So this announcement got me to actually sit down and learn how Crusader King 2 works. Looking forward to the next Steam sale so I can update my DLC. I'm sure it's worth full price, but there's a lot of DLC and I have very little money.
Anyway, I'm still ambivalent about this until I hear more about how Paradox wants to handle White Wolf's current relationship with Onyx Path and By Night Studios. Exalted 3 just got released after being cursed for two years, Beast: The Primordial just came out, Mage the Awakening 2 and Promethean the Created 2 are coming out soon and Changeling 20 and Vampire the Masquerade 4 have both been announced. There's a lot of stuff for people to look forward to and no one in the tabletop community wants to see that go away. I don't think Paradox wants to deliberately screw Onyx Path or By Night Studios over, but I am concerned that the current creative vision of White Wolf properties might get... marginalized, for lack of a better term. Like, you remember when Spider-Man went back to his black costume in the comics just because Spider-Man 3 was coming out and he wore the black costume in that? That was just stupid. I don't want to see the video game metaplot (again, lacking a better term) influence the tabletop books purely sake of it.
Aside from that, there's a lot of really interesting potential here. Forget about Classic World of Darkness, New World of Darkness and Exalted are where it's at.
NWoD? You can have a strategy game with Vampires trying to secure their lairs and feeding grounds, Mages acquiring hallows, verges and artifacts, Werewolves defending their territories in the material world and the Shadow, Mummies expanding their cults and tombs, Demons setting up agencies and destroying God Machine infrastructure, Beasts expanding their lairs, Changeling courts, Prometheans trying to fit in, Hunters fighting for their city block by block, etc. You can go with a full crossover, or you can can focus purely on the internal supernatural conflicts, like a Mage-only game where cabals, legacies and orders each compete for magical strongholds, lost knowledge and proximi bloodlines while holding back the Abyss.
Exalted? You've got the Niobraran War, the Shogunate, the Wyld Crusade, the founding of the Scarlet Empire, the Scavenger Lands, the Caul, the Realm Civil War, the Locust Crusade, Ahlat, the Deathlords carving out chunks of the Underworld for themselves and raiding Creation, Ahlat, demons warring for layers of Malfeas, Ahlat, the Great Houses, Ahlat, the Lesser Houses, Ahlat, barbarian hordes assembled and resurgent Solar empires. And Ahlat.
That's not even counting the stuff you can do outside the grand strategy genre. VtM: Bloodlines 2 is basically a foregone conclusion, but there's major opportunity here to introduce the non-Masquerade lines to a broader audience, and that's something that would be beneficial to everyone involved with the White Wolf properties.
