NitRant Time! Werewolf: The Forsaken

[SirNitram]

The following is based off of the demo, a brief leafing through of the core book, and observation of several threads on the game and reviews thereof. I may be dead wrong on many facts, and frankly, I hope so. Correct at will.

Who remembers their first encounter with White Wolf's RPGs? I know I do: The Vampire players in high school, who apparently signed some contract to look down on the rest of the small RPG cliche of the area. Being open-minded, I looked into it, and immediately found stuff I didn't like. I'll list them; I promise there's a point.

1) Virtues and Humanity. While I admit that Vampire is a game about your struggle with humanity vs. the descent into your bestial nature, the method used strikes me as flatly ass-tarded. So. To be a normal joe-blow morally, I have to actually shell out some of my precious Freebies. Bwargh? Okay, I thought. I can let this slide. I didn't need that spare background. Then I saw the method of Humanity lowering.

Dice rolls.

Not any epic heros descent here, as I had experimented with in Ravenloft. Your descent was based, at least in part, on die rolls when you broke an ethical rule. I beleive my comment at the time involved paladins weighting their D20s to keep powers after a night at the brothel.

2) Healing method. While from a thematic point, using their stolen blood to regenerate makes sense, the Vampiric rules for coming back for more handicaps the amount of epic assbeatings you can hand out in a session. And it's not like these guys are wimps; even with a starting vampire, you can make a guy who uses motorcycles as brass knuckles or weighted whips.

3) PvP. Alright. I'm sure people enjoy this. But it gets fucking dull, especially with most of the folks who got drawn to these games. Since the primary opposition is other vamps, it degenerates in one of two directions: A) Endless PvP for local dominance until the ST gets sick of it and drops an Elder Tremere on your ass. B) Endless procession of assassins. The third Assimite party was enough folks, really.

Guess what three things vanished for the games I would enjoy alot more(Werewolf, Mage, Changeling)? Right.

Now. To THE POINT. The three above are now part of W:tF, the restarted World Of Darkness' fuzzy game. Humanity goes to Harmony, or how swanky you are with the spirits.(And back to the earlier point: I have to spend points to not consider breaking the tenets regularly? And I can get out of the problems of banging a fellow Shifter if I roll right?) Healing is no longer the bloodsplattered brawl-inducing regeneration that lead to some ridiculously John Woo moments, but spending Essense(Gnosis, I guess) to heal up like a Vamp. And no agg-healing for you! And the majority of the combat is now against other Wolf tribes, with no sign of the epic journey against the Wyrm and it's forces of corruption.

Crinos, the funky Wolfman who levelled all battlefields, is now a Rage-overfilled temporary affair, uncontrollable and going in a matter of rounds. Stepping Sideways now requires special locations, crippling the Wolves in their hunting of evil spirits. And no signs of my beloved Bete(Then again, they wouldn't appear until the Players Guide in the original, so).

In short, Werewolf has gone from an epic warrior's theme, howling against the seemingly inevitable and fighting like the dickens, into Vampire Lite, fighting against assholes just like you. Everything's been racheted down to Vampire's levels.... Hrm. Wonder what caused that decision.

In short, I am not a happy furball fan. Unless the Mokole come back as True Dragons, expect me not even to review Mage: the Awakening when it shows up.

EDIT: Sorry, forgot something that doesn't bug me as muchm, due to the fact a competent ST can probably get around it, but will send at leat one Apocalypse fan howling: Lupus and Metis are history.

[Petrosjko]

Well damn. I haven't paid attention to the relaunch, other than glancing through the new Vampire book. Is the line still under Ethan Skemp?

Sounds like they went overboard in trying to take the epic apocalyptic themes out of the games.

[SirNitram]

Well damn. I haven't paid attention to the relaunch, other than glancing through the new Vampire book. Is the line still under Ethan Skemp?

Yep, Ethan is the guy who wrote Forsaken.

[DarkSilver]

White Wolf really is fucking up the WoD. I used to enjoy the "old" World of Darkness, everything except Vampire...

To see Werewolf become..devolved into this, disgraceful. I'll hate to see what's being done with the other shifters, my beloved Nagah and Mokole...

I dread what they will do with my most favorite game, Mage. I have yet to do more than leaf through the WoD 2.0 game, but all I see this as is a attempt to bring the d10 WoD, to a d20 game.

I will lament for the lost Garou, and tell thier story about the fire.


It seems the Nephandi won in the first WoD.....and this is thier perversion of Reality.

[Petrosjko]

Oh well.

They can never truly take games away from you, so long as you have the old books.

[LadyTevar]

................

They took out the Lupus?

............................

They took out the Lupus.

....................................
THOSE FUCKIN" BASTARDS TOOK AWAY MY LUPUS?!

[Steven Snyder]

THOSE FUCKIN" BASTARDS TOOK AWAY MY LUPUS?!

I still have the WW Revised Collector's edition book, stored away safe and sound until this insanity is over.

While I won't miss Metis, the fricken Lupus was a great concept.

So no Wyrm, no Lupus, no Metis, hobbled Crinos, nerfed stepping sideways and the Werewolves just fight among themselves.

Oh so Werewolf: The Apocolypse has been replaced by Werewolf: Hatfields vs McCormics

[LadyTevar]

Hatfields and McCoys, hon.


But yes, I shall not be paying out my hard-earned money for that kinda shit.

[SirNitram]

It's slightly worse than that. The beefs I showed above are primarily play mechanics: You can basically evade this in any game by using another ruleset and some KludgeTastic House Rules. It'd be easier here, since you're literally dropping Wolves into a Wolf game, and using the setting. And as I started to read up on the setting, these seemed like a good idea.

The whole book is filled with good ideas.

That's the problem: It's not filled with a good setting or even a good story. Just ideas. Apparently, enough people whined and bitched about Metaplot and the angle most WoD games took, that we simply have all that pulled. It's like.. A collection of 'This would be neat, here's enough to whet your tongue, now we move on' stuff.

The initial idea? The whole 'The Wolves were guardians of the Spirit and Flesh worlds, but Father Wolf got sick, and the People Did Not Suffer His Sickness, and the universe kicks their asses for doing so, because when they put down Father Wolf, the two worlds start to seperate.' thing? Sounds like there's potential. And that's it. There's potential, and nothing realized.

Werewolves in Apocalypse have a reason to be angry. The world is dying. The Wyrm is doing it. All these goddamn humans don't have a clue. Sure, you can go on endless spiels about the slightly-goofy preachiness of this. But we can at least see the reasons for their Rage. There isn't any apparent reason for a Forsaken's anger. He just walks around ten seconds from flipping out because, um, his tail is hidden up his asshole? I dunno. It didn't come across.

Just random anger and violence doesn't bring horror.

As much as I bash Vampire and it's players for excessive Angst, there's a reason for the Angst that makes sense: You're metaphorically raping people on a regular basis to continue existing. That'll drive people to alot of madness, or just whining. Raging against the dying light in Apocalypse was the same way: It could get comically bad, but at least you knew it could be carried well. This is just.. Well, they're all PMSy. Maybe. Or something.

Or something. That's what I'm trying to get across here. There's lots of shit here on the surface, but it's that pond you throw trespassers into: Wide and impressive looking, until the guy thrown in finds out it's three inches deep.

[LadyTevar]

That is just so pitiful. Did they think Gamers would buy just because it was WhiteWolf and WoD?

Where can I write and bitch at them about it?

[Captain Cyran]

What kind of retarded halfwit would bitch about the Metaplot? That's a part of what sets it away from D&D and it's ilk. Without a metaplot, there's nothing. Gah, I'm not touching this with a ten foot pole... Thankfully we've got the old books still.

[Petrosjko]

What kind of retarded halfwit would bitch about the Metaplot? That's a part of what sets it away from D&D and it's ilk. Without a metaplot, there's nothing. Gah, I'm not touching this with a ten foot pole... Thankfully we've got the old books still.

Oh geez, you'd think they were tearing people's fucking fingernails out, all the bitching that used to go on about the metaplot.

[Typhonis 1]

What is this metaplot you speak of?

[Petrosjko]

What is this metaplot you speak of?

The concept that each supplement contained elements of an overall story arc that changed the game world. For example, there was a supplement that covered the thin-bloods, who were considered to be signs of the impending Gehenna/armageddon.

(And were, but not for the reason everybody thought.)

At the end of it, they include a story section where one of the vampire clan founders gets whacked in a major, traumatic event, essentially one of the kicking-off points for the Gehenna. As a result, his clan was essentially destroyed, though they retconned it a bit as time went by to say that there were more than a dozen or so survivors, due to massive outcry from players who favored that particular clan.

Basically, the whining was that it somehow impaired everyone's ability to actually run their own games. Because it's completely beyond all our ability to simply pick and choose which plot elements we care to use in our storylines, no, we're all slaves to the official story.

Piss, moan, rinse, repeat.

Edit- With regards to Ravnos survivors, the original concept was that there were going to only be a dozen or so left when the dust cleared, but after a while they had that to 'somewhere around a hundred', from what I heard.

[Typhonis 1]

They Bitched about THAT?????please its not like when GW killed off Eldrad Ulthram during the 13th Crusade.


I mean you are GM Hell didn`t they know you could SKIP the fucking Metaplot if it suited you?


I hope they at least do a decent accounting for Dragons in WOD....shit that would be scary....shapechanging lizards that are fighting a civil war amongst themselves and using the mammals as cannon fodder.

[Dahak]

Could someone clue me in on what happened at the end ot Vampire: The Masquerade?

[Petrosjko]

They Bitched about THAT?????please its not like when GW killed off Eldrad Ulthram during the 13th Crusade.

When your fanbase consists of angst-munchkins, they will search long and hard for anything to angst on.

I mean you are GM Hell didn`t they know you could SKIP the fucking Metaplot if it suited you?

'But, dude, that would require creativity. I demand my spoon-feedings!'

I hope tyhey at least do a decent account9ing for Dragons in WOD....shit that would be scary....shapechanging lizards that are fighting a civil war amongst themselves and using the mamals as cannon fodder.

Considering what a steaming heap of shit the Mokole sourcebook was, I have my doubts.

Now the Rokea sourcebook on the other hand kicked mighty amounts of booty, as did the Corax sourcebook and the by god kick-ASS Anasasi sourcebook, which was on the few books they ever put out that honestly gave me a bit of the creeps. Played to the arachnophobia theme very well.

[Petrosjko]

Could someone clue me in on what happened at the end ot Vampire: The Masquerade?

The three big lines all got their own sourcebooks that had multiple endings for each line.

Vampire's endings ran the gamut from a very quiet extinction for the vampires that the world doesn't notice to a full-fledged war between the antediluvians where pretty much everyone dies. Justin Achilli's favorite was the first, a scenario called Wormwood, and it was essentially the story that went into the final novel. God decides 'Nope, these vampires will never learn the lesson I intended for them.' So other than a very few (including members of your PC group, if they're on the ball) who get redeemed and returned to humanity, all vampires in the world snuff it by the hand of the big G.

[Typhonis 1]

What would truly scare me is if WOD tried to make a pen and paper 40k rpg.....if they messsed up Vampire klike that....((shudder))

[Petrosjko]

What would truly scare me is if WOD tried to make a pen and paper 40k rpg.....if they messsed up Vampire klike that....((shudder))

They have some good writers that could probably make a go of it. I wouldn't mind seeing what Bruce Baugh and Matthew McFarland could do with the setting.

But as a company... nah.

[SirNitram]

No one can actually agree what Dragons were in WoD. Some were Mokole(dinosaur-descended shapeshifters alongside the Garou. While their sourcebook was second-rate, the concept was cool enough for great characters), some were Bygones(Mage term; means a critter that is mostly spirit and can't manifest for long), and alot were Chimera(critters forged of dreams, who are mostly invisible these days).

Amusingly, Mage had an actual, official Ending to the world. And just to smear it in the face of the Vampire Angsters, it's a happy ending. Well. Once you get around the massive bodycount, it's a happy ending. For the survivors.

[DarkSilver]

No one can actually agree what Dragons were in WoD. Some were Mokole(dinosaur-descended shapeshifters alongside the Garou. While their sourcebook was second-rate, the concept was cool enough for great characters), some were Bygones(Mage term; means a critter that is mostly spirit and can't manifest for long), and alot were Chimera(critters forged of dreams, who are mostly invisible these days).

Amusingly, Mage had an actual, official Ending to the world. And just to smear it in the face of the Vampire Angsters, it's a happy ending. Well. Once you get around the massive bodycount, it's a happy ending. For the survivors.

Ok, clue me in please, on what the Mage ending was?

I was never able to get the final Mage book (no bookstores nearby carried much of the 3rd edition Mage, and i couldn't be assed to buy it online)

I still fear what WW will do to the Mage the Awakening, but as long as the Order of Hermes is around...it might not be all to bad...

[SirNitram]

No one can actually agree what Dragons were in WoD. Some were Mokole(dinosaur-descended shapeshifters alongside the Garou. While their sourcebook was second-rate, the concept was cool enough for great characters), some were Bygones(Mage term; means a critter that is mostly spirit and can't manifest for long), and alot were Chimera(critters forged of dreams, who are mostly invisible these days).

Amusingly, Mage had an actual, official Ending to the world. And just to smear it in the face of the Vampire Angsters, it's a happy ending. Well. Once you get around the massive bodycount, it's a happy ending. For the survivors.

Ok, clue me in please, on what the Mage ending was?

I was never able to get the final Mage book (no bookstores nearby carried much of the 3rd edition Mage, and i couldn't be assed to buy it online)

I still fear what WW will do to the Mage the Awakening, but as long as the Order of Hermes is around...it might not be all to bad...

Basic version? Okay...

After a brief brawl over the 10th Seat being stolen by the Al-i-Batran, things get into the swing full power. The players, through Mind/Time magic to relive events of the past, discover the secret of the Psychopomps, spirits which can meld with flesh into things called Anakim. These, in turn, have the power to channel the shards of the Avatar Storm, including protection from it. With the 10th Seat and a spell for this(Including a Grimore that lets you cheaply and easily boost your Arete to 6.. YOU'LL NEED IT..), the players prepare. Remember the Avatar Storm stirred up when Ravnos was obliterated by nuclear fire? It reaches it's peak and begins chewing through the Gauntlet like a chainsaw.

As the heros try and contain local Spirits that can now Manifest alot more easily, the first reports trickle in of bizarre outbreaks of some lethal condition that flares up suddenly... And those that survive develop bizarre 'mutations'. What really is happening is when the Gauntlet hits zero, those Avatar shards burst into our world and start implanting themselves in the nearest humans. These folks Awaken suddenly, and are promptly flayed by the other Shards as if they had crossed the Gauntlet(The same happens to Awakened folks in a breach point).

As the Gauntlet continues to erode worldwide and people are Awakening by the hundred each day, the Technocratic Union forces the governments of the world to set up internment camps to hold the newly Awakened deviants until they can be indoctorined into the Union's ways. This works until the Hollow Ones and Orphans unite and execute a huge umbral railroad to rescue the occupants of the largest camps. When the news of what was being done to folks in there hits the media, the governments drop the Union like a bad habit.

I think, by this point, we're three months into the End Of The World. The Void Engineers inform the Union they can lick their own assholes. The New World Order and Syndicate suffer collosal losses when the Voider's boobytraps fire. The Copernicus Research Observatory, the Dyson Sphere around Alpha Centauri, winks out of our universe.

Austrailia, thanks to the wierd nature of the local Umbra, is the safest place for the Awakened, so the Traditions evacuate en mass to the Outback for their stand against the Union. While in the Outback, a voice in the PC's minds requests their presense in the Hall Of Government as soon as possible.

After a brief runaround getting to the Union's capital in the Umbra, the players meet with Tychoides, leader of the Void Engineers, as he prepares the last sortie out of our universe. The Engineers are leaving; they've mastered the ability to open gates to other universes, and are sick of the Union and Traditions and the massive infighting. However, Tychoides has a gift for the players: One half of the First Focus(A flint axe, the first Technological Focus), and access to the thrones which the heads of the Conventions used to communicate with their minions.

Of course, those rulers were absorbed into the Technocrat Hive Mind, a newborn God forged of the fears of millions of the Union's workers. Yes, folks. The Union has been listening to it's own fears and orders for decades, maybe centuries.

Using the thrones, the Hive Mind will carry a brief message to the Union to try and stop the war in the Austrailia, as Tychoides and the lucid Marauders of the Butcher's Street Irregulars will have pointed out that, without a Gauntlet, the more violent Madmages are coming back, and everyone's needed.

With this arranged, the PC's are whisked away one last time, back to Horizon Chantry. There, they find that blasted 10th Seat again, and the Oracles. And Dante, whose now Oracle of Correspondence, the only living one. The Rogue Council subplot is revealed; It was the Avatars of several of those closest to Ascension, so close the Avatars refused to scrub themselves of the accumulated personality and advancement. They stay now as free shards, and deliver messages to the mortal mages of the world to get them further to Ascension.

Phew.. I think that's most of it. One last event.

While the Union and Traditions fight the armies of the Mad, the PC's venture out to the edge of the solar system to have a showdown with Voormas, the mad Euthanatos who merged himself with a Goddess ages back in the Metaplot. Driven mad by fear, he intends to use stolen Avatar Shards from the Storm to obliterate the Red Star.. Which is revealed to the 10th Sphere, Judgement. The Phoenix's fire, which destroys and rebirths(Possibly the Balance Wyrm, from Werewolf?).

One showdown with an Arete 9 guy whose merged with a God later, and the world is saved. While the deathtoll is between hundreds of millions and billions, those alive are all Awakened, and acheive Ascension. However they envisioned it. The Virtual Adepts complete Reality 2.0. The Hermetics uncover Enochian intact. The Progenitors find the secrets of Life itself.

And the Nephandus? Their masters fade away like a bad dream, dragging their slaves with them into the darkness.

[Thirdfain]

Which brings us to my question. What ever happened to my personal favorites, the Hunters? Do they have any effect on this oncoming end of the world?

[Captain Cyran]

Which brings us to my question. What ever happened to my personal favorites, the Hunters? Do they have any effect on this oncoming end of the world?

And what happened to the Kindred of the East? I know both were settled in that one book that took care of all the minor plots. But what happened to them?