Quote from: DarcyDettmann;947203No, no, no. Gaia is alive, and because of it everything is dying, because Mother Nature is a Bitch and Evolution don't play favorites. The Triad bullshit is only the Garou trying to rationalize about be the next thing to the same place as the Dodos, because they are a evolution dead end.

This is appropriately cynical. That said, pollution isn't necessarily a bad angle.

Everlasting did a parody where the PCs were humans ritually bound to an animal or plant spirit. Pollution was a problem, but aliens/demons trying to hellform Earth were a much bigger problem.

Witchcraft did a parody with unwilling spirit possession which was passed by heredity. Spirits turned crazy destructive if their physical counterparts were damaged by human activities.

Quote from: Marleycat;947176It's a copout to be horrified when you can't do a damn thing against it. Real horror is when you can and understand there will be a price no matter how many precautions you try to take.

I know I'm playing semantics games here ("what is horror versus fear versus dread"), but whatever you want to call it powerlessness is the defining element of horror.  

Now, I'll also admit that games where players' actions are irrelevant are not fun.   But this is where you have to decide "do I want a dark fantasy game where the PCs can fix the world" or "do I want a horror game, where PCs merely explore the horror they can't fix."  It's the difference between being able to stop a zombie plague and -not- being able to.  This doesn't mean one is fun and the other isn't, but rather one is mislabled as horror.

So what does this all have to do with the WoD?

Vampire - 1ed was very much a game of personal horror.  You were expected to struggle with your nature as someone who attacked people and drank their blood.  You had all sorts of powers to make you a better metaphor for mugging/rape, but ultimately you couldn't avoid your new nature.  And that was the horror of the game.  Later on though, it became a game where the "horror" was dealing with all sorts of other supernatural monsters who were more powerful than you, or unknown to you, while you tried to "win" through Golconda/Leveling Up.  Hence things like "The Path of Doing What I Wanted To Anyway" replacing Humanity.  It wasn't horror any more, but it -was- pretty cool (granted, I say this thinking of the Dark Ages line).

Werewolf - The "horror" came from being a guy with fightin' powers that you used to beat up monsters more scary and (hopefully) evil than you.  The real horror though came from realizing that your actions didn't mean much in the big scheme, and all your werewolf buddies were various degrees of fucked up.  Including you.  Unfortunately, White Wolf never quite had the balls to flat out say "the Garou tribes are all a bunch of horrible people in their own ways, and thanks to Tribe, genes, and spirits, you are too!", instead only ever flirting with the idea that the Garou were actually -monsters-.  I'd recommend reading the Ferals comics for some ideas on what living in a society of Rage-driven shapeshifters with Primal-Urge as a skill might actually look like.

Mage - Much like Werewolf, but to an even worse degree, there's no actual personal horror here, just dark supers.  Hell, you even have multiple Black Hat baddies to beat up on, removing any moral uncertainty in the whole damn process.  But if you start adding in some uncertainty (making the Technos multi-dimensional characters, making the Trads more like the bigoted cultures they're based on), then things get interesting.  Still not horrific, but at least you have some doubt on the part of the players and PCs.  And from there you -might- be able to expand it all into a kind of personal horror where your Hubris and the pressures of survival keep pushing you to breaking point (like Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment, or Cole from The Grifters).  Assuming everyone doesn't say "fuck it" and flies to Jupiter to fight alien demons beforehand.

Changeling - I hated it.

Wraith - It's fine as is, provided players -really- get into character, but the horror is constant and unrelenting.

Now, if you notice, some of these games -do- have "win" conditions.  To some degree you can beat Mage and Wraith (and -maybe- Vampire), but "winning" also ends your character within the game generally speaking.  Wraiths Transcend out of their current existence, Mages Ascend from it (and Goloconda is ultimately left to GM's to define, assuming it's even possible, but leaving behind vampirism is a listed possibility).  Are they still horror?  Sure!  The -certainty- of helplessnes isn't the key, but the -illusion- of it.  Now sometimes (e.g. Call of Cthulhu) there really isn't anything you can do; you simply can't stop the horrors from coming.  But dealing with your helplessness is what the game's about.  Which is why when Mages and Wraiths "win" the game and become essentially safe, the game ends for them.  "But what about all the stuff left in the world I want to deal with?"  No prob, there's your new horror to focus on.  How do you save the people/things you care about in a world of darkness?  And also, you aren't going to Ascend/Transcend if you're still tied to this world, so you won't "win" (a recurring theme in the WoD games it seems).

Quote from: DarcyDettmann;947203No, no, no. Gaia is alive, and because of it everything is dying, because Mother Nature is a Bitch and Evolution don't play favorites. The Triad bullshit is only the Garou trying to rationalize about be the next thing to the same place as the Dodos, because they are a evolution dead end.

But how would that -look-?  The closest I can think of is Gaia from Kult (imagine if the Thing was also into plants, and functioned less like a creature that moved around and more like an ocean wave that just sweeps over -everything-).

Quote from: san dee jota;947215I know I'm playing semantics games here ("what is horror versus fear versus dread"), but whatever you want to call it powerlessness is the defining element of horror.  

Now, I'll also admit that games where players' actions are irrelevant are not fun.   But this is where you have to decide "do I want a dark fantasy game where the PCs can fix the world" or "do I want a horror game, where PCs merely explore the horror they can't fix."  It's the difference between being able to stop a zombie plague and -not- being able to.  This doesn't mean one is fun and the other isn't, but rather one is mislabled as horror.

Spot on.

Quote from: san dee jota;947215So what does this all have to do with the WoD?

Vampire - 1ed was very much a game of personal horror.  You were expected to struggle with your nature as someone who attacked people and drank their blood.  You had all sorts of powers to make you a better metaphor for mugging/rape, but ultimately you couldn't avoid your new nature.  And that was the horror of the game.  Later on though, it became a game where the "horror" was dealing with all sorts of other supernatural monsters who were more powerful than you, or unknown to you, while you tried to "win" through Golconda/Leveling Up.  Hence things like "The Path of Doing What I Wanted To Anyway" replacing Humanity.  It wasn't horror any more, but it -was- pretty cool (granted, I say this thinking of the Dark Ages line).

I think it's arguable whether this was a late development. VtM1 seemed to assume PCs would become Anarchs right off the bat (with adventures using "the PCs" and "the anarchs" interchangeably) and while the VtM2 core rulebook strongly hinted at Golconda as a possble endgame, attaining it was never (to the best of my knowledge) laid out in detail in any book, in that edition, or any other.

I think the key change from VtM1 to VtM2 was dropping this assumption, and toeing the Camarilla line becoming the default for PCs, effectively taking the "punk" out of the original "Gothic-Punk" game. Which also had the side effect of bringing the intrigue-laden internal politics if the Camarilla front and center, and making the game more about scheming and maybe less about surviving.

Quote from: san dee jota;947215Werewolf - The "horror" came from being a guy with fightin' powers that you used to beat up monsters more scary and (hopefully) evil than you.  The real horror though came from realizing that your actions didn't mean much in the big scheme, and all your werewolf buddies were various degrees of fucked up.  Including you.  Unfortunately, White Wolf never quite had the balls to flat out say "the Garou tribes are all a bunch of horrible people in their own ways, and thanks to Tribe, genes, and spirits, you are too!", instead only ever flirting with the idea that the Garou were actually -monsters-.  I'd recommend reading the Ferals comics for some ideas on what living in a society of Rage-driven shapeshifters with Primal-Urge as a skill might actually look like.

I actually think it was pretty clear several of the Tribes sucked ass, and the current trainwreck state of the spirit world was at least partly their fault, at least circa WtA2. But I did enjoy the modern-day sword-and-sorcery vibe.

Quote from: san dee jota;947215Mage - Much like Werewolf, but to an even worse degree, there's no actual personal horror here, just dark supers.  

Plus postmodern solipsism. At 17 I thought this game was amazing. At 37? Heh.

Quote from: san dee jota;947215Changeling - I hated it.

I didn't hate hate it but I never liked it. And realizing Banality was shorthand for adulthood and that creeped me out and not in a good way.

Quote from: san dee jota;947215Wraith - It's fine as is, provided players -really- get into character, but the horror is constant and unrelenting.

Wraith is a great game but sort of tricky to get it to work. You have to balance out the Shadowlands/Fetter management and the acid-trip grimdark fantasy of Stygia, all while players play each others' Shadows egging them on to do stupid shit and get Harrowed (boom, dungeon crawl).

Quote from: san dee jota;947215Now, if you notice, some of these games -do- have "win" conditions.  To some degree you can beat Mage and Wraith (and -maybe- Vampire), but "winning" also ends your character within the game generally speaking.  Wraiths Transcend out of their current existence, Mages Ascend from it (and Goloconda is ultimately left to GM's to define, assuming it's even possible, but leaving behind vampirism is a listed possibility).  Are they still horror?  Sure!  The -certainty- of helplessnes isn't the key, but the -illusion- of it.  Now sometimes (e.g. Call of Cthulhu) there really isn't anything you can do; you simply can't stop the horrors from coming.  But dealing with your helplessness is what the game's about.  Which is why when Mages and Wraiths "win" the game and become essentially safe, the game ends for them.  "But what about all the stuff left in the world I want to deal with?"  No prob, there's your new horror to focus on.  How do you save the people/things you care about in a world of darkness?  And also, you aren't going to Ascend/Transcend if you're still tied to this world, so you won't "win" (a recurring theme in the WoD games it seems).

Most of these "victory conditions" were never laid out in mechanical detail or gotten much editorial attention. And the lines were worse for it, IMHO. Otherwise pretty good rundown.

For me and my group the key to good horror (and story in general) has been all the unintended consequences of various characters' actions; particularly when a player realizes it was their decision with a past character that led to the awful situation they find themselves in now.

Since the whole zombie apocalypse is kinda the zeitgeist of horror at the moment its worth looking at why. The zombies these days are NOT magical, but some man-created bio-engineering project gone awry. They're the ultimate horror consequence for mankind's tampering with things it doesn't totally understand and suffering the consequences of that.

Similarly, the story for the protagonists is often all about the consequences of the choices you make in trying to survive the zombie apocalypse. Can you shoot your kid in the head because they just got bitten and will soon turn and kill everyone else and how do you live with yourself after doing so?

Half the fun of my ongoing Mage game is that by this point almost every problem the current cast of characters is face is the result of the unintended consequences of the choices made by the PC's.

For example, on the vampire front, in one past campaign a player-instigated conflict with the Tremere escalated when several other Clans became collateral damage because the mages couldn't tell the difference between a Tremere and a Ventrue using Dominate or a shape-shifting Gangrel. This led to a Blood Hunt on every mage they could ferret out and the PC's having to gather up the real mages (because it was mostly only occult poseurs who looked enough like Mages to be targeted) and counter-strike at the vampire leadership. This ended with the entire Camarilla leadership in the city being gutted (because there is nothing more dangerous in the Word of Darkness than experienced mages with time to prepare) and the players celebrating their victory.

Only for the vampire problem in the next campaign to roll around and the City's south-side had become a blood bath as a new type of vampire had rolled into town. Taking out the Camarilla made it a ripe opportunity for the Sabbat to try and move in... and after another costly war, the PC's broke the back of the Sabbat as well.

The vampire problem in the current campaign is that every organized vampire knows that trying to move in on the main city in the campaign is death; so only the desperate, crazy or extremely powerful vampires operating alone or in small groups operate in the city and there's no central leadership to even try and reign them in when they go to war with each other over 'resources' and no protocols keeping rival vamps from going after each other by wiping out each others' flocks.

And that's just one of many problems facing the current batch of PC's as they try to clean up their city. One group of past PC's was involved in a major campaign to capture an Anchorhead from the Technocracy (basically a super-node/shallowing and, in my game at least, one of the nine anchors that determines the course of reality as a whole), but now much of the Tradition leadership is more interesting in doing whatever it takes to hold it than necessarily helping the masses living in the city surrounding it because.

Likewise, for the first time in ages, the Technocracy no longer controls the majority of Anchorheads (the Technocracy had five and the Traditions two with two missing, the loss of one to the Traditions and a group of PC's finding one of the missing ones puts them in balance at four and four) so Tradition leaders are looking for ways to either find the last missing Anchorhead (and so is the Technocracy) and/or take another one from the Technocracy because they see it as a way to eventually bring the Mythic Ages back. Meanwhile the Technocracy (now led by a former PC who sought to reform them) needs one of the Anchorheads back if they have any hope of saving the world from an invading horde from the Deep Umbra (which was only riled up by the unintended consequences of former PC's defeating a major villain by banishing him to the Outer Darkness).

Is a Deep Umbral invasion that will likely kill millions of innocents worth it if it brings back belief in magic? Some Tradition mages currently think so. And even those who think that price is much too high think the Technocracy's plan to basically wall off the Earth from the Spirit World (making spirit travel impossible) is the wrong way to go about it while others are skirting or even outright plotting "treason" against the Traditions by hoping to get the Technocracy the fifth Anchorhead they need for the greater good.

All of which will, in turn create many of the unintended consequences for the NEXT campaign to have to deal with.

- - - -

Applying this to the general WoD though I think you could play with those elements by playing up the fact that the vampires are, by and large, the architects of their own misery. Their power has allowed them a fair amount of insulation from the consequences of their actions, but all power has its limits and the backlog of consequences is considerable. The story is set at the point where the dam is about to crumble under the sheer weight of all those bad decisions where the PC's and vampires in general put the Beast before their humanity and then used their power to paper over the mess.

For Werewolves it would be the acknowledgement that their own rage and past actions played a huge role in humans abandoning nature for the safety and security of the very Weaver that chokes the natural world in its webs and turns necessary recycling (the pure form of the Wyrm) into lingering rot that infects all of creation (the Corrupting Wyrm). You are the thing that goes bump in the night and convinces mankind that putting up with some pollution is worth the cost of not having to live in fear of the wild beasts anymore. The Garou's past Eco-terrorism has made man deaf and even disdainful of even peaceful protests for reasonable goals like conservation of natural resources.

For Mages its the acknowledgement that their 'philosophical knife-fights' have led to the current mess of the world. Man needs both technology and spirituality to be whole, but the Ascension War has forced most mages to pick one extreme or the other while Sleepers make a hash of science by trying to make it their religion while religious extremists draw in the gullible with promises that spirituality can completely replace the need for things like modern medicine. But how do you let go of all the old grudges and find common ground when both sides have lost friends and loved ones to 'the enemy.' How do you trust that the other side isn't just going to look for signs of weakness and stab you in the back as soon as your guard is down? What 'sacred' beliefs are you willing to surrender to find common ground with your enemy?

Quote from: The Butcher;947251I think the key change from VtM1 to VtM2 was dropping this assumption, and toeing the Camarilla line becoming the default for PCs, effectively taking the "punk" out of the original "Gothic-Punk" game. Which also had the side effect of bringing the intrigue-laden internal politics if the Camarilla front and center, and making the game more about scheming and maybe less about surviving.

Makes sense.  It really felt as time went on that the gameline became less and less about being a vampire (i.e. dealing with being someone who hunts and murders -humans-) and more about being something that tried to get power over other things like yourself.  I suppose it had to though, since any PC who continued to struggle with losing their humanity (small h) for very long wouldn't make a viable long-term character I'd imagine (and it got boring for everyone at the table eventually if -everyone- kept whinging about the exact same aspect of their characters).    

Quote from: The Butcher;947251I actually think it was pretty clear several of the Tribes sucked ass, and the current trainwreck state of the spirit world was at least partly their fault, at least circa WtA2. But I did enjoy the modern-day sword-and-sorcery vibe.

Yeah, but....

As an outside adult looking in on a game from 20 years ago it was clear, but the games never really saw themselves as such.  The Black Furies were violently sexist, the Red Talons liked killing humans, the Children of Gaia were soldiers on the frontline who refused to help out their allies, the Wendigo were a bunch of loser racists, the Get were a -different- bunch of loser racists, the Silver Fangs were arrogant and worthless, the Shadow Lords were worthless and arrogant, etc. etc.  "But, but-"  No, I get it, and the books were written as if the "but, but" perspective was right, which was wrong.  Ultimately, the game only played lip service to the idea that the Garou were a bunch of rage freak religious terrorists, and then it made their religion the objective truth so they weren't even wrong in their faith.  "The Spirit Lords told me" is a stronger defense when they're -real-.

On the flipside, sometimes you just want to tank out and swing a giant magical sword at a monster and roll a bunch of dice, and Werewolf is still a heck of a good choice for that.  No shame there!

Quote from: The Butcher;947251Plus postmodern solipsism. At 17 I thought this game was amazing. At 37? Heh.

Amen!

Quote from: The Butcher;947251I didn't hate hate it but I never liked it. And realizing Banality was shorthand for adulthood and that creeped me out and not in a good way.

It's the tragic game of growing up, for people who don't realize why growing up isn't all that bad.  (and it helps if you had a shitty childhood you got out of)

Quote from: The Butcher;947251Wraith is a great game but sort of tricky to get it to work. You have to balance out the Shadowlands/Fetter management and the acid-trip grimdark fantasy of Stygia, all while players play each others' Shadows egging them on to do stupid shit and get Harrowed (boom, dungeon crawl).

Yeah, between making viable characters, and then having the party team up to psychologically destroy each other, it's a tough sell.  Still, I'll give it props for setting and experimentation.

Quote from: The Butcher;947251Most of these "victory conditions" were never laid out in mechanical detail or gotten much editorial attention. And the lines were worse for it, IMHO. Otherwise pretty good rundown.

Enh, a "win" breaks the themes so greatly (and requires things to be so defined in Mage) that I can see why they were largely ignored.  Promethean the Created is a good look at what "winning" is, and why it's not really for everyone's taste in games.

One of the issues to me with VtM was that you were a party of vampires. The initial idea of the game seems to play better with one player or a smaller group of 2-3 for a limited series of sessions focused on the struggle and loss of your humanity. I guess that's why the focus became so much about the vampire factions and society. But there also seemed to be way more vampires around than seemed believable, even in a fantasy setting.

Quote from: Spinachcat;947190WoD games are zero to hero as well. It's just how zero is defined versus hero. High XP WoD PCs and wipe the floor with newb PCs. Gamma World 1e, CoC and Traveller are among the very few RPGs which aren't zero to hero.

It would be an interesting WoD game to play monsters hunted by a US gov't crusade. It's got a bit of an X-men feel.

We never played WoD games without at least 35 experience points at start. What the basic character is literally a baby and has no business being off by themselves with no minders. It's pretty much exactly like Wheel of Time. If you're special you're either a strong wilder or being "forced" because you're not to be messed with by the weak assed rank and file.

I and my group doesn't believe in adventuring types ever being just baseline humans beyond sleeper Hunters. You adventure because you question the baseline and have definable and quantifiable talents beyond the baseline unless you're stupid. Otherwise you're just a meatbag and prey for those that are beyond the baseline. Luckily the new versions of the game admit you're not just some pissant baseline human and have abilities that disabuse the thought of trying to be just normal. You aren't so start dealing or die. That's your entry into the horror. You aren't baseline anymore.

Vampires are self explanatory. Werewolves hunt and have a whole tribe specifically specialized in hunting humans. Mages all have "spidey sense turned to 11" that is innate and they are Colombo by nature. They not only ping everything(they usually have no idea what it is) but they can't look away they just get curious and are driven to investigate.

Then again every OWoD game never made sense. We have a billion vampires hidden from sight seriously? And almost as many ecoterrorist 9 foot tall wolfmen filled with the essence of hatred no less. And then the top of ridiculous...a select few all about solipsism and subjective reality... come on are you 12 or something?

Vampires with an enemy that can mess with them on their terms.... Werewolves not hating humanity in the main and having to deal with an unseen reality filled with their half siblings that are apex predators and humans that bend reality a reality that's objective yet tells you straight up magic doesn't work off scientific laws and because of that can be weaker then science and be less effective or wildly more powerful then science and far more effective.... that makes sense. An open WoD game is exactly like The X-Men or the Witchcraft RPG. It's similar to a Super Hero game with setting conceits.

Quote from: The Butcher;947193Waah, waah, he took my precious game and shat all over it.

Your milkshake, Marleycat, we drink it. We drink it up.

Dude, I'm not hurt so try again. Play how you prefer it doesn't affect me though I may laugh at you like you do me. That's fair and expected.

Quote from: Voros;947349One of the issues to me with VtM was that you were a party of vampires. The initial idea of the game seems to play better with one player or a smaller group of 2-3 for a limited series of sessions focused on the struggle and loss of your humanity. I guess that's why the focus became so much about the vampire factions and society. But there also seemed to be way more vampires around than seemed believable, even in a fantasy setting.

Good points!

I will concede that VtM works pretty well as a generic toolbox for playing games about vampires, -if- you're willing to ignore all the stuff that doesn't mesh with your desired game.

I honestly don't understand this thread. Who adheres to canon-as-100% fact? I thought it was pretty implicit in all the WoD games that most/any/all/none of the canon is rumor and you can make whatever you want "fact" for your game?

So I never had a problem with a billion vampires, or gigantic Wyrm-beasts destroying entire blocks of Los Angeles, or a huge living mass of undead Tzimisce-flesh living under NYC - unless I chose to.

The PC's know what the PC's experience and everything else is speculation. Play on. Make it as scary/action-oriented/BDSM/Gritty-body-horror-inducing/funny/trivial as you see fit. Having an undead Prince tell you he believes in the Cain-myth is as verifiable as him saying it's really all about Longinus (and matters just as much - or not at all). What matters is how you as a GM make it meaningful (or not) in your game.

It sounds like everyone just wants to say "What are some WoD variants that sound cool" - which some of the ideas in this thread are indeed - very cool. I don't think WoD needs saving. It just needs a firm hand on the tiller to decide WTF is going on - even if the players don't actually know. But then I could say this about every RPG.

Quote from: tenbones;947515I honestly don't understand this thread. Who adheres to canon-as-100% fact? I thought it was pretty implicit in all the WoD games that most/any/all/none of the canon is rumor and you can make whatever you want "fact" for your game?... But then I could say this about every RPG.

YES.

The very first edition of V:TM was fairly explicit about this, but it was forgotten by both the fans and WW almost immediately.

Quote from: Marleycat;947417Dude, I'm not hurt so try again.

For the record, neither am I. We've all been on this forum long enough to have what the Koreans call "chong," longevity in a relationship that can survive ruffled feathers. It's part of the charm of this place's free speech.

I have both Cheech and Chong. :cool:

Quote from: Voros;947349One of the issues to me with VtM was that you were a party of vampires. The initial idea of the game seems to play better with one player or a smaller group of 2-3 for a limited series of sessions focused on the struggle and loss of your humanity. I guess that's why the focus became so much about the vampire factions and society. But there also seemed to be way more vampires around than seemed believable, even in a fantasy setting.

yeah, the population and cultural diversity doesn't square with the logistics required to remain secret. then again secret conspiracies of humans couldn't remain secret for the same reason. ultimately the masquerade is a farce since vampires could only hide at all if fate itself was concealing their existence. although it stills work in that hiding evidence makes it much more difficult to be instituted for delusions of vampirism. just because fate hides the existence of vampires doesn't mean it hides their actions.

Quote from: tenbones;947515I honestly don't understand this thread. Who adheres to canon-as-100% fact? I thought it was pretty implicit in all the WoD games that most/any/all/none of the canon is rumor and you can make whatever you want "fact" for your game?

So I never had a problem with a billion vampires, or gigantic Wyrm-beasts destroying entire blocks of Los Angeles, or a huge living mass of undead Tzimisce-flesh living under NYC - unless I chose to.

The PC's know what the PC's experience and everything else is speculation. Play on. Make it as scary/action-oriented/BDSM/Gritty-body-horror-inducing/funny/trivial as you see fit. Having an undead Prince tell you he believes in the Cain-myth is as verifiable as him saying it's really all about Longinus (and matters just as much - or not at all). What matters is how you as a GM make it meaningful (or not) in your game.

It sounds like everyone just wants to say "What are some WoD variants that sound cool" - which some of the ideas in this thread are indeed - very cool. I don't think WoD needs saving. It just needs a firm hand on the tiller to decide WTF is going on - even if the players don't actually know. But then I could say this about every RPG.

I think the problem is that the hardcore fans hate change of any kind. e.g. the werewolf orthodoxy, the death threats send to jess henig for writing the avatar storm. We make suggestions because we are disappointed in both the games and their vocal consumers. onyx path went SJW and paradox wants to milk it on the cheap. urban shadows and monsterhearts already do the genre justice, so we don't have any room to compete.

Quote from: san dee jota;947257Makes sense.  It really felt as time went on that the gameline became less and less about being a vampire (i.e. dealing with being someone who hunts and murders -humans-) and more about being something that tried to get power over other things like yourself.  I suppose it had to though, since any PC who continued to struggle with losing their humanity (small h) for very long wouldn't make a viable long-term character I'd imagine (and it got boring for everyone at the table eventually if -everyone- kept whinging about the exact same aspect of their characters).    



Yeah, but....

As an outside adult looking in on a game from 20 years ago it was clear, but the games never really saw themselves as such.  The Black Furies were violently sexist, the Red Talons liked killing humans, the Children of Gaia were soldiers on the frontline who refused to help out their allies, the Wendigo were a bunch of loser racists, the Get were a -different- bunch of loser racists, the Silver Fangs were arrogant and worthless, the Shadow Lords were worthless and arrogant, etc. etc.  "But, but-"  No, I get it, and the books were written as if the "but, but" perspective was right, which was wrong.  Ultimately, the game only played lip service to the idea that the Garou were a bunch of rage freak religious terrorists, and then it made their religion the objective truth so they weren't even wrong in their faith.  "The Spirit Lords told me" is a stronger defense when they're -real-.

On the flipside, sometimes you just want to tank out and swing a giant magical sword at a monster and roll a bunch of dice, and Werewolf is still a heck of a good choice for that.  No shame there!



Amen!



It's the tragic game of growing up, for people who don't realize why growing up isn't all that bad.  (and it helps if you had a shitty childhood you got out of)



Yeah, between making viable characters, and then having the party team up to psychologically destroy each other, it's a tough sell.  Still, I'll give it props for setting and experimentation.



Enh, a "win" breaks the themes so greatly (and requires things to be so defined in Mage) that I can see why they were largely ignored.  Promethean the Created is a good look at what "winning" is, and why it's not really for everyone's taste in games.

Yeah, werewolf has a huge problem with tone deafness. the werewolves all have the same religion and empirical evidence of its truth. there are other shape changers for other animals but the writers arbitrarily excluded them with wars of rage, which don't make sense as religious wars if there isn't any possibility for heresy. if there was faith rather than knowledge then you could have more diverse views and religious strife that doesn't contradict its own premise. maybe you could even outright state in the text that the werewolves are evil monsters and you don't have to agree with their values while playing them. playing a character with values opposing your own could be quite fun, as evidenced by the popularity of vampire's path of enlightenment "whatever i was going to do anyway" crime fantasy.

even the weaver and wyrm going crazy assumes that if they weren't crazy everything would be okay. you could just as easily argue they would arrive at the same result while sane. for example: weaver drives progress and dumps toxic waste due to simple incompetence (like real life), while the wyrm decides that going green is impossible and creates a new ecosystem dependent on toxic waste that must supplant the old or die.

as for the humanity conflict not making for long chronicles, I think that is handled fairly well in Feed. you can still play past humanity zero, but you have no real human connections and can barely interact with the world without using vampire powers.