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This ONLY applies to New World of Darkness, a game system that DOES have a core rulebook, with splat books for playing different types of characters.

The focus of this discussion is on tagging which Core set of rules, a concept that does not apply to the Old World of Darkness, and if the splat lines under those core rules should be tagged with the edition in question.

In this thread the retagging of all the World of Darkness questions, and the tags used is discussed.

One thing about the suggestions and the tags implemented in them that bothered me was the, in my opinion, noisy expansion of tags for the splats of the second edition of New World of Darkness.

In that thread it is suggested that there be both second edition tags for New World of Darkness itself, and for the splat books there in. For example, there would be both [vampire-the-requiem] and [vampire-the-requiem-2e] (along with an interim [blood-and-smoke]) tags to distinguish between editions.

It is my contention that, while I do not fully agree with the creation of umbrella New World of Darkness second edition tags, they can add value to the question. I also contest that adding second edition tags for the splats, however only serves to add noise.

The edition of the game has already been indicated by the use of the appropriate nWoD version tag.

Further, as the difference between the editions is minimal, the vast majority of questions are suitable for either edition. While the person asking the question may indicate the edition of the core rules they are using in their game, it is of little benefit to anyone to indicate this twice.

I therefore suggest we limit the creation of nWoD tags to the following:

  • [new-world-of-darkness-1e] (synonym new-world-of-darkness)
  • [new-world-of-darkness-2e]
  • [nwod-god-machine] (interim)
  • one (and only one) for each of the creature splats, with no version distinction

I really feel it is not understood what is being suggested here. WoD questions are already tagged with what edition of the rules is in question. There is no need to also tag it with the edition of the creature splat that is in question as that is inexorably tied to the rules edition.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ So yes to [new-world-of-darkness-2e], but no to [vampire-the-requiem-2e]? (I will leave answering and voting to people who actually play these games, but I'm asking to make sure I understand this point) \$\endgroup\$
    – doppelgreener
    Oct 16, 2014 at 7:30
  • \$\begingroup\$ That is correct. \$\endgroup\$
    – Tritium21
    Oct 16, 2014 at 7:38
  • \$\begingroup\$ Based on what we've seen in the B&S/VtR changes, and the leaked information about Awakening 2e, the alterations don't strike me as "minimal" at all — we're talking about deep structural changes to core mechanics. \$\endgroup\$
    – Jadasc
    Oct 16, 2014 at 13:56
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Jadasc Even if the core mechanics completely changed (it didn't), the nwod tag, not the vtr/mta/wtf tag is what should indicate what version you are using. \$\endgroup\$
    – Tritium21
    Oct 16, 2014 at 22:11

1 Answer 1

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I don't see this being accepted. Splatbooks in WoD have always been things like Clanbook: Brujah—a supplement to the main game book Vampire: the Masquerade. Sometimes the individual supernaturals are called "splats" too, but this isn't a useful distinction to us as—for various reasons—we care most about the game a question is about.

So, we prefer to tag games, and in oWoD the games are the X: the Y books. In the nWoD(s) this is somewhat confused by regularising the WW/OP house system into a separately-publishable core system, but the games are still the books titled X: the Y. It's just that now, there are two books needed to play the core game instead of just one. The core WoD book is a game in itself too, but only when used alone, and that is far less popular that the WoD + X: the Y combinations.

Your proposal basically means splitting the semantic information for "what game is this?" across two tags: the core edition (which I'll call "era" for clarity) and a generic monster-type tag. This makes no sense for the oWoD material as they aren't even 100% compatible within the oWoD era, and though it makes slightly more sense for nWoD, splitting the meaning of tags across multiple tags is unwieldy and not something we have precedent for when it comes to a game tag.

It would also guarantee many new users would tag their WoD questions wrong, resulting in a lot of avoidable "question is unclear" closes. That alone would be enough to avoid doing this.

If anything, it's the era tags that we could do without—if is on a question, we know exactly what game and system is involved and the era tag is superfluous. However, the new tagging scheme is, well, new. Even if a modification like that is a good idea on paper, we're already executing on the new scheme and it's far too soon to decide that it's not working, not without overwhelming indications to the contrary.

Though we might be able to ditch the era tags as superfluous, we should see how this tagging scheme works in practice first, learn from it, and only adjust it based on experience with how well or not well it does the job.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ By "edition" tags, do you mean core edition alone, i.e. the NWOD 2e tag? VTR 2e is what I'd call an "edition" tag too, and you don't seem to be saying we could do without that. \$\endgroup\$
    – doppelgreener
    Oct 16, 2014 at 22:53
  • \$\begingroup\$ @doppelgreener Yeah, by "edition" tag I mean oWoD/nWoD/nWoD2. I should clarify that… somehow. Edit: Changed it to the made-up-for-this-one-clarification "era". \$\endgroup\$
    – SevenSidedDie
    Oct 16, 2014 at 23:01
  • \$\begingroup\$ So this answer would support monk-1e, monk-2e, monk-3e, monk-3.5e, monk-4e, and monk-5e tags, to put it in terms of DND. \$\endgroup\$
    – Tritium21
    Oct 17, 2014 at 1:21
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Tritium21 I think he's suggesting that dnd-3.5 and pathfinder have separate tags rather than just coming under d20-system, to put it in terms of D&D. \$\endgroup\$
    – Miniman
    Oct 17, 2014 at 5:22
  • \$\begingroup\$ Yeah, what @Miniman said. There isn't a game called "Monk: the Flurrying (2nd edition)", but there is a game called "Vampire: the Requiem (2nd edition)", or at least soon will be. \$\endgroup\$
    – SevenSidedDie
    Oct 17, 2014 at 6:31
  • \$\begingroup\$ I think the idea of dropping the NWOD 2e tag for just having the one NWOD tag was Tritium's original position before he took this from an answer on another question to a question in its own right - either that or dropping the '2e' in all cases. So, that's two people independently coming to similar conclusions. It may be worth bringing this up and discussing the matter in a few months' time, after the respective 2nd editions have been properly released and we've taken the new tagging for a spin. \$\endgroup\$
    – doppelgreener
    Oct 17, 2014 at 8:58
  • \$\begingroup\$ @doppelgreener This question seems to propose the opposite: drop the edition marker from the game tags and only indicate it on the nWoD tag. I don't see that as a good idea. Especially, it sets us up for more tagging headaches if later games start diverging from the core nWoD-2e design (just like has already happened with the emergence of GMC), because then the core tag wouldn't actually be correct in combination with that game title. Game titles should stand on their own. \$\endgroup\$
    – SevenSidedDie
    Oct 17, 2014 at 16:50
  • \$\begingroup\$ @SevenSidedDie indeed this question is not the same as the previous proposal. \$\endgroup\$
    – doppelgreener
    Oct 17, 2014 at 23:11

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