To strengthen consent-based play, Paradox’s World of Darkness studio will release additional safety materials
Renegade Games, the publisher of Vampire: The Masquerade, released a single two-page spread late last week that surprised some in the tabletop role-playing game community. In it, the World of Darkness studio of Paradox Interactive invoked a sensitive role-playing concept known as “bleed,” eliciting commentary and, in some cases, outrage. World of Darkness clarified that material on Wednesday with the release of more pages of content — and, once again, the promise of more comprehensive safety materials to be published at a later date.
Many people, were critical of developer White Wolf’s decision to include the game’s traditional themes of vampire-related sexual violence without a thorough discussion of in-game safety and consent when the 5th edition of Vampire was released in 2018. Based on that criticism, White Wolf decided, just before that year’s Gen Con, to reintroduce safety materials that it had previously planned to release separately as a free supplement at launch. The “Advice for Considerate Play” appendix is now included in all digital and physical copies of the Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition Core Rulebook.
Following the mishap and a broader series of high-profile, unforced errors across multiple Vampire publications, Paradox effectively dissolved White Wolf. Paradox brought additional Vampire materials in-house for greater oversight, with Renegade managing publication. Otherwise, the TTRPG has moved forward apace, buoyed by several seasons of a well-regarded actual play series.
Renegade, on the other hand, sent out a preview of its highly anticipated supplement Blood-Stained Love earlier this month, a sourcebook intended to help add richer storylines involving romance to Vampire. It promoted “themes of love, control, and manipulation” in an email to customers while also invoking the concept of “bleed.”
Emily Care Boss, a game designer, formally defined bleed in 2007. It is the process by which emotional aspects of role-playing can seep into a player’s real life and vice versa. In the context of Vampire, which is known for its extremely intimate content, Bleed is especially sensitive. Most vampires describe feeding on blood as a sensual act, and their human victims even more so. However, the game also deals with the sometimes shady relationships between vampires, which can last centuries.
Bleed was previously mentioned in the 5th edition, including as a sidebar in the Vampire: The Masquerade Players Guide alongside advice to check in with other players in your group through “open, honest communication” and “established rituals of getting into and out of character.” Unfortunately, the pages shared in Renegade’s email made no mention of these safety tools in context, giving the impression that the current designers of Vampire were not concerned with player safety.
Jacqueline Bryk, the same writer who wrote the free supplement for Vampire’s core rulebook in 2018, was among the harshest critics of this particular invocation of bleed being shared without safety context. Bryk commented on the preview pages on TikTok, calling Paradox’s decision to include the material “irresponsible.”
“Moralizing bleed like this is how we get creeps at the table,” Bryk said. “This is inelegant, irresponsible, and to be honest I don’t really want to see the influx of goth dudes coming to Vampire LARPs to play for bleed, or going the other way and deciding I’m too cool for bleed. […] You’re going to get emotional constipation either way.”
Renegade released three more pages from Blood-Stained Love on Wednesday, thanks in part to the comments of Bryk and others in the TTRPG community online. These pages go into greater detail about the pitfalls of bleed and provide useful advice on how to manage its use at the table — a process known as “calibration.”
At the same time, Paradox, via its World of Darkness account https://twitter.com/worldofdarkness/status/1724837558356476215 on X, pledged to go into greater detail about bleed in a future release.
“We thank everyone from the community who contributed to the discussion about bleed last week, and what this word means at your tables,” Paradox said. “This discussion inspired us to bring you more materials on safety tools, usable across all World of Darkness settings.
To give you more tools to navigate the subject of bleed and its calibration, we’re preparing an additional resource with the help of roleplaying research, additional sensitivity reading, and community feedback. This PDF will be available to download for free from our website when VTM: Blood-Stained Love releases!”
Vampire: The Masquerade – Blood-Stained Love will be available in stores in January 2024.