What I really want is a game with real time role playing elements (even first person ala Bloodlines) that switches to X Com style turn based combat, executed well and stylishly.
apparently most White Wolf stuff in Scandanavia was never as big on tabletop as it was in LARP, which is still super huge there (I mean, relatively speaking) and in various interviews and public appearances they've talked at length about how great the scene, which is broadly called "Nordic LARP," is, and how it's super edgy and political and sexually-charged and takes place in a hard-hitting anything-goes atmosphere and etc etc. And LARP, and making game content that is "Nordic LARP"able, is going to be a primary focus of their game design going forward.
So some journalists went over to take a look at the scene there and it basically seems to center around a bunch of very pricey, exclusive officially sanctioned events where you sign a whole raft of waivers against injury and sexual content and stuff like that. And it sounds like all of the absolute worst, most unflattering and invidious stereotypes about LARP rolled up into one experience. Instead of some harmless nerds in capes playing rock/paper/scissors in a hotel conference room the event I read about was a bunch of mostly naked dues crowding some dilapidated house and aggressively coming on to any woman that hove into view, or each other, in between playing with knives and chanting around candles. There are skinheads in the scene, or people "'"'"roleplaying"'"'" skinheads, and the official line has been that well that's cool because it's edgy challenging material that puritan American gamers aren't meant to be comfortable with and et cetera et cetera and holy shit it sounds like the anti-anything I want anything to do with.
Oh! And these pricey official events are going to determine the future of the setting moving forward. So your home game will need to either ignore bits of canon or try to take into account the saga of Baron Fuckenstein, bored Swedish CIO who can afford to attend six $3000 events a year.
Holy fuck is that not representative of the Nordic LARP scene, or the Nordic Vampire LARPs, or even any individual Nordic-style LARP that I know of. The most expensive LARP that I know of is Convention of Thorns, where fees run in the €500 range (about equivalent to $700?), which is run once per year (Most LARPs are run on an annual or twice-annual basis). Most run in the €40-300 range, depending on locale, scope and what's included. Convention of Thorns locales tend to be...upper range.
As far as gender distribution goes LARP events tend to have a roughly equal mix. Vampire LARPs tend to have a slightly more women than men.
The Nordic LARP style is based on:
1. Immersion. It's based on going into your character. Locales and costumes tend to strive towards authenticism. Emotional Bleed (feeling what your character is feeling) is generally encouraged.
2. Rules minimalism.
3. Artistic vision: It's about more than entertainment. A LARP is supposed to challenge you. To think, to question how you view the world.
4. Collaboration and Consent: It's not about winning, it's about collaborating to create a good story/event. Consent is 100% the number one rule, and the absolute minimum is including rules for Brake and Cut (Brake is "Slow down and don't escalate this. I'm OK right now, but I don't want to go further". Cut is "I'm not comfortable with where this is going. Desist". If someone signals Cut you break off, no exceptions). While many LARPS do deal with edgy content most physical acts are not played out and instead signalled (keep your clothes on while In Character). For example, a common way of simulating sexual content (in appropriate settings. Generally aimed at the Age 20+ crowd) is the Grasp where both particpants hold each others forearms and through fingersignaling communicate the...uh. Relationship. It's surprisingly intimate when done right, but again the Brake and Cut rules are sacrosanct.
While you do generally have to sign papers to participate, you are generally not signing any extensive waivers (the Nordic legal system is generally anti-lawsuit). The papers tend to be "These are the rules, I WILL follow these rules, I have read these rules and I will respect all participants"
In the years that followed, Dogma 99 inspired a wave of creative experimentation, including not just dinner party experiences like 13 At a Table, playing as asylum-seeking refugees from imaginary wars, or a LARP in total darkness where each character was a fragment of an amnesiac woman's memory.
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You should post some sources before making those claims, which are very strong and inconsistent with everything i've read on the topic from north americans or scandanvians. I don't doubt there are bad events but there are plenty of creeps in north american LARP. I would think higher-concept pieces would draw better people.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Uh... so what about the Mage thing?
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
The worst part of that show wasn't the host though, it was Sasha Grey IIRC. I didn't really watch past her taking a dump on the fun the group was having playing.
Zak S is a vicious liar who has personally made threats on the families of WW/OPP writers.
Needless to say, the writers in question are not taking this well.
Yeah... that's all seems to be speculation, with someone called Cam Banks on the first one going "It's obvious whose doing it" without providing proof. It could easily be any troll on the internet. I don't know who these people are, so I can't truly defend anyone, but I'm not buying it based on Twitter posts. If the guy is really making death threats, then the police should be called in and it handled, no running around on Twitter running your mouth.
And if a person was making threats against other employees and their family, wouldn't WW/OPP had done their own investigation and fired the guy?
No, it's Zak S, as evinced by him repeatedly fucking up and forgetting which account he's using, then deleting and reposting it under his own account/the sockpuppet. He's also never smart enough to vary his own posting style when he's sucking his own dick, but impersonating a famous author with an active internet persona and then getting caught doing so is nothing new for Zak S because he's done it before, multiple times. https://i.imgur.com/5gQiigh.png
The SA mods manged to get into his G+ group and catch him coordinating the doxxing of a trans lady, he's a piece of shit and he's pretty fucking well and renowned for it. http://imgur.com/NvBCbufhttp://imgur.com/IKilzeI
So, a lot of people here tend to have a largely negative view of 5e's writing staff and arguments have been starting up over it. Those arguments should stop and, in an effort to do so, let me just tell the entire story here so anyone can see and read it.
When 5e was coming out, they sought out the consultation of a man named Zak S. Zak S is a jerk who has managed to get banned from every RPG focused internet forum and has a major persecution complex because of it. He is known to love to argue and to attack people on social media. He is a giant pissbaby who can make Donald Trump seem well tempered, to put it mildly. But, for some reason, Mearls liked his blog so he asked him for playtesting advice.
Some forum members wanted to tell Mearls that pissbaby is bad and they didn't want pissbaby to be credited as a consultant alongside industry greats.
Pissbaby Whinypants response was to doxx a trans women who was a member of this forum and harass her until she went into hiding out of fear. Death threats, insults, etc., etc. The all too common routine uses by internet losers that has a very real effect on people but law enforcement does nothing to stop.
Naturally, a lot of forum users were pissed and tried to tell Mearls that this happened, it was a big controversy, and Mearls sided with Zak S. This made a lot of people think (rightfully so) that Mearls is a Pissbaby Neonazi Loser too.
So, basically, a lot of people hold a grudge against 5e's writing staff and, by extension, 5e and feel the need to tell people about Mike "Spineless Nazi Enabler" Mearls and Zak "Evil Baby" S and what they did and still do. Understandable, but it gets out of hand at times.
So, there, that's the story of how two assholes tormented a women over an internet disagreement and why the game's writing staff is hated here.
In case people want to voice complaints, here's the contact page for Tobias Sjögren, the current CEO of White Wolf. The current e-mail address for the company is info@whitewolf-publishing.com. If it need be said, I'd suggest keeping things civil and point them to articlesaboutMr. Sabbath'sharassment. I certainly plan on making it clear that I'm not going to be handing money over to White Wolf or, hell, even Paradox as a whole while they have Mr. Sabbath working with them. You may want to do the same if you're frustrated or concerned.
Zak S, the guy who's famous for among other things, running the beta test for GG, hating Vampire, and outing trans ladies, is now writing for Vampire.
They also reprinted Dark Desires with new stories, rather than rereleasing it without the pedophile's work included in it so the kiddie fiddler of Dragon Co doesn't get royalties.
I don't know what that post (Not your edited one but the one from RPG.NET before you edit it) is trying to explain, that he got banned for having an opinion on RPG.net? His post that got him banned seems... reasonable, not shitheady. I also don't see the context based on that page and I'm not going to read a whole thread from back in 2010 to get it. I don't know the rules that well over there, I've loggin to that place once or twice but just didn't find the people friendly, and I haven't gone back in a while, so I can't say if the ban was deserved or not, but it's whatever.
In more on-topic news... The Vampire game is blah. It's a storytelling game, and if it's connected to The Masquerade or any WW product, it would be hard to find. The whole game takes place on your phone, like all the conversations and stuff is done through text messages, mostly between your character Case and Izzy, both who somehow got embraced but don't remember it. And you can be up in the daytime, but the sun "Makes you feel like you are having the worst hangover ever." Judging from the way you talk and the way one character called "Mother" text you, I'd say the character is a Malk. But again, it's so loosely connected to anything Masquerade that it would be impossible to know. Also, when you die, your body doesn't burn up, and the people who killed me on one of my playthroughs were vampires, killed me in broad daylight, and left my body and told my friend that we weren't allowed in the city unannounced. Then you get a snippet from the mortician's report claiming that I was dead for a week due to lack of blood... before the fatal injuries happened.
So yeah, it's not that good. Misspellings all over the place, not sure if it's suppose to be like that to show that you are texting or not, but the story is blah. Don't recommend it.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
What about the Mage one? The Steam reviews for it seem tepid as well.
It doesn't look like you can buy them separately. I'm going to get a refund without playing it.
A. I don't really want to give that guy money
B. It doesn't sound like it has anything to do with the franchise that I like, and I resent the fact that they've just slapped a name on it
First White Wolf announces a new Werewolf game, but it turns out they announced it on the exact same day that they signed the deal with Focus Home to start making that game.
Then they release two barely-interactive short stories that apparently have some trouble on some devices and which can't hold a candle to most Choice of Games games or even your average visual novel.
Oh, and one of those two short stories, it turns out, was written by a rather controversial figure.
I know Paradox said they were going to let White Wolf be its own thing and just let it run itself, but I'm starting to think that maybe they ought to poke their head in the door from time to time. Just to see how things are going.
My google fu is falling me, @Edith Upwards because I can't seem to find anything to confirm that. The only things I see that Edward Kramer has done with white wolf is write/edit some books back in the late 90s before the conviction.
My google fu is falling me, @Edith Upwards because I can't seem to find anything to confirm that. The only things I see that Edward Kramer has done with white wolf is write/edit some books back in the late 90s before the conviction.
Turns out they just decided to reprint Dark Destiny. False alarm. :bigfrown:
My google fu is falling me, @Edith Upwards because I can't seem to find anything to confirm that. The only things I see that Edward Kramer has done with white wolf is write/edit some books back in the late 90s before the conviction.
Turns out they just decided to reprint Dark Destiny. False alarm. :bigfrown:
They reprinted it and added a new story or two. Why they didn't just make a new anthology that didn't have a pedophiles name on it is a mystery.
Neaden on
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
Turns out that Florida Man can even ruin Vampire: The Masquerade.
Of course, I should talk; I knew a guy in my hometown in Wisconsin that was into some serious werewolf shit, complete with super levels of pedophilia and homoerotic subtext.
First White Wolf announces a new Werewolf game, but it turns out they announced it on the exact same day that they signed the deal with Focus Home to start making that game.
Then they release two barely-interactive short stories that apparently have some trouble on some devices and which can't hold a candle to most Choice of Games games or even your average visual novel.
Oh, and one of those two short stories, it turns out, was written by a rather controversial figure.
I know Paradox said they were going to let White Wolf be its own thing and just let it run itself, but I'm starting to think that maybe they ought to poke their head in the door from time to time. Just to see how things are going.
spoilered because slightly off topic Zak S discussion
David Hill, one of the writers for Onyx Path Publishing (the company responsible for WoD 20th editions and Chronicles of Darkness) and generally someone whose accounts I trust posted about his experiences with Zak as well.
This is probably stupid. But whatever.
I want to clarify here, because I think it's important: He didn't threaten my children, that I'm aware of. The phone call that I received came from a cheap prepaid phone purchased in the city he lives, but millions do. The phone call directly referenced him, and things he's specifically obsessed with. Around that time, I received an email rerouted through the United Arab Emirates which featured a photo of my child's school and a number of very specific threats. I don't know who did that, but it referenced things he's said about me which were not true, and at the time, he lived some 20~ minutes from me.
I know every time he brings me up, because I tend to wake up to a stream of threats and very disturbing anonymous messages.
I don't know how much of this is done directly. I know he's told his fans to "destroy" people and "get at them" before. This is all well-documented - and I'm really, really tired of trying to validate my abuse. And, once it came out how his fans were threatening my kids, he put up a sarcastic, joking post to his fans telling them to stop threatening my children. I'll note, he told them to stop threatening my children. Which as far as I'm concerned is a direct admission that he endorses the attacks against me. Just not my kids.
For the past seven or so years, he's screenshotted and saved everything I say online, even things I've said in private groups, in spite of thorough blocks. I've had to aggressively block people suspected of being his sock puppets. At one time, a friend of mine being harassed by him actually had an associate who is a plagiarism expert identify a few of his sock puppet accounts who write exactly like him.
And right now, he's very, very obviously impersonating a member of the RPG community, a mod on RPG net. He's been impersonating this RPG net mod for over a year, constantly talking himself up. He's slipped up in a way that makes it painfully transparent (he first posted under the false account on Reddit, referencing Zak as "I" from the impersonating account. Then, almost immediately, he deleted the impersonating post. He reposted the exact same thing under his personal account. When called on it, he said it wasn't him and it didn't happen. When logs were shown, his story changed and now he's saying it isn't him, but someone that shares a computer with him, who has been impersonating this community figure for over a year to defend him and talk him up. And who writes with an almost laughably similar style to him.
As well, in his most recent game, he named a murderous trans vampire who asks people about social justice issues, and murders them if they answer insufficiently, after a noted trans RPG developer who his fans have hounded and harassed before. Why did they harass and hound her? Because during her last Kickstarter, she removed a stretch goal by someone who went on the limb defending his harassment campaigns.
I think the idea that I can "talk out my issues in a mature way" is actually a thing I can do here. My issue is that he stalks me. He saves everything I say online. His fans threaten me and my family. I have tried for the better part of a decade to get him to leave me the fuck alone, but he absolutely under no circumstances will not. This isn't some thing where I can sit down with a cup of tea and meet him half way. And it's not just about me. He's abused a number of figures in the RPG community. He's currently impersonating someone who banned him on a role playing game forum. Let that sink in for a second. FOR OVER A YEAR, HE'S IMPERSONATED SOMEONE WHO BANNED HIM ON A PRETENDY FUN TIME GAME FORUM. This is not some rational disagreement. He's a stalker. He's an abuser. I'm not going to kindly ask him to pretty please stop abusing me and everyone else he's abusing. Because I have before. It didn't work. It won't work.
The police have been involved.
The police are laughable at best with online harassment. I don't know if you've seen, but the FBI demonstrated that even with confessions, police don't tend to prosecute.
Through twelve of the thirteen clan books now. Wow, Tremere was just not very good! I was really hoping for some stuff with Hannah from the very first book. Sturbridge was so bland in comparison. And apparently it was some kind of mystery plot? But it took so long for that plot to come out that I had already stopped caring. And of all of the books this one felt the least like a book about Vampires. It really could have just been a modern-times mystery with a little magic.
High hopes for Nosferatu but I think that at this point Gangrel is still my favorite. Liked Brujah and Lasombra a lot too.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
edited March 2017
Nosferatu is fantastic. Sadly Tremere is more about House and Clan politics than the bigger picture.
Ravnos and Setite are my favorites. Same author, too(Kathleen Ryan).
Posts
Huh. Yeah.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Here's another good writeup the origins of Nordic LARPing. http://boingboing.net/2015/04/03/larp-dogma-99.html
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You should post some sources before making those claims, which are very strong and inconsistent with everything i've read on the topic from north americans or scandanvians. I don't doubt there are bad events but there are plenty of creeps in north american LARP. I would think higher-concept pieces would draw better people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karin_Tidbeck
Not sure what that portends either.
I honestly really liked his RPG blog. I thought he had a lot of interesting ideas, though I don't know about the execution or his creative writing.
The worst part of that show wasn't the host though, it was Sasha Grey IIRC. I didn't really watch past her taking a dump on the fun the group was having playing.
Zak S is a vicious liar who has personally made threats on the families of WW/OPP writers.
Needless to say, the writers in question are not taking this well.
Yeah... that's all seems to be speculation, with someone called Cam Banks on the first one going "It's obvious whose doing it" without providing proof. It could easily be any troll on the internet. I don't know who these people are, so I can't truly defend anyone, but I'm not buying it based on Twitter posts. If the guy is really making death threats, then the police should be called in and it handled, no running around on Twitter running your mouth.
And if a person was making threats against other employees and their family, wouldn't WW/OPP had done their own investigation and fired the guy?
The SA mods manged to get into his G+ group and catch him coordinating the doxxing of a trans lady, he's a piece of shit and he's pretty fucking well and renowned for it. http://imgur.com/NvBCbuf http://imgur.com/IKilzeI
Zak S, the guy who's famous for among other things, running the beta test for GG, hating Vampire, and outing trans ladies, is now writing for Vampire.
They also reprinted Dark Desires with new stories, rather than rereleasing it without the pedophile's work included in it so the kiddie fiddler of Dragon Co doesn't get royalties.
In more on-topic news... The Vampire game is blah. It's a storytelling game, and if it's connected to The Masquerade or any WW product, it would be hard to find. The whole game takes place on your phone, like all the conversations and stuff is done through text messages, mostly between your character Case and Izzy, both who somehow got embraced but don't remember it. And you can be up in the daytime, but the sun "Makes you feel like you are having the worst hangover ever." Judging from the way you talk and the way one character called "Mother" text you, I'd say the character is a Malk. But again, it's so loosely connected to anything Masquerade that it would be impossible to know. Also, when you die, your body doesn't burn up, and the people who killed me on one of my playthroughs were vampires, killed me in broad daylight, and left my body and told my friend that we weren't allowed in the city unannounced. Then you get a snippet from the mortician's report claiming that I was dead for a week due to lack of blood... before the fatal injuries happened.
So yeah, it's not that good. Misspellings all over the place, not sure if it's suppose to be like that to show that you are texting or not, but the story is blah. Don't recommend it.
A. I don't really want to give that guy money
B. It doesn't sound like it has anything to do with the franchise that I like, and I resent the fact that they've just slapped a name on it
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
First White Wolf announces a new Werewolf game, but it turns out they announced it on the exact same day that they signed the deal with Focus Home to start making that game.
Then they release two barely-interactive short stories that apparently have some trouble on some devices and which can't hold a candle to most Choice of Games games or even your average visual novel.
Oh, and one of those two short stories, it turns out, was written by a rather controversial figure.
I know Paradox said they were going to let White Wolf be its own thing and just let it run itself, but I'm starting to think that maybe they ought to poke their head in the door from time to time. Just to see how things are going.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Last time it was about nordic LARPers being skeezy, now its about some convention diddler.
Which is just making me feel that its incredibly unlikely that we're gonna get another bloodlines style game from this property.
Unfortunately, the subject matter of Vampire has always appealed to a certain skeezy sort of crowd.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I've been part of V:TM scenes all over Florida and thankfully never encountered anyone like that.
Turns out they just decided to reprint Dark Destiny. False alarm. :bigfrown:
Which isn't to say that plenty of perfectly emotionally healthy people might want to play it, and most players are in fact such people.
But there's going to be a certain amount of skeeviness that it attracts, as well.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
They reprinted it and added a new story or two. Why they didn't just make a new anthology that didn't have a pedophiles name on it is a mystery.
much like someone breaking a restraining order
...which isn't to say that they don't exist.
Turns out that Florida Man can even ruin Vampire: The Masquerade.
Of course, I should talk; I knew a guy in my hometown in Wisconsin that was into some serious werewolf shit, complete with super levels of pedophilia and homoerotic subtext.
spoilered because slightly off topic Zak S discussion
David Hill, one of the writers for Onyx Path Publishing (the company responsible for WoD 20th editions and Chronicles of Darkness) and generally someone whose accounts I trust posted about his experiences with Zak as well.
High hopes for Nosferatu but I think that at this point Gangrel is still my favorite. Liked Brujah and Lasombra a lot too.
Ravnos and Setite are my favorites. Same author, too(Kathleen Ryan).