that both are waning will D&D continue as a mass market phenomena where the Basic D&D box set joins perennials like Monopoly, Scrabble, and Catan (which has crossed over sometime in the past 20 years) or will it fade from Target and Walmart like the B/X version did from Sears, Montgomery Ward, and J. C. Penny's catalogs?

I'm betting on the latter for two reasons, one minor and one major. The minor one is WotC mismanagement. The bigger one is rpgs require too much active participation. While the Critical Role era implies there might be a place for passive watching of rpgs as entertainment, Howard Thompson at Metagaming argued circa 1980 that by 1985 we'd be watching hex and chit wargaming on TV.

By 1985 his hex and chit company was going out of business with its biggest hits being sold to SJG and AH.

YouTube does allow for more niche players, but YT is actively trying to become the old networks. Did CR at its peak get enough viewers for that?

If the hobby continues I suspect it'll settle to where hex-and-chit and model railroading are today not become a mass market game perennial or the new WoW.  At that, we'd be better off than either of those hobbies as they both need some actually non-cottage industry, especially model railroading (my biggest hobby outside of rpgs and perhaps slowly overtaking it).

Quote from: pawsplay on November 26, 2023, 12:07:07 AM
I honestly don't know how Vampire: The Masquerade keeps digging itself out of the dirt, when Vampire: The Requiem is twice the game it is. Better balance, smoother mechanics, better vampires, more customizable lore, and without a lot of the cringey stereotypes. Just a better game.

The same reason Files-11 style systems never replaced Unix style even though NTFS was designed by former DEC VMS people.

First mover advantage (although arguably second mover with a smart differentiation strategy).