Transcript
Farid and Tash sitting at the table without Emma.
Tash: So, now that you’ve been eaten by spiders, what’s next?
Farid: I dunno. Being a mouse was fun, but I think I need a change.
Emma slams the Changeling: the Lost book down on the table.
Emma: A changeling you mean. Prepare your d10s, it’s time for Changeling: The Lost.
Farid leans in to look at the book.
Farid: Cool. This is Chronicles of Darkness right?
Emma: They haven’t updated Changeling yet, so this is still New World of Darkness.
Tash: But I heard they’re publishing new editions of Vampire: The Masquerade and Mage: The Ascension. Wouldn’t that be the New World of Darkness?
Emma: No, that’s the new Old World of Darkness.
Farid: That means Chronicles is the new New World of Darkness.
Tash: So that would make Changeling the old New World of Darkness.
Emma hands them both character sheets.
Emma: Confusing names are but one of the many horrors you will face from the realms beyond Arcadia. Now get out your pencils.
Treat your friends to an evening of ritual murder – in a fictional RPG scenario, of course. Uncover your lost memories and escape a supernatural menace in our one-shot adventure, The Voyage.
Why can’t World of Darkness just have a first edition, second edition, third edition, fourth edition, etc like very other system?
I think it’s because unlike most other systems, WoD has a very specific story tied to its editions, a story that they tried to change for New World of Darkness, but now they want to bring back because it was the popular one.
But yeah it’s confusing.
Alright, here’s the breakdown:
First, you had the World of Darkness. Well, technically, first you had Vampire: the Masquerade, which was then expanded into the World of Darkness. The World of Darkness had 3 editions (First, Second, and Revised) covering multiple gamelines (Werewolf: the Apocolypse, Mage: the Ascension, Changeling: the Dreaming, etc.), though some lines were not released until Revised (e.g. Demon: the Fallen). In the early 2000’s, White Wolf brought the World of Darkness to a close, then launched new gamelines (Vampire: the Requiem, Werewolf: the Forsaken, Mage: the Awakening, Changeling: the Lost, etc.) under the World of Darkness name. Fans divided the two eras into the Old World of Darkness and the New World of Darkness (oWoD and nWoD). Then, Onyx Path (which had taken over publishing White Wolf properties) released a 20th Anniversary Edition of V:tM, with similar anniversary editions to follow for the other oWoD properties (though they called the Old World of Darkness the Classic World of Darkness, or cWoD). Finally, Onyx Path began to update their nWoD gamelines through the Chronicles books (Strix Chronicle being the only one released, updating V:tR), as CCP (who owned White Wolf) would not (at first) allow them to release a second edition. So, to use Vampire as our example, you had the old old WoD (1st-2nd-Rev V:tM), the new old WoD (V:tM20), the old new WoD (V:tR), and the new new WoD (Blood and Smoke: the Strix Chronicle, later V:tR 2E). Now, since Paradox’s acquisition of White Wolf, they have announced a relaunch of the oWoD, starting the 5th Edition, while the entire nWoD has been re-branded the Chronicles of Darkness (though old material has not yet been updated).
Any questions?
Long story short: Licensing issues, first with CCP and then with Paradox Entertainment.