Werewolf 2.0 & Nine Ways It Could Be Streamlined
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@crusader Actually, while those examples are great for 'this is how this faction within WoD might look', the majority of those worlds do not ever imply that there are vampires of any other kind in them. Blade and Underworld are the big exceptions here. For all we know of most of those settings, that's the one kind of vampire out there -- not one kind of many.
There's a fairly good example of factions in Lumley's fiction, but none of that has made it to the big screen yet. (Someday, maybe!) It's what a fair bit of the notions of the Tzimisce from oWoD were drawn from, however, if I had to guess. (It's not a hard guess if you're familiar with the Necroscope series, which makes the Tzim look pretty tame by comparison at points.)
None of these -- barring Blade, oddly enough, as the closest -- has the broader scope suggestive of WoD vampire more broadly.
Oh fucking well.
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@surreality said:
@crusader Actually, while those examples are great for 'this is how this faction within WoD might look', the majority of those worlds do not ever imply that there are vampires of any other kind in them. Blade and Underworld are the big exceptions here. For all we know of most of those settings, that's the one kind of vampire out there -- not one kind of many.
There's a fairly good example of factions in Lumley's fiction, but none of that has made it to the big screen yet. (Someday, maybe!) It's what a fair bit of the notions of the Tzimisce from oWoD were drawn from, however, if I had to guess. (It's not a hard guess if you're familiar with the Necroscope series, which makes the Tzim look pretty tame by comparison at points.)
None of these -- barring Blade, oddly enough, as the closest -- has the broader scope suggestive of WoD vampire more broadly.
Good point and good examples.
But I hope we can agree that nwod vampire hews much closer to popular culture tropes than nwod forsaken does, without being any less purely world of darkness.
My original assertion (which you don't have to agree with) was that Forsaken can also be skewed more closely to popular culture expectations, without being any less world of darknessy.
I think that's how M-D and I got onto vampire movies.
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Yeah, I think there's room for a 'werewolf as the pop culture example goes' style of game -- it just... isn't really what nWoD werewolf is.
I have to wonder, though, if that is the direction they aim to go with the Pure in 2e. That would be interesting.
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@surreality said:
Yeah, I think there's room for a 'werewolf as the pop culture example goes' style of game -- it just... isn't really what nWoD werewolf is.
I have to wonder, though, if that is the direction they aim to go with the Pure in 2e. That would be interesting.
I'm glad I made this thread, because even though I've staffed and head staffed multiple times, I've never gotten the sense that people were that attached to the Shadow/First Tongue as a fundamental concept of werewolves.
I personally think it's possible to remove the Shadow component, and still be nwod werewolf. And in fact, be even more nwod werewolf than before, by focusing more strongly on co-equal themes. I was in fact, inspired by a mini-pdf that one of White Wolf's writers put out offering up just such an idea.
So I must admit, I'm a tiny bit taken aback by the breadth and solidarity of the sentiment, even to the point of someone earlier suggesting I use a different game system. As if the Shadow had anything to do fundamentally, with the nwod rules system, or if the rest of it wasn't perfectly suitable.
I also get the sense from this thread that people are putting on rose-tinted glasses, when it comes to various MUSHisms and instead treating it as if under ideal tabletop circumstances.. Stuff like Harmony, Renown and Loci have never been adequately handled on a mush. They sure as hell weren't on HM or the Reach.
In the future though, the Shadow hack will definitely be point #9 instead of #1. I think leading with it distracted people from the broader flow of making the game more streamlined and 'mushable', and not so much focus on the beautiful exceptions.
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I think a huge part of how people read your post is that you entitle it "Werewolf 2.0's Nine Design Flaws and how I would fix them" but you then go on to say, "this works fine in tabletop but not on MUs".
That´s false advertising, bro. Say what you mean and mean what you say.
"What I Think Doesn't Work About Werewolf 2.0 On MUs and How I Would Fix It" would be a better title.
It's also making me roll my eyes whenever you say '[my way] would be [more] WoD-y than the current". You don't really get to decide that, and in fact, it's blatantly false.
I also think that your claims that the Shadow/Loci/Harmony have never been done well on a MU isn't really a reason to do away with them. It's a reason to look at new ways of doing it.
Personally, I love the Shadow, spirits, etc. It's part of what draws me to the game. If it was just generic werewolves? I might play, but it wouldn't draw me the same way. Does it mean it has to be the focus of every story? Absolutely not.
I like Loci. They are an integral part of the setting because they marry territoriality with the Shadow. They are the link between the two, and should be important. Does it mean it has to be the focus of every story? Absolutely not.
I love Harmony, especially in 2.0 -- the internal struggle between Flesh and Spirit makes me grin because I can see how my character would fight for balance, but how their character flaws will make that a challenge. Does it mean it has to be the focus of every story? Absolutely not.
But I really like these aspects. I love Auspices. They are evocative and help design purpose in your character. I love Tribes, they are different cultures within a larger one, ways of thinking rather than being [Auspices].
I could go on. In the end, it's all about preference. You can absolutely excise all this stuff and still have an enjoyable game--but it is not WoD Werewolf. It just isn't recognizable as such.
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P.S. I find the comparison with Vampire and how Vampire relates to vampire fiction writ large pointless.
If we use that as a base with which to decide what elements we should and shouldn't keep in the games, Mummy would be a shell of what it is, Demon would be something completely different, Promethean would have no lore, Mage would be even more watered down hermeticism, Changeling would have none of the socio-political backdrop, and Geist just wouldn't even exist.
Changing Breeds might stay more-or-less the same. Maybe.
So basically, the only things that would stay the same are Vampire (not really, IMO, but sure) and possibly the worst game nWoD put out. And maybe Hunter? Maybe.
So that logic just doesn't scan with me.
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@crusader I don't like the idea of considering anything sacrosanct in gaming since whatever works for you and your players is great, but you brought this to an open forum for comments, right? So it's your choice whether to take input at face value or stick to your line in the sand and defend it, but I think that might be counter-productive.
What people are saying is that the things you find disagreeable with nWoD Werewolf are pretty much... the game. You could gut them out, sure, but at that point why start with that particular game at all and not base it on something else instead? What you are proposing is like saying "I like Geist except for all this ghost stuff" - more power to you, but what you'd have in the end is something else entirely.
If you want input, ask for input. But be prepared to take it, else why go through the trouble in the first place?
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@Coin said:
"What I Think Doesn't Work About Werewolf 2.0 On MUs and How I Would Fix It" would be a better title.
I considered that, and then I considered the two separate groups I've run tabletop for, one more or less new to the hobby and the other owod veterans, who also strongly disliked the Shadow/spirit emphasis. I've seen many groups form under many different circumstances, and with veterans from newbs (although strangely, I am the only one that has ever MUSHed among either set), and I know what worked and what was less accessible to them.
In any case, I will be interested to hear what others think about points #2 -> #9.
I must say though, that I can't help but roll my eyes at the defense of Harmony in this thread. Everywhere I've ever staffed, whenever a Harmony/Morality/Humanity roll was called for, 8 times out of 10, the player would throw a fit about it, and I've seen multiple sessions, both online and on table, that devolved into people arguing about whether they should take a Morality check.
Forsaken 2.0 has a ton more of these, and I find they interrupt gameplay too often. On a mush, Harmony was already mostly ignored or handwaved.
What I find fascinating, is that what a lot of people are claiming to be their favorite part of the game, is the exact part which on various mushes, gets either abused, gamed, neglected, handwaved, ignored or misunderstood most often.
I understand people have attachments to a certain idealized way of doing things in their mind, but at some point we must admit to ourselves that certain systems do not translate well to a MUSH environment, and are not nearly as central to the theme of wod werewolf as some would like to imagine.
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@Coin said:
P.S. I find the comparison with Vampire and how Vampire relates to vampire fiction writ large pointless.
If we use that as a base with which to decide what elements we should and shouldn't keep in the games, Mummy would be a shell of what it is, Demon would be something completely different, Promethean would have no lore, Mage would be even more watered down hermeticism, Changeling would have none of the socio-political backdrop, and Geist just wouldn't even exist.
Changing Breeds might stay more-or-less the same. Maybe.
So basically, the only things that would stay the same are Vampire (not really, IMO, but sure) and possibly the worst game nWoD put out. And maybe Hunter? Maybe.
So that logic just doesn't scan with me.
You're not following the logic very closely then, but I can see how you missed the thread, as we got off onto a real tangent. Essentially, it was along the lines of werewolf being no less WoD for choosing which source material to emphasize at the expense of other sources, just as the writers themselves have suggested or offered examples of.
I also don't understand your statement that my claim to make werewolf more WoD-y is blatantly false. Where in the nwod main book is the Shadow dealt with? In any case, all I've claimed is that my hacks would shift a greater focus of werewolf onto nwod's general preoccupation with primal horror and the human condition, and more away from a pseudo Native American cosmology and spirit world.
Disagree with me all you like, but that seems so far from blatantly false as to basically be unarguable. Of course anything that removes the Shadow is going to focus the game more on werewolf and human interaction. So it really makes me think you're reaching, there.
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@Arkandel said:
What people are saying is that the things you find disagreeable with nWoD Werewolf are pretty much... the game. You could gut them out, sure, but at that point why start with that particular game at all and not base it on something else instead? What you are proposing is like saying "I like Geist except for all this ghost stuff" - more power to you, but what you'd have in the end is something else entirely.
I get it. I get it. I don't mind the discussion, I welcome it. I'm still going to reply, and try to correct what I feel are misperceptions or over-emphasizing on the wrong points. Some people will have good and valuable insight, like you, and some will be dicks like Theno. I'm at peace with that.
But I'll say this as gently and sincerely as possible...What I don't need is you or anyone else attempting to explain what others mean.
Trust me...I get exactly what they mean. I'm not sure that they get what I mean. But I'm crystal clear on the main thrust of the push back to removing the Shadow.
Personally, I don't think a pseudo Native American spirit cosmology is as central to the werewolf experience as ghosts are to geist. It's a completely ancillary, fantasy aspect of the game that was built on top of the popular culture tropes. I got the idea for dumping it from a hack written by one of Forsaken's own writers, in the mini Chronicles pdf.
It's okay that other people are far more invested in the spirit aspect. I'm not trying to convert anyone. Only correct misunderstandings in my position. I'll be interested to hear about the other points as they relate to a mush.
Personally, I think if these elements were gone, they would not be nearly as missed as some are claiming here, no more than taboo werewolf sex was missed, or lupus and metis. But I understand the incentive to claim otherwise.
I think a lot of veteran's opinions would dramatically change as to what they considered core themes, if they were put in the position of dealing with more people who can essentially grasp the popular tropes and human condition/horror aspects of a game, but are never going to read deeply into the fantasy lore or meaningfully tell the difference between a Storm Lord and a Blood Talon - or care. It might also surprise you to learn that at least 3/4ths of any werewolf sphere on any mush is equally ignorant/unconcerned/still thinks its owod, and just go through the motions if someone can walk them through the totem/loci/chiminiage/spirit interaction. Auspices are essentially no more than a short hand for classes, and don't most people prefer the freedom of a classless system?
I also wouldn't mind the opinion of anyone that's ever head staffed a werewolf sphere, or run a long term werewolf tabletop game.
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Coin and Ark get it. I didn't say much because there wasn't much to say. Having "staffed and head staffed on multiple games" myself, I find people will play the game they want played. For werewolf, there is quite a lot of grunting combat monster since day one. You can thank Rein*Hagen for that, since that was pretty much 90s Werewolf's design goal.
I would be more thank happy to keep Werewolf away from that, but I am a lone sheep.
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I found the easiest way to get through the initial post was to pretend I was hearing it read in the same tone and manner that Steven Wright uses to tell jokes.
Seriously, though, there's only so far 'mildly constructive' can go when you're positing such outrageous things. There are certainly design flaws in nwod, and in Werewolf 2.0, but what you're describing are not design flaws. You're just saying you wanted a game about something completely different than what this game is, and presenting ways to gut the one game to create the one you like. Which is fine for what it is, but it's not 'addressing design flaws'.
"I've found several design flaws in this bike! My wide and worldly experience shows me that people fall down on bikes way too much, so here are some hacks to make bikes work like they should. First, we'll have TWO tires in the front and back instead of just one. This offers stability, so people will be less likely to fall over. Then..."
Cool, bro, but it's pretty clear you didn't want a bike to begin with, and whatever it is you do want bears very little resemblance to the product other people are interested in when they think of bikes.
You're absolutely correct that there's nothing really about the Shadow in the core World of Darkness book. You're also correct that you could strip down werewolves to Fangs & Gangs which seems to be more or less what you feel the 'essential werewolf experience' is. Which again, is cool, because core wod is meant to be modular. You could absolutely strip Vampire down to fit any number of modern fiction stories. You could pick apart Vampire until you were just playing Dracula, really.
But that wouldn't be Vampire: The Requiem (or Masquerade), and you clearly don't want to be playing Werewolf: The Forsaken (or Apocalypse). If you'd just owned up to that to begin with, saying "I don't like Forsaken, but I love werewolves, so here's how I'd use some existing mechanics to create a werewolf game about being werewolves more how they're presented in movies and television, for playing in a wod-style setting that doesn't use Forsaken." or some variation of the same, you'd have probably gotten the constructive feedback you were presumably looking for.
To harp on the Shadow thing again, it's integral to the game because it's integral to the game. The duality of spirit and flesh, the lore and history, the very basis for why the Forsaken are as they are, is all fundamental to Werewolf: The Forsaken. The same is true of Tribes and Auspices, not just their form but their function. You can say 'you're a rahu because you act like a rahu not because it's what you are', but you could also say 'werewolves aren't born they're created by werewolf bites'. That would fit with a lot of modern fiction too, right? But it wouldn't be Werewolf: The Forsaken.
If somebody posted in the constructive forum that they felt Twilight was the definitive modern vampire fiction, ergo vampires being damaged by sunlight is a design flaw and here's a hack to fix it so people can play Vampire: The Requiem the way it should be played (and why not, since I bet way less than 1 in 4 players or staff ever have sunlight act as any appreciable threat, and just run 99.9999% of their scenes as if it's nighttime anyway), it's entirely likely they'd get mocked and ridiculed instead of getting constructive criticism or feedback.
You want American Werewolf in London? More power to you. Tribes, Auspices, the Shadow, etc, those aren't design flaws, those are setting elements of Werewolf: The Forsaken.
And before you trot out more lame rose-tinted-glasses arguments, I don't even like Werewolf. I criticize it almost as much as I do Vampire, but it at least fits into the wider wod cosmology for me. What you're designing just seems more like a werewolf-centric spinoff of The Vampire Diaries. Oh no we're monsters and shapeshifting hurts and...did we mention we're monsters? Cool.
Also stop harping on the Native American angle, you're starting to sound kind of racist through sheer repetition.
MILDLY CONSTRUCTIVE STUFF:
I do like the idea about a pack and the size of the territory it can claim having an impact on essence generated, but I'd still tie it to Loci (which can, have been, and should be awesome features). It would be pretty awesome if a werewolf pack's claim on a loci had a beneficial effect on that loci as a nexus between the material and spirit world, without requiring or inspiring the usual traumadrama.
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@HelloRaptor said:
I do like the idea about a pack and the size of the territory it can claim having an impact on essence generated, but I'd still tie it to Loci (which can, have been, and should be awesome features). It would be pretty awesome if a werewolf pack's claim on a loci had a beneficial effect on that loci as a nexus between the material and spirit world, without requiring or inspiring the usual traumadrama.
One way you can do this is make Loci the same way you do Totems: by making the Pack members contribute Merit dots to make the Locus better. You cap the amount someone can contribute, and therefore larger packs get better Loci.
Just an idea, and a half-formed one at best.
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Basically... what @HelloRaptor said.
I have zero issues with your proposed changes for whatever games you're running in TT Land. But its not WoD. That's what your group wants, then run with it. But the things you want to remove from the game are what make it a WoD game. Tribes, Auspices, Shadow, Loci, actual raising and lowering of Primal Urge and Harmony... those are all the core precepts of WoD Werewolf.
Also... because I Am Nerd... the movies you're thinking of? 'Alaska vampire' movie is 30 Days of Night. James WOODS and Daniel Baldwin were in John Carpenter's Vampires.
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Near Dark didn't sell being a vampire as sexy, without resorting to monstrous images to do so. No factions though, just desperate survival.
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But its not WoD.
To be clear, that's not what I said, though perhaps you meant it's not WoD Werewolf.
The core wod setting is generic enough that it could be home to all manner of crazy shit, and as a jumping off point you could tack on whatever you liked, even stripped down, soulless versions of other game lines. So what he's presenting would work just fine as a using-wod-setting-and-mechanics-to-play-WEREWOLVES-BUT-REALLY or whatever.
It's just got nothing to do with nwod werewolf, and it's not because you're creating 'hacks' to fix 'design flaws', and everything to do with just wanting to play another game entirely that happens to include things that will be called werewolves.
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You're correct. It was meant to be 'not WoD Werewolf'. I just get lazy sometimes. >.>
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@Thenomain said:
Coin and Ark get it. I didn't say much because there wasn't much to say. Having "staffed and head staffed on multiple games" myself, I find people will play the game they want played. For werewolf, there is quite a lot of grunting combat monster since day one. You can thank Rein*Hagen for that, since that was pretty much 90s Werewolf's design goal.
I would be more thank happy to keep Werewolf away from that, but I am a lone sheep.
Speaking of grunting combat monsters...
Claimed, Beshilu, murder spirits, are all just vehicles to create even more fights in werewolf, without them slaughtering humans. So I was just surprised you intuited the the removal of such elements would entail more combat. It also suggested you didn't even get to the part about taking out Dalu and Urshul.
If you've storytold a tabletop Forsaken game, you'll know there is a big incentive for players to spend most of the game in those two forms. And that does dilute the primal horror of the man to wolf-man kill switch.
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@HelloRaptor said:
If somebody posted in the constructive forum that they felt Twilight was the definitive modern vampire fiction, ergo vampires being damaged by sunlight is a design flaw and here's a hack to fix it so people can play Vampire: The Requiem the way it should be played (and why not, since I bet way less than 1 in 4 players or staff ever have sunlight act as any appreciable threat, and just run 99.9999% of their scenes as if it's nighttime anyway), it's entirely likely they'd get mocked and ridiculed instead of getting constructive criticism or feedback.
It's interesting that people are so attached to certain things. The Shadow is not as core to the werewolf thematic experience, as fire is to a vampire, or ghost is to a geist.
I personally think claiming it as such is more an example of a rose-tinted argument. I get it though, that it was an extremely provocative idea to lead off with, and I've considered all the feedback on it valuable. That said, I must reiterate that the idea wasn't even originally mine, but came from a lore hack out of White Wolf's own Chronicles supplement.
What's your attachment to Auspices? The Pure don't have them, and I found the lack of Auspices made pack forming easier and more natural. People gravitated to what they wanted to do and not what they felt like they had to. Auspices were only included as a way to make chargen easier for some people, and function like classes. I've only had a chance to see Pure packs form on a mush a couple times, but both times seemed less stressful without deciding who got stuck as the Elodoth, etc.
What's your attachment to tribes? White Wolf itself will discard the tribes at a moment's notice, depending on the setting, or else break their backs trying to explain away their existence. Tribes were improved in 2.0, but there is still nothing 'core' werewolf about what you choose to call them.
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@Miss-Demeanor said:
Basically... what @HelloRaptor said.
I have zero issues with your proposed changes for whatever games you're running in TT Land. But its not WoD. That's what your group wants, then run with it. But the things you want to remove from the game are what make it a WoD game. Tribes, Auspices, Shadow, Loci, actual raising and lowering of Primal Urge and Harmony... those are all the core precepts of WoD Werewolf.
Also... because I Am Nerd... the movies you're thinking of? 'Alaska vampire' movie is 30 Days of Night. James WOODS and Daniel Baldwin were in John Carpenter's Vampires.
I disagree with what's a core, sacred precept of werewolf. But I understand and respect your position on the matter. But I do think you have it backwards...All that stuff you mentioned is what can work on a tabletop, if you and the group are all on the same page.
It's what I've never seen handled satisfactorily on a MUSH. Not as much Tribes and Auspices, (which is more of a setting, creation thing and actually has almost zero relation to werewolf's core themes), but Loci and Harmony. I've seen very few players handle Morality check requests well. Most try to rules lawyer around them or get offended when brought up. And if Loci at the Reach are anyone's idea of what works on a MUSH, then I pity them.
Anyhow, what's most important is that you solved my mind-itch, as to what those two movies' titles were.
I'm not upset that people disagree with me. But I am bemused at the passion I've seen broached for certain concepts vs the attitude towards them I've seen in practice from the majority of casual players.
What do you think of removing Dalu and Urshul?
