Throwing the werewolf out with the bathwater.

[Stumpydave]

I'm a big World of Darkness fan. It's probably the only game franchise I've remained invested in and the only one I still play.
The first game I brought, after getting more and more interested in this strange and exciting 'Arpeejee' hobby was Werewolf:The Apocalypse 1st ed from the Comix Shoppe, Swansea. Softback rust cover with claw marks showing verdant greenery behind.

And it's coming back with a 5th edition. Huzzah, cry I. All excited to see a revamped version of the rules and setting.

Only...there's been some changes. Changes I'm not sure I agree with.
Maybe I'm being reactionary and it'll be really good. I know I liked V5 and H5.

Allegedly, those of us who ate this stuff up in the early 90's are horrible xxxx-ists for not noticing how the progressive attitudes we held back then aren't seen as progressive now, so in order to fix this the Get of Fenris have all gone over to the Worship of Khorne to make up for their nazi ties. The Black Furies and Red Talons (in order to avoid a similar fate) have said, "Yeah, we were a bit monomaniacal back in the day. Soz. Lol." and backtracked on their earlier - defining - traits.
The Uktena and Wendigo have undergone rebranding and various other tribes have Forsaken (see what I did there ;) ) their cultural ties to be more welcoming and inclusive.

The thing is, to paraphrase Syndrome in The Incredibles. If everyone is special, no one is. If the Black Furies are accepting males, if the Red Talons are accepting Homids, what makes them any different to any other tribe?

 

[Ladybird]

That's a damn shame (Well, except the nazis thing; fuck nazis and all those who ride with them). I only ever got to play it once, but I really enjoyed reading the corebook because of how fucked up each of the tribes were, in their own way; it was incredibly evocative and made them feel more real and emphasised how much the fight against the apocalypse had cost them.

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

Just a general reminder to people to be a bit careful with this subject. Best to stick to the content of the book, what changes you dislike etc.

But yeah, this doesn't sound great.

As well as the "making everyone generic" issue, it also sounds like they're moving much more to the idea that the Garou are the good guys, superheroes fighting the Wyrm. Rather the original, where part of the fact it was a horror game was that a significant number of Garou could be as monsterous as their enemies.

The Red Talons are a perfect example. The horror and much of the appeal for me is that you could see why they were angry from their perspective, but they'd been consumed by that and ended up just slaughtering humans.

Even the Get of Fenris/Nazis thing fits into that. Not only were the Get not all Nazis (canon is that they fought on both sides), but the whole point there is that werewolves can be bastards too. I can understand why some groups would prefer to ban Nazi Gets as character concepts, but I don't think there's anything wrong with mature groups choosing to play the baddies.

 

[Silverlion]

I'm a big World of Darkness fan. It's probably the only game franchise I've remained invested in and the only one I still play.
The first game I brought, after getting more and more interested in this strange and exciting 'Arpeejee' hobby was Werewolf:The Apocalypse 1st ed from the Comix Shoppe, Swansea. Softback rust cover with claw marks showing verdant greenery behind.


The thing is, to paraphrase Syndrome in The Incredibles. If everyone is special, no one is. If the Black Furies are accepting males, if the Red Talons are accepting Homids, what makes them any different to any other tribe?

My bigger concern is the loss of Stargazers, I don't recall any problematic content from them even their name isn't like the Uktena or Wendigo who seemed to have been re-branded. So where did they go? Do we have clear information on the other tribes actually changing their limitations re: Black Furies? Will the Silverfangs NOT be mentally ill because making that central to them as a limitation is kind of disparaging to the mentally ill? I'm just curious because I was an old WW fanboy early on but moved away from it in later years. (A lot of that had to do with Larping--not my thing but it seemed a lot of people wanted the tabletop games to play like Larps and I wasn't interested.)

Mind you I like Witchcraft the RPG's werewolves a bit better because they tie them into myth and folklore better, but they do lack the flavor of WW's Werewolf.

 

[Fenris-77]

Well, I suppose that they may have had some legitimate concerns about using cultural touchstones that in the previous edition may have tread to close to real life. I'd counsel a wait and see approach. Perhaps the content you loved will still be there under a different name, and you can always retrofit the factions to be less warm and cuddly (I know I would).

 

[Necrozius]

Is it hard to just change the fluff to be like the older editions while using the rules of the newer ones?

ie, get the new edition, tell the players to refer to the lore from Apocalypse?

Or do the new rules somehow enforce the concepts too intrinsically? Eg: the Get have a core power called “Repel Norse Ancestry” and the Furies have a core Gift “Masculine Might”?

 

[Stumpydave]

I can understand why some groups would prefer to ban Nazi Gets as character concepts, but I don't think there's anything wrong with mature groups choosing to play the baddies.

That's always my preferred option (I still maintain the Fomori book - Freak Legion - was the best book in the entire gameline. )

 

[AsenRG]

I'm a big World of Darkness fan. It's probably the only game franchise I've remained invested in and the only one I still play.
The first game I brought, after getting more and more interested in this strange and exciting 'Arpeejee' hobby was Werewolf:The Apocalypse 1st ed from the Comix Shoppe, Swansea. Softback rust cover with claw marks showing verdant greenery behind.

And it's coming back with a 5th edition. Huzzah, cry I. All excited to see a revamped version of the rules and setting.

Only...there's been some changes. Changes I'm not sure I agree with.
Maybe I'm being reactionary and it'll be really good. I know I liked V5 and H5.

Allegedly, those of us who ate this stuff up in the early 90's are horrible xxxx-ists for not noticing how the progressive attitudes we held back then aren't seen as progressive now, so in order to fix this the Get of Fenris have all gone over to the Worship of Khorne to make up for their nazi ties. The Black Furies and Red Talons (in order to avoid a similar fate) have said, "Yeah, we were a bit monomaniacal back in the day. Soz. Lol." and backtracked on their earlier - defining - traits.
The Uktena and Wendigo have undergone rebranding and various other tribes have Forsaken (see what I did there ;) ) their cultural ties to be more welcoming and inclusive.

The thing is, to paraphrase Syndrome in The Incredibles. If everyone is special, no one is. If the Black Furies are accepting males, if the Red Talons are accepting Homids, what makes them any different to any other tribe?

 

[TJS]

Yeah...Nah.

 

[Simlasa]

Is it hard to just change the fluff to be like the older editions while using the rules of the newer ones?

Or maybe just ignore newer editions of popular games and keep on playing the originals? Why feel the need to be dragged along into some 'new and improved' product you don't really need or want?

 

[Toadmaster]

Or maybe just ignore newer editions of popular games and keep on playing the originals? Why feel the need to be dragged along into some 'new and improved' product you don't really need or want?

Crazy talk, clearly you don't know how this works.

 

[Necrozius]

Or maybe just ignore newer editions of popular games and keep on playing the originals? Why feel the need to be dragged along into some 'new and improved' product you don't really need or want?

Well yeah that’s the thing. If I was going to play another WoD game, I’d borrow some of the core mechanics from the newer games that I like but keep on using my older books.

 

[Silverlion]

Or maybe just ignore newer editions of popular games and keep on playing the originals? Why feel the need to be dragged along into some 'new and improved' product you don't really need or want?

I was hoping for somewhat improved mechanics. I don't know if I'll get it but I'll take a look.

 

[Fenris-77]

I was hoping for somewhat improved mechanics. I don't know if I'll get it but I'll take a look.

Precisely. The original was sloppier than a high school handjob.

 

[sharps54]

So find a game you like the mechanics for and use the old WoD lore, problem solved. When I want to run Colonial Gothic I don’t use the official rules (even if I do love d12s) I generally use ICRPG because the games are one or two sessions and the mechanics are easy to learn, fast, and work fine with my theater of the mind GM style.

 

[Voros]

I find a lot of WoD lore and tribes too convoluted. Hopefully like V5 they have some stripped down options for play.

This PbtA take on werewolves looks more up my alley.



Extensive review here:

Bite Marks Review

Even when the popularity of the game line was gaining momentum in the early nineties, I didn’t jump on the World of Darkness trend. When I looked at the lines produced by White Wolf, the game that appealed to me the most was Werewolf The Apocalypse. I didn’t really want to play a vampire preying...

gnomestew.com

Currently available as part of a Bundle of Holding but ending in less than an hour!

Bundle of Holding - Apocalypse gone

bundleofholding.com

 

[AsenRG]

Or maybe just ignore newer editions of popular games and keep on playing the originals? Why feel the need to be dragged along into some 'new and improved' product you don't really need or want?

Yeah, this, especially in this case.
Sure, the original mechanics are sloppy, but then if you're going to replace the whole system, it doesn't need to be with one that did at some point wear the particular brand, so the possibilities are basically limitless.

Hint, ORE games have a similar range of attributes and skills as WoD ones, are fast and brutal enough to contribute to the horror*, and even use d10 dicepools, you just have to decide how to represent werewolves in them.

*It's almost as if they were created originally for a WWII game, precious!

 

[Mankcam]

Hi everyone

One of my posts in this thread got removed

An apology -

Sorry if I offended anyone here, it was just one of those impulsive one line posts that you quickly fire off from a mobile device, then later reflect that perhaps that was a bit raw given the sociopolitical sensitivities of our current era

I’m not sure which Moderator decided to pull the post, but I’m glad they did, as I just returned here to see if I could backtrack on it in case I had stirred up a hornets nest

I appreciate our space here, and really would have hated to be a cause of a thread storm.
So I’m sorry if anyone has been offended in my absence, that was not my intention

ok all cool, return to our usual banter

 

[Silverlion]

So find a game you like the mechanics for and use the old WoD lore, problem solved. When I want to run Colonial Gothic I don’t use the official rules (even if I do love d12s) I generally use ICRPG because the games are one or two sessions and the mechanics are easy to learn, fast, and work fine with my theater of the mind GM style.

While the vast majority of my players will accept me running any rules system, there are a few exceptions. White Wolf is one of them. IF I want to run White Wolf Werewolf, it will likely need to use those mechanics.

I find a lot of WoD lore and tribes too convoluted. Hopefully like V5 they have some stripped down options for play.

This PbtA take on werewolves looks more up my alley.

Bite Marks runs into a PbtA issue I have, sex moves. They're not really appropriate for most of the gaming I do especially since it's unlikely my players who are fans of White Wolf, want something sans White Wolf Werewolf lore, and definitely aren't the type to be nominally comfortable with overt sex. Most often we fade to black but also relationships between PC's of a romantic of sexual sort are just NOT done with this group, breaking Bite Marks design a bit. It's not that sex can't happen but its PC's to NPC's and they like a larger cast of NPC's to interact with, and frankly the fact that Bite Marks want to make found family sort of incestuous is problematic. (They may not be genetically related but I'd have preferred straight up 'family' to family+sex for mechanical reasons.)

I've been suggesting Witchcraft's Werewolves because I like those vastly better than White Wolf's, but most of them are HUGE long term fans of White Wolf's lines.

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

Hi everyone

One of my posts in this thread got removed -

Sorry if I offended anyone here, it was just one of those impulsive one line posts that you quickly fire off from a mobile device, then later reflect that perhaps that was a bit raw given the sociopolitical sensitivities of our current era

I’m not sure which Moderactor decided to pull the post, but I’m glad they did, as I just returned here to see if I could backtrack on it in case I had stirred up a hornets nest

I appreciate our space here, and really would have hated to be a cause of a thread storm.

So I’m sorry if anyone has been offended in my absence, that was not my intention

ok all cool, return to our usual banter

In this case it was me (I thought I'd initialised the notification) and it really isn't anything to worry about.

Everyone's gonna slip up now and again, it's just human nature.

I also don't think anybody got offended in your absence because I doubt that post was seen by more than three people at most. You had the good fortune to post it in a thread I was actively participating in at the time. ;)

So yeah, seriously, this is no kind of issue, just standard mod function.

 

[Mankcam]

In this case it was me (I thought I'd initialised the notification) and it really isn't anything to worry about.

No, there was only an anonymous avatar as the author of the notification, otherwise I would of PM'd you back and thanked you in person

Everyone's gonna slip up now and again, it's just human nature.

I also don't think anybody got offended in your absence because I doubt that post was seen by more than three people at most. You had the good fortune to post it in a thread I was actively participating in at the time. ;)

So yeah, seriously, this is no kind of issue, just standard mod function.

Because of the time difference from where I post, it's one of my concerns that one day I'll put my foot in my mouth (more than usual, heh heh), then return a day or so later only to find an unintended thread-storm

Thanks for letting me know tonight what has happened, and also thanks for your quick actions
'It's greatly appreciated

 

[AsenRG]

You had the good fortune to post it in a thread I was actively participating in at the time. ;)

...the only good fortune that's harder to find would be a thread where Tristram is an active participant, I'd guess?

Also, I have no idea what he posted, and I don't care all that much. The new (apparently) happy-go-ethical werewolves who disdain the human capacity for evil are still ridiculous, though.

 

[AppleJax]

I don’t see why they couldn’t just use the Chronicles of Darkness IP. It was made because, among other things, the writers foresaw how problematic the 90s stuff would become. The whole premise of ecoterrorism just comes across as silly now when everyone is falling over themselves to use wind and solar. Or, idk, do a second reboot.

Oh right, nostalgia. God I hate nostalgia.

EDIT: I’ll have to check out Bite Marks

 

[Ladybird]

Bite Marks runs into a PbtA issue I have, sex moves. They're not really appropriate for most of the gaming I do especially since it's unlikely my players who are fans of White Wolf, want something sans White Wolf Werewolf lore, and definitely aren't the type to be nominally comfortable with overt sex. Most often we fade to black but also relationships between PC's of a romantic of sexual sort are just NOT done with this group, breaking Bite Marks design a bit. It's not that sex can't happen but its PC's to NPC's and they like a larger cast of NPC's to interact with, and frankly the fact that Bite Marks want to make found family sort of incestuous is problematic. (They may not be genetically related but I'd have preferred straight up 'family' to family+sex for mechanical reasons.)

From looking at the playbooks, it looks like renaming "sex moves" to "intimacy moves", and changing the trigger to emotional intimacy, would do the job.

 

[Ravenswing]

Or maybe just ignore newer editions of popular games and keep on playing the originals? Why feel the need to be dragged along into some 'new and improved' product you don't really need or want?

No kidding. For DECADES now, every time there's a new edition of ANY World of Darkness core product, gaming fora all over the land shake with the howls of rage: those bastards fucked it up!!! And marching right along side is the inevitable reaction to any suggestion that White Wolf & successors didn't send stormtroopers around to confiscate all the old copies or consign rejectionists to the gulag, and that groups really did have the ability to keep on playing the way they were used to playing: bewildered and uncomprehending anger.

And it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. These are game settings, after all. The ONLY way to guarantee that any revision is done exactly the way you want it to be done, incorporating only those elements you desire, is to become the product manager for the WoD line. (Whereupon, of course, 80% of the WoD player base will point fingers at you, screaming "You bastard, you fucked it up!")

Or you can just GM the setting the way it suits you to do. Play the Black Furies and the Red Talons however you please. Make in-game group inclusive -- or not -- as suits your amour propre. No previous edition of anything is "obsolete," and they all read pretty much the same and play pretty much the same as the day you first bought it.

 

[AsenRG]

No kidding. For DECADES now, every time there's a new edition of ANY World of Darkness core product, gaming fora all over the land shake with the howls of rage: those bastards fucked it up!!!

I think you're singling out World of Darkness totally unfairly!

For DECADES now, every time there's a new edition of ANY game with a reasonably popular setting, gaming fora all over the land shake with the howls of rage: those bastards fucked it up!!!

After all, a lot of us were taught, tried and tempered in the battles of fictional canons, long before we even knew what RPGs were.

 

[AppleJax]

Yeah, the edition wars are a large part of why I left WoD fandom. I kept getting insulted for liking the AU they released in the mid to late 2000s, now called CoD for branding reasons. Not just by fans, but at points employees and contractors got in the cyberbullying and it was totally unprofessional. Good riddance! Also, I eventually found the IP's idiosyncrasies too much to bear and that was with the adjustments made by CoD. The rules are overcomplicated af to the point where they actively get in the way of the intended atmosphere (if you want more on this, see what The Forge had to say back in the day), the jargon is self-important and intellectually ego-stroking, it actively discourages you from doing monster mashes, it suffers a huge identity crisis where the writers couldn't decide how different/similar they wanted to be to WoD, and many books kept trying to shoehorn concepts that simply didn't work well being forced into that template. For example, I felt many vampire bloodlines were done a huge disservice by forcing them into the bloodsucker template when they would be better as psychic/emotional vampires. Another example: I thought it was really silly that they completely ignored the idea of transmissible lycanthropy, because that's foundational to werewolf stories in pop-culture nowadays in the same way as the vampire tropes pioneered by Dracula and Lestat.

I checked out other urban fantasy games like Nightlife, Nephilim, WitchCraft, Everlasting, Feed, and so on. I find all of them vastly preferable to WoD in their execution (not to diminish their flaws, btw), but their communities are non-existent. Even though WoD is on life support now compared to its heyday in the 90s, Paradox is unsuccessfully trying to pimp it out for video games and tv shows, and the fandom is a perpetual dumpster fire, it still dominates the urban fantasy genre in ttrpg circles due to the ridiculously insular economics of the ttrpg market. I could try making my own urban fantasy ttrpg, but there's no way it would ever find an audience. Not that I want the kind of fandom toxicity that is commonplace, but still.

What's ironic is that critics are calling the controversial 5e a rehash of CoD. While there might be some similarities, I think this claim is reactionary nonsense. E.g. Hunter: The Reckoning 5e dispenses with the mythology of the imbued in favor of letting players invent their own lore explaining their character's capabilities (which renders the subtitle nonsensical but whatever), but the big red flag that stood out to me was that the game previews said that the PCs are independent hunters because the "orgs" are all morally compromised. I'm not sure if that was the intent, but that statement feels like a deliberate middle finger to Hunter: The Vigil fans. If that was the intent, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was given this toxic atmosphere, then... It's so petty, unprofessional, and dare I say, pathological.

As far as WtA goes... well, the premise is inherently dated and you can't change it without upsetting the fans. I've seen people get extremely upset about the removal of the deformed incest babies named after the Metis people of Canada, which I think is a mechanic that never should have existed in the first place.

 

[Stumpydave]

As far as WtA goes... well, the premise is inherently dated and you can't change it without upsetting the fans. I've seen people get extremely upset about the removal of the deformed incest babies named after the Metis people of Canada, which I think is a mechanic that never should have existed in the first place.

I don't know if it was ever stated that Metis were named after the Metis. My understanding was that it related to the Greek Goddess Metis.

 

[AppleJax]

I don't know if it was ever stated that Metis were named after the Metis. My understanding was that it related to the Greek Goddess Metis.

I really don’t want to go on this tangent, but… ackshually, It’s a word in several languages for a person of mixed race. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/metis The opposite of inbred, but whatever. The Greek goddess etymology sounds both completely random (what does the Greek goddess of wisdom have to do with deformed werewolf incest babies? What weirdo circumstances made the writer pick it? Is it from a foreign language opera he didn’t understand?) and like an obvious attempt to obscure the problematic usage. (I’m sure you’re just being a nerd about it, I’m not casting aspersions of racism.) It’s just bad optics all around.

 

[Isator Levi]

If the Black Furies are accepting males[...]what makes them any different to any other tribe?

Mythic vengeance?

 

[Stumpydave]

I really don’t want to go on this tangent, but… ackshually, It’s a word in several languages for a person of mixed race. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/metis The opposite of inbred, but whatever. The Greek goddess etymology sounds both completely random (what does the Greek goddess of wisdom have to do with deformed werewolf incest babies? What weirdo circumstances made the writer pick it? Is it from a foreign language opera he didn’t understand?) and like an obvious attempt to obscure the problematic usage. (I’m sure you’re just being a nerd about it, I’m not casting aspersions of racism.) It’s just bad optics all around.

You're probably right. However it seems to be forgotten that this was written over thirty years ago. Back then WW were cutting edge in terms of progressive attitudes. Blaming them for bad optics now ignores the reality of the situation then.

 

[JAMUMU]

I played in a load of OG WoD games, Vampire and Werewolf mostly. The main impression I had was that they were a Rube Goldberg machine designed to crack open existing game/friend groups. Bag'o'shite, as Paul Calf would have said. White Wolf's "progressive edge" compared to the rest of the hobby was pretty plain to see, though, even with the odd mishap. It's not a great surprise that they've sanded off some of the rough edges for a new version.

No Stargazers though? They were my go-to for PCs. How about Bone Gnawers? Are they still in? I played a Bone Gnawer with the flaw that meant they didn't trigger the Veil in their monstrous forms. Blue fur and a red nose. Friendly type. Called him Grover.

However, I did run a very successful Vampire: Dark Ages game for years that had vamp, werewolf and mage PCs all together in perfect harmony. We found the Dark Ages stuff to be loosey-goosy enough in terms of lore to allow this to happen. An Amazonian princess and Elric of Melnibone were two of their patrons. Tell me you did a lot of acid in the 90s without telling me you did a lot of...

 

[Silverlion]

No kidding. For DECADES now, every time there's a new edition of ANY World of Darkness core product, gaming fora all over the land shake with the howls of rage: those bastards fucked it up!!! And marching right along side is the inevitable reaction to any suggestion that White Wolf & successors didn't send stormtroopers around to confiscate all the old copies or consign rejectionists to the gulag, and that groups really did have the ability to keep on playing the way they were used to playing: bewildered and uncomprehending anger.

Some of us aren't edition warring, we're just curious about the changes and reasons why.

 

[Fenris-77]

Some of us aren't edition warring, we're just curious about the changes and reasons why.

NO! All the warring. Let's you and I fight.

 

[JAMUMU]

Despite what you might think, you want a soft-cover for edition warring. Think of a cop beating a suspect with a phonebook, or placing the phonebook over a perp and smashing through it with overhand strikes. The hardback is a false economy for the warring, my brothers and sisters.

 

[Silverlion]

NO! All the warring. Let's you and I fight.

Maces at dawn?

 

[Fenris-77]

Maces at dawn?

Silver maces. No regeneration shenanigans for you.

 

[Silverlion]

Silver maces. No regeneration shenanigans for you.

Sure. Sounds fair.

 

[lategamer]

The whole premise of ecoterrorism just comes across as silly now when everyone is falling over themselves to use wind and solar. Or, idk, do a second reboot.

Actually, now is the perfect time for actual eco-terrorism. Most companies have greenwashed their credentials, we have failed to slow down climate collapse, millions are living in new flood zones within the next 20 years and we have already passed the tipping point.

The motivation now is not "stop it happening"; the motivation for the Eco Garou now is simply revenge. Forced degrowth. A return to simpler living.

 

[lategamer]

Bite Marks runs into a PbtA issue I have, sex moves. They're not really appropriate for most of the gaming I do especially since it's unlikely my players who are fans of White Wolf, want something sans White Wolf Werewolf lore, and definitely aren't the type to be nominally comfortable with overt sex.

Lots of PBTA games seem to be written by frustrated edgelords, and aimed at frustrated edgelords.