The Wolf Returns - Thoughts and Concerns

White Wolf Rebrands their World Of Darkness Enterprise

Press release here, press kit available here. 

TLDR; Social media is leaning towards go woke.. go broke. The Whitewolf sub is toxic and shitty.

     I don't know if anyone wants my thoughts on this, but I'm giving them anyways. For context, I started playing Vampire: The Masquerade in 9th grade, in Summer School 1996. My friends and I would pass the same book around, makes notes and characters, then at lunch, talk about the game we were going to play that weekend. One book, one set of dice, and hundreds of hours of sleepovers perfected our obsession- which lead into the other spheres of the White Wolf universe: Werewolf, Vampire Dark Ages, Mage, Wraith, Changeling, and more. I felt like we graduated from the unique and complex rules of AD&D to a much simpler story telling heavy and immersive world that felt like it was set in one of Anne Rice's books. The art was unique, the world was horrific and fascinating, the rules simple to understand... I was hooked.

The Art from The Masquerade was something else.

     Why do we care about this change? I think people have a nostalgic feeling for the original White Wolf  Publishing and the way they did things. They bought live action role-playing to the forefront of the gaming community, which set the basis for modern cosplaying. The Mind's Eye Theatre was a free addition you could pick up at any games store, and used the existing rules and set some guidelines. It was a cool time to game when it was not popular to do so, and White Wolf and World of Darkness has not has it's time in the sun like Dungeons & Dragons is currently having. In short, the change back to the old logo is fan service to the people who played prior to 2006.

        To me, the new editions are less gritty, visceral, and seem to be too polished.  It's time to get back to the dark and grimy roots, and this may be something great for people wanting a return to form. Shit, they are even putting their names on Bloodlines 2. I'm excited to see what happens, and it will be great to get excited about new releases again. However, I have one concern with the announcement post. Not so much my concern, but those in the comments on Facebook:

     I'm not much of a politics person, and tend to stay away from anything that leans too far in either direction, however, some of these comments are pretty concerning; They are nearly split. I'm honestly surprised about the commentary in general. Top and trending comments are against the highlighted statement above, and worry about the (for lack of a better term) woke or sensitive community involvement in the change or brand development. The reality is, mentioning anything about some kind of political or gender movement in your games or products these days is just (or could be) suicide for brands. Look at all the new games and once popular IP's that have failed in recent months, losing 100's of million of dollars for huge companies. Essentially, showing some kind of favoritism to either side could potentially alienate a huge portion of your fanbase, and potential buying customers. It's a risk. My hot take, I could care less- but I'll say it; Sometimes people just want to pretend to be Vampires and play games and leave the real world behind. Take note game companies, just make the fucking games and make them good.. the rest will come. 

Edit - I posted this to the WhiteWolfRPG subreddit for commentary, follow that here. Great conversation and I'm learning a ton. I'll take my downvotes and see what people are talking about then come back here to report. 

Edit 2 - Whelp, my post was removed from reddit for rule number 11 of the WhitewolfRPG sub community rules: I'll do whatever I want. No seriously, that's the reason why it was removed. I deleted the post, but the link should still work. I did not realize that community was so hypersensitive to some regular commentary, and I was down voted right out of there. One person even said I had a bad blog! Okay well, it's not the best so we can agree there.. From what I can tell, unless you whine about something or post fan art, you just get downvoted and insulted. What a welcoming community! This seems to be the norm in there: Ignore what's going on (look at the social media comments), gate-keep the fanbase community with censorship (delete my post for reporting on community reaction, see below) and push some kind of narrative (top 1% commenters are rewarded for bias aggressive comments). This community will never grow past what it is (56k subs?) unless they can be less toxic and more welcoming to all. Strange, that goes against community guidelines. It's worth noting, my upvote ratio on this post was 33% before removal, but when posted on another sub (a much larger one) The upvote rate was 97%.

The Lost Boys 3: The Thirst - The Frog Brothers Are Back!

I hope that they resuscitate Corey Haim's drug fueled body for the next installment. The only thing that could make this movie better for me was if they had a CGI Zombie of Haim looking for Zanax or something. I actually did like him in the first movie, and the second movie his cameo was pretty well done.

My official stance with The Lost Boys 3 is, I will go see it, and most likely enjoy it since it has most of the original cast... That and more vampire killing. From the looks of the trailer it's campy and shitty which are both qualities I enjoy in a B movie feature of this magnitude.

I'm calling it now, CGI or post humus Corey Haim.. FTW.

“May have been the losing team; Still not convinced it was the wrong one”

The most recent foray into the realm of popular fantasy has had a polarizing effect on fans of the genre. By now you’ve heard all the hubbub about the fancy-pants shiny vampires , shirtless werewolves, and their millions of ‘screamy-little-girl’ fans. You’ve probably also heard about the borderline-fascist propaganda that attempts to classify you into one of two “teams” that will forever bind you to these characters. Well my friends, I’m going to put an end to all that. The time has come to bring forth an ancient power dedicated to keeping the balance between good and evil … and also the search for some outstanding Old Toby. It’s my privilege to present to you the newest team up for choosing: Team Gandalf. You may ask, “How do I know that Team Gandalf is the right team for me?” To which I would reply, “Team Gandalf is for those of us that would stand against the atrocities associated with this newest strain of vampire oriented children’s books. Team Gandalf is for those of us that demand believable characters. Team Gandalf is for true fantasy fans that won’t stand for genre hybridizing, and the systematic destroying of our mythos. If you’re a reader of Unknown Hole in the Sky (and I know that you are) Team Gandalf, is for you!”

If you’ve found yourself swept up in these stories don’t worry, you’re still ok. The pickens of recent fantasy have been slim. It’s understandable that in these dark times the soothing glow of certain or two vampire could woo one into a false state security. Don’t be fooled. The biggest problem I’ve found with these attempted additions to the vampire canon is the fact that they care way too much about humans. A vampire needs a human for only one of two purposes (we’ll call them the two E’s): entertainment, or eating. (This was originally the two F’s … but you’ll have to figure those out on your own) Humans rarely have anything else to offer. At least Sookie Stackhouse can read minds (among other talents), that other girl just seems to get in the way and ends up as a flimsy macguffin. (Yes, it’s hyperlinked…No I won’t judge you for clicking it.) I understand that there has to be some kind of vampire-human interaction in these books, but c’mon an ancient vampire tries to commit suicide because he thinks a human is dead. This type of behavior seems Just Plain Crazy ™ and is not an acceptable contribution to the vampirical canon. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies may have been a huge hit, but the idea of Romeo and Juliet and Vampires and Werewolves seems boring and overdone. Team Gandalf: It shall not pass!

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that romance and fantasy are inherently linked. They have been from the beginning. Beowulf, Iliad, and Gilgamesh all start out with the concept of keeping, regaining, or protecting women. I mean really, what would be the use of arguing over whose is bigger if no one actually gets to put theirs to use. The problem comes when the genre and one of its most venerable recurring creatures are compromised to sell a story. When we crack a vampire book we expect certain things to happen (blood, sex, and the combination of the two) and for vampires to behave a certain way (awesomely). If those things are compromised, we stop expecting the things that moved us to buy the book in the first place and the whole vampire book-selling machine stops working in the long term. It’s a downward spiral and I hate that it’s already started. I’m not saying that it can’t be reversed, on the contrary, I’m saying that we should do something about it and protect the ideas that define the stories we enjoy so much.

It’s these concepts (creature continuity, genre integrity, and the healthy proliferation of fantasy) that comprise the core of what a member of Team Gandalf would uphold. As gamers and fantasy fans we’re all already purists at heart. We’ve quit (or we know someone who has quit) our beloved games because of the radical changes that have come and gone in the name of sales. Why not do the same for our literature, or at least take a very close look at what’s being printed and sold to the masses? Last year at DragonCon I loved seeing the shirts with stuff like, “…And then Buffy stakes Edward. The End.” and “Vampires Don’t Sparkle” It’s a big relief that people have realized that this isn’t good for anyone except Stephanie Meyer and her publishing company. It doesn’t contribute anything to the genre or to the creatures it portrays. In short, the Twilight series is using the concept of a Vampire and Werewolf to sell what would be an otherwise typical love triangle to new and unsuspecting readers of fantasy-based fiction. It’s for this reason I choose Team Gandalf.

The next time you see someone go all googly-eyed over the characters in this genre blemish of a series, help them to see that it tramples over many of the key concepts in good literature (…or if all else fails, just continue to make fun of them.) Better yet, hand them an Anne Rice novel or a copy of John Carpenter’s Vampires. Hopefully they’ll get over all this craziness and bloom into the full-fledged geek (or geek-lover) that they’re destined to become. What… not motivated enough yet? How about this: Stephanie Meyer herself admits to not having researched vampires before making the stories, and it’s clear from the books and movies that she didn’t start off with much knowledge. This author has no respect for the genre of fantasy, and shouldn’t be allowed to continue inserting elements of it into her love stories. Let’s rescue our vampires.

Next week I’ll be examining gamers.

~Dustin

Zombie Vampires.. from Hell!

Zombie nudity, blood & humor in 'Zombie Women of Satan'! - Watch more horror

Nipple slips, zombies, blood, guts, and its funny. Check this out. Some of the hottest girls get killed in the horror movies i like, now for whatever reason its the other way around.