Where are the vampire-themed and modern fantasy crpgs that aren’t Paradox licensed?

[RaggleFraggle]

Again, I think it’s a case of few decent games being released rather than there being no market for it. If you make a good game, then it will attract players. It doesn’t matter what the aesthetics are.

The majority of games are terrible simply due to sturgeon’s law. There’s not enough total output for the few gems to make an impact in underrepresented genres.

There’s numerous indie games doing amazing things with underrepresented genres. They just aren’t (currently) touching any subjects I’m interested in, like urban fantasy. Most are still very cookie cutter and trend-driven.

 

[Nikanuur]

Market for vampire fiction shit overall isn't that big anymore, thanks to dozens of movies and series like Twilight, making every sane person feel sick whenever he hears the word "vampire". I liked vampires 20 years ago, but now they're
synonymous with cringe, it's impossible to not see them through the lens of retarded teenage girl romance fantasies anymore, catering to foids permanently destroyed the genre.

Wamphyri on screen should soon up the ante. Well, soon... they've been saying soon for 10 years now. But soon!

 

[Roguey]

Again, I think it’s a case of few decent games being released rather than there being no market for it. If you make a good game, then it will attract players. It doesn’t matter what the aesthetics are.

The majority of games are terrible simply due to sturgeon’s law. There’s not enough total output for the few gems to make an impact in underrepresented genres.

There’s numerous indie games doing amazing things with underrepresented genres. They just aren’t (currently) touching any subjects I’m interested in, like urban fantasy. Most are still very cookie cutter and trend-driven.

The people interested in making vampire games are already making them and you don't like them. This is who they are.

 

[Qarthadqart]

There's not a lot of RPGs set in the present-day. I've heard it's become a problem in other mediums as well.

 

[0sacred]

what is modern fantasy even supposed to mean

 

[mondblut]

Market for vampire fiction shit overall isn't that big anymore, thanks to dozens of movies and series like Twilight, making every sane person feel sick whenever he hears the word "vampire". I liked vampires 20 years ago, but now they're
synonymous with cringe, it's impossible to not see them through the lens of retarded teenage girl romance fantasies anymore, catering to foids permanently destroyed the genre.

You mean millions of women will buy it but there's no market for it?

Women and good games never mix.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Again, I think it’s a case of few decent games being released rather than there being no market for it. If you make a good game, then it will attract players. It doesn’t matter what the aesthetics are.

The majority of games are terrible simply due to sturgeon’s law. There’s not enough total output for the few gems to make an impact in underrepresented genres.

There’s numerous indie games doing amazing things with underrepresented genres. They just aren’t (currently) touching any subjects I’m interested in, like urban fantasy. Most are still very cookie cutter and trend-driven.

The people interested in making vampire games are already making them and you don't like them. This is who they are.

If Metacritic and Steam scores are anything to go by, then I’m hardly the only one who thinks Paradox’s licensed games are critical and commercial flops.

Vampires and urban fantasy are public domain concepts. There are countless myths, folklore, and fiction to draw inspiration from.

 

[Roguey]

If Metacritic and Steam scores are anything to go by, then I’m hardly the only one who thinks Paradox’s licensed games are critical and commercial flops.

Paradox and Draw Distance are very happy with Shadows/Coteries which is why they renewed the license for years.

Vampires and urban fantasy are public domain concepts. There are countless myths, folklore, and fiction to draw inspiration from. You would have be an illiterate uncreative corporate zombie to license from Paradox as your first creative decision. Their IP has absolutely nothing worthwhile to set it apart from making your own IP or licensing from Jim Butcher or Laurel Hamilton or any of countless other urban fantasy writers.

People want to play around with VtM's specific clans, not just generic vampires.

Anyway have fun with this because this is the only sort of vampire game you're getting https://store.steampowered.com/app/2401410/Cabernet/

 

[RaggleFraggle]

People want to play around with VtM's specific clans, not just generic vampires.

Do they now? Multiple other IPs have that. Warhammer Fantasy, Legacy of Kain, Bloodlust: Shadowhunter, Dresden Files, Anita Blake, The Elder Scrolls… it’s easy to make your own.

Paradox’s IP liberally pulls from other authors anyway for their concepts: effeminate vamps from Anne Rice, lordly vamps from the Dracula novel, ugly vamps from the 1922 movie Nosferatu, shapeshifting vamps from Dracula, crazy vamps from that Nicholas Cage movie Vampire’s Kiss, wizard vamps from Ars Magica, punk vamps from The Lost Boys, the wamphyri from Necroscope, three eyed ones from the anime Sazan Eyes, a very ahistorical Set from the Conan stories, the Assassins from real history… I could go on. They’re not original.

You don’t need this specific IP if you want your vampires to be racially segregated into high school cliques. There is no shortage of inspirations to draw from.

Are modern people just so creatively dead inside that they can’t imagine more than one IP existing at a time?

Anyway have fun with this because this is the only sort of vampire game you're getting https://store.steampowered.com/app/2401410/Cabernet/

I’d sooner drink bleach than play that.

 

[Roguey]

You don’t need this specific IP if you want your vampires to be racially segregated into high school cliques. There is no shortage of inspirations to draw from.

I doubt it's anyone dream to make an off-brand Vampire the Masquerade that might result in a lawsuit if it's too similar. And they are/were a litigious bunch https://screenrant.com/underworld-movie-white-wolf-legal-controversy-explained/

I looked up the outcome of this case and it just disappeared, with contradictory claims regarding how it was settled. Ultimately it doesn't matter; no one wants to be dragged into court even if the company suing doesn't have a leg to stand on.

I’d sooner drink bleach than play that.

Yeah, like I said, the people interested in making vampire games have no desire to make games that appeal to you and the people interested in making games that appeal to you have no interest in making vampire games.

 

[Infinitron]

"You don't see vampire games much anymore."

May as well ask why we don't see more video games about teenage dinosaurs who want to save the whales and say "Totally radical, dude!". Out of date tropes.

I do think that some of the unique tone and vibe of what you might call "modern fantasy" is now provided for by cyberpunk, superhero and other settings. One reason that things fade away from culture is that good-enough replacements are found.

 

[Shaki]

"You don't see vampire games much anymore."

May as well ask why we don't see more video games about teenage dinosaurs who want to save the whales and say "Totally radical, dude!". Out of date tropes.

I do think that some of the unique tone and vibe of what you might call "modern fantasy" is now provided for by cyberpunk settings. One reason that things fade away from culture is that good-enough replacements are found.

Cyberpunk is futuristic, it's not modern fantasy. Truth is, there was no replacement, explanation is much simpler. Modern fantasy simply stopped appealing to the average fan of this style of games/books, because modern times became gay af. 1990-2000 with some magic shit, was pretty cool. 2023 with magic, just becomes even more cringe than it already is. People look to fiction to escape the clown world, not to supercharge it with magic. If you dont like current Commiefornia, you wont start liking it just because all the trannies now have magic powers and are even more obnoxious...

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I doubt it's anyone dream to make an off-brand Vampire the Masquerade that might result in a lawsuit if it's too similar. And they are/were a litigious bunch https://screenrant.com/underworld-movie-white-wolf-legal-controversy-explained/

I looked up the outcome of this case and it just disappeared, with contradictory claims regarding how it was settled. Ultimately it doesn't matter; no one wants to be dragged into court even if the company suing doesn't have a leg to stand on.

None of those other IPs I mentioned that segregate vampires that way have ever run afoul of lawsuits. Video games like Bloodlust, Warhammer, Immortal Realms, etc have different vampire types and were never sued. Furthermore, Paradox is a completely different company from the one that sued Sony two decades ago and doesn’t have a history of frivolous lawsuits.

Paradox’s IP is arguably a ripoff of the Nightlife ttrpg that came out a year prior in 1990. It calls the monsters “Kin”, they come in several “races” like vampire, werewolf, wight, demon, animate, innuat, and ghost, they’re divided between the pro-human Commune and the monster supremacist Complex, etc.

All these reasons you’re giving are flimsy and only serve to further strangle an already monopolistic, creatively dead, stagnant, decomposing, and just plain fucking stupid media landscape. As if I didn’t have enough reasons to be anti-capitalist.

I do think that some of the unique tone and vibe of what you might call "modern fantasy" is now provided for by cyberpunk settings. One reason that things fade away from culture is that good-enough replacements are found.

Modern fantasy hasn’t faded away. It is oversaturated in prose fiction. It never got far in the video game sphere, but remains obscure and underrepresented.

 

[Infinitron]

Cyberpunk is futuristic, it's not modern fantasy.

I think that cyberpunk can replicate some aspects of the experience you might get in a World of Darkness-style modern fantasy setting. Instead of different vampire clans and such, different megacorporations engaging in politics and doing mysterious stuff behind the scenes. Cybernetically enhanced agents and supersoldiers prowling in the night instead of supernatural immortals. Existential and nihilistic themes fit well in both genres.

 

[Roguey]

All these reasons you’re giving are flimsy and only serve to further strangle an already monopolistic, creatively dead, stagnant, decomposing, and just plain fucking stupid media landscape. As if I didn’t have enough reasons to be anti-capitalist.

Capitalism is the only reason you got a game you liked. A group of people who had no previous interest in vampires were forced to make a vampire game because they would have been shut down otherwise.

 

[SpaceWizardz]

May as well ask why we don't see more video games about teenage dinosaurs who want to save the whales and say "Totally radical, dude!".

Fern Gully RPG when??

Cyberpunk is futuristic, it's not modern fantasy.

Cyberpunk vidya tends to be pretty contemporary, largely thanks to Deus Ex's influence.

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

Market for vampire fiction shit overall isn't that big anymore, thanks to dozens of movies and series like Twilight, making every sane person feel sick whenever he hears the word "vampire". I liked vampires 20 years ago, but now they're
synonymous with cringe, it's impossible to not see them through the lens of retarded teenage girl romance fantasies anymore, catering to foids permanently destroyed the genre.

You mean millions of women will buy it but there's no market for it?

Millions of niggers might like KFC, but they're not going to suddenly start buying classic RPG games, just because you put KFC in it.

Vampire fiction is selling great to teenage girls, but no one else anymore + RPGs are selling great to many niches, but teenage girls aren't one of them = there is no big market for Vampire fiction RPG.

Here's how to market your vampire game:

• Offer Sims style character creation with lots of clothing choices. Maybe let players pick their astrological sign.
• Make promo art with Pete Steel looking vampire hunk preying on a pretty young woman. She must be kind of hot, but still normal looking like that chick from 50 Shades (VtM didn't get it quite right by putting Jeanette on the cover, as she's too porn star looking).
• Make combat optional for certain builds. Tell journalists the game is about expressing yourself instead of fighting or player skill, which will make sure they'll promote it as a game for sophisticated people, not dudebros.
• Focus on social features like co-op and multiplayer.

Lots of women play shit like Baldo's Gate and MMOs. You even find them playing stuff like Crusader Kings, because it's like a medieval themed matchmaking app. I just don't believe it's true that "there is no big market for vampire fiction RPG". Quite the opposite, I think it has more to do with the devs(they always prefer fantasy or sci-fi) than the suits in this case. I think VtM itself could've proved that it was viable if things had turned out slightly different.

 

[Roguey]

What's the problem, SpaceWizardz? In a world where Troika was allowed to make any game they wanted, they wouldn't have made Bloodlines. They would have made Journey to the Center of Arcanum. Activision was the one who told them to make a Vampire game, and then they had to research it because they barely knew a thing about it.

But wait...I'm a Dungeons & Dragons fan at heart. I had never played the Vampire: The Masquerade tabletop game. I obviously knew what it was; I'd even read the second-edition source book years ago. I was a fan of the genre but had never actually played the game. It looked like it was time to do a little research.
...
I searched out fan sites for Vampire all over the Internet. Let me just say this...I have seen things you people wouldn't believe. And though I may be scarred for the rest of my life, I found what I was looking for. Reading the fan sites, I found page after page of fans retelling their role-playing experiences. The main theme on most of these pages seemed to be character interaction.

 

[lukaszek]

ultimetly blame wesley snipes for getting caught and doing jail time. Not for that you would have your vampire gaymz

 

[RaggleFraggle]

All these reasons you’re giving are flimsy and only serve to further strangle an already monopolistic, creatively dead, stagnant, decomposing, and just plain fucking stupid media landscape. As if I didn’t have enough reasons to be anti-capitalist.

Capitalism is the only reason you got a game you liked. A group of people who had no previous interest in vampires were forced to make a vampire game because they would have been shut down otherwise.

I do recognize that communism is not remotely better and killed millions… but capitalism certainly isn’t helping its case by destroying human creativity under human oversight and then ushering in a soulless AI hellscape propped up by underpaid wage-slaves.

What's the problem, SpaceWizardz? In a world where Troika was allowed to make any game they wanted, they wouldn't have made Bloodlines. They would have made Journey to the Center of Arcanum. Activision was the one who told them to make a Vampire game, and then they had to research it because they barely knew a thing about it.

But wait...I'm a Dungeons & Dragons fan at heart. I had never played the Vampire: The Masquerade tabletop game. I obviously knew what it was; I'd even read the second-edition source book years ago. I was a fan of the genre but had never actually played the game. It looked like it was time to do a little research.
...
I searched out fan sites for Vampire all over the Internet. Let me just say this...I have seen things you people wouldn't believe. And though I may be scarred for the rest of my life, I found what I was looking for. Reading the fan sites, I found page after page of fans retelling their role-playing experiences. The main theme on most of these pages seemed to be character interaction.

I heard they were planning to do vampires anyway but Activision told them to use the license.

 

[SpaceWizardz]

What's the problem, @SpaceWizardz? In a world where Troika was allowed to make any game they wanted, they wouldn't have made Bloodlines.

If that's where your point ends then sure, I jumped the gun there.

 

[Tyranicon]

Cyberpunk is futuristic, it's not modern fantasy.

Cyberpunk vidya tends to be pretty contemporary, largely thanks to Deus Ex's influence.

We have shit in the real world like vtubers, AI putting artists out of work, corporations becoming legal people, and commercially available drones.

Brother, we are living in the cyberpunk dystopia.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Market for vampire fiction shit overall isn't that big anymore, thanks to dozens of movies and series like Twilight, making every sane person feel sick whenever he hears the word "vampire". I liked vampires 20 years ago, but now they're
synonymous with cringe, it's impossible to not see them through the lens of retarded teenage girl romance fantasies anymore, catering to foids permanently destroyed the genre.

You mean millions of women will buy it but there's no market for it?

Millions of niggers might like KFC, but they're not going to suddenly start buying classic RPG games, just because you put KFC in it.

Vampire fiction is selling great to teenage girls, but no one else anymore + RPGs are selling great to many niches, but teenage girls aren't one of them = there is no big market for Vampire fiction RPG.

Here's how to market your vampire game:

• Offer Sims style character creation with lots of clothing choices. Maybe let players pick their astrological sign.
• Make promo art with Pete Steel looking vampire hunk preying on a pretty young woman. She must be kind of hot, but still normal looking like that chick from 50 Shades (VtM didn't get it quite right by putting Jeanette on the cover, as she's too porn star looking).
• Make combat optional for certain builds. Tell journalists the game is about expressing yourself instead of fighting or player skill, which will make sure they'll promote it as a game for sophisticated people, not dudebros.
• Focus on social features like co-op and multiplayer.

Lots of women play shit like Baldo's Gate and MMOs. You even find them playing stuff like Crusader Kings, because it's like a medieval themed matchmaking app. I just don't believe it's true that "there is no big market for vampire fiction RPG". Quite the opposite, I think it has more to do with the devs(they always prefer fantasy or sci-fi) than the suits in this case. I think VtM itself could've proved that it was viable if things had turned out slightly different.

Yeah. I think there’s a market for good products, regardless of what genre they’re set inside. The market structure is fucked because consumers don’t have meaningful control over what is being produced. We can vote with our wallets and not buy products that are bad, but that doesn’t guarantee future products will be better and it definitely doesn’t give consumers any control over the trajectory of productions.

Kickstarter is a roulette wheel. There’s no guarantee you’ll find something appealing or original. There’s no guarantee anything you back will amount to anything.

Like, I have a job in a non-creative sector. I have income. I’d like to at least partly fund development of something to my tastes, but I can’t find it. Even just tech demos to gauge interest and such. There’s no easy way to connect with skilled creators who are interested.

 

[Bad Sector]

They’ve undergone a huge crunch compared to their 90s heyday and never recovered.

Goth content in general has diminished since the late 90s/early 2000s, not just RPGs - or even games.

 

[almondblight]

I always find the Codex's love of Bloodlines funny, because it does so many things people here claim to hate. The game's extremely linear, it's full of unkillable NPCs (even when it doesn't make any sense), the haunted hotel has as much gameplay as a walking sim, poor combat, huge sections of the game that are just mindless copy and paste combat slogs, poor skill system, and your choices being mostly meaningless when it comes to the ending. Definitely a style over substance type game.