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pyat ([personal profile] pyat) wrote2008-07-03 12:23 pm
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A Lithuanian Werewolf in Chicago *plus* Thoughts on "Werewolf: The Forsaken"

I had a touch of insomnia last night, and sat up reading Werewolf: The Forsaken. Now, the original version of this game, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, was the only White Wolf game I'd successfully GMed. I made a couple of efforts to run a Mage: The Ascension game around 2000, but never got past character generation.

I had the majority of Werewolf specific splatbooks published until 1996 or 1997 and ran a couple of campaigns set in New York City. The players in these games ran a mix of Garou and normal humans in a weird sort of loose pack, led by an elderly bag lady (a Bone Gnawer, natch) who carried the pack's caern around in her shopping cart. They fought Vampire-led street gangs, evil corporations, the usual. Some of the most memorable adventures took place in the Umbra. I recall in particular a visit by the Glass Walker members of the pack to the Get of Fenris Umbral home, where they took part in a great hunt that inspired that rather good roleplaying on the part of my players.

When my original set of players drifted off here and there, I ended up selling all my Werewolf: The Apocalypse books at used game sales. I've regretted that once or twice, most recently while reading The Jungle.

It strikes me that the setting and motifs of Werewolf: The Apocalypse would be perfectly suited to a game set in the world of The Jungle. Glasswalkers and Bonegnawers would seem to fit right in. Also, "Packingtown" is inhabited almost entirely by Irish, German, and Slavic immigrants, and the Chicago stockyards stand at the center of a great network of railways that spread out to the furthest outposts of the American Frontier. So, werewolves from several tribes could easily be written into the setting. Wererats and Ravens would also fit in well. A “first change” sort of tale would also work well, with the players discovering each other amidst the morass of oppressed humanity, and trying to find out just what they are.

Certainly, there would be plenty of opportunity for conflict. Packingtown itself is a nest of gangs, unions, political parties, and confused alliances, all infiltrated by agents of the meat packing interests. The packing plants and cattleyards and slaughterhouses might be real-world personification of Wyrm-tainted Weaver spirit, the center of a vast, tainted web that draws in life - animal and human - and consumes it. Who is behind all this pointless carnage? Why are packing men sent to work in darkness some nights, hacking away at meat they cannot identify? Is it merely tubercular cows and diseased hams they're working on? Maybe it's vampires running the show, though perhaps they're just there taking advantage of the blood and terror. Perhaps its something deeper, and more sinister.

And what of the narrow tunnels being dug by the meat packers, without the knowledge or permission of the city? Labyrinthine miles of dark walkways and miniature railways, they connect all the banks and places of power, yet were often built without the knowledge of those who dwell above. What secret commerce takes place in these tunnels, and is it a hidden parallel to the larger business of butchery above?

In any case, I'm unlikely to actually run this, or even develop it very well. But hey, there are precise maps of those tunnels on the Internet if I ever do!

Now, then, as to my impressions of Werewolf: The Forsaken... it does not grab me as strongly as the first edition did, back in 1992, even with all the references to page “xx”. My friend Bill had picked up Vampire: The Masquerade earlier that year, and we intended to run parallel campaigns. This plan never worked out, and later another friend would purchase Mage, and that became our primary game throughout university.

I did not like what I perceived as the amorality of Vampire, and I had a serious antipathy toward Vampires in general because of my innate resentment of anything popular. Mage confused me. Partly, this was because the GM was a misanthrope who refused to tell us anything about the setting, or who was simply unable to explain it properly. Partly, it was also very unlike anything I'd read before. At the time, I fear I also labored under a kind of knee-jerk anti-intellectualism of the “plain talk and objective truth” sort. All this stuff about “paradigms” and “paradox” actually just sort of went over my head, mostly because I refused to engage the effort needed to appreciate it.

Werewolf had a sort of simple viscerality that appealed to me. There was right, there was wrong, and the best way to deal with wrong was to bite it really, really hard. It was more like the black and white RPGs I was used to. Sure, there was a lot of moral ambiguity as well, but diligent mayhem always seemed like the surest path to victory.

Now then, roll on 16 years. The new edition has removed the easy hook of “Wyld vs. Wyrm” and replaced it with a general struggle against the spirit world. The setting does not grip me at all, though it seems fairly well put together. However, what I'm wondering is this – Would the 18-year-old Pyat have liked this game? Is the reason I don't find it as gripping just that I'm older? It has the same “too cool for school” sample characters and urban angst and the like – so am I not just as interested in that these days? I mean, I still find it fun, but it strikes me as fun in the same way as escapist action movie is fun. There would no longer be as much of an emotional investment in the setting.

Or, maybe it's just because it's new. I'm not sure. I really liked the new World of Darkness core rules. In any case, given that I have a couple of active RPG games on the go, it's unlikely that I'll be running or playing Werewolf in the foreseeable future.

[identity profile] jesshartley.livejournal.com 2008-07-03 05:43 pm (UTC)(link)
I can't speak for you, and I obviously can't speak for the many fans who do love Forsaken, but I do find the game less engaging, although more versatile than Apocalypse was. I love the dirtier/grittier, more hostile situation with the spirits, but as a major Garou fan, I miss the epic battles against "obvious wrong", the "misunderstood heroes standing against the fall of the world" and the larger scope of Apocalypse.

I really want you to take a look at Changeling, now. Not because it will appeal to the Apocalypse-gamer in you, because it probably won't... but I really want to hear your feedback on it. :)

[identity profile] zenten.livejournal.com 2008-07-03 05:53 pm (UTC)(link)
I can't speak for you, and I obviously can't speak for the many fans who do love Forsaken, but I do find the game less engaging, although more versatile than Apocalypse was. I love the dirtier/grittier, more hostile situation with the spirits, but as a major Garou fan, I miss the epic battles against "obvious wrong", the "misunderstood heroes standing against the fall of the world" and the larger scope of Apocalypse.

Mind you, it's not hard to do that in Forsaken. There are nasty, super powerful world threatening spirits out there to fight.

[identity profile] jesshartley.livejournal.com 2008-07-03 06:00 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, I know. I wrote a lot of them. *grin*

I just find (personally) that the "me and my pack, watching our territory" is a less epic-feeling paradigm than the "Wyrm vs the Nation" setting that existed in Garou.

I've played Forsaken a few times and enjoyed it, but it never hooked me quite as deeply as Apocalypse did.

[identity profile] pyat.livejournal.com 2008-07-03 06:46 pm (UTC)(link)
I've played Forsaken a few times and enjoyed it, but it never hooked me quite as deeply as Apocalypse did.

That's essentially it, for me. Objectively, the game looks pretty good.

[identity profile] pyat.livejournal.com 2008-07-03 06:06 pm (UTC)(link)
I was never exposed to the original edition of Changeling, so I'd be going in without pre-conceptions. It was actually a toss-up as to which I was going to buy. I'd love to play in a Changeling game, from what I hear of it, and I know some big fae fans who will hopefully give me that chance.

[identity profile] etherlad.livejournal.com 2008-07-03 07:25 pm (UTC)(link)
We have Changeling: The Lost at home. I'm sure Jenn wouldn't object if you wanted to borrow.

Edit: For that matter, we also have both editions of Changeling: The Dreaming for comparison's purposes.
Edited 2008-07-03 19:25 (UTC)

[identity profile] pyat.livejournal.com 2008-07-03 08:34 pm (UTC)(link)
I was pretty sure it was you that had it, yeah!

[identity profile] kisekileia.livejournal.com 2008-07-04 02:52 am (UTC)(link)
Changeling: the Dreaming and Changeling: the Lost are two completely different games, so it's just as well that you never played dreaming. Lost is AWESOME. Lost also has a fairly clear set of "bad guys", if that appeals to you.

[identity profile] zenten.livejournal.com 2008-07-03 05:46 pm (UTC)(link)
The best way to like Werewolf the Forsaken is to forget any ties to Apocalypse. It's a different game, designed to do different things. I also rather like it.

What it does though is something on a much more personal level. It can do epic, but that's not as much support.

[identity profile] pyat.livejournal.com 2008-07-03 06:09 pm (UTC)(link)
It's a different game, designed to do different things.

Well, certainly. I just don't find the new things quite as interesting. And, sure, that just might be a matter of "New things are scary, bleaaah!"

[identity profile] zenten.livejournal.com 2008-07-03 06:19 pm (UTC)(link)
Maybe. It could also be that you weren't looking for them.

I mean, most of your post was about Apocalypse.

[identity profile] pyat.livejournal.com 2008-07-03 06:36 pm (UTC)(link)
I mean, most of your post was about Apocalypse.

Well, this wasn't a game review.

Rather, just a general rumination on my experience with the original Werewolf, and how it could make an interesting framework for a game set in the historical stockyard of Chicago. And yes, closed with a note about my impressions of the new game, which has failed to interest me as immediately as the first one did. Blame it on the content or my own changing tastes, and the end result is the same.

The fact that more of the post wasn't about W:tF - that there wasn't a greater percentage of word count dedicated to a review - should not be taken as evidence that I wasn't "looking" for things to like.

Edited 2008-07-03 18:36 (UTC)

[identity profile] zenten.livejournal.com 2008-07-03 06:44 pm (UTC)(link)
Ah, ok. I misunderstood the purpose of this post.

[identity profile] dagoski.livejournal.com 2008-07-03 05:48 pm (UTC)(link)
I think what made Werewolf work was the ready made conflict. In the other games, the GM had to develop the conflict, but in Werewolf, it was just there. In fact it was part of the Garous themselves. Whether it's violent or not, conflict drives the plot forward. All the other games, the plots just kind of seem to lay there. I never got into Vampire for the same reason you didn't. There wasn't a right and wrong, nor a cause especially worth fighting for. It was base survival and it seems to me that Vampires would just kind of degenerate into very id ruled creatures over the decades. Oh, wait... That was actually a major part of the struggle in the game now that I think about it. Mage has a lot of possibilities, though. I just never could think any good ones back in the day. I have some especially weird ideas nowadays, but they'd essentially toss out the Whitewolf setting entirely.

[identity profile] pyat.livejournal.com 2008-07-03 06:54 pm (UTC)(link)
I have some especially weird ideas nowadays, but they'd essentially toss out the Whitewolf setting entirely.

I think the same way about WoD in general, a lot of time.

[identity profile] normanrafferty.livejournal.com 2008-07-03 05:50 pm (UTC)(link)
The big two of RPGs -- White Wolf and WotC -- have been making their settings more generic and more "corporate". At first, I thought it might be that I'm not 18 any more, either ... but really, the new World of Darkness settings read like such second-generation fan-fic. Instead of being bold and original -- even faltering -- the new stuff is designed to be consistent and unchallenging.

Oh, and losing the pop culture references didn't help, either. What once used to sound hip and idiosyncratic is now generic.

[identity profile] pyat.livejournal.com 2008-07-04 01:31 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, and losing the pop culture references didn't help, either. What once used to sound hip and idiosyncratic is now generic.

I wonder how much that observation might have to do with the aging of the authors.

[identity profile] oakthorne.livejournal.com 2008-07-04 02:17 pm (UTC)(link)
White Wolf doesn't propose much of a setting these days, truth be told. I mean, there are some background assumptions, but we just don't have the same sort of setting structure that the games used to - we operate on a toolbox approach, providing a bunch of options (some of which are actually contradictory, in the name of expanding possibilities for Storytellers to build their settings).

I'm interested in what aspects "read like such second-generation fan-fic," though. Can you give examples.

I'd also invite you to take a gander at the new clanbooks for Vampire. They have their own implicit setting and storyline built into them - it doesn't form the basis for a new World of Darkness setting, mind you. It's more of an example of what can be done with the tools we've provided with the toolbox approach.

Joseph

If I wanted to play a game with lots and lots of incompatible story material, I'd play RIFTS.

[identity profile] normanrafferty.livejournal.com 2008-07-05 04:34 pm (UTC)(link)
The purpose behind a tabletop-RPG is to limit what the players will actually play. For example, you probably wouldn't want to run a Vampire game where the characters were Morbius, Dracula, Batman, Herimone, Stellaluna, Blade, and Batty from Ferngully. Throwing in a bunch of disparate concepts and hoping they gel is the essence of fan-fic. It's the buffet with ketchup, ice cream, coleslaw, ice -- and no plates or spoons.

Personally, I like some of the ideas in V:tR. I've always thought clans were extremely silly, and that bloodlines make so much more sense, since child vampires are dominated by their sires in the first place. However, the clans still exist, and it's not the same clans everyone fell in love with. The game has managed to offend me (because I'd be happier with a blood-line driven game), it has managed to offend hardcore WoDders (who liked the way things were), and it lacks appeal to new players (who have no idea what any of this clan stuff is, and want to know why it's not more like Anita Blake). The source-books confuse us -- they each promise us a different experience. So five of us sit down to the table and want to play five different games.

It's long been a battle-cry of game designers that the host needs to pick and choose what they want to use and don't use ... and this philosophy is actually what hurts tabletop gaming the most. The more work the host has to do means the host is doing more work on an experience that is supposed to be a game -- an activity done in leisure time for relaxation. And the toolbox approach to the game actually makes even more work for the host, because they have to spend time shooting down the hopes and dreams of players who showed up wanting to plan material that the host wanted to ban. And telling people no is not fun.

The fan-fic mentality is "more is more", that "if three is good, then six is twice as good!". Fan-fic mentality coupled with "gaming is a toolbox" means the books get filled with more and more material to ignore, without enough time spent on the actual doings of the game. There should be more time spent on crafting storylines, standard campaigns, and compelling plots. When people sit down to play a game, they want to play it immediately. One thing D&D4 is getting right is the inclusion of ready-made battle-maps that can be thrown on a table so a fight can start immediately. One thing nWoD is getting right are the "Mysterious Places" and other ready-made adventure books, so folks can sit down and start gaming right away.

The thesis is "games that include too much are worse than games that include too little." The Platonic ideal is that the perfect game is the one that includes exactly what all the players want and none of what they don't. The antithesis is the more realistic assertion that it's impossible to make a game like that, since everyone's tastes are different. Most likely true ... but it's continually disappointing to hear game-designers rally behind the fan-fic mentality of "more is more!" as a battle cry and to continue to fill their games with inconsistent material, which they then sell to audiences for money, and then tell them to redline out the stuff they don't want.

If RPG games wanted to be tools, they'd include a lot more discussions of good story-telling techniques, such as "how to write NPCs who react to PCs, instead of leading them by the nose" ... "how to run an investigation game where all players are involved" ... "how to role-play a fine interrogation sequence" ... and, above all, "examples of finely-crafted adventures with written provisions for what paths the players are likely to make." In fact, "toolbox" is the wrong, wrong word for all this, because tools are what you use to make things, they're not the source material you make things out of. What we need are less toolboxes and more cookbooks. Don't hand us sifters, spoons, ovens, and flour, and tell us to make a cake; give us a finished, complete recipe with an exact end-product in mind, and just assume one or two of us will improvise.

Re: If I wanted to play a game with lots and lots of incompatible story material, I'd play RIFTS.

[identity profile] oakthorne.livejournal.com 2008-07-05 04:56 pm (UTC)(link)
The purpose behind a tabletop-RPG is to limit what the players will actually play.

Each of our games to date has had a fairly tight focus - we're not even describing all the sorts of vampires one might play in Vampire, for instance.

In my experience, the focused toolbox approach - providing a cogent set of rules, extrapolating those rules into a variety of directions (most of which, we hope, will interest players, though we also admit that not everything is for everyone), and then presenting just enough of a setting to provide a foundation for building the troupe's own ideas about what they want to play - best walks the damnably blurry line between "holding your hand and making you play our game" and "Ah, just make the whole thing up yourself," quite frankly.

Anecdotally, we discovered that most folks are interested in playing in their settings. Metaplot and forced setting get to a point where Storytellers begin primarily interacting with them in a negative fashion - that is, they use the elements less and less, and just try and figure out how to run their games in spite of them more and more. That's not ideal.

Yes, running a game using the toolbox approach requires some work. The best games always have. And for those who even want the toolbox approach to actual game session design, we present the Storytelling Adventure System line, a series of scenarios with linked scenes that can be raided for other scenarios as the Storyteller sees fit. Not precisely modular (because that risks generification to a level of rendering them not-useful), but readily adaptable, with clear guidelines for things like power levels and the sorts of challenges characters face.

I will concede that our games, as currently set-up, aren't particularly new player friendly. But then, by that token, almost none of them are. In nearly every instance of gaming today, there's no place for a new player to simply show up and start playing - you'll almost always need to be brought in by someone else. 4E makes noises about wanting to be new player friendly, but it's the same noise the rest of us have made for a while.

[identity profile] etherlad.livejournal.com 2008-07-03 05:54 pm (UTC)(link)
Werewolf is visceral. It's about the hunt. Both spirits and other werewolves hate you for who you are, but damn it, you're going to do the job you were assigned and protect the world.

I like the idea of the pack being the ultimate expression of werewolf community rather than a global Garou Nation.

More specifically, I also like the usage of Fortean events as a harbinger of the First Change, and how the legend of "getting bitten by a wolf" ties in as well.

[identity profile] foomf.livejournal.com 2008-07-03 06:44 pm (UTC)(link)
I agree that the whole highly developed world-model with pre-fab social structure, enemy groups, and world-shaping Umbral Beings was pretty much a cinch to GM ... without ever having had any of those references, a few quick story reads and I was able to run some pretty good plotlines on a free-form Masquerade mux. The participants thought it was good, too.

On the other hand, it was also one of the more annoying stories I've come across, and taken objectively, was rather corny with way too much "1980s" to it.

[identity profile] pyat.livejournal.com 2008-07-03 06:53 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes, but you weren't 18 when it came out. And that's sort of my thesis - am I not liking the new one as much just because I'm not a kid?

[identity profile] foomf.livejournal.com 2008-07-03 08:56 pm (UTC)(link)
I doubt that's the only reason.

[identity profile] madmanofprague.livejournal.com 2008-07-03 06:46 pm (UTC)(link)
You know what I don't get? The difference between vampires and werewolves. Seriously.

[identity profile] pyat.livejournal.com 2008-07-03 06:52 pm (UTC)(link)
And you know what else? Television commercials. I mean, what's UP with those? There's a guy in my medicine cabinet, trying to sell me razors? HELLO?? That's trespassing, I think.

[identity profile] madmanofprague.livejournal.com 2008-07-03 06:57 pm (UTC)(link)
I think you need to lay traps for 'em.

[identity profile] bandersnitch.livejournal.com 2008-07-03 09:22 pm (UTC)(link)
I have the western Werewolf book.

Its got a hole through it as though someone "shot er up gud"

Pretty much the only reason I bought it. Haven't read it or even cracked the spine in a really long time. Actually I am starting to wonder if its still in my collection.

Who knows.

[identity profile] pyat.livejournal.com 2008-07-04 01:33 pm (UTC)(link)
I remember being perplexed by that one when it came out. I think now it might be pretty cool.

[identity profile] bandersnitch.livejournal.com 2008-07-04 01:42 pm (UTC)(link)
I will see if I can dig it up for ya so you can give it a read.

[identity profile] pyat.livejournal.com 2008-07-04 01:56 pm (UTC)(link)
THat'd be swell.

Also - Happy Birthday!

[identity profile] bandersnitch.livejournal.com 2008-07-04 02:14 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks!

[identity profile] oakthorne.livejournal.com 2008-07-04 02:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Werewolf: the Wild West is a stupid fun game. :D It's the only setting in which I found myself truly enjoying the "I'm a white gamer fetishizing Native American culture" schtick that ran so heavily through WtA, which was normally the big turn off for me.

[identity profile] pyat.livejournal.com 2008-07-04 04:07 pm (UTC)(link)
*nods* I think I'd probably like it, now. When it came out, I remember making fun of it without ever opening the rulebook. "Werewolves in chaps! Bah!" and so on.

[identity profile] oakthorne.livejournal.com 2008-07-04 04:27 pm (UTC)(link)
I think my initial reaction was: "Huh. So THAT's why the Lone Ranger always used silver bullets."

[identity profile] pyat.livejournal.com 2008-07-04 05:03 pm (UTC)(link)
...

I'm amazed that never occurred to me!
thebitterguy: (Default)

[personal profile] thebitterguy 2008-07-04 01:02 am (UTC)(link)
I did not like what I perceived as the amorality of Vampire, and I had a serious antipathy toward Vampires in general because of my innate resentment of anything popular.


That's interesting, because I always thought that Vampire had the very moral viewpoint. It was all about denial or degeneration.

[identity profile] pyat.livejournal.com 2008-07-04 01:34 am (UTC)(link)
I'll take your word on it - I never owned the game. Most of the people I knew who played it, didn't seem to play it that way.
thebitterguy: (Default)

[personal profile] thebitterguy 2008-07-04 01:56 am (UTC)(link)
It would be easy to lose that part of the game; the game as published really encouraged the whole feuding clans fo vampire superheroes gameplay.

Which was a lot of fun.

But the game at its core was about keeping from losing your humanity and becoming a ravening beast.

[identity profile] pyat.livejournal.com 2008-07-04 01:58 am (UTC)(link)
See, I can dig that. But all I ever saw of the game was vampires fighting.

Seriously, though, I suspect my biggest objection to it was just that vampires were too popular at the time, and I hated popular things.
thebitterguy: (Default)

[personal profile] thebitterguy 2008-07-08 07:12 pm (UTC)(link)
Your Iconoclasm makes you sexy.

[identity profile] paka.livejournal.com 2008-07-09 08:07 pm (UTC)(link)
Neat. The first time I ran a Vampire game, I set it in Britain in the 1890s - it just seemed like a more natural fit than the 20th century. I actually liked the amorality of vampire as a background. Any mortals that know about Kindred, and other shadow creatures like the Garou, view them as an evil to annihilate out of simple self-preservation. The other vamps offer either genteel codified monstrousity - the Camarilla - or gleefully unabashed villainy - the Sabbat. Your characters on their own ethically. So what choice will they make?

I loved how Werewolf hit all the bases - you can play it as a simple, go bash the hell out of the Wyrm game. Or you can play it with more complexity, and when you need a break from more wolf styled politics or moral quandries, you can dip back into bashing the hell out of stuff without needing to swap out characters.

By contrast, I too, couldn't get Mage. Here you had the Garou and they were risking their lives and souls and sanity to save the world. Fueled in their actions by their connection to the spirit world, their own willpower, and sheer rage over injustice and destruction. By contrast, you had the mages with this intricate series of things you'd use to do anything at all - and frequently they were scared stiff, acting carefully to avoid paradox. A game of self-preservation and suspense, when I really wanted heroism and exploration instead.

WtF is nice, and it fixes some very real problems with WtA - but in some ways, it's less fun. I love the tribes, lodges, even the dark mirror of the Pure - the same way D&D's drow went from a sleek and unknowable threat to an utterly boring commonality, the Black Spiral Dancers lost any and all of their appeal as villains. I wish they'd left in the old Triad - I really thought that was a lot more rich plotwise than their revision.

So I think it's a both thing; yeah, you got older and moved on, but they also gave you something with a lot less appeal.