Quote from: arctic_fox on April 17, 2022, 08:37:33 AM
So, last week i was playing VTES with some friends and a debate started when one of them stated that for him, White Wolf's games (Vampire the Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse...) was always woke, or at least heavily leaning towards left wing ideology.

So what's your thoughts on the matter? Was he right or you disagree?

woke != left

Quote from: Chris24601 on April 19, 2022, 08:17:04 AM
It just goes to prove that a good setting trumps bad mechanics.

To the degree that most fans don't actually play the game and just buy the books to read the metaplot and the video game adaptations have been embarrassing failures due to poor game design. On another note, you wouldn't believe the number of fans I talked to who hated Christianity and doublethought their way around the Christian underpinnings of the lore. I don't think good setting trumps bad mechanics: I don't think the setting is very good to begin with and I think WW got lucky by tapping into a trendy demographic in the 90s.

D&D is bigger now than it's ever been and has been a huge influence on the fantasy genre as a whole, especially in video games. There are numerous fantasy tabletop settings that piggyback on D&D's success through the open game license, and plenty that don't.

WW no longer exists as a company and the IP is being unsuccessfully whored out by Paradox to make video games. At their height WW sold 7 million books, but now they rely on kickstarter and nostalgia. The ideas in their games haven't made any impact on the urban fantasy genre as a whole, and certainly not in video games. There are virtually no other urban fantasy tabletop games besides maybe Shadowrun, which cheats by being cyberpunk too. Indeed, there are virtually no urban fantasy video games.

It was certainly successful in its time, but it's certainly nowhere near as successful now as it was then and if present trends are anything to go by then it's only going to decline further. It's continued future was contingent on Bloodlines 2 being a huge success (Paradox even had television deals readied), and we all know by now how Paradox botched that.

Also, sheer density of lore doesn't equate to quality even if the lore junkies all say it is. There are so many franchises with many times more lore than LotR that I grew to despise because they're poorly written. I've become critical of the entire concept of lore. When it comes to passively consumed fiction, I care about the quality of the characters and the plot. When it comes to games, I care about the gameplay experience (and the quality of writing, if any). I don't care about irrelevant self-masturbatory lore.

Bloodlines didn't become a cult classic because of lore. It became a cult classic because of Troika's writing of the characters and plot. That's the only reason CCP and later Paradox even cared to buy the IP: because BL is a cult classic. (That's a stupid reason to buy an IP, but whatever.) They've consistently failed to understand the appeal of that game and that's why their attempts as video games have been failures. Most of the video game adaptations are text games made on the cheap where the writing wallows in all the pretentious emo goth nonsense that got the IP mocked in the 90s. It has none of the charm of Troika's writing.

I'm rambling now. Sorry.

EDIT: This isn't to say "the biblical Cain as first vampire" isn't an interesting idea. I just don't think the game got popular because of that. I think they got lucky. I think VtR "failed" only insofar as the tabletop market had dramatically shrunk since the 90s and the company decided to stop supporting it out of nostalgia rather than because it wasn't profitable on its own merits. (The VTR 1e rulebook supposedly sold 100,000 copies, which was pretty successful for the time.)

To a certain extent Il agree about lore being overrated. Lore is like the idea of an event so it can be cooler in your head even though as events it sucks. Its like the idea of a plot without requiring execution.

Once you really dig into the lore of 40K, Shadowrun, much of WOD, and many others you see generally how it makes it like a gaudy faberge egg. Interesting to look at but sucky for playing. Or just feels pointless.

Lore can be good for details or as an extra on top. But as a primary attraction it generally sucks.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on April 19, 2022, 10:20:16 AM
To a certain extent Il agree about lore being overrated. Lore is like the idea of an event so it can be cooler in your head even though as events it sucks. Its like the idea of a plot without requiring execution.

Once you really dig into the lore of 40K, Shadowrun, much of WOD, and many others you see generally how it makes it like a gaudy faberge egg. Interesting to look at but sucky for playing. Or just feels pointless.

Lore can be good for details or as an extra on top. But as a primary attraction it generally sucks.

Exactly. It's a poor substitute for writing an actual story. Lore can be useful for flavor and technical detail that would otherwise be unwieldy to show, but in these game settings it becomes an excuse for the writers to be lazy and self-masturbatory.

Here's what I consider a really good example: the backstory of the Death Leaper from 40k has it single-handedly bringing an entire planet to its knees through carefully orchestrated terrorism. The problem is that the codex doesn't show this to us, but rather provides us with a short synopsis of what happened. As a result, all of the tension of what could have been a decent horror story is robbed.

Another example from my personal experience: when I watch lore videos on youtube, I do this to get a summary of events that I otherwise don't understand or when I'm curious about a game that I have no intention of playing. Watching a lore video isn't a substitute for actually playing the game, any more than reading cliffnotes is a substitute for reading/watching anything else.

Or, to put it more bluntly, worldbuilding notes aren't a substitute for writing a fantasy novel. And they're not actually all that useful for running a tabletop game either.

I've seen no shortage of people say that VtM has better lore than VtR, but they can never actually explain how this leads to better gameplay. They just take it for granted that "more lore = automatically better," even though this is a nonsequitor and VtR has just as much raw word count in lore as VtM does if you don't count the editions constantly repackaging the same lore (in case anybody forgot, VtR 1e was consistently published for about as many years as VtM 1e-3e were). I honestly can't imagine how more lore, as opposed to actual adventures (which WoD doesn't actually do), would be useful except insofar as it gives ideas for plot hooks and CoD has no shortage of those anyway. IIRC CoD even published a book once whose sole purpose was to be a list of plot hooks (which really should have been published a decade earlier, but whatever).

In my experience, I've connected far more with Nephilim than I ever did XoD because it actually lets you play as figures in its million year lore through its past life mechanic. Where WoD published adventures where the PCs stand and watch NPCs solve the metaplot, in Nephilim you could play as historical figures involved in pivotal historical events and secret conspiracies that span millennia. (At least in theory. The rules didn't actually support this all too well. The original French version apparently did publish adventures where the PCs watched as NPCs solved the metaplot, which defeats the whole point IMO.)

Exactly. My personal axe grind for this is Shadowrun moreso then WoD.

Much more focus is placed on world altering events that in a adventure sense don't impact what you would do as a runner. But also don't expect you to influence events at all yourself.

Evil-Corp bought out Scum-inc. Provides more runner opportunities I guess? But so does literally everything else. There is no assumed shortage of business for runners. And neither Evil nor Scum is a good thing so you don't have a reason to care, even if you could somehow get involved.

Yeah. I have quite a few axes to grind against various game companies that got lost in lore bloat. White Wolf, Games Workshop, Blizzard Entertainment...

Like, I used to be big into 40k and the tyranids. After a while I lost interest because the tyranids don't actually have any characters or culture to use as a storytelling tool. The tyranid campaigns in the RTS and 4X games are extremely boring because they either consist of the tyranids saying "on nom nom" or some magos biologis recounting their actions from a distance. What really got me pumped for voracious space bugs was the starcraft 1 zerg campaign opening with "awaken my child and embrace the glory that is your birthright." It's been two decades and I still haven't found anything that recaptures that magic for me. (btw starcraft's writing quickly went off the rails and right into crazy town shortly after that. it never recovered and I can't stand it now.)

After the newcron debacle that squandered the storytelling potential of the necrons by making them all into broody emo space egyptians angry they got immortal metal bodies, I really don't want to see GW try to give the tyranids deeper characterization.

Quote from: whatsleft on April 19, 2022, 09:32:58 AM
woke != left

I've fixed that for you.

Woke! = Dumb American/Canadian 'post' Left Extremists.

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on April 19, 2022, 02:29:27 PM

Quote from: whatsleft on April 19, 2022, 09:32:58 AM
woke != left

I've fixed that for you.

Woke! = Dumb American/Canadian 'post' Left Extremists.

  In case it needs clarification, '!=' is used in many coding languages for "is not equal."

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on April 19, 2022, 02:29:27 PM

Quote from: whatsleft on April 19, 2022, 09:32:58 AM
woke != left

I've fixed that for you.

Woke! = Dumb American/Canadian 'post' Left Extremists.

  Well, when I hear England and Germany talk about being "nations of immigrants" I am not certain the disease is as contained as you would like for it to be.   Given the state of some BBC programming choices, I think you are being extremely optimistic as to how localized the infection is.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on April 18, 2022, 05:27:34 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on April 18, 2022, 04:48:49 PMHow much of the movie Underworld is lifted from those games?  I remember seeing that movie wondering if anyone is getting sued.

There actually was a lawsuit at one point, I think; if I recall correctly, it was dismissed on the grounds that you can't copyright general ideas, tropes or stylistic resemblance.

Tell that to Harlan Ellison

Quote from: jeff37923 on April 18, 2022, 09:00:29 PM

Quote from: Omega on April 18, 2022, 02:24:51 PM

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on April 18, 2022, 09:35:03 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on April 18, 2022, 05:39:53 AM
Especially the LARPers.

I never LARPed thank god. The concept always felt a little bit too creepy for me.

But whatever floats your boat...

I playtested the early version way back. Two of my local players used to host the local VtES LARP and it was pretty baseline really. Mostly interaction and intrigue focused far as I recall. Its the perfect LARP for a more casual play and doesnt usually need the props that other LARPs tend to need. Cthulhu Live was another that could pull this off. But the real fun was the ones with props and monsters.

I remember when VtM LARPers were all over Seattle around 1995 and they were nothing but fucking obnoxious asses at conventions. They had this unwritten rule that said they had to freak out the bystanders whenever possible. I guess it was a regional thing.

Yeah thats a complete violation of LARP rules to NOT freak out the bystanders. But then the Thoku movement and others preach everything for "muh immershun!"

Theres always going to be fuckwits in any venue who get off on this sort of stunt. Or take things too far. Especially the extreme end of "immershun" fanatics. Too many of whom are already practically one foot into coo-coo land as is.

But yeah we've heard of some of the Seattle LARPs going to hell. Not just the Vampire one. Same problems too of messing with the bystanders. And worse.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 19, 2022, 02:27:46 PM
Like, I used to be big into 40k and the tyranids. After a while I lost interest because the tyranids don't actually have any characters or culture to use as a storytelling tool.

The truth and the real enlightenment element of 40K lore, is that everything is fluid and pointless as to make the most amount of money with no story integrity.

If GW would make more money that way, Super Mario would single-handedly defeat the chaos gods and tell all the space marines they suck.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on April 19, 2022, 03:39:32 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 19, 2022, 02:27:46 PM
Like, I used to be big into 40k and the tyranids. After a while I lost interest because the tyranids don't actually have any characters or culture to use as a storytelling tool.

The truth and the real enlightenment element of 40K lore, is that everything is fluid and pointless as to make the most amount of money with no story integrity.

If GW would make more money that way, Super Mario would single-handedly defeat the chaos gods and tell all the space marines they suck.

   I give them credit though, no one has made anywhere near the money they have off of Galactic Space Nazis.  I also think they are in a painful spot...having to choose between getting bitten at every turn for their lore (though I understand changes are in the works) or pissing off the long timers and losing business.   The danger of getting "too big" all the wrong people start to want to come to the party.

Quote from: oggsmash on April 19, 2022, 03:57:28 PM
   I give them credit though...

I don't because their consumer base consists of 99.999999999999% Stockholm syndrome afflicted, hyper consumerist, sunk cost fallacy, elitist, uncritical morons.

Their fans lapped up Primaris marines. That makes GW able to get away with mistakes that would have ended every other franchise 20 times over.

40K is more a anomalous event then evidence of genius production.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on April 19, 2022, 04:14:42 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on April 19, 2022, 03:57:28 PM
   I give them credit though...

I don't because their consumer base consists of 99.999999999999% Stockholm syndrome afflicted, hyper consumerist, sunk cost fallacy, elitist, uncritical morons.

Their fans lapped up Primaris marines. That makes GW able to get away with mistakes that would have ended every other franchise 20 times over.

40K is more a anomalous event then evidence of genius production.

  They created those Fan(atics) though.  I have to give them credit.  I do not have to love them.