One of the interesting things about this process has been expanding beyond the “core.” I’ve worked on two Werewolf core books myself simply from the cWoD alone, and done at least one translation project (the original Werewolf: The Dark Ages). W20 is an entirely different beast, play on words unintended but unavoidable.
So I’m used to Werewolf working a certain way. There are things that you expect to see in a Werewolf core, and things you don’t. But for this ravening monster, we go long. And I don’t just mean expanding the Gifts and rites. I’m talking things that traditionally you wouldn’t expect to cover in a core, and in ways it almost makes it seem like a different game… depending on how you played it, I guess.
Cases in point? Why certainly, that’s the point of this exercise.
Nature and Demeanor: A prime example. In Werewolf, traditionally Nature and Demeanor have been wholly optional additions. The extra character axes of breed and auspice provided a three-part influence on character archetypes that other cWoD games generally lacked. In fact, one of the main reasons it’s easy for some of us to forget about them is that there just isn’t room for them on the standard character sheet — not without throwing out things like “pack” and “totem,” which really damage what makes the Garou stand out. Werewolf packs are more central to the game line’s identity than coteries and cabals are, I’d wager — a Kindred without a coterie is just getting by, while a werewolf without a pack is a target.
Yet, I think many people like to use them anyway, particularly if you got into the habit with other game lines. It’s an interesting roleplaying concept, certainly: pick two archetypes you identify with, and then have your outside face and your intimate face. Ultimately, it was the Kinfolk that ensured these things have a role in the core book: how do you put in some guidelines to Kinfolk character creation without them?
Camps: Admittedly, camps made it into Revised; or at least a short mention of the most significant. But this monster goes into all the Tribebooks, and creates a massive section involving them. Because of some fervent crusading on our writers’ parts, we even have the Kucha Ekundu, Hakken and Boli Zouhisze — and some Gifts of theirs as well.
Rite of the Cup: This was an interesting bit. Some of you may know this rite intimately; others may never have heard of it before. It’s a Laws of the Night creation, a rite that allows for the sharing of Gnosis. It certainly wasn’t on my radar to include early on; yet I wouldn’t be surprised if there are people reading this blog who never knew it wasn’t in any Werewolf book. A lot of folks came to Werewolf via the LARP scene; it’s the opposite of my experience, so it’s been interesting to account for.
The Lost Tribes: Do I have to elaborate on why this feels peculiar? For ages they simply weren’t relevant; there weren’t a lot of historical chronicles out there, and we liked to focus on the Thirteen. It took a dedicated sourcebook to finally explore them, and now here they are in the back of the book. From the long perspective of Werewolf: The Apocalypse it feels bizarre: but in the sense of a done-in-one, it feels perfectly appropriate.
There are other things in the core that haven’t been there previously, of course. It’s part of the process of updating. Heck, you might even find a new Pentex subsidiary or two. It’s an odd feeling. This is unlike any Werewolf: The Apocalypse core I’ve ever seen, and yet it’s like all of them and then some.
But if that weren’t the case, likely we wouldn’t be doing our jobs right.
Nature and Deneamour have been compulsory in online chats for WtA for as long as I have played in them. There, they serve as a way to gain XP, by acting according to them.
For Lost Tribes, I have two points;
Add the stuff from Past Lives to the White Howler section. Past Lives did a wonderful job at portraying the Howlers before their fall in a positive light and even gave them uncorrupted gifts.
And then the big one; Please, take a look at the Buniyp and try to make them into a sensible tribe. At this moment, they are very much sacrificial lambs who did not do a thing. They were in Australia, they lived there and then European tribes killed them. They had no theme as a tribe, no clear mission, no clear flaws. Nothing, they just sat in Australia, waiting for the War of Tears. Even the Wild West companion, which gave a chance to have the tribe as playable, mostly focused just on the fact that they were victims and gave them no purpose aside from that. It is hard to feel sorry for them, when they really amounted to nothing to begin with.
I’m in firm agreement on the Bunyip; it’s way too late now but they really do need a fundamental rebuild from the ground up.
In their current incarnation they really don’t fit into anything remotely resembling real world Australian mythology or folklore and they’re kind of a non-entity even in the rather odd WW version there of.
And I appreciate that I’ve been bothering Ethan about this for well over a decade so feel free to tell me to STFU, Boss. 🙂
Yeah, the non-entity factor really is what bothers me the most about the tribe. They had little contact with the rest of the Nation, even less than the Pure Ones had in Dark Ages.They do not appear much in fiction, aside from being reminders how the garou failed in Australia.
And they amounted to nothing in the setting, they aided in no great battles. They never had any political schisms with say StarGazers or Hakken. They didn’t even have other flaws but that their kin got kind of screwed in the course of evolution. They most of the time feel really nothing like a garou tribe and more of a placeholder. And they need a rewrite or a perspective piece to really redeem them.
For example, Past Lives made White Holwers really interesting to me by simply taking time to show a NPC with no Wyrm ties and a very solid way to deal with the fall of the tribe that had shades of gray in it.
A friend has also suggested that at the time, perhaps White Wolf’s writers did not realize that the Tazmanian Wolf was not actually a wolf at all and, after realizing that, did some shoe-horning to try to make them fit (with a ritual that allowed them to cross-breed when necessary.) and stuff.
Personally, I would find it easier to understand if the Bunyip were once Garou of real Wolf-blood and all, and followed their kinfolk from South Eastern Asia, only to find that this great land had no Wolves, and had to come up with some means to cross-breed with the local marsupials–giving up some of their identity and connection with the rest of the Garou Nation in the process… then tens of thousands of years later, the Europeans come and… well… the rest is history. In this scenario, the Bunyip’s differences, reasons for excluding themselves from the rest of the Garou, and their “alien-ness” is explained. Sure, it’s not perfect, but it doesn’t conflict much (as far as I know) with the original story too much, and keeps in line with the basic themes and such.
Should this sort of conversation be taken to the forums if we wish to discuss it further? 🙂
Thing is, your suggestion is generally accepted as the way it happened.
However it does not negate the problem that is Buniyp still not doing ANYTHING.
And, I think it would be good to discuss this on the forums, yes ^^
Are the W20 team reading the forums as much as here?
One thing that NEEDS to be included in describing the Bunyip is how they dealt with the total extinction of thylacines from mainland Australia. This happened well before Europeans invaded, and represents a giant failure on the part of the Bunyip. Whether their animal kin were killed by human hunters or dingos or habitat loss/fires or introduced diseases or plain old climate change, it needs to be addressed: how they tried to stop it, how they coped with the results, and the fact that as a tribe, they were NOT healthy by the time the invaders came. They would have been like the Hakken, nearly all homid.
Yeah they are.
And that is one thing that can serve as their weakness; maybe their life in paradise made them lazy and lenient towards their human and thylacine kin. And as a result, they missed the signs that their human kin was killing their animal one, and that other animals were joining in the fun too. And by the time the europeans arrived, the tribe was all ready mostly dead.
That gives them a flaw and a reason why they died, they were given a perfect place to live, but they could not keep it once it started to change.
And maybe, taking a race of Werewolves spiritually designed to work in packs, and turning them into almost-Fera that needed to work alone, was a really dumb idea. Maybe Garou aren’t cut out to be a solitary species and weren’t able to function properly once they’d taken that step.
And maybe Australia wasn’t the paradise they expected, and Aboriginals weren’t the “noble savages in harmony with nature” that some white folks assume they were.
I’m glad to see that some of the stuff on the Lost Tribes are being added, that way if I choose to play a Dark Ages game I have something to referance. Of all of the lines that came out for Dark Ages I think that Werewolf failed the most were it could have been the brightest star. Set in “The Old World” they automatically loose accesss to The Wendigo and Uktena, thus removing us of 2 of the tribes, also denying us access to the Crotan who were in existence at the time as well as the Bunyip due to locations, I think they could have come out with a secondary DA book just for the Americas at the time alone seeing as they had 3 tribes and a group of Fera to play with there. So on top of costing us 2 tribes, they decided to set the game after the fall of the White Howlers, when they could of instead allowed us access to them, giving us the thrill of playing the White Howler tribe when they were still the Warriors of Gaia.
…..sorry that turned into a rant there. Point is I’m glad we’re getting some solid information on them in the core book.
They did make a “Dark Ages: America” book. It was called “Croatan Song.”
And it did a great job of describing the Native American tribes before the coming of the wyrmbringers. I used Croatan Song more often than I used TB: Wendigo while playing a Wendigo Galiard. That book had everything, legends, totems, gifts etc.
Which reminds me, I would love to see the Croatan transfered from CS into W20.
Ethan, I want to thank you for this delightfully insightful post.
Not that I didn’t have it before, but it gives me greater hope for what the W20 book might include, as well as its scope when it comes to the mechanical, thematic, and setting inclusions.
Werewolf: the Apocalypse is not just a “In our world, but different”, but really encompasses “In our world, and a few others”, and trying to put all of that into the game with its setting and mechanics and story is going to be a challenge to fit into 530 pages, and the choices for what goes in and gets left out of the Core W20 book is not a choice I envy you for.
With almost 10 years past the last edition of W:tA was produced, and nearly 15 years of publications to build the setting, W:tA really did grow and change over the years–not just in metaplot, but mechanically, thematically and with retconned revisions that sometimes wiped out entire parts of the setting/history with the new editions and “corrections” to put the game back into its place. Not only that, but there were additional materials written by different authors, for different purposes, in different game lines that became a part of W:tA by affiliation, even if W:tA, Dark Ages, Wild West, and the likes were different lines that varied in theme, scope, mechanics and more. Some of those “differences” make including things from them a poor fit for the W:tA line in general, while others introduced themes and ideas that fit more beautifully, I’m sure, even if they went against the pre-determined core rules.
I cannot express how excited I am that all of the Tribes will be brought under one book, both living and dead. By stating the “Lost Tribes” will be included, I really hope that this means that greater information and mechanics will be given for the White Howlers, giving them the “full treatment”. This IS the 20th Anniversary, and I’d be more than happy to see them treated like the dead Clans of V20 with their information all given in past-tense, but I really think that this is the time to give the fans what they’ve been asking for since ’92. 😀
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Unfortunately, I never really got into most of the supplementary books, so I can’t suggest anything else that came from them that I really think needs to be in the book… well, other than perhaps including a copy of the Umbral map of the Realms, and the glyphs from The Silver Record? Anything else, well, I’ve started a thread on the forums under Onyx Path, so perhaps there may be more input added there as well to keep an eye on.
I think the glyphs should be in the appendix. They’re an essential part of the aesthetics (and larp) of W:tA
You’re right about changes Torakhan, rules between first and revised edition are very different, so much so infact that even second and second revised have issues with one another at times.
I’d wish the mechanics of core rules for W:tA to be the same as in Vampire 20 in order to better facilitate crossovers that so many of us forumites do regularly. Or failing that, at least a section, note or what ever can be fitted in to give some info on handling them.
There are plenty of elements, that were not in the Core Rules that I would like to see in W20, among them are:
– Learning/Teaching – Even when there isn’t a instruction ability included in W20, it would be nice to offer different approaches of how a werewolf learns certain abilities. Like, if you want to get on with your story have the players learn stuff without the need for downtime or an instructor. If you want an approach where the characters have to train rather than only spend XP have them the instructor roll Manipulation + the ability taught versus 10 minus Intelligence of the student for each week that is used mainly for training. Successes determine the number of XP one may spend on the ability in question (once it is enough to raise it, the new level may be bought). Self-Training is done with Wits or Intelligence or something like that. Also Axis Mundi had different approaches towards Gift-learning and I’d like to see these alternatives also included. For, all to often, people state “change the rules, if you don’t like them” in any discussion, but all to often the books don’t present variations that are adequate.
Also, MET had some information on compensation a student would give to his teacher for his time an effort. I would like to see some examples included about that too.
Also MET restricted certain Rites to the rank a garou had and while that seems a little harsh some guidelines and some exceptions to those guidelines would be nice regarding what Rites are appropriate to learn for a given rank or certain auspice.
– Character Creation for cubs would be nice. Alternating systems on character creation would also be nice, especially in regards to Rage/Gnosis/Willpower. I doesn’t have to be the all XP creation I advocate, but I shouldn’t be so hard to include HeavyArms suggestion to make the creation a bit like Orpheus. It was discussed in:
http://forums.white-wolf.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=56883
– Social stuff about Renown and Rank – The information presented in PGttG and ST:Handbook rev. That includes the “If nobody saw it, did it happen” box about renown and the information about sensing rank, pretending to be of another rank and also the possibility to trick, cajole, blackmail a spirit into giving you a gift not yet available by rank, as well as the warning to the ST that something like that should be an exception and that gift levels are for game balance.
– Penumbra – I like the Umbra revised statement about daylight in the penumbra by daytime and a nightsky with appropriate illumination during night. It comes more natural to me, it makes more sense, even if the sun isn’t seen in the sky, and it is way better to LARP.
Spirits – I would love to see more stressed out, that they represent the soul of the land and that therefore cat spirits would live in an area where cats are usually or at least were some time ago. I didn’t like the “if an animal is killed, a spirit is created there and remains in the umbra until it is reborn”-stuff for shamanistic spirits shouldn’t be animal wraiths.
Also, I would like if gift descriptions would read “..can be taught by a spirit of this or that aspect like an A or a B spirit.” Therefore keeping options open.
I already read somewhere that spirits combat is revised again. I wanted to write my one take on that in the forums, and I’ll late post a like here. I certainly appreciate this, for even the errata version didn’t make much sense, regarding game balance and approachability.
Camps – Some camps are real institutions or club like organisations, others are just philosophies. I think they would make a great stuff, if they were in the Appendix, but an all to brief descriptions (like in Player’s Guide 2n Edition) was not really helping to get a feeling for them or what they meant to be. So, if they are included, they should have a decent description each.
Tribes – I’d like to see some cultural information on the tribes that was missing from TBs before.
– What is the tribes predominant believe for an afterlife, if any? Is there Walhalla or do they just die or are they reborn or is there Heaven. Obviously Gets might see that differently from Christian Fianna or Stargazers.
– What is their take on Ancestors/Past Live? Past Live makes sense for Stargazers, since their culture is somewhat tied to rebirth. Uktena and Wendigo might see all the great figures of their tribe as Ancestors, while Get and Silverfang might be limited to their own Bloodline, due to their focus on heritage.
– What are their burial rites like, if they have any?
I think that is something that the different tribes should have different opinions on and that can be a nice diversity to the tribes.
Garou Calender – I also would like to see a somewhat condensed version of Rage across the Heavens combined with the Storyteller’s Handbook (1st Edition) annual tribal rites. Also the other ceremonies and festivities would be nice if presented in such a context, and not just as a type of Rites.
That was all I had on top of my head. Really hoping to see some drafts in google docs or something, to comment on…
Good points Heinrich. I think they should also put in a short note on tribal justice and common punishments in a given tribe as well.
I’m pretty sure that CoG way of doling out punishments would differ significantly from the way a Get would handle it.
Teaching skills and gifts had some blurbs in revised and player’s guide while the skill it self with accompanying mechanics was presented in the player’s guide as a secondary skill. So I’m confident it will be present in W20
Thanks.
And you are right, some words on how the different tribes see justice, redemption, rehabilitation and punishment would be a nice addition, too.
Thanks for the link to my thread. My thing making it into W20 would be so awesome… even though I wouldn’t have even thought it possible given the way people didn’t want that sort of thing coming into V20
White Wolf products (besides adventures) always seemed to be about laying down the overall setting and leaving all the options and detail to the STs. As such they often only mentioned some possible alternatives, but seldom detailed one. With W20 I feel there is room for that and the starting amounts of characters have always been a thing that bothered me, any others of my troupe.
And while we changed to a full XP character creation your approach fits with the existing creation yet smooths the felt unbalance. And, really, having the line “Starting Gnosis: 5” with the lupus changed to “Classic Creation: Starting Gnosis 5; Alternative Creation: +0 Rage, +3 Gnosis, +0 Willpower” is not going to add that much words to the overall word count.
So, you’re welcome.
I don’t envy your task at all, Ethan. The problem is that a lot of the things that fans love about WtA AREN’T things that should really be included in a Core book. For instance, the Fera. I definitely enjoyed most of the breed books, but tend to think they should be left out of W20, other than a brief mention. But then again, should W20 really even be considered a “core” book, or simply a compilation of everything that was great about W20? If trying to recreate the the “feel” of the initial awesomeness of WtA, though, I think most of the peripheral stuff that doesn’t pertain directly to the Garou should be left out. To me, that includes the Lost Tribes. A lot of people love them, but I think that stems from people thinking that they are “extra cool” because they aren’t around anymore. Tell people that something is extinct, and people automatically want to either bring them back to life or set a chronicle back when they weren’t. There’s plenty of material to create a unique experience without detailing the lost tribes. But again, are you trying to recreate the quintessential WtA experience, or simply give fans exactly what they want? Tough call.
My overall guideline for this is “We have one book.” Okay, there might be more books coming forth after this one: but I’m doing this book as if we have one. So that means I want to cover just about everything Werewolf I can possibly jam in, and that does mean prioritizing, say, Nature and Demeanor over playably detailed Fera.
There are a lot of tough choices going on, though, you’re very right. Werewolf was already a monster of a book, with much more material than the heroin-chic-slim Vampire, and when you add more to it, it becomes a hulking Hispo of a brute.
V20 was a monster book… I am thinking W20 is going to be a Crinos!!
Can’t wait to see what the rewards are for the W20 Kickstarter! Also, Ethan, any chance of a “Grand Moot” this year instead of a Grand Masquerade?
Any chance to have a W20 Companion?
Any chance to have all W20 deluxe products in a brownish wild leather-like style?
Stupid me. Read, but apparently didn’t understand right away what was meant with the “we have one book” guideline.
Still, a brownish leather deluxe version would be nice for W20.
I’m seeing some problems with that romanization of the Chinese Glass Walkers name. Boli is fine and means “Glass”, but you run into snags with the “Walkers” part.
Zouhisze = walk + sound that isn’t used in mandarin + two other syllables (si and e in pinyin) that don’t provide much to work with and don’t give you the characters you’d need to actually make it mean what’s intended.
Zousizhe = walk + secret + those who do something. This is the one you want.
Ah, thank you! It’s an easy one to mix up for us pure English-speakers. I’ll make sure we use the right one in the book proper.
I was chatting about it with some people on an Onyx Path forum thread a few months back. Someone mentioned a romanization alternate to the one presented in most of the sources I had on hand, and it turned out, everything in it tumbled out readily and smoothly. Just glad that I could help with my comparatively meager knowledge (only two non-sequential semesters of Mandarin), access to online tools, and vast amounts of free time..
Yes a bazillion times! Please use Boli Zousizhe, not the other spelling. Several of the words in Hengeyokai stuff are messed up, and this was one that always bugged me.
Romanizing anything from Chinese, Korean or Japanese isn’t just slap b + c and add a because the pictogram are fundamentally different from alphabets I.E they don’t actually convey spelling.
And this can lead to all kinds of weirdness such as having your business card say “pineapples in a can” instead of your given name, if you try straight out transliteration from Latin alphabet to pinyin.
The expansion of the WTA world is exciting. I hope that this is a pointless caution: Just be careful.
I was reading the Gangrel sourcebook (first edition) and it talks about Lupines and Rom. And stereotypes and how Gangrel doesn’t have a real unifying theme.
And really I don’t get a better feel for Gangrel than I had before because there are like 6 pages (some with illustrations) about gangrel.
In other words the Gangrel sourcebook wasn’t really about GANGREL.
So, make sure that the most essential stuff gets fully covered (umbra, main clans, auspex, main adversaries etc.,) before you make a treatise on Bunyip [especially since Bunyip has such a limited interaction/timespan {they’re all alone then they get overrun within a few generations}].
Again (to avoid pointless flames) I’m VERY excited that things like Bunyip get expanded [I’d kinda like to be in a ressurrecting Bunyip campaign, myself].
I’d like to see a full two page splat of the Black Spiral Dancers, Skin Dancers & Siberahk.
I personally think the Hakken are more of a Tribe than just a Shadow Lord Camp so I’d like the same treatment with them too.
Yeah. As of revised they are presented more tribe like than before. And I find that okay.
I missed the Blood red crest house of the silverfangs in Hegeyokai, though. But all in all, the Garou of the Far East should make one Appendix-Chapter, but not really fill much space in W20.
Nature and Demeanor: this is essential despite being optional. Garou are characters just like any other supernatural inhabitng cWoD and deserve to be fleshed out in ways that transcend stat changes for different forms, in this case: personality. Just because it’s on the third page of Mr. Gone’s 4-pages character sheets doesn’t mean it isn’t as important as it is in other cWoD games where Nature and Demeanor is listed on the front page. Plus, Nature and Demeanor are sometimes of great help when creating a character and fleshing him or her out or just simply sticking to a given concept thus avoiding the problem of “weird stats” (“Ok, I guess Firearms won’t have 3 dots considering this guy’s Nature is Pacifist”).
Camps: considering they’re fully fleshed out in Tribebooks I think there won’t be a problem if their section in W20 will omit something about them.
Rite of the Cup: cool. I always considered MET LARPs to take place in the same cWoD so what would be the point of not using a Rite featured there in W20 (with Storyteller mechanics, of course)? It isn’t like there’s a silver tablet declaring precisely how many Rites Garou know anyway.
The Lost Tribes: yes, please. Many fans want it and it’s WtA’s 20th anniversary. It’s time to do it and do it right. Historical chronicles, alternate timelines and umbral realms will really benefit from this.
Plus, Ethan, I applaud you for sticking to the “We have one book” approach. I love the Fera, but honestly this book should deal with the Garou. However, that doesn’t mean some of us (me included) wouldn’t want to see them in another book if W20 turns out to be a success (and I don’t need an End Time Rite to know that it will 🙂 ). Quite the contrary.
P.S. Love the hint about new Pentex subsidiaries. Can’t wait to see which contemporary real-world brand-name companies you’ve decided to “pentexify.” 🙂
Just because it’s on the third page of Mr. Gone’s 4-pages character sheets doesn’t mean it isn’t as important as it is in other cWoD games where Nature and Demeanor is listed on the front page.
Speaking of Gone’s sheets; the first time I saw them I thought they were WW-made 😀
Which reminds me: Gone’s sheets are missing crafts even though its a core skill in revised. I wonder what kind of sheets we’re getting for W20?
Ekhm… I’ve said Nature and Demeanor in WtA IS important. Don’t know where you got that part where I was implying otherwise.
the three lines are direct quote from you man. I f*ck*d the quotes and couldn’t change it.
Oops… Sorry for that. Peace, man.
It is great to see W20 shaping up, as soon as it is announced I expect to buy two or three copies!
This, hands down is my most looked forward to 20th edition Onyx Path is doing, anything else is just extra, but about W20, I am chuffed to bits.
Alexis
*smiles*
Rite of the Cup! My SF theurge lupus’ favorite rite ever. “Cup, cup, you want cup? Gnosis time all. Love you.” Glad to see it will be in W20 in some form.
I can’t wait for this to come out.
I’ve never used Nature and Demeanor in Werewolf, and always felt they were yet-another level of abstraction in a game where your characters are more significantly defined by ones auspice, tribe and breed. There are already methods to regain Willpower in W:tA. Why tack on N&D to Werewolf just because it’s in Vampire, Mage, etc.?
I was always surprised by the Rite of the Cup when I ran Garou games for the Camarilla, and I believe it completely distorted the players view of Gnosis. I believe it’s impact is seriously diminished when you can simply turn to others to top up your own Gnosis. Like Rage, it’s best presented as a finite resource which returns through a limit numbers of way.
Lost Tribe and Camps are something that I’d normally say don’t need to be highlighted much in a W:tA core rulebook, but W20 is a different animal. I have a hard time not seeing the camps in a book that is supposed to be the kitchen sink of rules for Werewolf.
some of the umberal realms that people used to import from mage were always entertaining too. glasswalkers wandering round the digital web and the like.
always liked how mage and werewolf were the most crossover friendly games.
also, i’m sure someone out there must like samuel haight
“Damn, my cigar ashes are getting all over my books. Where’d I put that damned ash tray?” – The one guy who misses Samuel Height
With camps, there are also the ‘fallen camps’. I’ve always liked them, because they bring fort a dark side of the tribe, how far can this tribes’ ideals be pushed until it gets tainted.
These are the ones I know of;
Black Furies:???
Bone Gnawers: Maneaters (eat humans, cannibal cult)
Children of Gaia: Bringers of Eternal Peace (submit to the wyrm to end all suffering)
Fianna: ??
Get of Fenris: Swords of Heimdall (Racial purists)
Glass Walkers: Cyber Dogs (to weaver, machine monsters)
Red Talons: Dying Cubs ( Torture humans to ‘heal’ gaia)
Shadow Lords: ???
Silver Fangs: ???
Silent Striders: Eaters of the Dead (Brain eating cultists who seek knowledge)
StarGazers: Ouroboans (Understand the Wyrm to free it).
I’d love to see the “comics” in W20 but this takes up quite a few pages – As pointed out from the post there is a hell of a lot to put in the book already.
As the vampire kickstarter was such a success I’d love to see not only a companion for w20, but a fera book and a leather bound collective “comic” book too – perhaps then some of all the things over the 15 year run wouldn’t have to be squeezed in so much.
Part of the complaint about the changing breeds book revised wasn’t that it wasn’t good but too much was either left out or had to be squeezed in (compared to each Fera getting it’s own book previously). I’d hate to see something similar with W20 – although respect to those who have to make the decision to what does get left out, it’s no easy task.
As much as I would love to see the Fera get into the W20 book (Go Bastet!), I really think that they deserve a full treatment as well, and a W20 “Changing Breeds” book, or adding it to the W20 Companion would be the best place for them.
I expect them to not only be mentioned, but have perhaps some very sparse mechanics/write-ups in the W20, but with only 530 pages to fit in everything for Werewolf: the Apocalypse, you’re just not going to get a minimum 100 pages of Fera into that book and still detail everything else for Werewolf. *sigh*
.
So I’m hoping for Fera to be in the W20 Companion, or maybe a KickStarter for a W20 Changing Breeds to see if the support is out there for such a big book. I know I’d be happy with either. 🙂
And I am torn on the comic idea too–2nd Edition’s comic was great in that it helped to explain the world of Werewolf: the Apocalypse in its mysticism and spirituality, along with its “Welcome to the War, Kid” ideas that are important to W:tA. However, W20 is a different beast, and if it takes 20 pages out of the 350, that’s really more pages than one might wish to see. MAYBE it could be added to the PDF though?
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And maybe that’s another option–perhaps the PDF can include some superfluous things like “Glyphs”, “Comic”, “4-Page Character Sheet” and other things that would take up page counts in the physically limited book, but aren’t absolutely necessary in the hard-copy book itself?
Nature and Demeanor : No, there are a lot of things about werewolf psychology. It’s not important. An option.
Camps : YES ! Camps add depth and complexity to the Tribes ! In W20 I want to see a lot of background about Tribes.
Rite of the Cup : I don’t know… maybe.
Lost Tribes : Werewolf needs historic depth. The lost tribes are very important to the game mood : Croatan Song and Past Lives were very important for our player group ; they add legends and History lessons to the werewolves. The Apocalypse has his roots in the past. This game is not a game about “here and now”, but about “we do not repeat our past errors, we have to learn the Garou Nation’s History”.
Pentex. Yes ! More sicky Pentex !
So, some thoughts from me on this stuff:
Nature and Demeanor – I’ve never been the biggest fan of them, but I don’t hate them. If there’s room, toss them in, because enough people do like it. I actually like the idea of just putting in Nature and leaving Demeanor out, but that’s not really important to W20.
Camps – I am kinda hit or miss on the Camp thing. I like the idea of expanding on the philosophies of the Tribes by having Camps to expand things. What I don’t like about them is that they get crunch. Having a unique Rite or two is tolerable if it makes sense (though I’d prefer them to be Tribal Rites that the Camp happens to be the main users of) but Gift lists for them usually bothers me. The Camp Gifts themselves are usually as good as any other set of Gifts, but I think that it is odd that they’d have Gifts rather than just having Tribal Gifts they really like to use.
Rite of the Cup – No big deal to me. If the LARPers love it, put it in. Gaining Gnosis isn’t so hard in the TT rules that being able to share it with a Rite is such a big thing. I’m pretty sure there’s a Gnosis battery Fetish/Talen somewhere that Theurges could use to transfer Gnosis around.
Lost Tribes – Nothing new to say here. They’re worth putting in because they’re a good part of the game. Though giving the Bunyip more fluff as previously mentioned would be interesting. I’m not sure I’d want to see White Howler stats.
I’m sure W20 is gonna be awesome and a HUGE book, looking forward to it and to “The Grand Moot”!!
Glad to see these things are going to be included! Very good.
Nature and Demeanor: Yes they are optional, but having the option available is good. If there is room, I say include them.
Camps: Having them at least described is good, particularly the fallen camps Ana Mizuki mentioned, and I’m especially glad to see you’ll include Hakken (who are more of a separate tribe who happen to share a totem with another), Boli Zousizhe (please remember to spell it right!), and Kucha Ekunda. For the others, though, I don’t feel a need for whole lists of camp Gifts. A description of philosophy, activities, and relations to other groups would better use the space, along with truly defining rites like Rite of Dormant Wisdom. The exceptions again are the three regional “camps” mentioned above.
Lost Tribes: Yes please! 🙂 I do think that real character-creation rules, for historical campaigns, should be in there. And the Gifts from Past Lives should go in. And as others have said, the Bunyip need a facelift. I understand that there won’t be any radical changes like making them into Fera, but explaining how they operated, how they behaved, what they did, how they lived, and recognizing that thylacines weren’t wolves or even pack hunters, really is necessary to make seem like something that ever was ALIVE.
Overall, I think that the Stargazers, Hakken, Siberakh, and Black Spiral Dancers should each get the same page count as the main tribes. Giving the same page count to the Boli Zousizhe, Kucha Ekunda, Skin Dancers and Lost Tribes would be great IF there is room, but doesn’t seem as important. I do sincerely hope that each lost tribe gets a big fullpage illustration of some kind.
Fera: I love some of the Fera more than the Garou, but I’ve reluctantly concluded that W20 won’t have the room necessary to give them the space they deserve. I think that a paragraph or two about each, what they did for Gaia and their relations to Garou, are enough for W20. If there is a W20 companion, however, I hope they get updated rules, errata, and more fleshing-out than PGttCB was able to provide.
Umbral Realms: I really hope there is room to give at least some detail about these, and about the Penumbra, Deep Umbra, and other Deep Umbra (with a sidebar explaining the terminology since it differs between Mage, Werewolf, and Mokole!).
Glyphs, if there is room, would be excellent. Maybe there won’t be room for a complete dictionary of every glyph ever put into any Werewolf book (an idea for the Companion? A separate pdf-only dictionary?) But the most important/common should be included.
I agree with Heinrich Krebs about including all the stuff they mentioned.
Pentex: New subsidies is a neat idea, but before adding them, please give at least one paragraph to each that has already been published, to collect them in one place. Pentex is such a major antagonist in modern days, and it would be a shame not to include such a “library.”
I’m very fond of this “all in one book” thing. This is exactly what I would want out of a 20th Anniversary Edition. I know what I would want to include in it…
Nature and Demeanor: Call me a heretic, but I don’t like them and me and my friends really didn’t include them much in our Werewolf games. Sure, they were on the character sheets we used, but never served our games, not even as roleplaying guidelines (as their write-ups did not really offer any help, like roleplaying hints or more than one option to regain willpower… I like the way “Exalted 2nd” dealt with the concept by giving characters Motivations, much more and it was more functional). If there are people who really love them and want them included: Go ahead, but don’t let them take much precious space that could be used for more relevant things, like i.e. …
Alternate and Lost Tribes: Oh, yeah. I hope you go all in on that one. I’d say I think the Lost Tribes are more important than tribal variations like the Hakken or even the Siberakh (beeing tied to the Silver Fangs in some way IIRC), as they are a big part of Garou history. “Past Lives” and “Croatan Song” (especially “Croatan Song”!) were great books, as they gave historical context to all the Garou Nation stuff. I always liked the Lost Ones. And yeah, maybe they have this exotic “They aren’t around anymore? Cool, I wanna play the last of their kind!” flair, that many players will jump at. But that shouldn’t be the point. If someone likes to play one, he should have the option to and if everybody on the table is fine with that, then it should be okay. You don’t have to provide the option AT THE TABLE, just because it is IN THE BOOK. I know storytellers who don’t allow Lupus, Red Talon or Wendigo characters and they are IN THE BOOK, too. They should be included due to the simple fact that they are Garou Tribes and that they open up possibilities to play historical campaigns or delve into Garou history.
Tribes like the Hakken or the Siberakh are less important, I think, but if there is space, they should be included for the reasons of having a greater diversity for the werewolf world population. I’d like if they were included. As V20 has all the clans (I think), W20 should include all the tribes.
Camps: I always liked the idea about different philosophical factions in the Garou tribes, so if you want them in, put them in. While it is true, that they need a more decent write-up than they got in the players guide, I think one page would be enough to present them… an even that might be too much space. I also see, that they don’t need lots of new gifts to make them special, maybe 5 (one for each Rank level) would be enough – and maybe one or two new Rites. They have access to tribal gifts and rites anyway. What I would like to see are one or two historical camps or even Garou secret societies (which could be cross-tribal) and hooks for the tribal camps to put them straight into your stories.
Fera: Yes, I love them too (Corax for the win!), but they should really be left out of the book. They are far too complex to cut down their write-ups to the minimum. I think they should be mentioned in the paragraph about the War of Rage, and then there should be a section in the antagonists chapter detailing each breed with a few generic stats or something. They are not important for Garou Culture and probably would need their own book.
Umbral Realms: Hmm, I was fine with the stuff presented in the core book and the revised storytellers and players guide back then. I wouldn’t not need much more information to use the umbra in my chronicles. Yet, I would appreciate more detailed information about how the metaphysics of the umbra actually works and what kinds of danger Garou could face travelling to the Dark or Deep Umbra. For me, the Umbra never was a place to stay, but something Garou made a short trip too, because it was too dangerous. I would love to see information about how city umbra and rural umbra workings look and FEEL differently. I also think discussing the various kinds of spirits in detail is much more important than discussing the realms. But that is my opinion. There should be Rules for bartering with spirits or even force them into teaching gifts. I also think there should be a comprehensive ruleset for “customizing” your pack’s Totem Avatar. I always found the options given a little too limiting, but maybe that is just me.
Garou Nation stuff: I agree with Heinrich Krebs in that there should be room for Garou Law and maybe even the revised Players Guide stuff about official positions within the Garou Nation (with a strictly optional view towards that). Also the Renown system should be covert, including Garou etiquette and feigning Rank.
Pentex: Yay, more subsidiaries would be great! (Apple and Facebook being obvious choices… 😉 )
I was thinking about renown. Storyteller’s Companion had a large list of sample renown losses and gains. While I liked that, a little more fluff around renown gain and loss would be nice.
Also, the temp renown, Punishment Rites and Rite of Accomplishment should get a little revamp:
-> Remove temp renown from Character Sheet. Make it a trait the ST keeps book on in secret.
-> State that temp renown should range from minus 15 to plus 15.
-> If the temp renown bar is >15 or Players should ask NPCs for the Rite of Accomplishment if they think their renown is about 10.
-> Difficulty for the Rite of Accomlishment should be 15-temp Renown. Minimum 3, Maximum 8. If temp renown is 7 or lower, no NPC would try the rite, but if cajoled or something, the Rite would still fail.
-> Punishment Rites should all allow for removal of perm. Renown and (therefore) Rank. The choice which Rite to perform should be adequate for the Behaviour to punish not the desired rule mechanics effect.
-> Rite of Accomplishment or Punishment Rites set temp Renown to 0.
Also, all the Info found in MET Laws of the Wyld about how to roleplay a Rite of Accomplishment should be included as a sample of how it is done often (not necessarily in all septs or among tribes). The system found there has merit, even if the other offices and Elders involved are NPCs and not PCs (like in LARP), it is a excellent example of how to incorporate sept society into game mechanics and therefore further social play.
Crap.
No edit.
Somehow a part of my post was eaten by a Firefoy Troll or something. It should read:
-> If the temp renown bar is >15 or less then -15 NPCs should come forward and force Rites of Accomplishment or Punishment Rites at the next Moot.
> Players should ask NPCs for the Rite of Accomplishment if they think their renown is about 10. If NPCs refuse they might openly challenge.
I’ve actually used the MET rules as source a few times for TT, in order to get a better understanding of how some things are done “in act”.
As we are talking about the core, not sure where to put this but I think the Fetish rules need to be revised and there should be a spread on creating fetishes as well as a bigger list of examples.