Werewolf - The Apocalypse, revisited

[Berserker]

Who used to play this game? It's been a long time since I played it, but Rammstein just came on the radio and it was nostalgic for me, since we used to listen to that kind of stuff while we played.

Werewolves. Trench coats. Native American shamans. Shotguns. Heavy metal. Goth clubs. Lovecraftian horrors. Ahhh what a fun game it used to be. Even with all the Captain Planet-ish scenarios that would crop up.

Better yet, does anyone still play the werewolf RPG? Whatever it's called now, I forget, but I know it's not Apocalypse anymore. Probably not even remotely the same thing.

I'm flipping through the 2nd edition book right now, and I'm reminded of just how unique this game seemed at the time. I wonder why they never made a movie out of it. Oh, they did? And it's called Underworld? Drats, thought I was onto something...

[Wselfwulf]

Hell yeah man. It's 'the forsaken' now and I've run a campaign last year but not much other than that. Reworked the fluff as well. But it was in fact, good times, I was reminded heartily of it all going through such titles as 'rage across Australia'.

Tell you what I miss? Wraith: the Oblivion.

[Berserker]

Tell you what I miss? Wraith: the Oblivion.

Ugh that game was ruined for me by a guy who had a total Mary Sue character that dominated the story he tried to run.

[Wselfwulf]

well you get those in all games. I really wonder how you can make an uber-flawless self insert character whilst playing a dead guy though.

[Wingman]

well you get those in all games. I really wonder how you can make an uber-flawless self insert character whilst playing a dead guy though.

Well since you asked, a ghost of Jesus with a personality disorder.

I've never actually played W:tA, or even seen the book, but I did scrutinize Werewolf: The Forsaken a few months back. White Wolf seems to have a knack for making interesting games, though the whole "spirit police" and all-around shamanism adds a bit of bitterness to the pill. Otherwise I liked it.

[Berserker]

I remember that for the longest time, a lot of werewolf fan art and fan fic referred to the "gestalt" form as the "Crinos" form. As in "this is my character in crinos." I guess the RPG was really their biggest frame of reference... a testament to how influential it was.

I find it highly ironic that we now see a similar scenario, with kids referring to werewolves as "Lycans."

In fact, I'm willing to wager that almost any new nature-oriented, heroic/benevolent, or Underworld-ish werewolf can trace back some influence from this game.

[Aki]

I never really got to play WW:TA or WW:TF, but I have read (and do want to play) both, as they're really interesting. Though I have a preference to WW:TF simply because I prefer the unified and orderly nature of the "New" World of Darkness to the "Old" one.

Glasswalkers and their WW:TF successors, The Iron Masters, rock hardcore. Techie werewolves are pretty bad a**. Especially ones that can harness technological spirits.

well you get those in all games. I really wonder how you can make an uber-flawless self insert character whilst playing a dead guy though.

Well since you asked, a ghost of Jesus with a personality disorder.

I've never actually played W:tA, or even seen the book, but I did scrutinize Werewolf: The Forsaken a few months back. White Wolf seems to have a knack for making interesting games, though the whole "spirit police" and all-around shamanism adds a bit of bitterness to the pill. Otherwise I liked it.

Personally, I like the "spirit police" thing. It's a fun theme (Fuzzy Ghost Busters!) and gives all kinds of story opportunities.

[Baphnedia]

As for myself, I wound up usually playing Vampire: The Masquerade when I wasn't playing a Bane Spirit. But, I haven't touched the new stuff, since while they 'integrated' their several already similar systems into 'one', they also (in the case of Vampire) reworked the fluff and wrote off 2/3rds of the clans.

These days I'm too busy doing other things to play though; but I used to narrate a game in Wiesbaden that ran in sync with another LARP in Darmstadt. Wewt.

[Aki]

As for myself, I wound up usually playing Vampire: The Masquerade when I wasn't playing a Bane Spirit. But, I haven't touched the new stuff, since while they 'integrated' their several already similar systems into 'one', they also (in the case of Vampire) reworked the fluff and wrote off 2/3rds of the clans.

To be fair, in both Vampire and Werewolf's case (and likely a few other gamelines) a large number of the clans/tribes/etc. were redundant. Werewolf had a ton of "Warrior tribe, X flavor" and "Warrior tribe, Y flavor" going on. Vampire was a bit lighter on that, but there were still a lot of clans.

White Wolf just cut it down and mashed them all up into a smaller number that covered the same roles. They weren't "wrote off" so much as consolidated into a larger tribe/clan.

[Baphnedia]

Well, true. But, it really homogenized the World of Darkness. Hence, why I don't care for the new stuff. It's barely more palatable than D&D's classes.

[Aki]

Well, true. But, it really homogenized the World of Darkness. Hence, why I don't care for the new stuff. It's barely more palatable than D&D's classes.

It's really not that homogenized at all. It was just the condensing of alike concepts into a larger group. Each group still has traits of those concepts spread out through it - there is the Blood Talon Lodge of Wendigo and the Lodge of Garm, which are (obviously) inspired by the Wendigo and Get of Fenris from WW:TA. The Daeva have a Bloodline called Toreador (wonder what inspired that, eh?) which caters to the more artsy and high-class side of being a seductive bloodsucker. You can even make your own Bloodlines and Lodges.

Nwod takes a very "toolkit" approach. There's established and well known clans, tribes, lodges, bloodlines, etc. And there's more than enough room for you to make your own - or for the PCs to establish their own.

[vrikasatma]

I just ran a game a couple weeks ago at BayCon. It was a low-attendance pick-up game but the Game Room staff liked it so much they asked me to submit an official game next year and put it in the program.

Yay! I'm an official GM at BayCon!

Anyway, it was only a pack of two — a Shadow Lord and a Silent Strider, both Philodoxen — but I worked up the story, NPCs and scenario several weeks ahead of time so I had a nice, exciting, developed game for my two players.

The story: a small Caern of Plenty (Level 2) up in California's Steinbeck Country is threatened by — a classic California wild fire. No fomori, no vampires, no BSDs, no black helicopters. The antagonists were some fire elementals run riot, a Salamander spirit released by the town burning, and the caern's would-be totem, a Firebird, waking up. I decided to go with a Wyld-as-antagonist plotline.

The caern was an abandoned vineyard with a rickety old barn, a tumble-down ranch house, a few yurts nestled among the trees, a huge dancing artesian well that still waters the place and pretty much everything that can grow in a Mediterranean climate is growing there. Due to the caern's magic, it's eternally August harvest-time and you can find any fruit, veggie, herb, etc., that you need any time of year. The Strider got 6 successes on his Wits + Survival roll and caught a wild piglet before the mother even knew what was happening. The Shadow Lord kept finding things like gold nuggets and agates and he'd always throw them away. Their pack totem was Twister and I built it to look like a shrouded, quasi-androgynous spirit walking in the midst of a dust devil.

The Umbrascape was really really cool. Basically it was a landscape made of fruit, grains, herbs and veggies.

The character pack took the initiative in fighting the fire and were just generally johnny-on-the-spot, going wherever something needed doing. The Shadow Lord did more negotiating with the spirits than a**-kicking but he got in several good whacks on the Salamander. The caern unfortunately mostly burnt to a crisp, but since it was Wyld and not Wyrm it wasn't corrupted, and it'll grow back. The Shadow Lord is going to build four braziers at the corners of the caern, bind the fire elementals to them and we'll have a barbecue pit, a forgeron, an earth oven, a sweatlodge and a hot geyser when the caern heals up (he talked the Firebird into merging with the Water Elemental caern totem).

The Sept has a resident Glass Walker who is technically the owner of the land; he's taken out a 99-year lease from the BLM and had a farmer's market booth down in the town (before it burnt to a crisp).

What started the fire? Pfft. Some sociopathic homeless guy that wanted to make his mark on the world other than a smelly yellow stain on a wall somewhere (btw, this is historical; the Folsom fire that burnt down 100 homes and killed several people was started that way).

[Uniform Two Six]

I STILL play good old W:tA. I tried to get into the new Forsaken stuff but it just never got my imagination like classic Apocalypse did. I was (am) going through withdrawals so badly that I've been working on a totally new fanfic sourcebook for a new character class, over the last few years. Slow going but I'm most of the way through chapter two. I figure if White Wolf isn't going to publish on Apocalypse anymore, then they won't be publishing anything that contradicts my stuff either. Now all I've got to do is convince the rest of my group to play out of a fanfic "supplement". Ugh!

[Scott Gardener]

The game was ground-breaking for its time, and it helped contribute a lot towards defining the non-braindead, non-evil werewolf, with a good, solid storyline.

Werewolf: the Apocalypse pioneered the premise of werewolves as guardians of Gaia or the Earth. The notion of eco-friendly werewolves might seem cliche or trite today, but only because of this game.

[Aki]

The game was ground-breaking for its time, and it helped contribute a lot towards defining the non-braindead, non-evil werewolf, with a good, solid storyline.

Werewolf: the Apocalypse pioneered the premise of werewolves as guardians of Gaia or the Earth. The notion of eco-friendly werewolves might seem cliche or trite today, but only because of this game.

And hell, it even brought in non-mindless evil or morally-gray werewolves as well as good ones. BSDs are pretty damn evil - and even some of the "good guys" were jerks (after all, the Garou did happen to go on a genocidal ego-trip at one point and kill almost all the other changing breeds).

[Uniform Two Six]

Theoretically, the Red Talons were the "good guys" too, and they advocated the complete extermination of the human race. Moral ambiguity and "gray area" were hallmarks of good old Werewolf: the Apocalypse. God, I love that game. Why did they ever stop publishing on it?

[Scott Gardener]

They ended the timeline; the game and its parallel "World of Darkness" counterparts came to their fruition. That is, the Apocalypse actually happened in the game. They've then published a "World of Darkness" reboot, with "Werewolf: the Forsaken" as the new version of our favorite game. The flavor is changed enough that I, accustomed to the original, have a hard time getting into the remake.

I really appreciate moral ambiguity, because it's more consistent with the real world. This assumption that good and evil are clearly defined forces at odds with each other, vying for human souls, is painfully artificial and heavily over-used.

[Berserker]

I still have the edition that describes the Get of Fenris as leaning towards Neo-Nazism.

[Uniform Two Six]

Uh... that was, like, every edition. The Get were on the darker end of the gray area spectrum that was the Garou Nation.

[Berserker]

Uh... that was, like, every edition. The Get were on the darker end of the gray area spectrum that was the Garou Nation.

Ah thought they changed it in future editions

[Uniform Two Six]

I don't believe so. There's a few who were written as having more moderate beliefs, but the core of the tribe were pretty ruthless supremacist jerks.

A quote from the Get of Fenris Tribebook, regarding one of the more vile camps in the tribe called The Swords of Heimdall:
"The other races are weak! The time for helping the other tribes grow strong is long past. Ragnarok is upon us and still the lesser tribes whimper and whine about treating the humans carefully. We have superior breeding -- our flock is stronger, smarter, and better prepared to survive the final days. We cannot allow our careful breeding to be diluted by inferior races of humans... The Ku Klux Klan are morally defunct and pathetically stupid, but at least they make good tools in keeping our tribe safe from perversity and mixed breeding with the lesser races..."

And I think that pretty much sums up the Get. "Heroes" like them largely obviate the need for villians.

[vrikasatma]

Have you read the revised GoF tribebook?
The rest of the Fenrir can't rip on the Swords of Heimdall enough. In fact, they were the focus of an infra-tribal purge. They fall in the Hel-hunt, along with their buddies in the Thule Society.

I did a revision on the camp in my game; there are the fringers who joined the White Supremacist/Neo-Nazi movement but historically they were Swiss Guards. Heimdall guards the sacred paths in Norse mythology, so I set the Swords of Heimdall as guardians of the sacred.

Don't laugh, those guys are as fanatical as the day is long. And getting hit with a halberd is nothing to sniff at either, they're designed to bisect skulls in one shot. And think about Switzerland: independent, rugged terrain, big forests, invented the crossbow, every household has to have at least three firearms by law, everyone serves in the army for at least two years. Sounds like Get country to me

[Uniform Two Six]

Also invented the pike and the tactics for using it in box formations. Had the most feared army in Europe for almost a century.

I guess I missed out on the Get's change of heart. See, that's what ticks me off. I got blindsided by the whole thing. I figured that I didn't need to buy every tribebook every time they wanted to revise the darn thing. Eventually, they'd do another revision, and I could buy that one. Then all of a sudden it was obvious that they were going to end the world, and all of a sudden I had to scramble to grab all of the stuff that was now going out of print. I only have four of the revised tribebooks. They'll never write another word on any of that stuff and Forsaken stuff doesn't have any of the captivating feel of old Apocalypse. It's like waking up to find that suddenly the only thing they sell in the vending machine is New Coke. I know what that feels like now.

[Aki]

The flavor is changed enough that I, accustomed to the original, have a hard time getting into the remake.

I really appreciate moral ambiguity, because it's more consistent with the real world. This assumption that good and evil are clearly defined forces at odds with each other, vying for human souls, is painfully artificial and heavily over-used.

The new "flavor" has even more moral ambiguity though. The Pure, though the "Bad guys" and tending to be pretty nasty (and holding beliefs largely antithetical to human civilization) they're also understandable and sympathetic characters. A pack of Forsaken can meet with a pack of Pure and both sides can walk away and think There but for the grace of God, as each holds pernicious views of the other (the Forsaken's are a bit more right - The Pure are definitely not so pure as they claim to be) and would view being caught by the other group after their First Change as a terrible fate. They're divided along ideological lines and that's more interesting than "this group serves a force of destruction and corruption."