What Werewolf the Apocalypse wanted to be, maybe?

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat May 03, 2014 1:35 am

So, if you shoulder past the huge problems of Werewolf, and what it said it wanted to be about, and look at what the game was actually often about, you get a game about spirits and their interactions with the mundane world. Your protagonists are fusions of spirit and flesh that are superior to either, and fight evil and out of control spirits using alliances with good and neutral spirits, whether summoned, bound, or taught the gifts of.

This is actually why I personally really like WtA, I think it's a very interesting setting when you look at it this way. It's also (one of the reasons) why I stopped playing, because the ST wanted the game to be about horror werewolves beating the shit out of vampires. Which is cool, but why the fuck would you use WtA? I mean, other than laziness.

Is there actually much demand for, or potential audience for such a game? What kind of system would it want?

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Sat May 03, 2014 2:51 am

You just described Werewolf the Forsaken and it sucked donkey balls.

What you completely left out was the whole "desperate fight against in an unwinnable battle against a foe that they are at once partially guilty of creating and of defeating their allies before the fight even begins".

Which is a setting that I could play in just about any setting, fuck practically Star Wars episodes 4-6 is that setting.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat May 03, 2014 3:24 am

TheFlatline wrote:You just described Werewolf the Forsaken and it sucked donkey balls.

What you completely left out was the whole "desperate fight against in an unwinnable battle against a foe that they are at once partially guilty of creating and of defeating their allies before the fight even begins".

Which is a setting that I could play in just about any setting, fuck practically Star Wars episodes 4-6 is that setting.

Technically "desperate fight against in an unwinnable battle against a foe that they are at once partially guilty of creating and of defeating their allies before the fight even begins" is one of Werewolf the Apocalypse's many problems.

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Sat May 03, 2014 5:02 am

Prak_Anima wrote:
TheFlatline wrote:You just described Werewolf the Forsaken and it sucked donkey balls.

What you completely left out was the whole "desperate fight against in an unwinnable battle against a foe that they are at once partially guilty of creating and of defeating their allies before the fight even begins".

Which is a setting that I could play in just about any setting, fuck practically Star Wars episodes 4-6 is that setting.
Technically "desperate fight against in an unwinnable battle against a foe that they are at once partially guilty of creating and of defeating their allies before the fight even begins" is one of Werewolf the Apocalypse's many problems.

Well we saw how well WTF (How appropriate) worked when they pulled that out of the game and left pretty much entirely what you thought was the cool part of the setting.

And it flopped like a a fat man on the high dive.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat May 03, 2014 5:40 am

Is that perhaps because White Wolf is incapable of writing a good game? Frank summarizes WtA as the love child of Captain Planet and Sailor Moon, playing the special magical warriors of the Moon who fight villains who embody bad emotions and evil acts, and people regularly say they'd play that.

So, sure, WtF fucked it all up, but Runequest fucks up "Sword and Sandal Fantasy Adventure," that doesn't mean that the entire genre is shit.

What I'm thinking is something along the lines of

Animus
In Animus, every creature, plant, rock, and even concept has a spirit. Most of these spirits are "sleeping," unable to manifest power or act apart from their physical bonds. It is possible to Awaken these spirits, usually through the patronage of a spirit of a concept, or another awakened spirit, in which case the creature's mind and spirit join as one. An awakened spirit can move on, or remain embodied, if it does remain embodied, it is able to enhance it's physical tether. Once a spirit is awakened, it can learn gifts from other awakened spirits.

The players of Animus take on the role of awakened spirits, usually of humans, but possible of other things. Often, they serve the great awakened spirits of the elements, celestial bodies or concepts, often as pawns in their schemes and wars or inscrutable whims. A group of awakened who work together are known as a Gathering.

Different spirits teach different gifts. Each awakened carries at least a few such gifts from his patron, as well as a handful they've learned on their own.

...

and I'm basically just crafting another setting for After Sundown. Appropriately enough, I suppose.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sat May 03, 2014 6:42 am

WtF was obviously a clusterfuck but that's due in large part to matters of scale. That poor stupid game was locked into the nWoD paradigm of all conflicts being bullshit small in order to keep the notion of maintaining a masquerade vaguely plausible. Simply killing the traditional WW treatment of the "masquerade" and letting the game stand on its own would afford you an enormous amount of freedom. Running with a simple "Werewolves are real and face prejudice but are also the only ones who can fight the evil spirits and corrupted werewolves" plotline would let you easily rip off ideas from the X-men, Swamp Thing or Dr. Strange depending on what suits your fancy.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat May 03, 2014 6:45 am

What Werewolf wanted to be was a game of "Savage Horror." We know that because it says so right on the cover. Reddened tooth and claw. Flipping out and leaving carnage in your wake. The entire world backstory, from the existence of spirits to the Captain Planet villains was to create a source of people and monsters that you could rip to shreds with your claws and not feel bad about it. That's really as far down as the rabbit hole goes.

Now the problems with this scenario are obvious and legendary. The villains were, to be blunt: stupid. And the spirit world simply didn't seem to matter very much. Nothing specifically happened if you did or did not run amok in the spirit world killing weaver spiders. And while that meant that you didn't feel bad about tearing them up with your teeth, it didn't feel like much of an accomplishment either.

The Caerns were a step in the right direction - flag capture points you actually felt that you needed to defend. And Pentex was a decent enough source of monsters of the week (although they needed a better plan, even at 13 years old I thought that shit was kind of dumb). But the roving spirits were just wasted space. They didn't do anything, and thus failed to provide good target practice.

WTF is indeed probably the lamest of the nWoD lines, which is quite an achievement. And a big part of that is that the combat system of nWoD is the worst part of that shit storm, so a combat-focused splat is right away in strong contention for "worst trainwreck." But it manages to be worse than Hunter, which is actually kind of amazing when you say that out loud. And the big part of that is "there are spirits around" really truly isn't enough of a hook to do anything with. It's not a hook at all really, it's an explanation for why you don't have to do any work to maintain the masquerade. That's... really all there is. The fact that stuff is happening in the invisible spirit world means that normal people can't see it. But it doesn't make any of that stuff inherently more interesting or important.

In short: the spirit world is a clumsy hack to explain why mundanes are out of the loop. But that's a third order problem that it's there to solve. You still need characters and conflict and story hooks and motivations and shit. The spirit world doesn't actually solve any of those problems. And it actually makes some of that harder, because the fact that normal people can't see or touch the spirit world crap automatically means that you have a higher bar to reach when answering the question "Why don't I just ignore this shit and move to Denver?"

-Username17

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sat May 03, 2014 7:01 am

Yeah, a Ghosts vs. Werewolves game would pretty much have to feature spirits that actually flip out and kill people on the regular.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat May 03, 2014 7:33 am

Which the Sailor Moon villain spirits could do. Seriously, that was like the entire point of bane spirits. The spirits which didn't flip out and kill people, directly or through possessing other people, existed to create victims you could theoretically save.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat May 03, 2014 7:50 am

Your fundamental issue is that if the spirits are causing enough havoc that stopping them seems important, they aren't unnoticeable. And if they aren't unnoticeable, they aren't doing their masquerade protection job. The entire point of having spirit world shenanigans was so that you could fight stuff and go "all out" and still have the masquerade remain intact because no one could see it. If the evil spirits are leaving piles of bodies around, then obviously people can see it and you aren't getting anything by having a spirit world at all. You might as well just have entirely terrestrial cryptids and mutants that you fight.

Basically, you're trying to do Narnia - keep the magic shit sufficiently separate from the regular world that the regular world is recognizable, while making the shit in the magic world important enough that the characters and the audience wants you to stab things to save the day. So: werewolves vs demons in Elf Land. I really don't see how casual animism gets you there at all. Casual animism is obviously ignorable, because you and I have been ignoring the machine spirits of our refrigerators our entire lives and things basically seem to go OK.

-Username17

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Sat May 03, 2014 7:52 pm

I don't think Prak realizes how A/B exact WTF was to what he's proposing.

I mean, he literally summed the entire game up.

Yeah nerfing werewolves sucked but what Prak and WW don't get is that you need something more than that to make the game even remotely interesting.

Let's put it into terms that may be easier to understand. What Prak suggested is basically the first half of a pilot eposide of a TV series. It's the first 20 minutes or so of the movie where they establish the setting and the status quo. Fuck everything that comes after because going off the rails is apparently undesirable.

And that's apparently it for Prak. That's all he needs. Which makes sense considering he's admitted that all he needs for a game is a ghost of a setting connecting a string of combats.

But arguing that formula makes for a good game is factually, demonstrably false, because it significantly helped torpedo one of the most successful TTRPGs in the market.

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Sat May 03, 2014 7:56 pm

Wait, I have to admit when I'm wrong, and I'm wrong.

WTF also had that whole sub-plot where the unsullied werewolves or whatever they were hunted you for killing your spirit father or whatever.

So in that respect, Prak isn't A/B exact, there's actually more going on in WTF. Which means Prak's proposal manages to have less going on in it than what is perhaps one of the most pointless and boring RPGs ever written by a large RPG publisher.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat May 03, 2014 8:26 pm

To be fair, he also basically described the setup for Bleach, which apparently is an engaging enough story to have spawned 63 volumes. Which is the actual problem with Prak's idea: it's not really a "thing." It's not a complete premise.

So basically you got:

There is a spirit world. This establishes very little. It opens up the possibility that you can go places that aren't on any mortal maps or meet people that normal people can't, but it doesn't actually introduce any of them. It's like buying a coupon for a bunch of willing suspension of disbelief when you introduce other elements.
The protagonist is part human, part spirit. This again establishes very little. It introduces the possibility that the protagonists may have powers that normal people don't have, or even powers that other characters in the setting don't have, but it doesn't in any way establish what those powers might be or whether they are good or bad to have.
The antagonists are spirits. This builds upon the first premise to bring antagonists from the spirit world mentioned earlier. This doesn't tell you anything about them really, but since they are from another world it makes sense that you've never heard of them before. The villains can now have any amount of backstory or power without that raising any additional suspension of disbelief that they haven't seemingly had any effect on New York City (or whatever).

There are lots of places you can go from here. Some of them are awesome and have lots of fans (Bleach), some of them are terrible and no one likes them (WTF). And lots of them are in between. But the really important takehome is that with those three premises you still don't actually have any characters or motivation or conflict. There's still no story to be told. Really, all you've done is bought a package deal on peoples' suspension of disbelief. It's now OK to introduce a bunch of Mary Sue powers for the protagonists and write in a bunch of locations and enemies and conflicts and shit. But you haven't actually done any of that yet.

-Username17

Stinktopus · Post by **Stinktopus** » Sat May 03, 2014 8:47 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Your fundamental issue is that if the spirits are causing enough havoc that stopping them seems important, they aren't unnoticeable. And if they aren't unnoticeable, they aren't doing their masquerade protection job. The entire point of having spirit world shenanigans was so that you could fight stuff and go "all out" and still have the masquerade remain intact because no one could see it. If the evil spirits are leaving piles of bodies around, then obviously people can see it and you aren't getting anything by having a spirit world at all. You might as well just have entirely terrestrial cryptids and mutants that you fight.

-Username17

I think you're unfairly shitting on Prak's concept here.

Problem: Guy is killing kids and drawing clown faces on the corpses.

Normal People Be Like: This guy is nuts. It happens. Brain went bad.

Spirit Warriors Find Out: This guy is possessed by a normally benign trickster spirit which has been driven mad by the banality of suburbia. The trickster spirit will now arrange an "accident" with the host's medication that will trigger a series of lethal seizures. Then he will jump to a new host that will be a "copycat killer."

The Spirit Warriors have two potential motivations. First, this thing is killing kids and the heroes are heroes. Second, if the supernaturals cause enough problems, the mundanes are going to figure things out and the reaction will be a purge against all supernaturals.

The "masquerade" element serves two purposes. Your heroes are spared from persecution and the MC doesn't have to recreate the world with the assumption that normal people now know that their toaster hates them.

There is also a possibility for problems that don't manifest themselves outside of "the spirit world," but will still be of concern for the heroes. A dark spirit creature lurking in a graveyard and eating the souls of the dead is cause for concern, but only the "special" are going to have any idea it's happening.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat May 03, 2014 9:15 pm

First- Yeah, I didn't realize how much I was replicating WtF, because I glanced through the book once and was underwhelmed by WW's "Five choices only, final destination! Also, fuck WtA's entire setting." The book about making your own shapechangers was cool, but the internet is telling me I hallucinated that.
Edit: Found it, Skinchangers, apparently it wasn't actually a WtF book, just an NWoD supplement.
Edit edit- ok, there were two, Skinchangers are people who use magic, or Kitsune. Changing Breeds was probably the "Wanna be a were-archaeopteryx? Fill your boots!" book I'm thinking of.

I was vaguely aware of the similarities to Bleach, but Bleach never actually grabbed me (I blame the ridiculous [black?] snake oil salesman antagonist in the one episode I saw some of and the ridiculous animu otaku that were the typical fans of it). I suppose it also has similarities, broadly speaking, to Naruto, since Naruto, Orochi, Gaara, and several other characters are "people with spirit powers."

As for why I only talked about a vague premise and a ghost of a setting, it's because I was just spitballing, and not actually starting to create a new game.

I mean, it also goes back to a game concept that WW obviously really had a hard on for- The children/servants of the good gods fight the children/creations/cultists of the titans/evil gods (see their d20 setting Scarred Lands, Exalted, Scion, vaguely Demon, etc.) It's a good concept, they just never executed it well.

Stinktopus wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:Your fundamental issue is that if the spirits are causing enough havoc that stopping them seems important, they aren't unnoticeable. And if they aren't unnoticeable, they aren't doing their masquerade protection job. The entire point of having spirit world shenanigans was so that you could fight stuff and go "all out" and still have the masquerade remain intact because no one could see it. If the evil spirits are leaving piles of bodies around, then obviously people can see it and you aren't getting anything by having a spirit world at all. You might as well just have entirely terrestrial cryptids and mutants that you fight.

-Username17
I think you're unfairly shitting on Prak's concept here.

Problem: Guy is killing kids and drawing clown faces on the corpses.

Normal People Be Like: This guy is nuts. It happens. Brain went bad.

Spirit Warriors Find Out: This guy is possessed by a normally benign trickster spirit which has been driven mad by the banality of suburbia. The trickster spirit will now arrange an "accident" with the host's medication that will trigger a series of lethal seizures. Then he will jump to a new host that will be a "copycat killer."

The Spirit Warriors have two potential motivations. First, this thing is killing kids and the heroes are heroes. Second, if the supernaturals cause enough problems, the mundanes are going to figure things out and the reaction will be a purge against all supernaturals.

The "masquerade" element serves two purposes. Your heroes are spared from persecution and the MC doesn't have to recreate the world with the assumption that normal people now know that their toaster hates them.

There is also a possibility for problems that don't manifest themselves outside of "the spirit world," but will still be of concern for the heroes. A dark spirit creature lurking in a graveyard and eating the souls of the dead is cause for concern, but only the "special" are going to have any idea it's happening.

Yeah, this is the sort of thing I was going for. I mean, hell, the concept can also draw on Legend of Korra, Hellboy, Supernatural, Buffy/Angel, Grimm, etc. Those last three are settings where "There is supernatural stuff going on, caused by evil creatures you can flip out on and rip to shreds, and yet there's a masquerade you need to keep up so you have to be sneaky about it." And LoK just helps with the "stuff going on in the spirit world will still concern the heroes." Whether there's a masquerade in Hellboy depends on whether you're reading the comics, or watching the movies.

magnuskn · Post by **magnuskn** » Thu May 08, 2014 4:30 pm

Well, if you cut out the more stupid grimdark setting background, WtA becomes a game where you fight evil megacorporations who want to pollute the planet to death. As werewolves!

It's not the worst set-up for an RPG and the spirit stuff and pack dynamics can make the game quite interesting.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Thu May 08, 2014 6:39 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Your fundamental issue is that if the spirits are causing enough havoc that stopping them seems important, they aren't unnoticeable. And if they aren't unnoticeable, they aren't doing their masquerade protection job. The entire point of having spirit world shenanigans was so that you could fight stuff and go "all out" and still have the masquerade remain intact because no one could see it. If the evil spirits are leaving piles of bodies around, then obviously people can see it and you aren't getting anything by having a spirit world at all. You might as well just have entirely terrestrial cryptids and mutants that you fight.

Basically, you're trying to do Narnia - keep the magic shit sufficiently separate from the regular world that the regular world is recognizable, while making the shit in the magic world important enough that the characters and the audience wants you to stab things to save the day. So: werewolves vs demons in Elf Land. I really don't see how casual animism gets you there at all. Casual animism is obviously ignorable, because you and I have been ignoring the machine spirits of our refrigerators our entire lives and things basically seem to go OK.

-Username17

Just go with Possession Spirits, then. They remain completely indistinguishable from random guy who flips out and kills his family. So when you rip one to shreds while he's hiding in the body of John Smith, tax accountant, it just looks like you randomly murdered an innocent person.

While your at it, do away with the Masquarade altogether. Everyone knows werewolves exist. Everyone knows that werewolves flip out and eat people. The world hates and fears you. But you have to prot3ect them anyway. Often by flipping out and eating people who are possessed by spirits but are, to mundane senses, completely indistinguishable from everyone else. Which does absolutely nothing to help your reputation.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sun May 18, 2014 11:25 pm

I have been coming up with some ideas.

Types of werewolves -

True Werewolves: The original werewolves, perfect fusions of human and spirit they have none of the weaknesses of modern werewovles but the methods to create them have been lost.

Born Werewolves - Humans born with a feral nature spirit inside of them. They're usually children of werewolves. As they grow they are influenced by the spirit's predatory urges, but are unable to transform until their bodies mature. By that time they should have clearned to control the spirit and can maintain their minds even in their transformed state.

Infected Werewolves - Are humans who were bitten by a Werewolf and survived. The bite transfers a small piece of the spirit's essence, which grows into a new wolf spirit over the course of a month. The host loses himself in his first transformation, becoming a mindless killing machine. If the host is very very lucky the spirit's hold will wane as night becomes morning and he'll become a normal human again until the next full moon. The more likely outcome is that the host loses himself completely and never transforms back. Creating Infected is strongly discouraged for obvious reasons.

Possessed - Sometimes powerful and melavolent spirits are able to force themselves on a human, either under their own power or at the command of a sorcerer. Most of those are merely able to take control of the unwilling host's actions but the strongest are able to transform their hosts, as well. Some sorcerers will give themselves over to possessing spirits for power.

Spirits: Spirits are everywhere. Spirits are active. But spirits are very difficult to detect. Their activities are subtle and most can be blamed on coincidence or chance. Werewolves can see spirits. Normal humans can't. Some Werewolf families have taken it upon themselves to police the spirit world. For some this is an ancient duty. Others took up the cause because they couldn't turn their back on the tragedies in front of them.

Ecoterrorism: The destruction of nature is bad for nature spirits, who knew. Stopping that crazy trickster spirit who has been murdering kids is all well and good, but what about that poor innocent river spirit who is going to die when the power company builds their new hydroelectric dam? Sure, you don't have to try to save her. Some Werewolves won't. Some will. And while political lobbying and buying up land that the power company needs is probably the more effective way to do it plenty of young and foolish werewolves would be tempted by the simple solution of just blowing everything up.

The Masquarade: Everyone knows that werewolves exist. To most people, they're feral killers, monsters who must be put down for the good of everything. The image of the rampaging Infected, lost to the feral savagery of the spirit, is deeply ingrained in the public consciousness. The average human can't see the good that werewolves do for them, for spirits are subtle. But werewolves aren't. When werewolf eats the heart of a possession victim to devour and permanently destroy the spirit tormenting him, all the public sees is a werewolf eating a man's heart.

The masquerade isn't able preventing the public from learning that werewolves exist. They already know that. It's about preventing them from learning that you are one, lest you be hunted down and locked in a cage.

No Dog Fucking: Werewolves are humans merged with spirits. They're genetically human, They aren't wolves. They can't reproduce with wolves.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sun May 18, 2014 11:51 pm

Doing away with the masquerade means you no longer have a world you're used to. Might as well set it in a fantasy setting or something because modern conceits have been up-ended. The whole point of having a masquerade setting is that basically you get to use a familiar setting. Don't cash that out lightly.

A world where people turn into werewolves and everyone knows this is so is likely to be changed in a variety of ways. If it is known that this is due to spirits and spirits are objectively real, then wow. I don't even know what this setting would be remotely like anymore. So making it modern day does nothing helpful since this is such a vast departure.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon May 19, 2014 12:00 am

Well, and hell, if it's the modern world, what does Science do about werewolves? The transformation of man to hulking monstrosity or mostly normal wolf is basically impossible for a variety of reasons. If everyone knows about werewolves, then scientists should be trying to figure out what the hell makes them possible.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Mon May 19, 2014 12:46 am

erik wrote:Doing away with the masquerade means you no longer have a world you're used to. Might as well set it in a fantasy setting or something because modern conceits have been up-ended. The whole point of having a masquerade setting is that basically you get to use a familiar setting. Don't cash that out lightly.

A world where people turn into werewolves and everyone knows this is so is likely to be changed in a variety of ways. If it is known that this is due to spirits and spirits are objectively real, then wow. I don't even know what this setting would be remotely like anymore. So making it modern day does nothing helpful since this is such a vast departure.

You have to suspend disbelief at some point. And it's a lot less implausible than exactly like out world except some people who can fly and shoot laserbeams from their eyes dress up in spandex and fight crime,

Prak_Anima wrote:Well, and hell, if it's the modern world, what does Science do about werewolves? The transformation of man to hulking monstrosity or mostly normal wolf is basically impossible for a variety of reasons. If everyone knows about werewolves, then scientists should be trying to figure out what the hell makes them possible.

Science does what science does. It studies, it hypothesizes, and it tests. These tests might not be be conclusive, though. The scientific method works, but the equipment and the capability might not be there.

I was thinking about An American Werewolf in London as I wrote that, which seems like a good starting point. Giant wolf rampages through London and tuns into a human when killed by police. It's hard to cover that up. It even spirits that only the werewolf can see.

Another idea is a dichotomy of power and control. That is, the more you draw on the wolf the more the wolf influences your actions. You can get burst of extra power at the cost of losing some self control.

Fwib · Post by **Fwib** » Mon May 19, 2014 9:57 am

Regarding the 'Masquerade' in Werewolf: Is the problem with keeping it that the werewolf aura that stops normals from remembering the mad killer monster spree can't easily work on all the CCTV and camera-phones that are now everywhere that were not 20-odd years ago?

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Mon May 19, 2014 10:23 am

Fwib wrote:Regarding the 'Masquerade' in Werewolf: Is the problem with keeping it that the werewolf aura that stops normals from remembering the mad killer monster spree can't easily work on all the CCTV and camera-phones that are now everywhere that were not 20-odd years ago?

In WtF werewolf aura explicitly works through the images.

Fwib · Post by **Fwib** » Mon May 19, 2014 10:52 pm

Longes wrote:
Fwib wrote:Regarding the 'Masquerade' in Werewolf: Is the problem with keeping it that the werewolf aura that stops normals from remembering the mad killer monster spree can't easily work on all the CCTV and camera-phones that are now everywhere that were not 20-odd years ago?
In WtF werewolf aura explicitly works through the images.

So when a load of blood and dead bodies are found, what do they see when they go back and look at the security images? The werewolf's human-base-form doing the murderising? Something else?

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon May 19, 2014 11:49 pm

I don't know about WtF, but in WtA the aura was a human racial-memory based unwillingness to comprehend the werewolves. It wasn't enough to cause permanent madness, but in some prehistoric time, werewolves kept humans as slaves, supposedly, and the spirits of humans remembers that time, even if humans don't. The exact reaction depends on a given human's willpower, but in general it causes insane fear and panic and prevents the human from remembering what it saw correctly.