#11: White Wolf: 1986-1995

[ShannonA]

This posted while the forums were troubled; if you have comments, please post them here.

[C.W.Richeson]

Great article, Shannon! I really enjoyed reading it and it shed a lot of light on the company for me. Your knowledge and research of game companies is really impressive.

Looking forward to part 2!

[ShannonA]

Great article, Shannon! I really enjoyed reading it and it shed a lot of light on the company for me. Your knowledge and research of game companies is really impressive.

Looking forward to part 2!

You'll get to see it soon. It's queued up for next Wednesday.

[Mitch]

A fine job. I've been interested in the Lion Rampant / WW connection for years, and it was illuminating to see it from both sides.

I noticed that Arcadia wasn't mentioned in the WW CCG's. Was this an oversight, or was it intended for part two?

[ShannonA]

A fine job. I've been interested in the Lion Rampant / WW connection for years, and it was illuminating to see it from both sides.

I noticed that Arcadia wasn't mentioned in the WW CCG's. Was this an oversight, or was it intended for part two?

Arcadia?

That'd be an oversight. A Changeling CCG I presume? What years and by whom?

[SteveBowen]

I'd just like to third the praise: it's good stuff that you couldn't readily find anywhere else.

[Mitch]

Arcadia?

That'd be an oversight. A Changeling CCG I presume? What years and by whom?

It was released in '96 by WW. There is a complete transcript of the rulebook, including development info near the end, over here:

http://ruyeyama.best.vwh.net/arcadia/atwh-rpt.html

[ldd23]

There also were splatbooks for Wraith. Each guild had a book, or maybe there were two guilds per book? I don't remember for sure. Guilds were totally optional for characters though, so the splatbooks were even less necessary than usual.

[SteelCaress]

Good Article. They're all good. I love reading the history of my favorite (and not-so-favorite) game companies. It's always interesting to find out what's going on behind the scenes.

There was a piece of info I would like to share. White Wolf Magazine, when it was off the ground and running, before it became a house organ like Dragon and White Dwarf and all those that came before it, was given a printing press by none other than Kevin Siembieda himself.

Mr. Siembieda felt that a small press company needed all the help it could get, and that was his contribution. He also felt that smaller games needed more help, and saw that White Wolf was doing their best by covering those.

However, he became very disenchanted with them, and wrote a letter to their magazine blasting them for covering large games like AD&D and Call of Cthulhu, and that violated the spirit in which he offered his help.

I can't remember the magazine that appeared in. I own it, but I'm sure it's in my mountain of stuff halfway across the country.

[smascrns]

Shannon traces the origins of the WW Storyteller system to Shadowrun. Maybe. For long I had the feeling that it came from another source.

Some time ago I found in Jonathan Tweet's homepage a discussion of D&D that eventually drifted into his relationships with Lion Rampant and WW. He mentionned that it ended in a very unpleasant way. I picked up the thread and asked him what was the link between Vampire's Storyteller and Chaosium's Prince Valiant (published the same year than Shadowrun, BTW). As I wrote above, I had the impression that WW's system had "another source" and that that source was Prince Valiant... the Storytelling game. It was not only an issue of qualification, it was because both games use the same basic system with the only difference that PV ressorts to d2s while WW's ST uses 10ds.

What Jonathan repplied was that PV was very much in the air at that time.

Interestingly enough, when WW came with the new ST it opted to call it... Storytelling.

[Jared Hayter]

It seems that the Mummy RPG was overlooked. I have never laid eyes on this game myself but I remember reading about it in the Wargames West catalog shortly after my introduction to Vampire. I believe this book was considered at the time a supplement to Vampire but I believe that may be because the other lines had not yet been published. If anyone knows the real deal with Mummy I'd like to hear it.

[ShannonA]

It seems that the Mummy RPG was overlooked. I have never laid eyes on this game myself but I remember reading about it in the Wargames West catalog shortly after my introduction to Vampire. I believe this book was considered at the time a supplement to Vampire but I believe that may be because the other lines had not yet been published. If anyone knows the real deal with Mummy I'd like to hear it.

There was a singleton Mummy book that was produced very early on. It had the green marble background and required the Vampire RPG, so was definitely a supplement. It came back in a larger more complete form many years later, which is mentioned in the second article which posted todya.

[dysjunct]

Interesting that there's no mention of the ill-fated WW agreement with SJG to publish GURPS adaptations of the WoD. Granted, you can't put in everything, but I thought it would at least get a brief aside of some sort in the licensing section.

[ShannonA]

Interesting that there's no mention of the ill-fated WW agreement with SJG to publish GURPS adaptations of the WoD. Granted, you can't put in everything, but I thought it would at least get a brief aside of some sort in the licensing section.

Ironically, it's mentioned in my upcoming Atlas Games article (March) and will be mentioned in my Steve Jackson Games article.

But yeah, the White Wolf article was troublesome because of its length. I cut two or three thousand words out at various times.

[pfglenn]

There was a singleton Mummy book that was produced very early on. It had the green marble background and required the Vampire RPG, so was definitely a supplement. It came back in a larger more complete form many years later, which is mentioned in the second article which posted todya.

If I remember correctly, there were 2 singleton Mummy books--one each for 1st and 2nd edition Vampire. I don't know much about either, but I heard that the 2 were significantly different.

I know next to nothing about the standalone Mummy game.

[ShannonA]

If I remember correctly, there were 2 singleton Mummy books--one each for 1st and 2nd edition Vampire. I don't know much about either, but I heard that the 2 were significantly different.

I know next to nothing about the standalone Mummy game.

I believe that's correct, and that each of the three was quite different.

[DaveB]

The first three were: Vampire: The Dark Ages (1996), Werewolf: The Wild West (1997), and Mage: The Sorcerers Crusade (1998). Although five historical game lines were originally intended the historical Mage was the last.

Wraith: The Great War.

it came out. Was even pretty well-received. No supplements, though.

[ShannonA]

Wraith: The Great War.

it came out. Was even pretty well-received. No supplements, though.

Keep reading;). It wasn't released as a full game.

[DaveB]

There was a singleton Mummy book that was produced very early on. It had the green marble background and required the Vampire RPG, so was definitely a supplement. It came back in a larger more complete form many years later, which is mentioned in the second article which posted todya.

There were three Mummy games, one in each phase of White Wolf's development of the WoD: Mummy first ed came out after Vampire and was rather sketchy. Mummy second edition came out around the time of all the second editions (oddly) and was more complete. Mummy: The Resurrection, which was based on the older game in metaplot if barely recognisable, and which got a single supplement, came out in the year of the Scarab - I think it was the WoD game after Hunter but before Demon.

EDIT: I should really just finish reading the article, shouldn't I?

Great stuff, Shannon

[Freejack]

Not sure if it was lost or something, but here's the link to the article:

http://www.rpg.net/columns/briefhistory/briefhistory11.phtml

Carl