You forgot the play novels, with the Trans vampire taxi driver who would kill/feed on Trump supporters, and the Mage play novel set in Sweden and eas focused a lot on migrant camps. Which you cannot find any more, for some reason...
You missed the Vampire Murders in Florida in the mid-90s, in which four teens killed the parents of one of the members. The Casual Criminalist did a video on it, but left of the part where John Walsh condemned the game on America's Most Wanted and warned parents that "If you see your children with any of these books, they may be murderers."
I mean, there IS the Wu Keng, a Craft of Mages who are, and this is a big one: Chinese Transvestite Infernalists subjected at a young age to _foot binding_ by the members of the Craft who _kidnapped them_ as infants. Did I mention they were kept ignorant of the fact they served demons, so they're all that but delusional? The Wu Keng were the "peasant magic" counterparts to the "high class wizards" of the Wu Lung. But White Wolf saw fit to add so much cultural baggage onto them. Wrapping a clumsy attempt to create a designated "Trans Craft" for Mage into a surface level understanding of Chinese history and culture. So the best representation Trans people had in Mage was...the devil-worshipers (not even cool ones, ones that were ignorant) who had hobbled feet. Who arguably weren't even "really" Trans, because they were stolen as children and forcibly raised as women, their "internal gender" be damned. I don't know the extent of backlash against the Wu Keng at the time. All I know is, during Revised, WW tried to do a saving throw by introducing a parallel Craft of Chinese peasant shamans that used many of the same magical practices as the Wu Keng, but with none of their baggage. With the idea really ancient Wu Keng masters secretly taught students The Old Ways, unblemished by the bullshit the demons taught them, and sent them out into the world. (Mind's Eye Theater called these shaman the "Wu Nung", if I remember correctly, as the book that originally introduced them didn't deign to name them). It would have been preferable if White Wolf had simply retconned the old material to make the "Wu Nung" the Craft all along, so players could run them at any point in history. And also not left Storytellers with having to juggle TWO similar Crafts, one that retained all the offensive bullshit from the 90s. But I suppose this was better than nothing? It's telling the Wu Keng never showed up in M20 material, to my knowledge.
at 1:00 I'll stress that at the early nintees a lot of people didnt have the same kind of internet or resources that they have today, google wasn't a thing then. Often if you wanted to write about a different culture for an rpg you might be looking at going to a book to read about it. Its how you end up with Oriental adventures or a vampire clan based around stealing and being distrusted as being the roma standin. Summary thoughts; most people dont set out to create something racist or offensive on purpose, they just want a cool rpg setting or class to write about, this was worse when there wasnt the kind of resources or communication tools available today.
I hope I didn’t come across too harshly on White Wolf. I genuinely believe most of these issues were from ignorance and not malice. The problem for me is that White Wolf demonstrated their ability to create amazing cultural source books with Charnel Houses. When they wanted to, they could get it right. Janet Berliner was a really big part of Charnel Houses going well and had they touched base with some other experts KoE would’ve gone better.
@@PaulRGauthier They were trying to be inclusive. We just live in a disgusting age where narcissism and neuroticism are celebrated as ideals instead things to be condemned.
Including, apparently, the creative director in charge of W5. Who had to be informed that the Get of Fenris killed off all their Nazi members back in Revised. Followed by said director deciding "eh, Lore isn't that important, right?", and made the -Get- _Cult_ of Fenris into All Fascists All The Time.
@Bluecho4 EXACTLY! It's why i won't play W5 yet, i cant forgive the redline of the tribes good history to fit a narrative that pushes away a good chunk of players. Hunting Nazis was and still is my jam on my Get. I know it invites newer players and grows the fan base, allowing for continued survival of the game, but it did hurt to see. I wont advise others to not play but doesnt mean i have to.
The in-game description is utterly cathartic as well, and the last line when telling about the fight and ensuing hunt for every last traitor ? "We were thorough." Like, the Swords were anti-get, confused pawns of something else...But oh no, now all Get are Nazis. F*** NuWW.
You have to love that 5E's version of morality is that the Fenris are unplayable now because they're apparently the only ones who actually follow The Litany anymore, and that's EVIL? Meanwhile Red Talons are still A-OK. Glorified even.
Regarding the Ravnos clan weakness: It was just a vice. It didn't require the breaking of the law per se. It could've been one of the "Seven Deadly Sins," gambling, etc. Every Vampire breaks the law, so it seems ridiculous that the Vice (which is more of a compulsion) requires law breaking.
There was so much more to the Camarilla club drama than a mere nerd war. Seggual assault and harassment was rampant in that org. It almost destroyed the fandom.
2:20 The reason for it is that Vampire the Masquerade was discontinued in 2004. Yes, when the game Bloodlines was released, the tabletop game was no longer being supported. White Wolf rebooted the Vampire game with Vampire the Requiem and Ravnos weren't there. They eventually revived Vampire the Masquerade for the 20th Anniversary of the game. 9:40 The Kuei Jin being OP has nothing to do with White Wolf being weabos. The thing is that the default Kindred is a 13th generation Kindred who are super weak. Werewolves, mages and demons are vastly more powerful than the average vampire too.
Killed by the monster they helped create. And as a Romani role-player I know once said: "I love it when White girls are offended on my behalf." He loves that book.
I was a member of the Camarilla during the White Wolf take over. The original Camarilla (NPO) was also in breach of contact for the licensing, since they were supposed to be giving WW membership lists, so WW could send players promotional materials (the NPO was keeping it all for themselves), weren't publishing their quarterly magazine (as part of the membership fee and required by WW), and not giving out membership cards, which were required to attend official events (I personally paid for about 20 members, less than 10 of whom got cards, leaving the rest denied despite payments). Also, the NPO filed for bankruptsy the same day they filed their suit against WW, proving to us that they were just scamming the members.
I agree that people get a tad too worked up over what are really just goofy mistakes for the most part. Gypsies is pretty inexcusable but KotE is largely a love-letter from the weebier members of the WW staff.
Just like the vast majority of any group when some vocal minorities on the internet start screaming about how offensive something is. lol. Most of the actual group don't care.
Gypsy was bigoted, but it is also a product of its time and not the only product to show the same stereotypes. Ravenloft is a great example the predates Vampire and utilizes those same stereotypes. It still wrong, which White Wolf tried fixing in 3e in the Ravnos Clanbook (Revised), while Wizards still pushes it to this day. Most people I know, ignore it entirely or alters Gypsy to Revnants or their "magic" as hedge magic, which it is.
soooo, 75% percent of thoise controversies are solely based on the fact that people can't distinguish reality from make believe. I would never have guessed it (for those thick as a brick among you readers, that is called sarcasm, google it)
@@lavalamp505 _WoD spaces or just safe spaces? That's the real issue here. I'm sad who owns the IP now are just a-holes that need their crap to be accepted. Oops, did I breach the masquerade?_
@@Fear.Loathing Most of these controversies are coming from non-American sources. America has an extremely small Romani population, most of the complaints are from Roma people or Europeans. Most Americans think of Stevie Nicks when they hear the word Gypsie. Metis is a Canadian phrase and has basically 0 presence in America. Kindred of the East backlash came largely from actually Asian players. The biggest American centered drama was probably the Camarilla club mess but that was just typical company BS. Very little of this stuff has to do with America at all.
@@Fear.Loathing I totally agree. Almost everything about Russia in vampires is stereotypes, but it does not offend me and ALL my players in any way. We think it's funny and understand that it's unrealistic. It's just a game.
White Wolf: "We would like to stress that, even in the World of Darkness, events like the holocaust were perpetrated by very real, very monstrous human beings, not fictional creatures of the night" Also White Wolf: "Heinrich Himmler, architect of the holocaust, was a vampire"
@@lavalamp505 I get the feeling White Wolf, being mostly, well, White, knew well enough that the Holocaust needed to be approached with utmost sensitivity. But when it came to minorities or people from non-White cultures, such consideration didn't enter into their minds.
White Wolf's writing and worldbuilding has always been the type to blend real life with their World of Darkness, rather than create a world that is completely all their own. I think that's what the fans like about it, too, the way that the world is a darker mirror of the real world. Instead of shying away from tackling real world ugliness and touchy topics, they ran at them full speed and attempted to integrate it into their world to seem just that it more believable. That being said, some of the stuff they did was just downright lazy or terribly executed. The book about the Ravnos is fine, in my opinion. It gives a grimdark/edgy reason as to why that group of people is outcast IRL and integrates it into their setting. It was somewhat clumsy but I can see what they were going for. The thing with the Kuei Jin is rough, though, not gonna lie. They didn't even use any of the classical undead/vamps from Asian mythology. The first two that come to mind are the hopping vampires that are stiff due to rigor mortis, from China. The second is a potential monster or battle-form they could have given to them or another Asian vamp: the disembodied woman's head with attached digestive tract that floats through dark, misty towns and forests, hunting and consuming the people who wronged it. I feel like there was a massive missed opportunity there. And, of course, there's that McFarland guy, which is just horrible, but that goes without saying. I'd say that's pretty much the only real controversy here. All in all, though, this was a great video. I'm glad I watched it.
I think VtM is great in a retrogaming mode, but you have to do what you should do with most tabletop RPGs; pick and choose and be creative in making it your own. Ignore the subculture, craft some stories and roll some dice with your friends. Bring whisky.
Charnel Houses is probably the best book they ever wrote over at White Wolf. It's also the most depressing RPG book I've ever read... Wraith was already a depressing game by it's very nature... And Charnel Houses did not hold back on the truth about the Holocaust. The smartest thing they did was not to put any blame on any of the supernaturals of the WoD they flat out were like... Supernaturals might have taken advantage of the stuff that humans did... But flat out it was humans who did these horrible things to other human beings...
Can't think of anything missed here... maybe how there was an artist who traced a picture of Dante (from the Devil May Cry series) and used it for a Hunter the Vigil book? Hope your channel blows up soon man!
Many W5 players feel the way the Get of Fenris are portrayed as antagonists in this edition makes it seem like the Sword of Heimdall won. Another W5 controversy would be the art in the core book being colorized pictures of real people, including noteworthy political activists. They changed some of the pictures before the main print, but some are still in there.
The art thing is a mess, it seems like every major ttrpg has had troubles with it lately. The Get aren’t really antagonists as much as they are neutral now. You can work with and against them rather easily. Honestly, tribe cooperation felt similar in 20th half the time. The lore sheet allows you to at least have some touchstone for them
Pretty interesting to see all those comments coming from, I suppose, sheltered Americans with 0 interactions with traditional Roma people. Reality is often way more complicated that good people with heart vs blasted racists.
I'm new to this franchise but I heard of it from the games. The fact that a real pedo wrote for the company and his now wife had covered for him is bad. Everyone in upper management should step down especially in HR. All works that guy made should be pulled from any official source of still in distribution
@@lavalamp505I mean,why would get rid of a chance to get more money? Yeah,it was written by a bad person but people can clearly change it to something more palpable, if they want to. Hell,it actually gives us a chance to look deeper into the mind of a child predator,which is definitely a rarity. And I find it funny how,I have seen some comments on TH-cam, how they actually like Beast and even one I saw about a person, saying that Beast was the reason they got into WoD in the first place. Even bad things can do some good.
i actually miss kindred of the east, in theory. it was flawed, and you are right, it should have been it's own splat, but in V5 basically everything is a black hole outside of America and a few European cities. I'd rather have dumb Chinese supernaturals than none at all. According to Paradox, half the world just doesn't exist because they can't be bothered to hire a few Asian writers, which is really all they ever needed.
Got good new for you unless you already found it. Theres two KoTE supplements on Storytellers Vault. One for 20th Anniversary (KoTE: The Relentless Age) and one for V5 (Kuei-Jin: The Hungy Ghosts). Neither are official, but they're really cool.
While not white wolf related, I can add to the honorable mentions: There's like... a weirdly HUGE amount of people endorsing harmful tropes and archetypes when it comes to the rainbow crew. AND an equally large amount of people covering it up, as "otherwise, we are proving the bigots right!" in this weird "I can't be a traitor!" mindset. Like, the game third crisis on steam: Includes a twoman, that's a violent, jagged teeth child grapist. And people just... "Yaaas! So empowering!" and "Oh, you know that's just how twomen are!". Not to mention the game's main theme about... graping and durgin women until they "learn their place". Not limited to, but including: "Curing" less beans, so they are now into men. AND: Learn that women do NOT have rights, and only exist to serve men. Which, includes the lesbean main character. And her lesbean gf. The game launched as a rainbow crew inclusive game, and how there's SO much girl on girl action. Only for the game to have 200+ scenes, and less than 4 % girl on girl after a few years in production. And to add insult to injury: There's like... 9 "paths" in the game. ALL lead to male superiority, female abluse. There IS a planned "pure ending", but that's more like a pure middle finger to people. As: You gain NOTHING from playing it. As ALL other paths contain a "There! Learn your PLACE waman! Now here: Take this legendary item to help you." while the pure path... is basically the highest difficulty setting. 0 help. AND 0 scenes. (After they PROMISED to include girl+girl animation, and not just pics... after like, 14+ interactive male animations) So, kinda you know... very passive aggressive "you are stupid if you want to play this path". Oh, almost forgot: There's also 0 variety between the women. As: Only ONE type of woman is acceptable. Body type wise. But: There's TONS of men. All with unique models. AND: There IS a gey man. Who still shreks women. Because he ain't no [f-slur]. Went on a tangent there... but as said: There's a LARGE amount of people that defend this type of content. Citing that ALL inclusion is good inclusion. And that we have to protect ALL depictions of rainbow crew as otherwise... we are somehow just as bad as the people who accuse them of doing bad things? While a steam, pat, itch and other site issue: They DO allow not-allowed content. I did work on the game for a short while, and steam support directly instructed me: Tag ANYTHING not legal, as "corruption". That way: The game CAN be sold. And, in the rare case a big influencer (they WILL ignore ALL reports of any game with illicit content.) calls them out: They can go: "We had NO idea! This is the FIRST time we hear about it! You can't expect us, a multi-billion dollar company, to be aware of what we are selling!".
I *adore* Beast as do my players. Beast transgress, they are here to Vex mankind and to enforce old wisdom. The Author may have been a sex-pest, but the pearl cluching over this book baffles me.
Beast is very fun. People I've ran the game for also enjoyed it. Tbh, I'm starting to think I just enjoy games others don't seem to because I also love Demon: The Fallen, and everyone I see talking about it online can't stop crying over how it's too "Christian". To me, it's the perfect game in which I get to play the type of demon, a fallen angel, I've always loved in fiction. That, and it seems to do things such as personal horror far better than Vampire could ever dream of without sacrificing feeling powerful in the process.
@@The13thGhostBunny Demon the Fallen is great imo. I would love to be a storyteller for it one day, and I don't mind if one of my players wants to play something that isn't a fallen angel, but I'd say "alright, we'll roleplay your demon like that then."
Excellent summary, and very helpful for someone new to the World of Darkness universe! Now, even though I am only a beginner, I have been hard at work absorbing all the lore I can find and quickly became very well aware of the more "problematic" contents. And honestly... I can't see what the fuss is about. From what I've gathered so far, it seems the World of Darkness has always tried to be as "edgy" and "over-the-top" as possible even past the point of silliness, not unlike the grimdark setting of Warhammer 40,000. With that in mind, you should not be able to take it seriously in the first place. While I can't speak for Roma, Jewish or East Asian people, I am a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, and I for one am not offended by any of the World of Darkness' content in that regard. I see nothing wrong with a fictional culture or society being homo- or transphobic, because fictional cultures don't affect my personal life, and attitudes (be they positive, neutral or negative) towards LGBTQIA+ people is an important aspect of any society, fictional or otherwise, which should not go unsaid. That's just basic worldbuilding. As for involving real events such as the Holocaust or the Chechnya tragedy... it's still fantasy. I do know people who have personal ties to various grand tragedies or conflicts, and being able to interact with these through a fantasy setting - whether to change the course of events, or to laugh at the silly fantasy concepts added in, or even to invest themselves more deeply in the story - has been almost like a form of therapy for some of them. None of my players have complained so far. In fact, I've had a Jewish game master bring up the Svenska Kulter setting in which Heinrich Himmler uses the Holocaust as a front for grand human sacrifices to summon a Great Old One, and she very much enjoyed that take. In the end, roleplaying games and fantasy at large is supposed to entertain, and we should always go into a setting with the goal of being entertained. Trying to limit what can and can't be added in a fantasy setting would restrict creativity and lead to a much more boring world, I think. Side note: I would actually like to try and play Gypsies at some point, if for no other reason than how silly it is (funnily enough, in my teenage years I actually came up with a concept for a tabletop roleplaying game where ALL human ethnicities/cultures each carried different supernatural traits and abilities... it was very silly, and therefore entertaining. Still plan on making it at some point).
I don’t think the issue is “you can’t limit what people can make their games about.” No one can control what you choose to run at your own table. You’re the one who knows your players. Hopefully you’ve discussed what sort of content they are and are not comfortable with… to avoid “that guy” scenarios if nothing else. That guy. You know. The one who keeps pushing the edgiest, most upsetting stuff he possibly can into his game, just because he can. That guy who uses TTRPGS as an excuse to be his worst possible self, uses his fellow players as props for his distressing fantasies, and seems never happier then when he’s making everyone else uncomfortable. He doesn’t even seem to really care about the game being fun so much as he cares about being able to upset people. That guy is the worst. Don’t be that guy. And if you happen to publish a TTRPG, REALLY you don’t need to give That Guy the excuse of “I’ve just gotta do this awful bigoted thing it’s in the book!!!” I promise he doesn’t need the help. And by the way, I don’t think your gamifying racism is a good idea.
What the f is lgbtqia+ and what tf is lgbtqiaa++2sp+? I find the pandering funny from that community, If the "I" is for intersex, thats a mutation not an identity. They even added black and brown stripes to represent black people without asking them.
I used to play WoD and absolutely loved the games. Bloodlines was one of my all time favorite rpg pc games. But I remember checking back in during the 2010s and being shocked how crassly they tried to bump up the edginess and how tone death they were. Most of the people I played VtM with and were most interested in it are precisely the people who would be most offended by their takes.
@@lavalamp505I am personally keeping away from 5th. I remember the play test chronicles, and have looked at the comments online, and looked at the wiki info. It isn't at all appealing. I am better off making my own version, revising clans to work better, and the like. There is a lot of potential and positive elements in 1st-Revised, and 20th has a lot to mull over as well. The material is there to build something for yourself.
@@horseradishpower9947 I'd say check it out v5 for yourself and make your own decision. For what it's worth, I was a 2nd edition baby and it sounds like you and I aren't dissimilar in our values. I think you might be surprised by v5. Personally, I love it. It feels like a reboot of 1st and 2nd edition era, a "getting back to Vampire's roots" kind of thing. That said, the direction Paradox has been taking recently is paralleling White Wolf, including crappy splatbooks AND some very socially unconscious bollocks. (They pretend to be all inclusive etc., but the reality on the ground is quite different. And I consider it worse the WW stuff. The old WW guys mostly didn't know any better. In 2023 you have no excuse.) That might influence your decision to spend money on their games, I understand. Even if you don't wanna play v5... If you can get your hands on an Onyx Path edition of Chicago by Night (v5) DO IT! It's one of the best ttrpg sourcebooks *ever*. You won't be disappointed, trust me. Sadly, the incompetent company they've now got publishing the game are revising CbN. Literally, monkeys trying to improve Shakespeare, sigh.
Kuei Jin. Nuff' said. edit: Okay, not enough said. Beast: the Primordial. I had a long list of complaints about this game and that was before it was revealed that it was just a Gary Stew, self-insert power fantasy for the author. The controversy surrounding the author just validated most of what I thought was wrong with the venue. Even the complaints I had that weren't related to the dickish themes of abuse turn me off from the game. I won't even go over that list here, but suffice to say in my head cannon Beast doesn't exist in the CoD. I won't play it, I won't run it, I won't acknowledge that this splat exists in the CoD during a crossover game if I'm the ST, and if someone else runs a CoD game I'll let them know I'm not interested in Beast crossovers, and I'll loose interest in the game if they bring one in or if someone plays a Beast. Everything else is cool but Beast. I'm iffy about their newest splat because it doesn't follow folklore in a modern setting like every other venue, but I'll give it a chance.
I'm always sad with how hated the Kuei-Jin are. I really like them even if I understand why they're controversial. As for Beast, I find it interesting, but very, VERY poorly executed. Some people have said to read it from the perspective of an unreliable narrator, which makes it more bearable according to them. Other people try to rewrite the lore to make it more bearable. As for the Fifth Edition stuff that has gone on, well, I could go on and on but I've found homebrew that helps alleviate a good few problems. By problems, I don't mean controversies like, say, beast or gypsy. But I do mean problems in the sense of "wow this just feels like it hates its fans" or "wow, this feels like it was written by someone who doesn't know their own lore."
These "controversies" are controversal only for woke people.. the rest of the world can play a game about stealing ravnos and not get offended .. of course some stuff is hard. .but come on be adults..
White Wolf was the original home of exalted, and Manual of Exalted Power: Abyssals, had a quite controversial first chapter. I've already mentioned you didn't cover it in the other white wolf video, so maybe it's just not on the radar?
In the early days, they were tied, as Exalted was positioning itself to be the prehistory of the setting(many terms got reused, Scarlet Empress, Ebon Dragon, Malfeans, Black Spiral) But no official product came out to use this, or spell this out, as far as I can tell@@lavalamp505
Fair, thorough, and well executed. There's also that time a Black writer stated Assamites got darker with age (instead of lighter as all others) in the clanbook, but I'm not sure that reaches the level of controversy covered here.
I had this but cut it out. The author as you said was black and wanted to represent skin darkening as empowering as a vampire aged in contrast to the usual paling of skin.
I need to say, the whole gypsy thing is a parody, mostly because we are all so bad educated on the topic. Gypsy - is not an offencive word, it is culture, way of living. While many romani are gypsy, there are celtic and germanic gypsy with really high population in Europe. Romani - ethnic group (I will not use Roma as it means male) that have the majority of gypsy population, but not every romani is gypsy. I believe the ravnos myth came from actual romani (I will call it sect because I just don't know better word in english) sect that believes a romani have stolen one nail from the romans when they wanted to put Jesus on the cross. And because they lowered the suffering of Jesus, god allows them to steal. However, I am not educated enough on those believes to say it for sure, but from all the people I know, none of the romani sharing those believes is a gypsy. I may be wrong here, but in any case it is extremely offensive to take a specific sect and put it on entire ethnic group. I am just saying where probably their inspiration came from.
Bro your Bloodlines game is broken tp shit, are you sure you're playing with the unofficial patch? Also memory leaks occur after four or five hours, so restart if so.
Your first misstake was in 0:37 ... Anyway ... while you arent exactly wrong, since what you said is true ... its not whole true and thats the problem ... there is several groups of those people, and just as one concider the word White Wolf used to be "a slur" ... there are others (aproximately just as numerous) that concider dont using it simmilar insult, bcs this is what they were called allways, therefore its part of their herritage. It depends a lot on wich group of them you ask, but basicaly you get exactly oposite answers ... White Wolf was in no position to pick any name that would insult noone, even the word you used for them would insult the other group ... so they went with what was most common at the time. ;)
The picture at 9:54 ish.... is the precise example of the bad weeb. Thinks he's so cool with a katana.... while he's unsheathing it wrong... it's quite beautiful tbh. I'm paused on that time stamp, and so far this is really hilarious, just imagine if someone today published a d&d suplementary book calld "N*****" where you play as this mystical creature XD that would be so off the wall terrible, i'd be there to watch that. Otherwise, if they'd double down that every single human ethnicity and nationality is somehow actually some kind of devil/demon thing, that would be really cool. Cause that would be an interesting lense of the misanthropic view. I'd be down for that. But when you take the lovecraftian look where there are "normal" people, yeaaaah, that's pretty bad.
Funny how the nature of TTRPGs "open lore" just frees people to write about whatever they want and just exposes the best and worst that sort of freedom of creation can bring. Pretty sure all these pen and paper systems have been through cases like these in some way or another. Do you intend to cover any controversies surrounding the development of Bloodlines 2? Technically not a White Wolf controversy from the bits i remember, but probably some interesting stuff to cover.
I doubt theres a major TTRPG that hasn’t had one or more of these scandals in some way. As for Bloodlines 2, I absolutely intend to but Paradox has been incredibly tight-lipped about it. All we know is more info is coming in September. I’m not even sure we know who is working on it. The ARPG, Tender, that preceded the announcement is also very interesting to me.
They fall under the same problem as Ravnos. Indians are Asian yes, as are some Middle-Eastern kindred but they certainly do not fall under the “””culturally asian””” requirement that Kuei-Jin had which pretty explicitly meant Chinese or Japanese.
@mp505 The Rising being limited to East Asia is not true first since it not only includes Southeast Asia, but also extends to India (the Infinite Thunders court is based in Sri Lanka, so its not just a case of Bengal at most). India in-universe is a messy borderlands between Kindred and Kue-jin, like California and what was the Anarch Free State / New Promise Mandarinate. It's because of metaplot reasons why the dead come back to their bodies most in Asia, but it's not limited to just there. But only Asia has the support structure and the former wan kuei to enable them to find chin-meh (freshly returned Kue-jin who are ravenous and can only draw chi from flesh) and capture them, and keep them 'alive' long enough that their soul reasserts itself. Everywhere else in the world, they're wiped out as some aberration monster before they can bring themselves back to sentience. Also, on top, before 5E happened, which I discount anyways because damn the 5E books all to hell for being shit, The Rising was finally enabled in California, and soon North America, which is one reason why there was hope in the Courts for the continued fight in America in the first place. The main point about the Kue-jin wasn't supposed to be as how they are so different, alien ('like Asian stereotypes irl amirite hur hur' said the braindead prog), that's literally if anything, was the whole point you're supposed to see past. For all the kindred and kue-jin characters remarking ohohoho were so different, ***the whole point was that they're way more alike than they appear or want to admit, sharing in the utter root of their existence, aka being cursed by God*** . Also, they weren't just one monoculture. From the first, the different Courts were discussed in the books, and not just Courts, but locations of the KJ, like the Green of Korea - its a very big metapoint in the game that not all courts ARE under the Quincux. That's, again, something evident if one actually reads the book. Similar again to the beholden to a different God thing. If anything, it gets it right because to a lot of Westerners, they don't realize God IS still existant even in polytheistic faiths. Also they don't eat bodies, that's again, ONLY the chinmeh, before you are even considered a Kuejin. Kuejin get the chi needed from blood, hence why they're alike vampires. Also, they produce magical blood (vitae) just like vampires. Yeah, there's a lot of wushu or whatever, but nearly every Asian player didn't mind it or loved it. Me included. You have to remember the cultural currents of when this came out, what was popular. People WANTED to roleplay this. Also, for all it's being derided as just recycled wushu everywhere, it was actually very well researched. Again, at most only a few whiny progs were upset over the Kuejin. Overwhelming majority of the Asian playerbase loved it. Not that our "approval" is needed to like something.
Not just them, every clan has a strong presence in Asia. Hell, the Indian Ventrue (Veddartha) have a serious claim to being the senior branch of the Ventrue Clan.
Holy shit, how does this have so little views? This is a great vid, and i had no clue about all this. It always pains me when public corporations, persons etc call themselves wolf in any capacity, it ends up being one of the worst companies/people there is, scammers, racists, bigots, etc. And it pains my heart they have to use that symbol. Naturally all the deeds they do piss me off, but this just adds fuel to the fire.
Did I miss any controversies you remember? Let me know below!
You forgot the play novels, with the Trans vampire taxi driver who would kill/feed on Trump supporters, and the Mage play novel set in Sweden and eas focused a lot on migrant camps.
Which you cannot find any more, for some reason...
@@horseradishpower9947 First I've ever heard of those lol. Were they proper White Wolf releases?
@@lavalamp505 Good point. It was right at the start of the Paradox acquisition, so it was an outside company.
You missed the Vampire Murders in Florida in the mid-90s, in which four teens killed the parents of one of the members. The Casual Criminalist did a video on it, but left of the part where John Walsh condemned the game on America's Most Wanted and warned parents that "If you see your children with any of these books, they may be murderers."
I mean, there IS the Wu Keng, a Craft of Mages who are, and this is a big one: Chinese Transvestite Infernalists subjected at a young age to _foot binding_ by the members of the Craft who _kidnapped them_ as infants.
Did I mention they were kept ignorant of the fact they served demons, so they're all that but delusional?
The Wu Keng were the "peasant magic" counterparts to the "high class wizards" of the Wu Lung. But White Wolf saw fit to add so much cultural baggage onto them. Wrapping a clumsy attempt to create a designated "Trans Craft" for Mage into a surface level understanding of Chinese history and culture. So the best representation Trans people had in Mage was...the devil-worshipers (not even cool ones, ones that were ignorant) who had hobbled feet. Who arguably weren't even "really" Trans, because they were stolen as children and forcibly raised as women, their "internal gender" be damned.
I don't know the extent of backlash against the Wu Keng at the time. All I know is, during Revised, WW tried to do a saving throw by introducing a parallel Craft of Chinese peasant shamans that used many of the same magical practices as the Wu Keng, but with none of their baggage. With the idea really ancient Wu Keng masters secretly taught students The Old Ways, unblemished by the bullshit the demons taught them, and sent them out into the world. (Mind's Eye Theater called these shaman the "Wu Nung", if I remember correctly, as the book that originally introduced them didn't deign to name them).
It would have been preferable if White Wolf had simply retconned the old material to make the "Wu Nung" the Craft all along, so players could run them at any point in history. And also not left Storytellers with having to juggle TWO similar Crafts, one that retained all the offensive bullshit from the 90s. But I suppose this was better than nothing?
It's telling the Wu Keng never showed up in M20 material, to my knowledge.
at 1:00 I'll stress that at the early nintees a lot of people didnt have the same kind of internet or resources that they have today, google wasn't a thing then. Often if you wanted to write about a different culture for an rpg you might be looking at going to a book to read about it. Its how you end up with Oriental adventures or a vampire clan based around stealing and being distrusted as being the roma standin.
Summary thoughts; most people dont set out to create something racist or offensive on purpose, they just want a cool rpg setting or class to write about, this was worse when there wasnt the kind of resources or communication tools available today.
I hope I didn’t come across too harshly on White Wolf. I genuinely believe most of these issues were from ignorance and not malice. The problem for me is that White Wolf demonstrated their ability to create amazing cultural source books with Charnel Houses. When they wanted to, they could get it right. Janet Berliner was a really big part of Charnel Houses going well and had they touched base with some other experts KoE would’ve gone better.
They unironically got more accurate info back then than they would nowadays.
Spoken as someone who hasn't been around gypsies. Take a trip to Bulgaria or Romania, see for yourself.
The ironic thing is that I think a lot of that stuff, they were actually trying to be inclusive!
Times change, we evolve.
@@PaulRGauthier They were trying to be inclusive.
We just live in a disgusting age where narcissism and neuroticism are celebrated as ideals instead things to be condemned.
I appreciate that you mention that the Get also hunted the swords down to the last. A point that EVERYONE forgets add.
Including, apparently, the creative director in charge of W5. Who had to be informed that the Get of Fenris killed off all their Nazi members back in Revised. Followed by said director deciding "eh, Lore isn't that important, right?", and made the -Get- _Cult_ of Fenris into All Fascists All The Time.
@Bluecho4 EXACTLY! It's why i won't play W5 yet, i cant forgive the redline of the tribes good history to fit a narrative that pushes away a good chunk of players. Hunting Nazis was and still is my jam on my Get.
I know it invites newer players and grows the fan base, allowing for continued survival of the game, but it did hurt to see. I wont advise others to not play but doesnt mean i have to.
The in-game description is utterly cathartic as well, and the last line when telling about the fight and ensuing hunt for every last traitor ? "We were thorough." Like, the Swords were anti-get, confused pawns of something else...But oh no, now all Get are Nazis. F*** NuWW.
You have to love that 5E's version of morality is that the Fenris are unplayable now because they're apparently the only ones who actually follow The Litany anymore, and that's EVIL? Meanwhile Red Talons are still A-OK. Glorified even.
Regarding the Ravnos clan weakness: It was just a vice. It didn't require the breaking of the law per se. It could've been one of the "Seven Deadly Sins," gambling, etc. Every Vampire breaks the law, so it seems ridiculous that the Vice (which is more of a compulsion) requires law breaking.
There was so much more to the Camarilla club drama than a mere nerd war. Seggual assault and harassment was rampant in that org. It almost destroyed the fandom.
The Cammie club is honestly worth a video of its own. I didn’t want to linger on one subject too long and that stuff is a rabbit hole of despair.
@@lavalamp505 Couldn't have phrased it more repellently myself.
Which is nerd for, yup.
2:20 The reason for it is that Vampire the Masquerade was discontinued in 2004. Yes, when the game Bloodlines was released, the tabletop game was no longer being supported. White Wolf rebooted the Vampire game with Vampire the Requiem and Ravnos weren't there. They eventually revived Vampire the Masquerade for the 20th Anniversary of the game.
9:40 The Kuei Jin being OP has nothing to do with White Wolf being weabos. The thing is that the default Kindred is a 13th generation Kindred who are super weak. Werewolves, mages and demons are vastly more powerful than the average vampire too.
Killed by the monster they helped create. And as a Romani role-player I know once said: "I love it when White girls are offended on my behalf." He loves that book.
My best friend and I love collecting homophobic Jack Chick tracts to read and laugh at. We're both a bunch of queers.
I was a member of the Camarilla during the White Wolf take over. The original Camarilla (NPO) was also in breach of contact for the licensing, since they were supposed to be giving WW membership lists, so WW could send players promotional materials (the NPO was keeping it all for themselves), weren't publishing their quarterly magazine (as part of the membership fee and required by WW), and not giving out membership cards, which were required to attend official events (I personally paid for about 20 members, less than 10 of whom got cards, leaving the rest denied despite payments). Also, the NPO filed for bankruptsy the same day they filed their suit against WW, proving to us that they were just scamming the members.
Huh... dont see anything wrong with a fantasy universe... people need to grow up.
I agree that people get a tad too worked up over what are really just goofy mistakes for the most part. Gypsies is pretty inexcusable but KotE is largely a love-letter from the weebier members of the WW staff.
0:46 Someone of Gypsy heritage here. Most don't actually care.
Just like the vast majority of any group when some vocal minorities on the internet start screaming about how offensive something is. lol. Most of the actual group don't care.
Gypsy was bigoted, but it is also a product of its time and not the only product to show the same stereotypes. Ravenloft is a great example the predates Vampire and utilizes those same stereotypes. It still wrong, which White Wolf tried fixing in 3e in the Ravnos Clanbook (Revised), while Wizards still pushes it to this day. Most people I know, ignore it entirely or alters Gypsy to Revnants or their "magic" as hedge magic, which it is.
soooo, 75% percent of thoise controversies are solely based on the fact that people can't distinguish reality from make believe. I would never have guessed it (for those thick as a brick among you readers, that is called sarcasm, google it)
Not entirely wrong but they are controversies none the less within the space. Many are banned topics within WoD spaces.
@@lavalamp505 _WoD spaces or just safe spaces? That's the real issue here. I'm sad who owns the IP now are just a-holes that need their crap to be accepted. Oops, did I breach the masquerade?_
@@Fear.Loathing White Wolf has been a European company for some time now.
@@Fear.Loathing Most of these controversies are coming from non-American sources. America has an extremely small Romani population, most of the complaints are from Roma people or Europeans. Most Americans think of Stevie Nicks when they hear the word Gypsie. Metis is a Canadian phrase and has basically 0 presence in America.
Kindred of the East backlash came largely from actually Asian players. The biggest American centered drama was probably the Camarilla club mess but that was just typical company BS. Very little of this stuff has to do with America at all.
@@Fear.Loathing I totally agree. Almost everything about Russia in vampires is stereotypes, but it does not offend me and ALL my players in any way. We think it's funny and understand that it's unrealistic. It's just a game.
White Wolf: "We would like to stress that, even in the World of Darkness, events like the holocaust were perpetrated by very real, very monstrous human beings, not fictional creatures of the night"
Also White Wolf: "Heinrich Himmler, architect of the holocaust, was a vampire"
They have some hits and misses for sure lol. Charnel Houses is so well done its a tragedy most of their writing didn’t get that level of effort
@@lavalamp505 I get the feeling White Wolf, being mostly, well, White, knew well enough that the Holocaust needed to be approached with utmost sensitivity. But when it came to minorities or people from non-White cultures, such consideration didn't enter into their minds.
White Wolf's writing and worldbuilding has always been the type to blend real life with their World of Darkness, rather than create a world that is completely all their own. I think that's what the fans like about it, too, the way that the world is a darker mirror of the real world. Instead of shying away from tackling real world ugliness and touchy topics, they ran at them full speed and attempted to integrate it into their world to seem just that it more believable. That being said, some of the stuff they did was just downright lazy or terribly executed.
The book about the Ravnos is fine, in my opinion. It gives a grimdark/edgy reason as to why that group of people is outcast IRL and integrates it into their setting. It was somewhat clumsy but I can see what they were going for. The thing with the Kuei Jin is rough, though, not gonna lie. They didn't even use any of the classical undead/vamps from Asian mythology.
The first two that come to mind are the hopping vampires that are stiff due to rigor mortis, from China. The second is a potential monster or battle-form they could have given to them or another Asian vamp: the disembodied woman's head with attached digestive tract that floats through dark, misty towns and forests, hunting and consuming the people who wronged it. I feel like there was a massive missed opportunity there.
And, of course, there's that McFarland guy, which is just horrible, but that goes without saying. I'd say that's pretty much the only real controversy here. All in all, though, this was a great video. I'm glad I watched it.
I think VtM is great in a retrogaming mode, but you have to do what you should do with most tabletop RPGs; pick and choose and be creative in making it your own. Ignore the subculture, craft some stories and roll some dice with your friends. Bring whisky.
Charnel Houses is probably the best book they ever wrote over at White Wolf. It's also the most depressing RPG book I've ever read... Wraith was already a depressing game by it's very nature... And Charnel Houses did not hold back on the truth about the Holocaust.
The smartest thing they did was not to put any blame on any of the supernaturals of the WoD they flat out were like... Supernaturals might have taken advantage of the stuff that humans did... But flat out it was humans who did these horrible things to other human beings...
Wholly agree. Charnel Houses was amazing.
You did an amazing job with the research and presentation of this! Love your style of narration, could listen to this for hours, keep it up!
Can't think of anything missed here... maybe how there was an artist who traced a picture of Dante (from the Devil May Cry series) and used it for a Hunter the Vigil book?
Hope your channel blows up soon man!
Thanks! Theres a TON of tracing drama in the new Werewolf book but can’t really blame that on White Wolf anymore.
Many W5 players feel the way the Get of Fenris are portrayed as antagonists in this edition makes it seem like the Sword of Heimdall won.
Another W5 controversy would be the art in the core book being colorized pictures of real people, including noteworthy political activists. They changed some of the pictures before the main print, but some are still in there.
The art thing is a mess, it seems like every major ttrpg has had troubles with it lately. The Get aren’t really antagonists as much as they are neutral now. You can work with and against them rather easily. Honestly, tribe cooperation felt similar in 20th half the time. The lore sheet allows you to at least have some touchstone for them
Pretty interesting to see all those comments coming from, I suppose, sheltered Americans with 0 interactions with traditional Roma people. Reality is often way more complicated that good people with heart vs blasted racists.
I'm new to this franchise but I heard of it from the games. The fact that a real pedo wrote for the company and his now wife had covered for him is bad. Everyone in upper management should step down especially in HR. All works that guy made should be pulled from any official source of still in distribution
Agreed. They pulled every single thing Zak S did almost instantly but have left Beast. Its strange.
@@lavalamp505I mean,why would get rid of a chance to get more money? Yeah,it was written by a bad person but people can clearly change it to something more palpable, if they want to. Hell,it actually gives us a chance to look deeper into the mind of a child predator,which is definitely a rarity. And I find it funny how,I have seen some comments on TH-cam, how they actually like Beast and even one I saw about a person, saying that Beast was the reason they got into WoD in the first place. Even bad things can do some good.
wait until you hear about the role of the Swords in the upcoming werewolf 5th edition!
I have, my heart is a bit broken. Not quite sure what they’re thinking.
i actually miss kindred of the east, in theory. it was flawed, and you are right, it should have been it's own splat, but in V5 basically everything is a black hole outside of America and a few European cities. I'd rather have dumb Chinese supernaturals than none at all. According to Paradox, half the world just doesn't exist because they can't be bothered to hire a few Asian writers, which is really all they ever needed.
Got good new for you unless you already found it. Theres two KoTE supplements on Storytellers Vault. One for 20th Anniversary (KoTE: The Relentless Age) and one for V5 (Kuei-Jin: The Hungy Ghosts). Neither are official, but they're really cool.
While not white wolf related, I can add to the honorable mentions: There's like... a weirdly HUGE amount of people endorsing harmful tropes and archetypes when it comes to the rainbow crew.
AND an equally large amount of people covering it up, as "otherwise, we are proving the bigots right!" in this weird "I can't be a traitor!" mindset.
Like, the game third crisis on steam: Includes a twoman, that's a violent, jagged teeth child grapist. And people just... "Yaaas! So empowering!" and "Oh, you know that's just how twomen are!".
Not to mention the game's main theme about... graping and durgin women until they "learn their place". Not limited to, but including: "Curing" less beans, so they are now into men. AND: Learn that women do NOT have rights, and only exist to serve men. Which, includes the lesbean main character. And her lesbean gf. The game launched as a rainbow crew inclusive game, and how there's SO much girl on girl action. Only for the game to have 200+ scenes, and less than 4 % girl on girl after a few years in production. And to add insult to injury: There's like... 9 "paths" in the game. ALL lead to male superiority, female abluse. There IS a planned "pure ending", but that's more like a pure middle finger to people. As: You gain NOTHING from playing it. As ALL other paths contain a "There! Learn your PLACE waman! Now here: Take this legendary item to help you." while the pure path... is basically the highest difficulty setting. 0 help. AND 0 scenes. (After they PROMISED to include girl+girl animation, and not just pics... after like, 14+ interactive male animations) So, kinda you know... very passive aggressive "you are stupid if you want to play this path". Oh, almost forgot: There's also 0 variety between the women. As: Only ONE type of woman is acceptable. Body type wise. But: There's TONS of men. All with unique models. AND: There IS a gey man. Who still shreks women. Because he ain't no [f-slur]. Went on a tangent there... but as said: There's a LARGE amount of people that defend this type of content. Citing that ALL inclusion is good inclusion. And that we have to protect ALL depictions of rainbow crew as otherwise... we are somehow just as bad as the people who accuse them of doing bad things?
While a steam, pat, itch and other site issue: They DO allow not-allowed content.
I did work on the game for a short while, and steam support directly instructed me: Tag ANYTHING not legal, as "corruption". That way: The game CAN be sold. And, in the rare case a big influencer (they WILL ignore ALL reports of any game with illicit content.) calls them out: They can go: "We had NO idea! This is the FIRST time we hear about it! You can't expect us, a multi-billion dollar company, to be aware of what we are selling!".
The 90s were when people were less soft and easily offended by everything. Sensibilities didn't change, we became more fragile.
I *adore* Beast as do my players. Beast transgress, they are here to Vex mankind and to enforce old wisdom. The Author may have been a sex-pest, but the pearl cluching over this book baffles me.
Beast is very fun. People I've ran the game for also enjoyed it. Tbh, I'm starting to think I just enjoy games others don't seem to because I also love Demon: The Fallen, and everyone I see talking about it online can't stop crying over how it's too "Christian". To me, it's the perfect game in which I get to play the type of demon, a fallen angel, I've always loved in fiction. That, and it seems to do things such as personal horror far better than Vampire could ever dream of without sacrificing feeling powerful in the process.
@@The13thGhostBunny Demon the Fallen is great imo. I would love to be a storyteller for it one day, and I don't mind if one of my players wants to play something that isn't a fallen angel, but I'd say "alright, we'll roleplay your demon like that then."
Excellent summary, and very helpful for someone new to the World of Darkness universe!
Now, even though I am only a beginner, I have been hard at work absorbing all the lore I can find and quickly became very well aware of the more "problematic" contents.
And honestly... I can't see what the fuss is about. From what I've gathered so far, it seems the World of Darkness has always tried to be as "edgy" and "over-the-top" as possible even past the point of silliness, not unlike the grimdark setting of Warhammer 40,000. With that in mind, you should not be able to take it seriously in the first place.
While I can't speak for Roma, Jewish or East Asian people, I am a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, and I for one am not offended by any of the World of Darkness' content in that regard. I see nothing wrong with a fictional culture or society being homo- or transphobic, because fictional cultures don't affect my personal life, and attitudes (be they positive, neutral or negative) towards LGBTQIA+ people is an important aspect of any society, fictional or otherwise, which should not go unsaid. That's just basic worldbuilding.
As for involving real events such as the Holocaust or the Chechnya tragedy... it's still fantasy. I do know people who have personal ties to various grand tragedies or conflicts, and being able to interact with these through a fantasy setting - whether to change the course of events, or to laugh at the silly fantasy concepts added in, or even to invest themselves more deeply in the story - has been almost like a form of therapy for some of them. None of my players have complained so far. In fact, I've had a Jewish game master bring up the Svenska Kulter setting in which Heinrich Himmler uses the Holocaust as a front for grand human sacrifices to summon a Great Old One, and she very much enjoyed that take.
In the end, roleplaying games and fantasy at large is supposed to entertain, and we should always go into a setting with the goal of being entertained. Trying to limit what can and can't be added in a fantasy setting would restrict creativity and lead to a much more boring world, I think.
Side note: I would actually like to try and play Gypsies at some point, if for no other reason than how silly it is (funnily enough, in my teenage years I actually came up with a concept for a tabletop roleplaying game where ALL human ethnicities/cultures each carried different supernatural traits and abilities... it was very silly, and therefore entertaining. Still plan on making it at some point).
I don’t think the issue is “you can’t limit what people can make their games about.” No one can control what you choose to run at your own table. You’re the one who knows your players. Hopefully you’ve discussed what sort of content they are and are not comfortable with… to avoid “that guy” scenarios if nothing else.
That guy. You know. The one who keeps pushing the edgiest, most upsetting stuff he possibly can into his game, just because he can. That guy who uses TTRPGS as an excuse to be his worst possible self, uses his fellow players as props for his distressing fantasies, and seems never happier then when he’s making everyone else uncomfortable. He doesn’t even seem to really care about the game being fun so much as he cares about being able to upset people.
That guy is the worst. Don’t be that guy. And if you happen to publish a TTRPG, REALLY you don’t need to give That Guy the excuse of “I’ve just gotta do this awful bigoted thing it’s in the book!!!” I promise he doesn’t need the help.
And by the way, I don’t think your gamifying racism is a good idea.
THANK YOU
What the f is lgbtqia+ and what tf is lgbtqiaa++2sp+?
I find the pandering funny from that community, If the "I" is for intersex, thats a mutation not an identity. They even added black and brown stripes to represent black people without asking them.
@@KneGros-nc1ss yeah so?
Kindred of the East is a remarkable line. If re-written to remove the orientalism, it would have the potential to be their best game.
I don’t disagree. I would really like to see a 5th edition go round at it
Great video! Takes me back to reading Zac and Steve's "WTFD&D" on SomethingAwful. Keep up the good work
I used to play WoD and absolutely loved the games. Bloodlines was one of my all time favorite rpg pc games.
But I remember checking back in during the 2010s and being shocked how crassly they tried to bump up the edginess and how tone death they were.
Most of the people I played VtM with and were most interested in it are precisely the people who would be most offended by their takes.
They have made some major strides in 5th to fix these issues under Paradox. Def check it out
@@lavalamp505I am personally keeping away from 5th. I remember the play test chronicles, and have looked at the comments online, and looked at the wiki info. It isn't at all appealing.
I am better off making my own version, revising clans to work better, and the like. There is a lot of potential and positive elements in 1st-Revised, and 20th has a lot to mull over as well. The material is there to build something for yourself.
@@horseradishpower9947 I'd say check it out v5 for yourself and make your own decision. For what it's worth, I was a 2nd edition baby and it sounds like you and I aren't dissimilar in our values. I think you might be surprised by v5. Personally, I love it. It feels like a reboot of 1st and 2nd edition era, a "getting back to Vampire's roots" kind of thing.
That said, the direction Paradox has been taking recently is paralleling White Wolf, including crappy splatbooks AND some very socially unconscious bollocks. (They pretend to be all inclusive etc., but the reality on the ground is quite different. And I consider it worse the WW stuff. The old WW guys mostly didn't know any better. In 2023 you have no excuse.) That might influence your decision to spend money on their games, I understand.
Even if you don't wanna play v5... If you can get your hands on an Onyx Path edition of Chicago by Night (v5) DO IT! It's one of the best ttrpg sourcebooks *ever*. You won't be disappointed, trust me. Sadly, the incompetent company they've now got publishing the game are revising CbN. Literally, monkeys trying to improve Shakespeare, sigh.
Kuei Jin. Nuff' said.
edit: Okay, not enough said. Beast: the Primordial. I had a long list of complaints about this game and that was before it was revealed that it was just a Gary Stew, self-insert power fantasy for the author. The controversy surrounding the author just validated most of what I thought was wrong with the venue. Even the complaints I had that weren't related to the dickish themes of abuse turn me off from the game. I won't even go over that list here, but suffice to say in my head cannon Beast doesn't exist in the CoD. I won't play it, I won't run it, I won't acknowledge that this splat exists in the CoD during a crossover game if I'm the ST, and if someone else runs a CoD game I'll let them know I'm not interested in Beast crossovers, and I'll loose interest in the game if they bring one in or if someone plays a Beast. Everything else is cool but Beast. I'm iffy about their newest splat because it doesn't follow folklore in a modern setting like every other venue, but I'll give it a chance.
I'm always sad with how hated the Kuei-Jin are. I really like them even if I understand why they're controversial.
As for Beast, I find it interesting, but very, VERY poorly executed. Some people have said to read it from the perspective of an unreliable narrator, which makes it more bearable according to them. Other people try to rewrite the lore to make it more bearable.
As for the Fifth Edition stuff that has gone on, well, I could go on and on but I've found homebrew that helps alleviate a good few problems. By problems, I don't mean controversies like, say, beast or gypsy. But I do mean problems in the sense of "wow this just feels like it hates its fans" or "wow, this feels like it was written by someone who doesn't know their own lore."
genocide yeah right don't look up who yagoda is or how he got away with mass murder
These "controversies" are controversal only for woke people.. the rest of the world can play a game about stealing ravnos and not get offended .. of course some stuff is hard. .but come on be adults..
White Wolf was the original home of exalted, and Manual of Exalted Power: Abyssals, had a quite controversial first chapter. I've already mentioned you didn't cover it in the other white wolf video, so maybe it's just not on the radar?
I was definitely focused in on World of Darkness. I know next to nothing about Exalted.
In the early days, they were tied, as Exalted was positioning itself to be the prehistory of the setting(many terms got reused, Scarlet Empress, Ebon Dragon, Malfeans, Black Spiral) But no official product came out to use this, or spell this out, as far as I can tell@@lavalamp505
Definitely, the only media that's acceptable in the "Vampire the Masquerade" world is Redemption and Bloodlines, and mayyybe the table top games.
Fair, thorough, and well executed. There's also that time a Black writer stated Assamites got darker with age (instead of lighter as all others) in the clanbook, but I'm not sure that reaches the level of controversy covered here.
I had this but cut it out. The author as you said was black and wanted to represent skin darkening as empowering as a vampire aged in contrast to the usual paling of skin.
Based White Wolf.
I need to say, the whole gypsy thing is a parody, mostly because we are all so bad educated on the topic.
Gypsy - is not an offencive word, it is culture, way of living. While many romani are gypsy, there are celtic and germanic gypsy with really high population in Europe.
Romani - ethnic group (I will not use Roma as it means male) that have the majority of gypsy population, but not every romani is gypsy.
I believe the ravnos myth came from actual romani (I will call it sect because I just don't know better word in english) sect that believes a romani have stolen one nail from the romans when they wanted to put Jesus on the cross. And because they lowered the suffering of Jesus, god allows them to steal. However, I am not educated enough on those believes to say it for sure, but from all the people I know, none of the romani sharing those believes is a gypsy. I may be wrong here, but in any case it is extremely offensive to take a specific sect and put it on entire ethnic group. I am just saying where probably their inspiration came from.
Thumbnail?
Ripped from this meme: www.reddit.com/r/vtmb/comments/14817nb/its_anuhdiscipline/
No artist accreditation there, sadly.
Artist name is DinDin, but not much else known, or that can be found.
Hey can i get a link to the art of Damsel you used in the thumbnail?
www.reddit.com/r/vtmb/comments/14817nb/its_anuhdiscipline/
@@lavalamp505 Thank you!!! Also great video!
@@lavalamp505 OH MY GOD ITS PORN?! I didn't realize 😭
@@heathermasonfan lmaoooo
@@lavalamp505That was definitely not what I expected!
Bro your Bloodlines game is broken tp shit, are you sure you're playing with the unofficial patch?
Also memory leaks occur after four or five hours, so restart if so.
Your first misstake was in 0:37 ...
Anyway ... while you arent exactly wrong, since what you said is true ... its not whole true and thats the problem ... there is several groups of those people, and just as one concider the word White Wolf used to be "a slur" ... there are others (aproximately just as numerous) that concider dont using it simmilar insult, bcs this is what they were called allways, therefore its part of their herritage.
It depends a lot on wich group of them you ask, but basicaly you get exactly oposite answers ... White Wolf was in no position to pick any name that would insult noone, even the word you used for them would insult the other group ... so they went with what was most common at the time. ;)
The picture at 9:54 ish.... is the precise example of the bad weeb. Thinks he's so cool with a katana.... while he's unsheathing it wrong... it's quite beautiful tbh.
I'm paused on that time stamp, and so far this is really hilarious, just imagine if someone today published a d&d suplementary book calld "N*****" where you play as this mystical creature XD that would be so off the wall terrible, i'd be there to watch that. Otherwise, if they'd double down that every single human ethnicity and nationality is somehow actually some kind of devil/demon thing, that would be really cool. Cause that would be an interesting lense of the misanthropic view. I'd be down for that. But when you take the lovecraftian look where there are "normal" people, yeaaaah, that's pretty bad.
They have thankfully moved away from culturally or ethnically based clans/tribes/orders. It has saved them a lot of future headaches I’m sure
Wait wait wait!
Ramsan Kadirof is a ghoul, whats the issue here?
Russia didn't like that xD
Russia freaked out about it :) - I do wish Paradox had told them to shove it here but losing that market is probably a bit too costly.
@@lavalamp505 its a big market for white wolf, Russia is full of bloodsuckers
Funny how the nature of TTRPGs "open lore" just frees people to write about whatever they want and just exposes the best and worst that sort of freedom of creation can bring. Pretty sure all these pen and paper systems have been through cases like these in some way or another.
Do you intend to cover any controversies surrounding the development of Bloodlines 2? Technically not a White Wolf controversy from the bits i remember, but probably some interesting stuff to cover.
I doubt theres a major TTRPG that hasn’t had one or more of these scandals in some way. As for Bloodlines 2, I absolutely intend to but Paradox has been incredibly tight-lipped about it. All we know is more info is coming in September. I’m not even sure we know who is working on it. The ARPG, Tender, that preceded the announcement is also very interesting to me.
There are three other groups of Asian kindred Assamite, Salubri, and Nagaraja.
They fall under the same problem as Ravnos. Indians are Asian yes, as are some Middle-Eastern kindred but they certainly do not fall under the “””culturally asian””” requirement that Kuei-Jin had which pretty explicitly meant Chinese or Japanese.
@mp505 The Rising being limited to East Asia is not true first since it not only includes Southeast Asia, but also extends to India (the Infinite Thunders court is based in Sri Lanka, so its not just a case of Bengal at most). India in-universe is a messy borderlands between Kindred and Kue-jin, like California and what was the Anarch Free State / New Promise Mandarinate.
It's because of metaplot reasons why the dead come back to their bodies most in Asia, but it's not limited to just there. But only Asia has the support structure and the former wan kuei to enable them to find chin-meh (freshly returned Kue-jin who are ravenous and can only draw chi from flesh) and capture them, and keep them 'alive' long enough that their soul reasserts itself. Everywhere else in the world, they're wiped out as some aberration monster before they can bring themselves back to sentience.
Also, on top, before 5E happened, which I discount anyways because damn the 5E books all to hell for being shit, The Rising was finally enabled in California, and soon North America, which is one reason why there was hope in the Courts for the continued fight in America in the first place.
The main point about the Kue-jin wasn't supposed to be as how they are so different, alien ('like Asian stereotypes irl amirite hur hur' said the braindead prog), that's literally if anything, was the whole point you're supposed to see past. For all the kindred and kue-jin characters remarking ohohoho were so different, ***the whole point was that they're way more alike than they appear or want to admit, sharing in the utter root of their existence, aka being cursed by God*** .
Also, they weren't just one monoculture. From the first, the different Courts were discussed in the books, and not just Courts, but locations of the KJ, like the Green of Korea - its a very big metapoint in the game that not all courts ARE under the Quincux. That's, again, something evident if one actually reads the book. Similar again to the beholden to a different God thing. If anything, it gets it right because to a lot of Westerners, they don't realize God IS still existant even in polytheistic faiths. Also they don't eat bodies, that's again, ONLY the chinmeh, before you are even considered a Kuejin. Kuejin get the chi needed from blood, hence why they're alike vampires. Also, they produce magical blood (vitae) just like vampires.
Yeah, there's a lot of wushu or whatever, but nearly every Asian player didn't mind it or loved it. Me included. You have to remember the cultural currents of when this came out, what was popular. People WANTED to roleplay this. Also, for all it's being derided as just recycled wushu everywhere, it was actually very well researched. Again, at most only a few whiny progs were upset over the Kuejin. Overwhelming majority of the Asian playerbase loved it. Not that our "approval" is needed to like something.
Not just them, every clan has a strong presence in Asia. Hell, the Indian Ventrue (Veddartha) have a serious claim to being the senior branch of the Ventrue Clan.
Its amazing how white wolf was so out of touch with the world.
A lot of it just stems from being sheltered American dudes who wanted to make something cool without much thought.
@@lavalamp505 it makes a ton of sense, they reek of sheltered white boomers.
Move to chánov and you will see why these stereotypes exist
I don't see an issue with any if this.
Holy shit, how does this have so little views? This is a great vid, and i had no clue about all this. It always pains me when public corporations, persons etc call themselves wolf in any capacity, it ends up being one of the worst companies/people there is, scammers, racists, bigots, etc. And it pains my heart they have to use that symbol. Naturally all the deeds they do piss me off, but this just adds fuel to the fire.
Oy vey, the wraith know
Kindred of The East is cool in concept.