Looks Like Paradox Did It Again (The Fallout Over "Werewolf: The Apocalypse" 5th Edition)

Over the past several years I've put together quite a number of supplements for the World of Darkness setting, and of the pieces I've written a majority of them have been for Werewolf: The Apocalypse. From my 1,600 NPCs in The 100 Kinfolk Project, to a list of potential antagonists in Evil Incorporated: 10 Pentex Subsidiaries, and I even helped push through an anthology of short fiction titled Tales From The Moot, where I wrote both the introductory framing short, as well as the Silver Fang tale Late Bloomer. I say this to establish that I've played my share of Werewolf as a game, that I am quite well aware of the issues it had with racism and representation, and that I tried to do what little I could to mitigate that with my additions to the world.

I had not been keeping up on the changes made to the setting as it was updated to the 5th Edition... but seeing the behind-the-scenes from J.F. Sambrano left my jaw on the floor with how badly the ball was fumbled in trying to "improve" this game's less-than-stellar record.

Younger Brother cannot believe this shit.

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So What The Hell is Going On?

For those who haven't seen it yet, check out Sambrano's detailed post about what went on. And, if you can afford to, I'd recommend becoming his patron to help him out as a creator. But for those who just want the short version, I'll do my best to sum it up.

All right, deep breath...

In its original incarnation, Werewolf: The Apocalypse was a game that drew on a lot of Native American ideas of spirituality and legend, but it did so in the most crass, poorly-understood way you could. The short version is that while it was really unique having native representation at all in a major property in the 90s, a lot of it can be summed up with a sigh, and then following it up with, "Well... you did your best, I suppose."

This didn't stop the game from being successful, of course. Far from it, Werewolf is probably one of the best well-known parts of the World of Darkness, just behind the flagship game Vampire: The Masquerade. So when the 5th Edition came along and it was time to update the game and setting to bring it more in-line with modern sensibilities, and to make it a more inclusive product, designers like Sambrano were brought on board...

Only, it seems, to be promptly ignored.

Those are all great ideas... we're not using any of them.

From what was shared in the above post (which has already made the rounds), it seems like the design team made two, major errors. The first is that they kept too many of the problematic relics of the past (even when a lot of the designers they explicitly hired to help them fix these problems told them to chuck said relics), and the second is that they seem focused on including as little complexity and gray area as possible... which has led to them, once again, have problems with white supremacists, eugenicists, and Nazis.

Now, just for clarity, Nazis make great bad guys. If the goal had been merely to add white supremacists, nationalist terrorists, and other groups to the game as servants of the Wyrm in much the same way the original game did with capitalism in the form of Pentex, that would have actually been a smart move. Especially since the 5th edition release of Vampire: The Masquerade was plagued with problems regarding the inclusion of racism and white supremacy as story and game design in certain books (largely due, if memory serves, to a designer who was part of those communities). The wrong way to do this was what they chose, which was turning the Get of Fenris (arguably one of the most popular tribes among the player base) into a Nazi-majority tribe. Because, as Sambrano points out, this is inevitably going to lead to players trying to figure out how to keep the characters they had and liked to play, while attempting to include this new story element, rather than all players just letting the Get of Fenris go as a player option and relegating them entirely to villains.

Honestly, it just feels like bad design choices were made all around, and I'm glad I chose not to step into any of the 5th Edition releases for the World of Darkness as a whole.

While We're On The Subject...

I've been talking a lot about World and Chronicles of Darkness projects of late, and I wanted to take a moment to clarify something that got some folks asking questions. As I said recently in Why I Will Have Fewer Community Created TTRPG Products Coming Out, I'm going to be taking a small break from working on platforms like Pathfinder Infinite, Storyteller's Vault, and even on Call of Cthulhu titles, simply because of the increased rate-of-pay my publisher agreed to for my work on other, non-CCP products.

However, I also posted recently about "Windy City Shadows" A Chronicles of Darkness Podcast Proposal, talking about putting together a long-form audio drama podcast set in the world of the Chronicles of Darkness. For clarification, the podcast is a separate endeavor from my supplements set in the World/Chronicles of Darkness, and even if I'm writing fewer supplements (which people have to buy in order for me to get paid as the creator), I would still like to put together the podcast (which will be free to anyone who wants to listen to it).

So if it's something you'd interested in, check out the article above, and the video below, for how you can help make it happen!

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