@crusader said:
I am compelled to address your post point-by-point for the sake of clarity, though I am loathe to do so. (I hate writing piece-meal, but there's no other way to get through your response cogently.)
- It's not my authority. I wrote the themes nearly verbatim from the book itself. I'm not pulling it out of my ass. If you don't like those themes...fine. But they're at least as equal in importance to the Shadow, which people here claim to love.
That wasn't what I was talking about. I said you haven't the authority to claim that few seem to understand the game's theme. You haven't the knowledge or expertise to make that claim. Regarding the second part, my previous post is premised on the conclusion that all of the themes raised are equally important.
- While you might find it emotionally cathartic to believe otherwise, I have nowhere claimed that any other way of interpreting the game is less acceptable or valid. I have only defended what I find acceptable and valid.
I find cathartic release in very little these days, except for a good bath and a friendly rub. You very clearly described your interpretation, and have gone to great lengths to defend it. This can be reasonably construed as considering the same interpretation more acceptable than another, if we are talking of interpretation. If otherwise, your point does little to undermine mine.
- I've already acknowledged that the title could use improving. It was done in a slap dash fashion. I'm not perfect. There's no need to keep retreading it.
If I cannot express an opinion based on the words, language, ideas, or conclusions you've previously raised, then there's little more to talk about.
- What I took issue with, was the barrage of comments that it was in violation to the 'spirit' (no pun intended) of the game. By way of response, I've fallen back on the authority of the original authors, as to which themes they gave pride of place, to show that is not the case. The people who seem to have the biggest trouble with this, are those that have pontificated the most, while later admitting 'they don't even like werewolf' and have probably never even read the theme section of the pdf.
If you take no position as to whether your interpretation is more or less acceptable than another's, then you must accept that others validly believe that your fixes would violate their interpretation of the spirit of the game. There therefore should be no need to defend your point. Yet, here we are.
- In the end, werewolf is more than any one theme. It's a constellation of themes. The pseudo Native American cosmology aspect of it is just one theme, and it's the very last theme they introduced. It's just one layer of the setting.
I concur.
- So please, scale back some of the high and mighty tone about authority, or what rights I have to declare good fun or bad fun. I'm not making any such claims.
I am writing clearly, and pointing out what I believe to be flaws in your logic, reasoning, thinking, argument, position, and writing. That I write bluntly is for the sake of parsimony and clarity.
If you don't like it when some people infer your absence of knowledge, experience, or authority, then you should stop making claims as to others' knowledge, experience, or motivations. In short: don't tell me whether someone understands something or not. I can make that evaluation on my own.
- My only 'claim', is that Werewolf 2.0, stripped of the Shadow component, makes it even less like owod werewolf, and more in line with other nwod themes of horror and the human condition. That's why I found Theno's comment that it would be more combatty to be ludicrous, since the Shadow only exists to provide an owod-type avenue of mega battles against various monsters, like Claimed/Fomori, or beshilu/banes.
Yes, removing the Shadow would make the game less like OWoD Werewolf, which I enjoy for different reasons. However, I disagree that doing so would make the game more in-line with horror and human condition themes.
Your concept of horror may be different than mine. I enjoy many different kinds of horror stories, but I lean towards classic horror, and most of those stories involves spirits, supernatural creatures, and other things that might lead to what you might call a "mega battle." That said, I rather prefer simpler stories of personal, human horror, but that doesn't mean I'd prefer to pull the Shadow from my Werewolf campaigns.
- What makes a setting, game or theme 'shallow', isn't something so ridiculous as to whether or not the Shadow or spirits are involved, or what the tribes are called. It's how the story is told. I'm surprised you of all people, can't acknowledge this. My greatest beef with the Shadow is that it's handled in such a shallow manner by so many people, and of which there is really no way around without expecting an unrealistic level of familiarity with the subject matter from all players.
First, just because a set of rules is handled poorly by ignorant or lazy players doesn't mean that rule-set is bad. To wit, Wraith: The Oblivion.
Second, you are proposing to remove parts of the game that could add other levels of horror to a game. Auspices can provide a lot of potential for horror: what if a pacifist discovered she was a Rahu? Or Tribes: what if an Iron Warden were forced to hunt down and kill her own mortal family?
I think that a skilled GM can use these elements to create stories of horror and the human condition. And I'd rather have more tool-sets and potential around than to pigeon-hole a campaign.
- A story is hurt when not all of the players are on the same page in understanding its very various elements. Whatever idealized opinion people have of nwod werewolf, the fact is, most every nwod werewolf sphere has sucked, and been anything like what the original writers could have intended.
Again, dumbing things down isn't the right answer. I didn't find the systems presented in NWoD 1.0 or 2.0 Werewolf particularly difficult to get through (unlike Mage -- holy fucking shit). I don't equate shitty execution and understanding with a shitty game.
- Totem spirit demands, loci maintenance, and gaining gifts from spirits has always been ignored and handwaved (95% of the time) so how central can they be?
Once more, I don't place a value on a part of the system based on others' incompetence or ignorance.
At the end of the day, the only werewolf sphere I've seen semi-competently run, was AQ's when Haunted Memories first started, and it almost killed him. I've never seen anyone since put in even half the effort to fully engage with and tackle the subject matter. There's clearly too much there for the average MUSHer to cope with or keep in their mind.
AQ was never good at delegating.
Frankly, I've found that Werewolf tends to attract a certain kind of player that lends to eschewing the complex in favor of the simple. That's fine, to a point. To me, as a GM, I would find it very frustrating if my pack of PCs ignored the demands of their other nature.
On a personal note, Changeling is a fairly complex game too. I play a Changeling on TR that leans more heavily on the human side for reasons that include her choice of Court (Winter) and low Wyrd score. Note, however, that I chose this path based on how RP shook out. I still would not advocate for removing all of the Hedgespinning and Token-Making mumbo-jumbo that I don't deal with regularly. And if I were staffing the sphere, I would make a concerted effort to please people by drafting and enforcing rules related thereto.
We have no way to know if that's how the WW writers meant this to be done, so we shouldn't assume it's the case. Better to go with 'all equally important' and let it go, since arguing about this particular point isn't productive. Any ST/game-runner can then add their own personal weight as above, no harm no foul. In this instance, what the writers intended is not germane because we don't know what they intended.