double post. disregard.

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 01, 2022, 10:37:03 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on May 01, 2022, 09:48:08 AM
I'm currently working on some retroclones myself, taking into account how urban fantasy fiction has evolved significantly since the early 90s. For example, my take on werewolves uses modern tropes like born vs bitten and alpha/beta/omega biological divisions.

If you want to be ahead of the curve on the understanding of wolf behavior then nuke the alpha/beta/omega thing as its been wholly discredited in the last few years. It turns out that packs are almost entirely immediate families and "alpha" is really just "mom and dad" and "omega" is just the youngest members of the family.

Thank you for the advice. I'm not using it in that sense. In my current treatment, alpha/beta/omega describes the werewolf's level of control over and cultivation of their inner wolf. Omegas have no control and change involuntarily under the full moon, betas have it mostly controlled and can change at will, and alphas have amazing abilities like turning new werewolves with just a bite.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on May 01, 2022, 10:57:32 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 01, 2022, 10:37:03 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on May 01, 2022, 09:48:08 AM
I'm currently working on some retroclones myself, taking into account how urban fantasy fiction has evolved significantly since the early 90s. For example, my take on werewolves uses modern tropes like born vs bitten and alpha/beta/omega biological divisions.

If you want to be ahead of the curve on the understanding of wolf behavior then nuke the alpha/beta/omega thing as its been wholly discredited in the last few years. It turns out that packs are almost entirely immediate families and "alpha" is really just "mom and dad" and "omega" is just the youngest members of the family.

Thank you for the advice. I'm not using it in that sense. In my current treatment, alpha/beta/omega describes the werewolf's level of control over and cultivation of their inner wolf. Omegas have no control and change involuntarily under the full moon, betas have it mostly controlled and can change at will, and alphas have amazing abilities like turning new werewolves with just a bite.

Fair enough. Might I suggest then that werewolves use the terms ironically? As in, "we always known that understanding of pack behavior was rubbish, but it's such a good analogy for control of our abilities we stole it and applied it to our level of control."

Because I guarantee otherwise someone will presume it means only the heads of packs can have full control.

As an aside, as our understanding of wolf behavior has changed them from rapacious monsters to hierarchical packs to families that do their best to avoid humans, exploring the "adventuring party" as a true family akin to real wolf packs (versus the high school clique mentality that the alpha/beta/omega understanding fostered) focused on protecting their territory from other hostile supernaturals might be an interesting and mostly unexplored area to explore with an inbuilt reason for party affinity and unity.

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 01, 2022, 03:54:50 PM
Fair enough. Might I suggest then that werewolves use the terms ironically? As in, "we always known that understanding of pack behavior was rubbish, but it's such a good analogy for control of our abilities we stole it and applied it to our level of control."

I'm using the Greek letters because it's an established trope in modern urban fantasy and I haven't thought about how the jargon came about in-universe.

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 01, 2022, 03:54:50 PMBecause I guarantee otherwise someone will presume it means only the heads of packs can have full control.

While alpha status may make it easier to become a pack leader (particularly if it's a lone alpha who built their own pack of betas by biting/turning muggles), pack leaders are not the only werewolves who can be alphas and vice versa.

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 01, 2022, 03:54:50 PMAs an aside, as our understanding of wolf behavior has changed them from rapacious monsters to hierarchical packs to families that do their best to avoid humans, exploring the "adventuring party" as a true family akin to real wolf packs (versus the high school clique mentality that the alpha/beta/omega understanding fostered) focused on protecting their territory from other hostile supernaturals might be an interesting and mostly unexplored area to explore with an inbuilt reason for party affinity and unity.

Yeah, this is essentially how I imagine that rural werewolf society has developed, whereas urban werewolves are structured more like gangs. The rural werewolves are typically composed of families of hereditary werewolves with the occasional adopted bitten, and their social hierarchical is similar to that of traditional human cultures with leadership positions generally held in accordance with age. Meanwhile, the urban werewolf packs are composed mostly of muggles who have been bitten with the source of the infection coming from a minority of hereditary alphas who are often several generations removed from their werewolf ancestors. At least in the United States, I guess.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on May 02, 2022, 10:13:29 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 01, 2022, 03:54:50 PM
Fair enough. Might I suggest then that werewolves use the terms ironically? As in, "we always known that understanding of pack behavior was rubbish, but it's such a good analogy for control of our abilities we stole it and applied it to our level of control."

I'm using the Greek letters because it's an established trope in modern urban fantasy and I haven't thought about how the jargon came about in-universe.

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 01, 2022, 03:54:50 PMBecause I guarantee otherwise someone will presume it means only the heads of packs can have full control.

While alpha status may make it easier to become a pack leader (particularly if it's a lone alpha who built their own pack of betas by biting/turning muggles), pack leaders are not the only werewolves who can be alphas and vice versa.

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 01, 2022, 03:54:50 PMAs an aside, as our understanding of wolf behavior has changed them from rapacious monsters to hierarchical packs to families that do their best to avoid humans, exploring the "adventuring party" as a true family akin to real wolf packs (versus the high school clique mentality that the alpha/beta/omega understanding fostered) focused on protecting their territory from other hostile supernaturals might be an interesting and mostly unexplored area to explore with an inbuilt reason for party affinity and unity.

Yeah, this is essentially how I imagine that rural werewolf society has developed, whereas urban werewolves are structured more like gangs. The rural werewolves are typically composed of families of hereditary werewolves with the occasional adopted bitten, and their social hierarchical is similar to that of traditional human cultures with leadership positions generally held in accordance with age. Meanwhile, the urban werewolf packs are composed mostly of muggles who have been bitten with the source of the infection coming from a minority of hereditary alphas who are often several generations removed from their werewolf ancestors. At least in the United States, I guess.

What little I've read of your research I like.

That being said...

Making your werewolfs different to make them unique I get and deeply approve.

Making your werewolfs different because "that's not how wolfs act IRLtm!"... It's a game about werewolfs and other non-existent monsters, why would anyone expect or want realismtm in it?

Quote from: GeekyBugle on May 02, 2022, 01:26:33 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on May 02, 2022, 10:13:29 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 01, 2022, 03:54:50 PM
Fair enough. Might I suggest then that werewolves use the terms ironically? As in, "we always known that understanding of pack behavior was rubbish, but it's such a good analogy for control of our abilities we stole it and applied it to our level of control."

I'm using the Greek letters because it's an established trope in modern urban fantasy and I haven't thought about how the jargon came about in-universe.

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 01, 2022, 03:54:50 PMBecause I guarantee otherwise someone will presume it means only the heads of packs can have full control.

While alpha status may make it easier to become a pack leader (particularly if it's a lone alpha who built their own pack of betas by biting/turning muggles), pack leaders are not the only werewolves who can be alphas and vice versa.

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 01, 2022, 03:54:50 PMAs an aside, as our understanding of wolf behavior has changed them from rapacious monsters to hierarchical packs to families that do their best to avoid humans, exploring the "adventuring party" as a true family akin to real wolf packs (versus the high school clique mentality that the alpha/beta/omega understanding fostered) focused on protecting their territory from other hostile supernaturals might be an interesting and mostly unexplored area to explore with an inbuilt reason for party affinity and unity.

Yeah, this is essentially how I imagine that rural werewolf society has developed, whereas urban werewolves are structured more like gangs. The rural werewolves are typically composed of families of hereditary werewolves with the occasional adopted bitten, and their social hierarchical is similar to that of traditional human cultures with leadership positions generally held in accordance with age. Meanwhile, the urban werewolf packs are composed mostly of muggles who have been bitten with the source of the infection coming from a minority of hereditary alphas who are often several generations removed from their werewolf ancestors. At least in the United States, I guess.

What little I've read of your research I like.

That being said...

Making your werewolfs different to make them unique I get and deeply approve.

Making your werewolfs different because "that's not how wolfs act IRLtm!"... It's a game about werewolfs and other non-existent monsters, why would anyone expect or want realismtm in it?

Why would werewolves even act like wolves? They're able to turn into wolves, but they're still human. Or at least abhuman. I would expect them to organize much like humans in similar situations would, which is coincidentally similar to how wolves already organize. So I consider this a non-issue.

QuoteMaking your werewolfs different to make them unique I get and deeply approve.

That's probably not hard given that there's like only three kinds of plots that novels use nowadays: werewolf vs werewolf gang fighting, werewolf vs vampire/wizard/fairy/whatever gang fighting, and werewolf alpha male with effeminate heroine romance.

I'm also not trying to be all that different. My current treatment is essentially a laundry list of modern urban fantasy tropes (which are themselves the old Universal Horror rules with an extra layer of romanticism), with like one or two elements that might resemble WW mechanics.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on May 02, 2022, 01:57:37 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on May 02, 2022, 01:26:33 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on May 02, 2022, 10:13:29 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 01, 2022, 03:54:50 PM
Fair enough. Might I suggest then that werewolves use the terms ironically? As in, "we always known that understanding of pack behavior was rubbish, but it's such a good analogy for control of our abilities we stole it and applied it to our level of control."

I'm using the Greek letters because it's an established trope in modern urban fantasy and I haven't thought about how the jargon came about in-universe.

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 01, 2022, 03:54:50 PMBecause I guarantee otherwise someone will presume it means only the heads of packs can have full control.

While alpha status may make it easier to become a pack leader (particularly if it's a lone alpha who built their own pack of betas by biting/turning muggles), pack leaders are not the only werewolves who can be alphas and vice versa.

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 01, 2022, 03:54:50 PMAs an aside, as our understanding of wolf behavior has changed them from rapacious monsters to hierarchical packs to families that do their best to avoid humans, exploring the "adventuring party" as a true family akin to real wolf packs (versus the high school clique mentality that the alpha/beta/omega understanding fostered) focused on protecting their territory from other hostile supernaturals might be an interesting and mostly unexplored area to explore with an inbuilt reason for party affinity and unity.

Yeah, this is essentially how I imagine that rural werewolf society has developed, whereas urban werewolves are structured more like gangs. The rural werewolves are typically composed of families of hereditary werewolves with the occasional adopted bitten, and their social hierarchical is similar to that of traditional human cultures with leadership positions generally held in accordance with age. Meanwhile, the urban werewolf packs are composed mostly of muggles who have been bitten with the source of the infection coming from a minority of hereditary alphas who are often several generations removed from their werewolf ancestors. At least in the United States, I guess.

What little I've read of your research I like.

That being said...

Making your werewolfs different to make them unique I get and deeply approve.

Making your werewolfs different because "that's not how wolfs act IRLtm!"... It's a game about werewolfs and other non-existent monsters, why would anyone expect or want realismtm in it?

Why would werewolves even act like wolves? They're able to turn into wolves, but they're still human. Or at least abhuman. I would expect them to organize much like humans in similar situations would, which is coincidentally similar to how wolves already organize. So I consider this a non-issue.

QuoteMaking your werewolfs different to make them unique I get and deeply approve.

That's probably not hard given that there's like only three kinds of plots that novels use nowadays: werewolf vs werewolf gang fighting, werewolf vs vampire/wizard/fairy/whatever gang fighting, and werewolf alpha male with effeminate heroine romance.

I'm also not trying to be all that different. My current treatment is essentially a laundry list of modern urban fantasy tropes (which are themselves the old Universal Horror rules with an extra layer of romanticism), with like one or two elements that might resemble WW mechanics.

Humans, in a war situation/environment organize in non-familial hierarchies, same goes for business (but that's just a different type of war). In said hierarchy the one on top is the more competent/stronger/etc.

Why would werewolfs not follow that IF they organize like humans?

So the Alpha would be the stronger/more competent one, but more competent for what? Do werewolfs need help learning to control their inner beast (be it a different spirit, their ID, whatever)? The betas would be the middle of the road and the Omegas the ones not really suited for war for whatever reason.

It could very well be that willingnes to use force to assert the dominance/protect combined with their control is what makes some Alphas.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on May 02, 2022, 02:06:42 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on May 02, 2022, 01:57:37 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on May 02, 2022, 01:26:33 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on May 02, 2022, 10:13:29 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 01, 2022, 03:54:50 PM
Fair enough. Might I suggest then that werewolves use the terms ironically? As in, "we always known that understanding of pack behavior was rubbish, but it's such a good analogy for control of our abilities we stole it and applied it to our level of control."

I'm using the Greek letters because it's an established trope in modern urban fantasy and I haven't thought about how the jargon came about in-universe.

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 01, 2022, 03:54:50 PMBecause I guarantee otherwise someone will presume it means only the heads of packs can have full control.

While alpha status may make it easier to become a pack leader (particularly if it's a lone alpha who built their own pack of betas by biting/turning muggles), pack leaders are not the only werewolves who can be alphas and vice versa.

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 01, 2022, 03:54:50 PMAs an aside, as our understanding of wolf behavior has changed them from rapacious monsters to hierarchical packs to families that do their best to avoid humans, exploring the "adventuring party" as a true family akin to real wolf packs (versus the high school clique mentality that the alpha/beta/omega understanding fostered) focused on protecting their territory from other hostile supernaturals might be an interesting and mostly unexplored area to explore with an inbuilt reason for party affinity and unity.

Yeah, this is essentially how I imagine that rural werewolf society has developed, whereas urban werewolves are structured more like gangs. The rural werewolves are typically composed of families of hereditary werewolves with the occasional adopted bitten, and their social hierarchical is similar to that of traditional human cultures with leadership positions generally held in accordance with age. Meanwhile, the urban werewolf packs are composed mostly of muggles who have been bitten with the source of the infection coming from a minority of hereditary alphas who are often several generations removed from their werewolf ancestors. At least in the United States, I guess.

What little I've read of your research I like.

That being said...

Making your werewolfs different to make them unique I get and deeply approve.

Making your werewolfs different because "that's not how wolfs act IRLtm!"... It's a game about werewolfs and other non-existent monsters, why would anyone expect or want realismtm in it?

Why would werewolves even act like wolves? They're able to turn into wolves, but they're still human. Or at least abhuman. I would expect them to organize much like humans in similar situations would, which is coincidentally similar to how wolves already organize. So I consider this a non-issue.

QuoteMaking your werewolfs different to make them unique I get and deeply approve.

That's probably not hard given that there's like only three kinds of plots that novels use nowadays: werewolf vs werewolf gang fighting, werewolf vs vampire/wizard/fairy/whatever gang fighting, and werewolf alpha male with effeminate heroine romance.

I'm also not trying to be all that different. My current treatment is essentially a laundry list of modern urban fantasy tropes (which are themselves the old Universal Horror rules with an extra layer of romanticism), with like one or two elements that might resemble WW mechanics.

Humans, in a war situation/environment organize in non-familial hierarchies, same goes for business (but that's just a different type of war). In said hierarchy the one on top is the more competent/stronger/etc.

Why would werewolfs not follow that IF they organize like humans?

So the Alpha would be the stronger/more competent one, but more competent for what? Do werewolfs need help learning to control their inner beast (be it a different spirit, their ID, whatever)? The betas would be the middle of the road and the Omegas the ones not really suited for war for whatever reason.

It could very well be that willingnes to use force to assert the dominance/protect combined with their control is what makes some Alphas.

I didn't say they wouldn't organize that way. That's similar to my own thoughts. Thanks for being so understanding.

In gang warfare, yes you would have alphas at the top and for multiple reasons. They can transform whenever they want and don't usually need to worry about losing control, whereas betas can transform whenever but may transform involuntarily in response to emotional stimuli, and omegas only transform involuntarily under the full moon or at mystical sites. But alphas can exert their animal empathy skills on the inner wolves of other werewolves, meaning that an alpha can tell an omega (particularly ones that alpha turned himself) to change on command back and forth.

This wouldn't really be necessary in hereditary werewolf communities because born werewolves usually awaken talented in beta level because they always had the wolf inside them even if they never knew until it came out. Some bloodlines are so talented that they almost always awaken as alphas, or so cursed that they almost always awaken as omegas.

Tldr; no, but it was liberal (as in classical liberal not the modern Leftist/Woke interpretation of Liberal). Sociological issues such as homosexuality and genderism were freely expressed but there was no virtue signaling like now.

Quote from: Sajuuk on December 21, 2022, 03:00:24 PM
but there was no virtue signaling like now.

yup!

On the one hand their books had stuff like werewolves having gay furry sex, and on the other they published an entire book depicting Romani as magical creatures with powers of thievery linked to purity of blood.

Nowadays they do stuff like introducing a mafia family whose surname is Puttanesca. As in the sauce. This is the equivalent of introducing an Indian family with the surname Chutney or Curry. The book thinks it's clever because the family is stated to have built their wealth by running brothels (the etymology comes from a word meaning "whorish"), but in practice it comes across as cringy, unintentionally comedic, and racist. (For reference, a lot of the seemingly invented jargon in WW games comes from the writers thinking they're being clever by using convoluted esoteric nonsensical etymologies. It doesn't help that they tend to use words that are obscure to American English speakers who make up most of the audience so the absurdity isn't noticed because most readers will think the words were made up by the writers.)

I allways thought it hilariously pathetic that a game about fighting corporate corruption and moral corruption and so on was run by a morrally bankrupt lot who regularly treated their workers like dirt, treated the customers like dirt, and "borrowed" ideas, sometimes whole cloth, from other, and better writers.

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 22, 2022, 12:27:22 PM


IDK, there's a lot of stuff being conflated in this post. Someone writing an RPG book that included one "furry" sex ritual (when was that? Decades ago? Don't recall the details if I even saw it) has nothing to do with drag queens walking around town with their dicks out (did this part actually happen?) reading stories to kids and advocating for genital mutilation. WW books aren't even mainstream or marketed at kids (at least not the old ones we're discussing), but explicitly edgy and for adults.

The incident referenced I believe is covered at this link.

As for the rest, I'll respond to the original question as someone who read WW books as a teenager: To me as a relatively culturally unaware teenager about 1998 onward when I started reading them... They were edy, a bit liberal-ish compared to my parents' standards, and as others have said "shock jock" type behavior comes to mind. The books were super depressing as fuck compared to your standard D&D book, to a young impressionable mind when I read M:tSC, M:tA, and V:tM at 14.

I must say, they also contrasted sharply from the books of the time. They evoked totally different story ideas and themes compared to what I was aware of in the market in the late 90s: D&D, Star Trek, Star Wars & Ars Magica RPG books. Most of what they wrote that I remember was more of the "normal" liberalism, i.e. maybe beating up gay people isn't such a great idea, mixed in with some Christian Bashing which was pretty normal for the time.

Werewolf the Apocalypse was the first RPG I ever GM'ed, and I did so at least once or twice a week, every week for years. It started as Werewolf, but branched it to a World Of Darkness game, but still very changers-based game. My friend ended up getting Vampire and Changeling.

We played it as a bunch of young teens, as male and working class, and it was mostly about cool monster fights. The programming slid off of us like water off a duck's back. In fact, if anything we had a good time poking fun at the proto-SJW parts.

Id say while not woke, they are the kinda 'pre-woke' that absolutely led to this point.
Almost all edgy 90s rebels have been the ones to most utterly embrace modern wokeness. Some get cancelled for being too 'edgy' for our time, but even then none of them ended up recanting or becoming introspective.

So have they always been woke? No, but thats because the term didn't exist back then. But wher ethey setting the stage for woke? Absolutely.