White Wolf Wants LARPers To Pay Them For Advertising

[athelind]

Their side of the story:

In brief, White Wolf is requesting that those who wish to charge players to play White Wolf games (beyond standard fees at a convention) obtain a license to do so from us. We request this both in order to ensure we can provide a consistent level of support and play experience to those fans looking to play our games and in order to protect our rights in terms of trademark and so forth. Yes, our games are meant to be played and we encourage everyone to do so — but charging players is stepping into a commercial arena and license agreements then come into play. Our vehicle for granting this license is membership in the Camarilla.

Cory Doctorow's Interpretation:

Serious LARPers who love and promote the hobby (and have therefore kept White Wolf in business) often go to great personal expense to organize games: renting halls, making props, printing and photocopying materials, etc, and they ask their players to pay fees to recoup those costs -- indeed, it's hard to imagine LARPing as a viable hobby without this practice...

snobahr's Reaction:

I'll support White Wolf's desire for consistency when they display a desire for consistency within their own individual books, let alone whole product lines.

Comments

[jirris-midvale.livejournal.com]

My friends and I have an answer to this:

LARPers don't count.

[silussa.livejournal.com]

I think White Wolf is thinking more about people trying to turn a profit. A hall rental, after all, could simply be a directly shared expense, in which case the person running the game isn't actually charging, is (s)he?

[tropism.livejournal.com]

Nope. They specifically said that any charge, even if it were simply splitting up the cost of the hall, would require this membership bullshit. They don't care whether they're making a profit or not.

[auryanne.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I saw that over on fandom_wank. It's one of those things that's good on paper but makes absolutely no sense in practice.

And I'd support White Wolf maybe if they didn't treat Werewolf as a third-class citizen :P

[galis.livejournal.com]

Or Mage, which was my favoriate =/ And what about Fey, or Daemon? I liked both of those but I can't even find much proof Fey even existed any more, and Daemon just got one book and that was it >..<

Honestly it's getting harder and harder to find anything BUT Vampire.

[auryanne.livejournal.com]

*nods* That's true. They're like 6th-class citizens :P

[jirris-midvale.livejournal.com]

Demon got a few books, but none of them were good. WW set you up with this cool idea and didn't give you anything to do with it.

"You're a demon! Badass!"

"So, what is there to do?"

"Well, you can gain followers, be evil, redeem yourself, or fight other demons who have been around since the begining of time gathering followers and have your ass handed to you."

"Oh. Let's play 'Vampire'."

"Ok."

[collie13.livejournal.com]

Oh, I like snobahr's response! ;)

[ceruleanst.livejournal.com]

Boy, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, does it?
"It is imperative that you respect our wishes."

OT

[fragglemon.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link to that comic site. 'Twas just what I was looking for. :-)

Fraggle

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Seems to me that the Prohibition Option might work here. During Prohibition, only the sale of alcohol was outlawed. Having or serving booze was still legal.

So, clubs would serve alcohol as an enticement -- for free -- while charging customers for everything else.

So, for the LARPers: You are not meeting for the sake of holding a LARP. You have gathered in some public place and are splitting the cost. If, by some strange coincidence, everyone decides to hold a WhiteWolf LARP...

Nothing new

[wy.livejournal.com]

They've always wanted the 'sanctioned' groups to be in the Camarilla since the beginning.

After all, you *are* sorta using their trademark if you advertise it as "A Vampire" game.

Now, on the other hand, if you just happen to have your own world and characters, and then just happen to use their ruleset.. *SHRUG*

..

Ah well, I didn't like the whole reboot thing anyways. And they keep fuxoring Mage, so .. *GRIN*