White Wolf Withdraws Pay-To-Play Policy

WorselWorsel writes "After almost two weeks of fan outrage White Wolf has canceled plans to implement their Pay-to-Play policy. In a forum post, Philippe R. Boulle writes 'Based on all your feedback, it's obvious that the policy as currently worded is not going to accomplish these goals. So, we are pulling it off the table as a blanket policy. I realize that the proverbial genie can't be shoved back in the bottle, but the guidelines I handed to a few people at ORIGINS and posted here last week clearly need to be reworked and rethought, so please consider them withdrawn.' The withdrawal of the policy can be read in full on the forums."

Comments

Summary

[hobotron]

From: The Collective Internet
To: White Wolf


told u so, kthxbai

p.s. i r0ll 20's

Like candy from a baby.

[Seumas]

The jokes about half-naked fugly chicks and annorexic retarded looking pasty boys pretending to be vampires at your local WOC/WW LARP Shari's event at 2am practically write themselves

Seriously, D&D nerds make fun of LARPers... Do you realize how lame you have to be for a D&D nerd to make fun of you?!

(Former minor-D&D nerd)

Re:Like candy from a baby.

[WorselWorsel]

Like D&D nerds have any taste. Come on, they play D&D.

Re:Like candy from a baby.

[WorselWorsel]

Where can I find a WW/WoD LARP with this kind of behavior? WW doesn't have a fantasy LARP setting and there certainly isn't any physical contact. Come on, D&D is boring gamist crap. Level based? What year is this, 1970?

Re:Like candy from a baby.

[damiangerous]

Well, yeah, gamist. I look for that in a game. White Wolf has some good fiction, but as game rules it leaves an awful lot to be desired. Pretty much everything beyond the most basic concepts is left to the Storyteller to deal with. Thanks...if I wanted to write my own game system I would.

WoD is a bit of a paradox to me. It seems to be targeted at people who like storytelling and drama, yet generally those are fairly creative people to begin with. WoD goes to great lengths to provide its own built in story, history and rich world, yet what's the one thing creative types are weakest at? Solid and balanced game mechanics. WoD's failure is that it's designed by right-brainers AND targeted at right-brain gamers. There's no left-brain in there to give them some logical base. It's far easier to put a pretty world on solid rules than to try to backport rules hacks onto an existing game, and that's where WoD falls down.

The beauty of (current) D&D is its relative straightforwardness. It scales well from beer & pretzels up to moderately simulationist. It caters mostly to the gamist crowd, sure, but you can leave out so much that it covers without sacrificing anything. Nearly any situation can be resolved with a single d20 roll...or you can choose not to roll any dice without damaging the intergrity of the system. I don't think most dramatist gamers realize that because it's cool to hate d20. You claim that D&D is gamist, but what you're not seeing is that that's what dramatist gamers need. d20 provides a solid, fairly well balanced structure for right-brain gamers to do what they do best: create a rich, well developed world that already has a rules structure to be hung on. D&D isn't perfect, but it has very little in common with the 1st and 2nd editions everyone loves to hate.

Re:Like candy from a baby.

[WorselWorsel]

The whole costume thing is something I never understood. One of the big in-character rules for Vampires in all editions is keep the whole the vampire thing a secret. Despite this, most of these Vampire players wear the most obvious costumes. It's kind of hard to keep your subculture secret when everyone of your kind dresses in some obvious style and really stands out from normal people.

Mentioned in today's Something Positive

[BinaryOpty]

This policy was touched upon by today's Something Positive: http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp07142005.shtml

The headline seems a bit premature

[cpt kangarooski]

They've said they're going to go back and "hammer out license terms" anew. So it's not as though they've abandoned their stupid idea; they're going to try again.

Frankly, I'd find the idea that game developers are trying to impose a license on players (particularly given that it doesn't appear to be even vaguely necessary from anyone's perspective) to be unacceptable all by itself. The terms of the license, whatever they are, are not the part that's objectionable.

Poor business model

[kyndig]

This is just poor business modeling. The current solution to alleviate the concerns of the outraged players is to now get with larger organisations charging a fee to seek out contracts or licensing terms. It is clear the developers intentions is to wreap some spending capitable benefits off their products, and rightly so. Doing so in this manner though will lead to a loss in users and community support (IMHO). There are other methods to capitalise on a product. Im not a big LARP fan, but basic business management and a little ingenuity should put some copper in their pocket.

Meanwhile, in Lawyer Land...

[FLEB]

I'd have to wonder if that scheme would even be legally defensible, considering that (or "if", rather... I haven't seen the new edition) this isn't mentioned in the book.

(Analogy-mobile... away!)

It's like charging teachers above-and-beyond the price of a textbook for... actually using the textbook. There might be some sort of leverage along the lines that players are creating a derivative work, but (go, analogymobile, go!) really, that's like "How to make a birdhouse" trying to charge you license fees for making the birdhouse.

Of course, it all comes down to that most fundamental of legal principles: is White Wolf big enough to both execute and withstand the fallout from a steamroller lawsuit against its customers. Well, do you feel lucky... punk?

It's a shame that the developers of one of the better games out there (in my rather-uninformed opinion) had to have such money-grubbing bastards (or, I might also accept "egotistical micromanaging bastards" depending on their true motive) at the helm.

So, is the Fifth Edition going to come with a EULA?

Re:What is it?

[NBarnes]

He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes. He who does not is a fool forever.
- old chinese proverb

White Wolf is mostly a table-top 'old school' RPG publisher. Their IP has been pretty dramatically successful, so it's gotten licenced a lot.

They're still in business?

[RM6f9]

After the horrible mangling they put "Vampire: The Masquerade" through in order to get more $$$ for "Vampire: The Requiem", I (and several of my associates) voted with our wallets and our feet, i.e., departed. Any game-administrating company that shows as much callous disregard for the wishes of its customer/players as White Wolf has deserves to crumble into the dust.

Re:They're still in business?

[MrResistor]

I have to agree. I wasn't planning on buying any of the new stuff anyway, but now I have an additional reason. The last thing I want to do at this point is put any more money in the pockets of a gaming company that would even consider that they actually have the right to try and enforce such a license.

It's a shame, I like their old games. Too bad they apparantly don't want me as a customer anymore.

Re:What is it?

[kafka47]

..and if they get their way, they never will! :-) /K

Ha... interesting

[obeythefist]

Well I RTFA, and it wasn't so bad.

What White Wolf are saying is that if people run and use White Wolf games at conventions and charge people money to play for a *profit*, then they need to obtain a license to make said profit using White Wolf's material as the key engine for doing so. You can still play not-for-profit for the once off cost of buying the source material.

I actually think that is fair, if people are using White Wolf IP to make a profit, White Wolf deserves the right to ask for a cut. Whether they will make some cash or not is a different question.

The problem? RPG's are wholly creative works so all anyone needs to do is just make up their own free system and use that instead. Kinda like open source software coding but much easier to do.

Heck, D20 system is "open" in that WoTC encourages people to make and publish (for money!) rules and content based on the core system, and they don't ask for anything in return other than the basic acknowledgement.

Re:Ha... interesting

[iCEBaLM]

What White Wolf are saying is that if people run and use White Wolf games at conventions and charge people money to play for a *profit*, then they need to obtain a license to make said profit using White Wolf's material as the key engine for doing so. You can still play not-for-profit for the once off cost of buying the source material.

Not entirely true, charging a fee to simply cover expenses of the venue (and therefore still not for profit) seemed to also require a license fee, which was the big issue.

Re:Ha... interesting

[FLEB]

I actually think that is fair, if people are using White Wolf IP to make a profit, White Wolf deserves the right to ask for a cut. Whether they will make some cash or not is a different question.

They got their profit. People buy the books... the product they chose to produce and sell... in order to run the game. They got what is rightfully theirs.

If White Wolf wants to profit from running games, they have the full right to go ahead and start running their own games. They choose to profit from selling books, and that's what profit they get and should be happy with.

Should Igloo get a buck for every cold can of soda I might sell out of one of their coolers? Should Mack get mileage payments from people who haul with their trucks? Should Gateway or Dell get residuals from the graphics I create on my computer? Craftsman get royalties from repair shops? White Wolf *sells* *tools*. By paying for that tool at the asking price of the seller, I am buying the right to use that tool for whatever uses I may need it for.

Re:Ha... interesting

[obeythefist]

Let's not confuse morality with IP law here!

You can make a tool and you can sell it on the proviso that people pay you a fee to use it. You can charge however you like, you can pay a intial purchase cost and an ongoing rent, rent only, or whatever you like.

Now, what prevents this kind of thing from becoming rampant is our good friend the free market economy. You make a $5/month screwdriver, and the guy next door is just going to make a $5 own it for life screwdriver. Who's going to win that price battle, do you think?

The hard part for people to accept about this is that White Wolf own the IP that you're borrowing, and they want to change their marketing model slightly. World of Warcraft is a good example of this. Once upon a time you used to buy a computer game and play it all you wanted. Now, with MMOG's, you pay rent too. White Wolf wants this kind of revenue stream, and they're entitled to charge you for it.

As a free consumer, you get to vote with your wallet. Don't buy their stuff if you don't like the price. I sure won't be.

Re:Ha... interesting

[Pendersempai]

"What White Wolf are saying is that if people run and use White Wolf games at conventions and charge people money to play for a *profit*, then they need to obtain a license to make said profit using White Wolf's material as the key engine for doing so."

Yes, but on what grounds? Running a game using WW's rules doesn't require a copyright license, since you're not making a copy or performing the work publicly or creating derivative works or anything else that falls under the aegis of copyright. It doesn't require a patent license, because they don't have patents to cover their games. It's not trademark infringement, because the only use of their trademark in your materials legitimately refers to their trade. And it's not trade secrets, because they publish the rules.

You'd be in favor of a law that said that anyone who "profits" off of someone else's "IP" should have to pay royalties? I guess that'd be the end of libraries, book critics, etc.

From the gaming table...

[GrnArmadillo]

White Wolf: Alright, we need some quick cash, so let's charge people for using the books we've already sold them. We should at least make some effort to pretend we have justification for this. Let's say that all the volunteers spending their time and effort to write and run the games that make our product worth owning should either eat the costs out of pocket or join our "fan club" along with all their players to get a "license".
Storyteller: You're going to need to make a diplomacy check to get the players to agree to that.
WW: Why? We own this stuff.
Storyteller: Roll the dice.
WW: Oh, alright. *rolls die* Uh... what does "critical fumble" mean?