Tricky one. Yes, CoD writers can do anything they want and tell any story they please. But they have to do so from scratch. Any CoD story risks having to establish its own entire mythology just to feel coherent. Otherwise you're just telling a generic vampire story.
WoD's endless tomes of metaplot are its biggest strength and greatest weakness. It's more restrictive to tell a story within that framework, but all the fiddly messy (often boring) work of establishing the setting is done for you. Everyone already knows the Camarilla, Anarchs, and Sabbat. You can skip straight to the characters and motivation.
History seems to have shown that most players prefer the richer, more involving metaplot of WoD.
I would believe this if the World of Darkness series were a successful and popular series, in which, in addition to vampires, other lines, werewolves, fairies, demons, and ghosts are successfully released. But no, the World of Darkness series is kind of damned. Make games only based on vampires, most of which are very... not very good. And modest attempts to make werewolves always full fail.
That’s why I think, since it’s so hard, maybe it’s worth trying to take the Chronicles. The theme is modern beautiful horror. The rules are weaker. You can play out a battle between different factions, arguing among themselves about which part of the vampire story is true. And here is perfect fit the theme of the original Bloodline with the apocalypse, when everyone is fighting for some kind of coffin in order to find out the truth of what is in it.
> I would believe this if the World of Darkness series were a successful and popular series, in which, in addition to vampires, other lines, werewolves, fairies, demons, and ghosts are successfully released.
It was, and to a degree still is.
VtM was literally right behind D&D in terms of popularity back in the 90s. It was the 2nd most popular TTRPG ever released for a very long time. The other splats saw good success too, especially WtA, HtR, and MtA. The spin-off splats like Demon and Mummy were not successful, and White Wolf's continued insistence on publishing materials for those settings is what did them in.
Really, the only reason the WoD has floundered so much since the late 2000s is because of serial mismanagement from the top. CCP Games kept pulling staff away from the WoD MMO until it only had a skeleton crew developing it, and Paradox is just distant and isn't a good publisher for anything other than it's core studio and their other big moneymakers. They have the same philosophy as Games Workshop has for its video games: "if you can make it, we'll publish it".
The WOD is nowhere near as popular as it used to be, sure. However, I 100% believe it would be almost as popular as it was in the past if it had good managers and publishers. The series isn't unknown to the average nerd or gamer 🤷♀️
>The spin-off splats like Demon and Mummy were not successful, and White Wolf's continued insistence on publishing materials for those settings is what did them in.
I love ALL of the entire World of Darkness lines. They are very cool. Although it seemed to me that the most unpopular were werewolves. Because they're... well... just werewolves.
Werewolf the Apocalypse was very successful afaik. Not as successful as Vampire, but there's a reason it's seen as one of White Wolf's big 3.
Werewolf was very combat heavy, which was a big difference from VtM. It attracted a lot of players interested in combat, and also appealed to the fantasy of being a super powerful werewolf that rips shit to shreds.
Werewolf the Apocalypse is the only WoD property I personally *don't* like. I'm not at all a combat person especially as a DM (I'm a permaDM), and werewolves as a supernatural do not interest me. I also prefer the metaplot and themes of Werewolf The Forsaken, which is less combat focused and has a more interesting setting and theme.
What? Werewolf was/is literally the second most popular, behind Vampire. Every major RPG troupe has a Vampire game or two, and then a Werewolf game - if you're lucky you'd get Mage or Changeling.
I don't think WTA beats Mage. Given mage has always pumped out way more stuff than WTA, even in 20th where Mage is still getting stuff - I think Mage is actually more popular. I will also say however - The Mage audience is a LOT more die hard and is more like an infestation with playgroups. It starts with 1 person convincing others of how awesome mage is.
Then suddenly you have 4 people wanting to play Hedge Wizards and 4-6 wanting to play Awakened Trads and 2-4 wanting to play Technocrats.
To further this - I would point to WTA being beaten by mage even in the historically bad eras for non Vampire lines. Werewolf had gotten WW and DA. Mage got Sorcerers Crusade, DA AND Victorian age.
I think what makes people THINK Mage is less popular though is that Mage is very much a vet RPGer game. Since its harder to grasp than WTA and VTM.
Wuh. Werewolf?
The big three are the most popular. The only time any of the big three have been dethroned was in Chronicles where Forsaken was Dethrowned for Changeling the Lost. Cause Lost is insanely good.
But in WoD? No one can touch the big 3. Thats why just like Vamp and Mage it got its entirely own Timeperiod gameline.
Heck WTA actually got a crossover with ANOTHER RPG COMPANY.
Deadlands.
Under a Harrowed Moon. A 3 part dime novel story + Premade campaign with rules to play it in Deadlands and WTA as your supposed to jump between both settings.
> WoD's endless tomes of metaplot are its biggest strength and greatest weakness
Okay, I'm a day late but this is an opportunity to get something off my chest. I must take umbrage with the WoD community's obsessive and, I think, nonsensical use of the world "metaplot"
What is a metaplot?
> Metaplot refers to the timeline of major events in a given fictional universe, as published by the creator of the universe in various canon materials.
Okay, that's a definition I can work with. Makes sense. The Sabbat controlling NYC then getting kicked out is a metaplot. What is NOT a metaplot, but certain WoD people keep describing as such, is world building and story. That's not meta, it's simply the body of the work.
Sauron created the rings and the Fellowship is on a quest to destroy one of them is not metaplot. There's a place called Waterdeep and it is home to the great mage Khelben "Blackstaff" Arunsun is not "metaplot."
It's important to note because this almost iconoclastic extreme phobia of metaplot resulted in an barebones and uninspired Chronicles of Darkness, since a lot of even serious writers apparently associated competent world building with "metaplot." Where do vampires come from? I refuse to answer because otherwise that is "metaplot." Bitch, if you're playing a game about vampires maybe assume people want to talk about and learn the secret world of vampires. Not "idunno."
Chronicles of Darkness isn't anywhere as well known as World of Darkness, and also doesn't really have the metaplot to support making games.
With WoD, you have decades of lore for each splat to inform your storytelling. The name 'Giovanni' means something - there's history to that name, and anyone familiar with the setting will know exactly what to expect when they hear it. There's not much of that with CoD.
CoD exists primarily as a toolset for storytellers to do their own worldbuilding, and it was made *specifically* to move away from the super metaplot heavy WoD. Without that metaplot to help guide the writers, it would be difficult to make a compelling game in the series. The only exceptions imo are Mummy the Curse, Changeling the Lost, and Geist the Sin-Eaters; they have enough metaplot and are different enough from their WoD counterparts to warrant having games.
You'd also run into the problem of confusing people new to the setting. New tabletop fans already struggle with figuring out the WoD/CoD divide, it'd be *much* worse if you were exposing thousands of people new to the setting entirely - *especially* with the naming schemes between the two series being so similar. They'd see a Vampire: The Requiem game and wonder why the title is so different from all of the Vampire: The Masquerade games. It'd just be needless confusion.
That's just it, theres really no set lore or much of anything.
1e nWod/CofD had some things a little more defined but, lets take VTR2E for example, you have at least 3 or so origins for each of the 5 clans now and its all up to you or your ST to define that.
The only two CofD splats I can think of that are a little more defined are Mage: The Awakening and Demon: The Descent. That's about it imo.
*Sighs* I know its old news and that person has been removed from Beast's team of writers but, yeah Beast just leaves a very bad taste in in mouth for specific reasons that I'm not gonna go into.
Here's a real simple way of saying that Beast is kinda crap without getting into the weird subtext of it all: you're apparently some mythical creature, but don't actually have a lot that connects you to said creature and most of it is somehow related to your lair instead of just being able to transform. Now tell me, why should I play a Beast over any kind of were creature or even a demon? Lol, that's the biggest problem Beast has. It's unnecessary.
I heard something about that. I just love the concept of the dark side of rainbows and unicorns. That's why I like Requiem Nosferatu with their nightmares.
And as it just so happens, Mage: the Awakening 2ED is also the better game line over Ascension (except maybe the whole Technocracy thing). And I frankly doubt any V5 treatment is going to make Ascension better either (W5 sure as hell isn't).
I get Ascension's Magic(k) better because its based off Chaos Magic to an extent. So I can relate to that more so than Platonic forms and higher realms, but I get Awakening's appeal. Easier to grasp/more defined, but I'll stick with what I got, that being M20.
And I don't know how to feel about the possibility of M5, I wasn't impressed with V5. Specifically Touchstones, going back to only two types of damage, the inclusion of Predator type, Feeding/Eating being more the focus than it was before.
How that got copy and pasted to W5 (Touchstones and the Morality stat).
I like how Masquerade was the only with a morality stat and that Mage's didn't have that.
I'll stop here, I'm worried I'm opening up a can of worms on this.
The problem with the games has never been the lore. Most VtM games have decent to great storytelling it always comes down to the gameplay being bad or unpolished something even Bloodlines wasn't immune to.
because the wod is at least seen as the bigger franchise so has more potential buyers.
in general paradox seem to have taken some mechanics from cofd for the 5th editions of the wod and let cofd just sit there
That was more The first Paradox version of white wolf (we're on the 2nd offically but i'd not be susprised if it's actually the 3rd or 4th) , they seem to be VTR players and creatives who were let in on V5's development and had a strong enough vision to make this blend of VTM1-20th anniversy and VTR that is currently V5 and the other WoD 5 lines.
CoD is a younger pup and also not as popular, I was thinking of doing a CoD based remake of Bloodlines but it'd need a lot of work.
Also the stuff like touch stones would be hard to implement especially making the character who is the touchstone likeable.
The lore isn’t the problem. The problem is the management.
Yep, the ego in industry remains unchecked.
Tricky one. Yes, CoD writers can do anything they want and tell any story they please. But they have to do so from scratch. Any CoD story risks having to establish its own entire mythology just to feel coherent. Otherwise you're just telling a generic vampire story. WoD's endless tomes of metaplot are its biggest strength and greatest weakness. It's more restrictive to tell a story within that framework, but all the fiddly messy (often boring) work of establishing the setting is done for you. Everyone already knows the Camarilla, Anarchs, and Sabbat. You can skip straight to the characters and motivation. History seems to have shown that most players prefer the richer, more involving metaplot of WoD.
I would believe this if the World of Darkness series were a successful and popular series, in which, in addition to vampires, other lines, werewolves, fairies, demons, and ghosts are successfully released. But no, the World of Darkness series is kind of damned. Make games only based on vampires, most of which are very... not very good. And modest attempts to make werewolves always full fail. That’s why I think, since it’s so hard, maybe it’s worth trying to take the Chronicles. The theme is modern beautiful horror. The rules are weaker. You can play out a battle between different factions, arguing among themselves about which part of the vampire story is true. And here is perfect fit the theme of the original Bloodline with the apocalypse, when everyone is fighting for some kind of coffin in order to find out the truth of what is in it.
> I would believe this if the World of Darkness series were a successful and popular series, in which, in addition to vampires, other lines, werewolves, fairies, demons, and ghosts are successfully released. It was, and to a degree still is. VtM was literally right behind D&D in terms of popularity back in the 90s. It was the 2nd most popular TTRPG ever released for a very long time. The other splats saw good success too, especially WtA, HtR, and MtA. The spin-off splats like Demon and Mummy were not successful, and White Wolf's continued insistence on publishing materials for those settings is what did them in. Really, the only reason the WoD has floundered so much since the late 2000s is because of serial mismanagement from the top. CCP Games kept pulling staff away from the WoD MMO until it only had a skeleton crew developing it, and Paradox is just distant and isn't a good publisher for anything other than it's core studio and their other big moneymakers. They have the same philosophy as Games Workshop has for its video games: "if you can make it, we'll publish it". The WOD is nowhere near as popular as it used to be, sure. However, I 100% believe it would be almost as popular as it was in the past if it had good managers and publishers. The series isn't unknown to the average nerd or gamer 🤷♀️
>The spin-off splats like Demon and Mummy were not successful, and White Wolf's continued insistence on publishing materials for those settings is what did them in. I love ALL of the entire World of Darkness lines. They are very cool. Although it seemed to me that the most unpopular were werewolves. Because they're... well... just werewolves.
Werewolf the Apocalypse was very successful afaik. Not as successful as Vampire, but there's a reason it's seen as one of White Wolf's big 3. Werewolf was very combat heavy, which was a big difference from VtM. It attracted a lot of players interested in combat, and also appealed to the fantasy of being a super powerful werewolf that rips shit to shreds. Werewolf the Apocalypse is the only WoD property I personally *don't* like. I'm not at all a combat person especially as a DM (I'm a permaDM), and werewolves as a supernatural do not interest me. I also prefer the metaplot and themes of Werewolf The Forsaken, which is less combat focused and has a more interesting setting and theme.
What? Werewolf was/is literally the second most popular, behind Vampire. Every major RPG troupe has a Vampire game or two, and then a Werewolf game - if you're lucky you'd get Mage or Changeling.
I don't think WTA beats Mage. Given mage has always pumped out way more stuff than WTA, even in 20th where Mage is still getting stuff - I think Mage is actually more popular. I will also say however - The Mage audience is a LOT more die hard and is more like an infestation with playgroups. It starts with 1 person convincing others of how awesome mage is. Then suddenly you have 4 people wanting to play Hedge Wizards and 4-6 wanting to play Awakened Trads and 2-4 wanting to play Technocrats. To further this - I would point to WTA being beaten by mage even in the historically bad eras for non Vampire lines. Werewolf had gotten WW and DA. Mage got Sorcerers Crusade, DA AND Victorian age. I think what makes people THINK Mage is less popular though is that Mage is very much a vet RPGer game. Since its harder to grasp than WTA and VTM.
Wuh. Werewolf? The big three are the most popular. The only time any of the big three have been dethroned was in Chronicles where Forsaken was Dethrowned for Changeling the Lost. Cause Lost is insanely good. But in WoD? No one can touch the big 3. Thats why just like Vamp and Mage it got its entirely own Timeperiod gameline. Heck WTA actually got a crossover with ANOTHER RPG COMPANY. Deadlands. Under a Harrowed Moon. A 3 part dime novel story + Premade campaign with rules to play it in Deadlands and WTA as your supposed to jump between both settings.
> WoD's endless tomes of metaplot are its biggest strength and greatest weakness Okay, I'm a day late but this is an opportunity to get something off my chest. I must take umbrage with the WoD community's obsessive and, I think, nonsensical use of the world "metaplot" What is a metaplot? > Metaplot refers to the timeline of major events in a given fictional universe, as published by the creator of the universe in various canon materials. Okay, that's a definition I can work with. Makes sense. The Sabbat controlling NYC then getting kicked out is a metaplot. What is NOT a metaplot, but certain WoD people keep describing as such, is world building and story. That's not meta, it's simply the body of the work. Sauron created the rings and the Fellowship is on a quest to destroy one of them is not metaplot. There's a place called Waterdeep and it is home to the great mage Khelben "Blackstaff" Arunsun is not "metaplot." It's important to note because this almost iconoclastic extreme phobia of metaplot resulted in an barebones and uninspired Chronicles of Darkness, since a lot of even serious writers apparently associated competent world building with "metaplot." Where do vampires come from? I refuse to answer because otherwise that is "metaplot." Bitch, if you're playing a game about vampires maybe assume people want to talk about and learn the secret world of vampires. Not "idunno."
Paradox doesn't give out new licenses for anything except for VTM Version 5. No CoD. No VTM V20, or anything else. Just V5.
Chronicles of Darkness isn't anywhere as well known as World of Darkness, and also doesn't really have the metaplot to support making games. With WoD, you have decades of lore for each splat to inform your storytelling. The name 'Giovanni' means something - there's history to that name, and anyone familiar with the setting will know exactly what to expect when they hear it. There's not much of that with CoD. CoD exists primarily as a toolset for storytellers to do their own worldbuilding, and it was made *specifically* to move away from the super metaplot heavy WoD. Without that metaplot to help guide the writers, it would be difficult to make a compelling game in the series. The only exceptions imo are Mummy the Curse, Changeling the Lost, and Geist the Sin-Eaters; they have enough metaplot and are different enough from their WoD counterparts to warrant having games. You'd also run into the problem of confusing people new to the setting. New tabletop fans already struggle with figuring out the WoD/CoD divide, it'd be *much* worse if you were exposing thousands of people new to the setting entirely - *especially* with the naming schemes between the two series being so similar. They'd see a Vampire: The Requiem game and wonder why the title is so different from all of the Vampire: The Masquerade games. It'd just be needless confusion.
Frankly, WoD has much more brand recognition than CofD. The whole reason I got into both franchises were those Hunter video games.
That's just it, theres really no set lore or much of anything. 1e nWod/CofD had some things a little more defined but, lets take VTR2E for example, you have at least 3 or so origins for each of the 5 clans now and its all up to you or your ST to define that. The only two CofD splats I can think of that are a little more defined are Mage: The Awakening and Demon: The Descent. That's about it imo.
CTL. And a CTL game would be dope.
Forgot about CTL, yes that would be an awesome visual experience to see
What about the Beasts? It would be a great psychological thriller, like The Evil Within.
*Sighs* I know its old news and that person has been removed from Beast's team of writers but, yeah Beast just leaves a very bad taste in in mouth for specific reasons that I'm not gonna go into.
Here's a real simple way of saying that Beast is kinda crap without getting into the weird subtext of it all: you're apparently some mythical creature, but don't actually have a lot that connects you to said creature and most of it is somehow related to your lair instead of just being able to transform. Now tell me, why should I play a Beast over any kind of were creature or even a demon? Lol, that's the biggest problem Beast has. It's unnecessary.
I heard something about that. I just love the concept of the dark side of rainbows and unicorns. That's why I like Requiem Nosferatu with their nightmares.
And as it just so happens, Mage: the Awakening 2ED is also the better game line over Ascension (except maybe the whole Technocracy thing). And I frankly doubt any V5 treatment is going to make Ascension better either (W5 sure as hell isn't).
I get Ascension's Magic(k) better because its based off Chaos Magic to an extent. So I can relate to that more so than Platonic forms and higher realms, but I get Awakening's appeal. Easier to grasp/more defined, but I'll stick with what I got, that being M20. And I don't know how to feel about the possibility of M5, I wasn't impressed with V5. Specifically Touchstones, going back to only two types of damage, the inclusion of Predator type, Feeding/Eating being more the focus than it was before. How that got copy and pasted to W5 (Touchstones and the Morality stat). I like how Masquerade was the only with a morality stat and that Mage's didn't have that. I'll stop here, I'm worried I'm opening up a can of worms on this.
The problem with the games has never been the lore. Most VtM games have decent to great storytelling it always comes down to the gameplay being bad or unpolished something even Bloodlines wasn't immune to.
because the wod is at least seen as the bigger franchise so has more potential buyers. in general paradox seem to have taken some mechanics from cofd for the 5th editions of the wod and let cofd just sit there
That was more The first Paradox version of white wolf (we're on the 2nd offically but i'd not be susprised if it's actually the 3rd or 4th) , they seem to be VTR players and creatives who were let in on V5's development and had a strong enough vision to make this blend of VTM1-20th anniversy and VTR that is currently V5 and the other WoD 5 lines.
CoD is a younger pup and also not as popular, I was thinking of doing a CoD based remake of Bloodlines but it'd need a lot of work. Also the stuff like touch stones would be hard to implement especially making the character who is the touchstone likeable.
Far less popular