The History of White Wolf Publishing

History in Video Format: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTkjHoNwUUw

The Garage Days

First formed by brothers Steve and Stewart Wieck in 1986, the duo got together publishing their very first RPG magazine, originally titled Arcanum in a VERY limited run of 30 copies. After managing to sell out of this smallest of small press runs to mostly friends and family, they hit their first snag. Another magazine already had a far too similar name, Unearthed Arcana. For their next run, they would need a rebranding. Stewart, picked the name, White Wolf, from a Michael Moorcock Sword and Sorcery series he was a fan of, this time, the name would stick.

The brothers spent the summer of 1986 working feverishly on their new White Wolf zine, photocopying, stapling and hand-drawing the cover of each copy themselves. (White Wolf Covers) Issue after issue, the pair would manage to sell out, each time increasing their print run first to 140, then 200. By issue #4, the brothers realized it was time to get out of the garage, they had something. Issue #4 would be the first professionally printed magazine White Wolf would put out and like its predecessors it too would sell out. By their fifth issue, White Wolf had acquired enough revenue to add a second color to their magazine and began working with Glenwood Distributions, a publisher who would order 1120 copies in their biggest success yet. White Wolf issues 5-7 would continue to sell well, by issue 8 the hand drawn covers were no more. Now professionally designed, issue 8 featured a full gloss cover and the official name change from White Wolf to White Wolf Magazine. More importantly, issue 8 would print some 10,000 copies that the brothers would give away at GenCon 1987, the largest tabletop convention in the world. This move would get White Wolf’s name embedded deep in the general nerdsphere.

The Magazine Success and Merger with Lion Rampant

Now, White Wolf Magazine wasn’t publishing its own games yet. The magazine mostly focused on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, a format of the DnD that was popular in the late 70s, early 80s. Following the release of Issue #8, White Wolf began to dabble in other games like Ars Magica or Runequest, featuring articles written by the authors of those games. For the next few years, the Wieck brothers would continue on publishing White Wolf Magazine, continually growing their market share as the indie RPG magazine all the while growing closer to Mark Rein-Hagen, owner of RPG studio Lion Rampant, publisher of the beloved Wizard game, Ars Magica.

Despite the cult following that Ars Magica had accrued, Lion Rampant was in trouble. They had recently relocated to Georgia and were running low on funds and without any established trust with printers around the state they were having a hard time keeping the lights on. By fate or chance, each had something the other needed. Rein-Hagen needed money, and White Wolf was looking for someone capable of designing a game of their own. In the December 1990 issue of White Wolf Magazine, the trio would announce the merger of Lion Rampant and White Wolf. Ars Magica would live on, available through White Wolf’s printers, to the jubilation of the wizarding world. In that same article announcing the merger, Rein-Hagen would hint at a number of intertwined games he was workshopping. A departure from his traditional fantasy magic, Rein-Hagen hoped to present evil in the modern world through the lens of vampires, werewolves and mages. Now, by this time, White Wolf had dabbled in publishing games of their own, Stewart released a small adventure chronicle in 1986 titled The Curse Undying as well as a D&D campaign book in 1990 to middling success. The first joint project of our trio would be RPG card packs they called Story Paths. These cards would serve as a way to spice up your adventure, draw a card and the result would influence the plot of your game. White Wolf published two decks in 1990, The Path of Horror and The Path of Intrigue. Both decks sold quite well and the idea was purchased from them by a previous Lion Rampant investor who tried out his own version of decks that fizzled out before falling off the face of the earth.

Development of Vampire: the Masquerade

With a new cash infusion from selling their card decks and the growing sales of White Wolf Magazine, it was time to go all out. Rein-Hagen had done it once, Ars Magica was the definitive game of magicians but what do you follow that up with? Knights in the middle ages? Overdone! Modern, urban Ars Magica? Maybe that could work but would traditional Ars fans be interested in the setting? Now how about this! A game called Inferno where you play characters in purgatory, maybe even characters that died in your other tabletop games! Rein-Hagen got to work writing, nearly finishing the manuscript of Inferno when a transformer explosion led to a fire that engulfed the sole copy. Taking this as a sign, White Wolf scrapped that idea. Following this weird little tragedy, White Wolf prepared for GenCon 1990. During the 10 hour drive from Georgia to Indianapolis, White Wolf hashed out their next game. It would be dark and brooding like Inferno was meant to be, characters would have magical powers like Ars Magica and it would take place in a modern, urban setting. Thus bore, Vampire: the Masquerade.

For the remainder of 1990 Rein-Hagen would work feverishly alongside Shadowrun’s Tom Dowd and the Wieck brothers on building out a ruleset and the World of Darkness. As the 1st edition of Vampire neared completion, White Wolf pulled out all the stops. They created a 16 page, full-color, glossy pamphlet describing their game sending 40,000 or so copies out to players, retailers and distributors. To say this got the people going would be an understatement. As we entered the grunge era, players were longing for a game with a bit of an edge to it, where they could truly embrace their angst. This moody, gothic setting struck a nerve perfectly and in early 1991 the public would be greeted by a single rose laid on a slab of green marble. The cover was nothing like any other RPG before it, it was simple, yet hypnotizing. This would be a game like no other before it. Gone were the dungeons and brawling with monsters, here the enemy was internal. Pitting one against their own beast as you stumble through a world of politics, scheming and backstabbing. Within a week of their launch, Vampire was sold out and White Wolf scrambled to find anyone with a printer to get more copies out.

With the success of Vampire, Rein-Hagen and White Wolf followed it up with hit after hit. Releasing Werewolf the Apocalypse in 1992, Mage: the Ascension in 1993, Wraith: the Oblivion in 1994 and finally Changeling: the Dreaming in 1995. Each game, tying into the greater World of Darkness and completing Rein-Hagens dream of multiple, connected games. Each game presented another unique view point in which the player could explore the World of Darkness. The game lines created a much needed cash flow as sales of the magazine had been rapidly declining until it was canceled shortly after the launch of changeling.

Black Dog Games

With White Wolf’s fervent pace of production and unique style, it allowed them to gobble up nearly 26% of the RPG market in the 90s, leading to the industries first ever prime-time showing in the 1996 TV show Kindred: the Embraced, a Fox airing that would run for 8 episodes before its lead would tragically die in a motorcycle accident. White Wolf would continue to ride this wave of success through the 90s, creating a secondary publishing line titled Black Dog in which all of their more controversial and adult books could be published. This featured titles like Charnel Houses of Europe, which remains one of the best selling RPG books of all time, the Giovanni Chronicles which was showered in awards and some of their more… out there books like Freak Legion.

As additional editions rolled out, White Wolf would create a new product, books meant for the player, not only the GM. They would coin these, splatbooks. These books would focus on a specific vampire clan or a location within the game, going into great detail and affording players a deeper look inside the world. While other games had released one or two of the extension style books, White Wolf PUMPED them out. Raking in cash as they mined a previously untapped market, the average player who wanted to know more about his character. Through these splatbooks, White Wolf began to build up a general metaplot. Hinting at the idea of Gehenna, the end of Vampires or the Apocalypse, the death of Gaia. Players grew to love the growing plot, but began to hate when various games would intersect due to the often mishmashed or poorly thought out rules. White Wolf would pivot from this by releasing Year of the Hunter, a book about mortals hunting each of the supernatural denizens of the World of Darkness. By using mortals, White Wolf deftly evaded their own crunchy rules and allowed for characters who could study or interact with different splats.

Departure of Rein-Hagen and the New Millenium

As the company grew into the new millennium, some cracks would begin to form. Mark Rein-Hagen and the Wieck brothers would have a falling out, leading to Rein-Hagen’s departure to craft a new game titled Exile. As the grunge demographic began to grow out of their angsty years, White wolf began to notice a decline in sales, with only Vampire: the Masquerade remaining profitable. Unable to maintain 5 game lines in which 4 were rapidly becoming unprofitable, White Wolf made some tough decisions. First on the chopping block was Wraith, the line would be ended entirely concluding with their 1999 releases which also effectively ended the storyline. Both changeling and mage would be pushed off onto a smaller imprint studio called Arthaus. Seeing the success of their 1995 Year of the Hunter, White Wolf doubled down and released Hunter the Reckoning in 1999, a full gameline dedicated to, you guessed it, Hunters. Reckoning sold quite well and encouraged White Wolf to try again, first in 2001 they would release Mummy: the Resurrection alongside Exalted, a high fantasy spin-off game that was quite successful. Next would be Demon: the Fallen in 2002 and Orpheus in 2003. During this time, White Wolf would also create a variant of Vampire meant to be played in a live-action setting. They called this project Mind’s Eye Theater and to this day would be one of the only commercially successful LARP projects, ever. Mind’s Eye is also heavily credited in being one of the most successful attempts to get women into RPGs.

White Wolf had stumbled a bit, but they had seemingly gotten their mojo back, though, not without some complications. After about 400 various editions and 20,000 splat books it became increasingly confusing as to why these overarching world ending events were, uh, not ending the world. White Wolf continued on writing increasingly complex and contrived reasons to put off the end when it became patently obvious they had no interest in ending the plot as it would mean turning the money faucet off.

A New President and Battling Sony

Unsure of how to proceed, in 2002, Steve Wieck, President of White Wolf for 9 years, would pass the reigns to Mike Tinney, a prominent editor and designer in the company. One of Tinney’s first actions would be opening a lawsuit against Sony Pictures for copyright infringement over the movie Underworld which featured fighting between Vampires and Werewolves. White Wolf would more or less win, with Sony settling out of court for a monetary settlement and consultary rights in the sequel. Notching his first win, Tinney set his sights on fixing the World of Darkness. It had reached the point where players would need to buy a new book almost monthly in order to stay up to date with the metaplot, a rate which was increasingly beginning to aggravate players. To fix this, Tinney went with the nuclear option, the Time of Judgment. A line of books which promised to finally wrap up the plot of every game line. No RPG company had ever done anything like it before. Killing off a dying game, sure, but ending every single one of your products at once was unheard of. The daring move, in the end, paid off. The Time of Judgment books sold gangbusters, with fans ecstatic to finally see how things would turn out. Finally broken out of the corner they wrote themselves into, White Wolf put their heads down and focused on putting out higher quality, lower quantity splatbooks as well as smaller gamelines like Promethean: the Created. White Wolf also released a sequel to the World of Darkness in their Chronicles of Darkness line. Featuring a similar, but revised list of game lines like Vampire: the Requiem, Werewolf the Forsaken and Mage the Awakening. Now, who could forget arguably the biggest success of the early aughts. Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines. The swansong of Troika Games which would go on to grow a fanatical cult following and which many publications would list as one of the best RPG video games of all time. Bloodlines breathed new life into the series, answering the prayers of the old guard while introducing millions to the World of Darkness.

The CCP Years and a Failed MMORPG

White Wolf would coast on the Bloodlines wave until 2006 in which White Wolf would be purchased by CCP Games, the Icelandic publisher of the space MMORPG Eve Online. White Wolf’s Georgia offices would henceforth be CCP North America with Tinney serving as the President of CCP NA. Following this, CCP Games would begin development on a World of Darkness MMORPG immediately, pulling most employees from their RPG development roles and into storyboarding and scripting this new venture. This left essentially no one to continue to care for the various gamelines and the series largely languished for the next few years, kept on life support by various freelancers. By some miracle, in 2011, White Wolf would release their latest and seemingly last edition of Vampire: the Masquerade, titling it the 20th anniversary edition. Launching it in New Orleans at the Grand Masquerade, a fan and larper event. While the game was and is considered by many to be the best version to this day, its sales could do little to stem the hemorrhaging state of CCP’s financials. By 2011, EVE’s subscriptions were in a heavy decline followed by the flop of DUST 514 and the now 5 years of development hell on a World of Darkness MMO. On October 19th, 20% of White Wolf’s workforce would be let go, with the majority being reassigned into other divisions of CCP. This left only two full-time staffers in the White Wolf Division, Eddy Webb and Rich Thomas. Seeing the writing on the wall, Rich Thomas would leave CCP to form Onyx Path Publishing, licensing the World of Darkness from CCP and thankfully continuing development on the various 20th anniversary editions of the other gamelines. Many fans would go on to enjoy the work of Onyx Path, thankful to see the games they grew up with begin to have a pulse yet again. Meanwhile, By Night Studios would be formed in 2013, taking over the defunct Mind’s Eye Theater and gaining the license for World of Darkness LARP products.

Paradox Buys White Wolf and the Dawn of 5th Edition

It quickly became clear that CCP had absolutely no idea what to do with the World of Darkness, canceling their planned MMO in 2014 after 8 years of development to refocus their efforts on EVE online. This led to additional firings and more personnel reshuffling amongst CCP North America or “White Wolf”, if it even still existed. Then, in 2015, Paradox Interactive, publisher of 4x games like Hearts of Iron or Crusader Kings would extend a lifeline. Purchasing White Wolf and the rights to the World of Darkness from CCP for several million. Paradox, intent to actually do something with their new toy, set to work naming Tobias Sjogren as CEO of White Wolf and Martin Ericsson, a developer on the World of Darkness MMO as Lead Storyteller for the company. Paradox would begin to lay the groundwork for restarting the World of Darkness in a new, 5th edition. Leading the way, of course, would be Vampire. As White Wolf got to work on crafting a new plotline, Paradox would sparingly license out the rights to the series, leading to a number of quite enjoyable visual novels. For the next three years, 5th edition quietly cooked away with the occasional teaser being released to keep fans interested. In the summer of 2018, on August 2nd, Vampire: the Masquerade 5th Edition would release to great excitement.

Right off the bat, fans would be taken aback by this edition. Changes to mechanics and the scrapping of most of the existing background lore left a sour taste in the mouth of veteran fans. To follow that, the text included quite a few controversial topics. In the quickstart guide, one of the provided characters was only able to feed upon children. Now, this is a game about being immoral monsters, BUT, if you’ve spent any time in RPG communities you would probably realize that forcing your players to commit violence against children will likely lead to THAT GUY situations. As we read further into the book one of the suggested character concepts for a Brujah character, was a neo-nazi. Shortly after this featured an example dice roll that just so happened to be 1488, a common nazi slogan. Now, White Wolf brushed these off as coincidences, and I do believe the die example likely was but what would come next would spell the end of White Wolf.

The End of White Wolf

White Wolf has historically been quite edgy, a trait that served them well in the 90s and generally, they reserved their most controversial entries for the now defunct Black Dog label. With that gone, nothing kept controversy from their main line books. Shortly after the core book was released, White Wolf would follow it up with a Camarilla book, meant for playing one of the primary sects of Vampires. This book would include a passage about Chechnya, specifically, homosexuals in Chechnya. The passages explained that Chechnya was actually a vampire led state, that current and very much alive President Ramzan Kadyrov was a ghoul, blood-bound to vampires. To distract from the fact that their leader was under vampiric influence, Kadyrov led anti-gay purges which, sadly, are also a very real thing. The book continues that international controversy over homosexual persecution is actually just a vampire manipulation, that while yes, homosexuals may be getting tortured to death but that's not the point, its to distract from vampires! Oh, and by the way, Vampires hate gays too. (The Passage in Question) The whole section was completely unnecessary, especially the immediate alienation of the large LGBT player base of their own game. This has not been the first time White Wolf has gotten into hot water for their writings but for Paradox, the immense blowback on this was too much. They immediately recalled all prints/pdfs for rapid editing and quickly fired the senior White Wolf staff, closing the company and fully absorbing the World of Darkness into Paradox as a whole. White Wolf would end suddenly, just as it seemed they had roared back to life, the edginess that originally made them would eventually become their downfall. The IP would eventually be fully brought back in house to be led by Jason Carl who was already in many ways the face of the game thanks to the success of his show LA by Night and recent promotion to Brand Manager. WoD to this day is largely managed by Renegade Studios and a team of free-lancers under the supervision of Carl. Larp products would continue to be produced by Carl's former company, By Night Studios.