Werewolf: The Forsaken
Jan. 25th, 2013 12:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroWhen Father Wolf grew old and weak and unable to protect the humans from the lords of the spirit realm, his children rose up and slew him to take his place. These children, the destroyers of paradise, though guided by Father Wolf’s other children, the totem spirits, and their ever-changing mother Luna; are feared by the humanity they wish to protect; and hunted by their cousins, those who didn’t rise up against Father Wolf, the werewolves known as the Pure…
Okay, first, let me just get this out of the way: “Uratha”? Seriously? You wanted to get away from “garou”, so you went with something that sounds like “urethra”? In a game aimed at teenage boys?
They tried to fix some of the squickier aspects of the original system: All werewolves are born of humans, and two werewolves can’t mate and produce werewolf offspring, so the bestiality, inbreeding, and rape-rage problems are eliminated. They also separated it more from real-world practices and peoples (mostly Native American in the original), which addresses some of the cultural appropriation issues.
They also made a strong attempt to limit certain kinds of broken changing breeds from the old version to NPC-only: The Ratkin and Anansi (rats and spider-shifters) are replaced with semi-hive-minded spirit-fragments that eat each other to grow strong and then hollow out human skins to live in. Not something that really works as a player character or that you can “misunderstand”.
Broken system mechanics they fixed: Werewolf claws and teeth only do aggravated damage if you use a high-level Gift, which fixed some of the combat overpowerness, especially in crossover games. Stepping sideways can only be done near a fixed Locus (again, without a high-level Gift). Rage and Gnosis points are combined into a single Essence score. Multiple actions are far less common. Regeneration is adjusted a bit. And silver doesn’t do damage simply on contact, which removes the ability to kill werewolves with a silver spoon and good aim. Like most of the NWoD systems, it’s streamlined and made a bit less unbalanced.
They also load you down with details on spirit and mortal antagonists, plot ideas, and an entire setting in Denver and the Colorado Rockies.
I had an amusing idea that an all-mortal party, dealing with the dangers of the Shadow as per The Book of Spirits, ends up with a werewolf protecting them. Of course, that werewolf is a savage monster that they don’t realize is just trying to protect them and shepherd them to safety. And it has the possibility of flying into Death Rage and being just as big a threat to them. Could make a fun one-shot.
Overall: Like Mage: The Awakening, I played a campaign in this system that OblvnDrgn ran a few years back, but I finally really thoroughly through the book and got a full sense of it. I’m “meh” on the new terms and language, but I never loved Werewolf the way I did Mage, and most of the aspects I did find fun (playing the role of a monster trying to do what’s best for a world that hates and fears him) stayed with the new version. They have some interesting ideas for individual adventures and antagonists, even if the overall mythology is weaker. So, not bad.
Okay, first, let me just get this out of the way: “Uratha”? Seriously? You wanted to get away from “garou”, so you went with something that sounds like “urethra”? In a game aimed at teenage boys?
They tried to fix some of the squickier aspects of the original system: All werewolves are born of humans, and two werewolves can’t mate and produce werewolf offspring, so the bestiality, inbreeding, and rape-rage problems are eliminated. They also separated it more from real-world practices and peoples (mostly Native American in the original), which addresses some of the cultural appropriation issues.
They also made a strong attempt to limit certain kinds of broken changing breeds from the old version to NPC-only: The Ratkin and Anansi (rats and spider-shifters) are replaced with semi-hive-minded spirit-fragments that eat each other to grow strong and then hollow out human skins to live in. Not something that really works as a player character or that you can “misunderstand”.
Broken system mechanics they fixed: Werewolf claws and teeth only do aggravated damage if you use a high-level Gift, which fixed some of the combat overpowerness, especially in crossover games. Stepping sideways can only be done near a fixed Locus (again, without a high-level Gift). Rage and Gnosis points are combined into a single Essence score. Multiple actions are far less common. Regeneration is adjusted a bit. And silver doesn’t do damage simply on contact, which removes the ability to kill werewolves with a silver spoon and good aim. Like most of the NWoD systems, it’s streamlined and made a bit less unbalanced.
They also load you down with details on spirit and mortal antagonists, plot ideas, and an entire setting in Denver and the Colorado Rockies.
I had an amusing idea that an all-mortal party, dealing with the dangers of the Shadow as per The Book of Spirits, ends up with a werewolf protecting them. Of course, that werewolf is a savage monster that they don’t realize is just trying to protect them and shepherd them to safety. And it has the possibility of flying into Death Rage and being just as big a threat to them. Could make a fun one-shot.
Overall: Like Mage: The Awakening, I played a campaign in this system that OblvnDrgn ran a few years back, but I finally really thoroughly through the book and got a full sense of it. I’m “meh” on the new terms and language, but I never loved Werewolf the way I did Mage, and most of the aspects I did find fun (playing the role of a monster trying to do what’s best for a world that hates and fears him) stayed with the new version. They have some interesting ideas for individual adventures and antagonists, even if the overall mythology is weaker. So, not bad.
