Thoughts on a Werewolf game
So ideas about a PbtA Werewolf (inspired (not emulating) by Werewolf the Apocalypse) game come to me here and there and someday i will start working on this in earnest. Recently Johnstone Metzger helped me to get a better grip on how to pair basic moves and forms but this leads me to another dilemma.
Transformation
My gut feeling is that constant transforming between forms is not interesting really. You have different kinds of bodies and that is cool. But if you change them on the drop of a hat they become interchangeable and your choice of form doesn’t really matter.
One could handle this with a
When you transform…
type move but that is not the right thing either i think. Werewolfs failing to transform sound lame. I want to be a fan of them.
So how would you feel about a mechanic that reads a bit like this:
When your character enters a new scene, tell us what form you are in (Were, Wolf, or Werewolf). You may change your shape once per scene but then you are looked into that form for the rest of it.
This gives you some flexibility while still making it an important choice. Is my gut feeling wrong in this?
Further ramblings: (you can ignore it from here if you want)
On playbooks.
WtA gives us the Auspices. In a sense those are playbooks since they give you a specific role in the social order of a Werewolf tribe. However, binding your social role to time of birth is not a great way to organise a society… But i am digressing.
What i am actually much more intrigued by is players drafting moves that relate to specific roles and responsibilities in the tribe as well as abilities. Allowing you to not be just a leader or a shaman but be a shaman that leads through their spirit given wisdom etc. Allowing you to mix and match while still distributing interesting bits between the players. The main reason for trying to do it that way is that i am highly interested in a draft system as in Marshall Miller’s Lapins and Lairs (not sure if it is in The Warren still).
The main downside to doing that is that you loose the easy accessibility and char generation that playbook pamphlets provide. The downside is the more rigid structure in the beginning.
I guess choosing the more flexible over the rigid structure would say a lot about the Werewolf society. So i need to figure that out…
Thanks for listening.
Do the characters have control over when they turn into werewolves? If not, the players absolutely should lack that control too.
When would the characters transform? Triggers in the environment, reactions to other players, a buildup of emotions? All of those would call for different mechanics (I would guess GM moves, player moves and some kind of token system for those three). If the transformation is important (I can’t see it not being important for werewolves), there should be a mechanic linked into it directly, that represents how the transformation works.
So many thoughts…
The moment of transformation is important. To do it, do it. Start scenes in whatever form you want, change when you want.
Except, like any reflex, it’s not something any of us can fully control… Consider making a GM move Start the Transformation. It’s a soft move that says you’re going to be in an inconvenient form soon, what do you do?
I’d say skip it. The white wolf werewolf games really just have a mechanic for shape changing as a road bump (a skill check because in that type of rpg everything has to be a skill check).
The only time it maters is in combat, any other time they just try again. So if you want to do something while under fire that makes sense, but otherwise is it really important or add to the Drama?
Marshall Miller that is a great idea!
Kevin Farnworth Yea in Werewolf the Apocalypse players have full control over the shape change. The difficulty (which is more mechanical than story ) comes in how far down the shift they want to go from where they are (wolf -> dire wolf -> werewolf -> neanderthal -> human), and even shifting into your birth form is free with no roll. Most of the time players just keep rolling till they do it, and most GMs don’t care if it isn’t in combat or the GM is a jerk (IMO).
That is why I find this boring and unnecacary
I do like the idea though that Marshall Miller had of making the ‘force a shift’ a GM move, though I would instead handle it as a GM Move of ‘interfere with a shift’. As the only really time Garou are forced to shift is when they rage and loose control.
You don’t need extra mechanics, just leave it like that.
“I shift to Hispo”, “Well you can’t seem to make it that far. You end in Garou. What do you do?”
Tim Franzke Do you want to maintain the idea, like in W:TA, that after you start changing you are in control of your form? Do you want a more traditional werewolf mythology where your control is incomplete or even absent (this is something that happens to you)? Do you want something that follows some new mythology (e.g. a game about reincarnation where you tell parallel stories about your character as a human and as an animal in a past life)?
In general it’s about the cool and spiritual parts of being a werewolf. The curse of it might come up but is not a focus.
I’d love to hear more about what you’re shooting for.
Would you want a move to see how far along the path you can move? Like, 10+ you can move all the way across, 7-9 you move partway, 6- you move partway and there’s some negative consequence, like the GM picks what form? And then you can shift into your birth form at any time.
I don’t want this kind of move.
I’d rather have people commit to a specific form for a scene and have to deal with the limitations of that. Also i don’t need better wolf and better human form. They are not needed at all.
Marshall Miller i am not really sure yet. I love a lot of the Werewolf the Apocalypse mythology. The whole Wyld, Weaver, Wyrm conflict deeply resonates with me. But that is not 100% what i am shooting for.
I really don’t know yet what i am shooting for. So keep any type of questions coming for it helps me to form an opinion.
What i like and want is
Pack politics, different tribes/factions with different ideas and philosophies, a spirit world and werewolfs as protectors, the awesome might of an unleashed werewolf, not clear good and evil but different extremes on certain topics, a bit of magic and rites, ties to the seasons and holidays (maybe reflected in something akin to a BWHQ trait vote)
Tim Franzke, I think you are on to a great start …. I curious though your desired outcome for fiction. Can things can bad? If so, when and how?
I think the worst thing that can happen to you is getting expelled from your clan. You can survive as a lone wolf (see what i did there) but you loose your spiritual centre as you can not really do the proper ceremonies.
I don’t know exactly where this is coming from but i feel like these rites and community are an important part of this for me. Might be because this community aspect is what i like about Apocalypse World.
You constantly have to struggle between the world of spirits, man and werewolfs. That seems interesting to me.
Johnstone Metzger on the moves and what i use as a framework to go forward:
“In wolf form you have go aggro, run away/eye on the door, and read a sitch. In human form you have seduce/manipulate, read a person, and use human technology. In werewolf form you have seize by force and bend bars/lift gates, plus people are afraid. Plus you can use act under fire in each form, but maybe it uses a different stat in each.”
Have you looked into Werewolf the Forsaken?
By suggestion Tim Franzke is that you abandon WtA all together and go the route that Paul Riddle did with Undying. He removed specific clans and went with the essence of the game.
Actually, I think it would be cool if you used his mechanics and went dice-less as well.
I looked a bit into Forsaken but it didn’t resonate with me on a “mythological level”.
The coolest part for me, as mentioned before, besides being cool werewolfs, was the conflict of the trinity.
I don’t want to copy that or force that mythology into the game. But it is neat. Because forsaken is lacking that it was never interesting to me.
Now i don’t think Clans are an integral part to this game going forward but it has some parts i like. The pack is much more important. And the pack will be more then the player characters.
As far as going diceless and these things… If the game needs it i could go for it. But this will show itself in the work going forward. I don’t think i need to go diceless just to go diceless.
What about pack roles like Sagas of the Icelanders? If you make it about being a pack rather than a mixed group, then you can make pack creation a group thing. What are your pack’s rituals? What is your pack’s territory? Who plays what roles in your pack? It could play out kind of like Durance where creating your pack also creates a compelling situation for them.
Pack creation as a group thing was something i was thinking about yes. Otherwise i am not really sure what you mean with the “like Sagas” thing. Creating their own rituals would be interesting but hard to do.
I have too many ideas that probably won’t match what you’re going for. I’ll just leave this oracle to spark your imagination.
Oracle: The Warriors, Kino’s Journey, Wolf’s Rain, Monster’s Inc., Ghost/Echo, Jumpers, Lady Blackbird, Homeward Bound.
Interesting. I never was too big a fan of Apocalypse and mostly liked the Shadow from Forsaken. Maybe Werewolves aren’t my thing. But I will follow this.
My thought for a change mechanic would be a move that triggered the Beast or Rage or whatever you call it at a failure. So new form but more animalistic or evil or whatever fits.
You could also use a Rage damage track. With each change it could tick up and then turn the Werewolf into a monster.
If you wanted to play up the regeneration powers of werewolfs Rage could be the only damage track and going berserk the worst thing.
Thought I had is that being unable to change until the next scene could be the (or one of the) 7-9 results of a move. Others might be you retain some facets of your previous form or you end up in a form somewhere between your initial firm and your desired form. This touches on the halfway forms (which I agree are uninteresting on their own) and also the piecemeal transformation lore.
Edit: sorry I missed your earlier comment saying you weren’t into the halfway transformation move. I think free transformation once per scene would work just fine especially if you can be flexible with how you define a scene. When you have some time to catch your breath and control your rage or something.
I think the limit on shapechanging is neat. If you go with scenes though, you probably want to push the scene framing and tracking time in scenes pretty heavily, though. White Wolf games tended to be a bit half-assed in this regard, and players could easily revert back to the “exploring the dungeon” style of time passing.
I think only shifting once per scene is too limiting, but I love the GM moves that affect shifting. Leave the players the freedom to choose their form and the problem of keeping it.
I also love the idea of creating a pack at the beginning of the game. Are you thinking of making social roles more/less defined by a single move, or more than one move like a CC? Maybe you could allow certain social positions to bring different things to the table. I forget what it is called, but there’s some sort of space warhammer hack that allows different sorts of playbooks to bring different ship systems into the game with them. I’m not sure if a pack has that many options or if that would limit smaller groups too much. A possible solution to that would be to allow members of small packs to create NPCs or to hold more than one position. (I don’t know if that’s clear enough, but I need to go to work.)
/sub
Let me just thank everyone for their input. It seems like there is some interest in such a game.
Johnstone Metzger the main thing to go by is the singletone rule in Monsterhearts that is working there. Also it prompts people to get to the meat of a scene faster since you want to end it when there is no more XP to be had.