Something of interest to all you Monkeywrenchers and corporate predators out there: White Wolf's Werewolf developer Ethan Skemp speaks about the upcoming Werewolf supplement Subsidiaries: A Guide to Pentex.

Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1999 10:57:48 -0500
From: Ethan Skemp 
To: Discussion of White Wolf's World of Darkness 
Subject: General Note

    The printer's proof of Subsidiaries: A Guide to Pentex got into the
    office today, which means we should be getting actual copies back from
    the printer in a week or so.

    I haven't felt like I'm going to hell for working on a book since I
    edited Freak Legion.

    Ethan Skemp
    WWGS

He then answers some questions:

Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1999 15:02:28 -0500
From: Ethan Skemp 
To: Discussion of White Wolf's World of Darkness 
Subject: Re: General Note

    lisa fleishman wrote:

    >>I haven't felt like I'm going to hell for working on a book since I
    >>edited Freak Legion.
    >
    >I take it that this book is rather graphic? Blasphemous? Would you buy it?

    Graphic in places, although not Black Dog level. (The art is generally
    quite good, particularly the fullpages and the more satiric chapters.)
    Blasphemous...well, it all depends on what you hold sacred.

    Lemme put it this way: The section on roleplaying games in the World of
    Darkness was written by Justin Achilli. Loving satire this is *not*.

    Would I buy it? In a second. It's good material, front to back (well,
    except for the Tellus chapter, but what can you do?). The cover alone is
    pure genius. The authors include the inestimable Rich Dansky, the very
    professional Clayton Oliver, and Werewolf diva Deena McKinney. (Oh yeah,
    and a couple of jerks from White Wolf who think they're clever.) Artists
    include Steve Prescott, Jeff Rebner and Andrew Bates -- all perfect for
    this kind of nastiness.

    And frankly, I'm a mean-spirited bastard who doesn't really care if all
    of gamerdom is offended or not, so I'm not offended by the...less than
    kind view on roleplaying, both fandom and game publishers, in the World
    of Darkness. Other people will undoubtedly be very offended. And God help
    us all if somebody's mother thinks that the BDGF fullpage depicts an
    average, "real" roleplaying game in action.

    But what the hell. It's a good read.

    Ethan Skemp
    BDGF -- no, wait, WWGS

And a few more:

Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1999 15:34:36 -0500
From: Ethan Skemp 
To: Discussion of White Wolf's World of Darkness 
Subject: Re: General Note

    The Lighthouse Keeper wrote:

    >Couple of questions, if you happen to have the time:
    >
    >Does Subsidiaries focus more on the inner politics of the companies held by
    >Pentex or is it more of a corporate overview of the companies, their
    >agendas, their products and their methodologies themselves?

    The latter. Each chapter focuses on a different subsidiary, highlighting
    its personnel, its agenda, its products, its resources, and so on. We're
    going for methods to integrate Subsidiaries material into *every* game,
    not just those that focus on boardroom politics.

    >Do we get any sort of updated information on available Pentex firepower or
    >Fomori creation technology?

    That's not really the scope of the book. We're trying to fracture the
    image of Pentex as monolithic generic Corporation O' Evil -- that's why
    the focus on individual subsidiaries and their individual
    accomplishments. Not much by way of First Team documentation here; this
    is more a look at, say, the entity of Warner Brothers rather than
    Time/Warner.

    >Can we expect to see a little more from the SPD/Pentex connection in
    >Subsidiaries?

    Nope. There are a few crossover bones for Mage buffs, but again, I'm
    trying to get away from the monolithic angle and focus more on what Garou
    are likely to *see*. The average citizen of the WoD is never gonna see a
    Pentex logo or an SPD memo -- he's gonna see Endron stations, Avalon
    action figures, Tellus TV commercials, King displays and so on. That's
    the level that Subsidiaries works on; it's aimed to cover the things that
    your average pack is actually likely to deal with, not the stuff that you
    need crossovers with super-clever mage spies to uncover (and definitely
    not the stuff that you need Mage to understand at all).

    And frankly, I just don't like SPD, or at least the way it was handled in
    Syndicate. So, like, this sub-division of a sub-division of one of Mage's
    potential main antagonists is equally powerful as one of Werewolf's main
    antagonists? Screw that.

    >Do we get any schematics/graphs of the actual consumer market od the
    >"mortal" world at large cornered by Pentex products?

    Not in formal graphs, no -- but there's a good amount of discussion on
    the various subsidiaries' market shares, target audiences, ad campaigns
    and so on. As I said before, that's where the book gets interesting.

    Ethan Skemp
    WWGS

Sounds pretty tasty.